Okay. So I have this one friend, who has lots and lots of friends.
I, on the other hand, have not that many.

Once every 3 years or so, this one friend will loan me a sampling of friends, from her vast array. This loan package invariably includes perks of kinship and comaraderie.

At the conclusion of said loaner weekend, amidst the mild hangover, aching post-laughing face and overall sense of Damn, Friends is Some Good Shit, I tell myself: I gotta get me summa dat.

But then I get back into my pre-loaner loner mode, and slowly regain my falsely brave sense of relational autonomy.

But until I resume that position, I have this picture to keep me warm:



That's me in the front, with my big ass button hat. If it looks like we are walking funny, it's because we are walking funny, because the photographer wanted a picture of us walking, without the blur. So we ended up walking, without the walk.

Here I am carrying a big stick, as I'm wont to do when walking with the rare pack of newly borrowed friends:



First, I used the stick to divine who, among my new friends, had cootie hootch. ::And don't tell me you never played cootie hootch with divining rods, as a child. Yeah, right.::

Next, I stood in the middle of the road, stick in hand, and directed traffic. After nearly getting blown off the road by an enraged deer hunter ::Or maybe he just thought I had a nice rack?::, I used the stick to safely lead us back to the cottage, pageant style.

Odd thing that. After leading what I thought was an entourage of new friends to safe harbor, I turned around to see that my friends were not behind me. Not even close. They were, in fact, quite not there. As in gone. Absentia. AWOL.

My friends showed up eventually:



As did some knitting and Lemon Drop martinis.



And lake photo ops:







For the record, that isn't my lake. In fact, I felt kind of guilty taking those pictures of "another lake." It was like I was having an affair. Fortunately, my lake is in an entirely different watershed, making the chanceso of her finding out, nil to none.

In Other News
I'm balls to the walls at work.
And I'm not talking about Fluff Stress*.
I'm talking about Real Stress.**

Tomorrow is the last day of work this week.
The very day I should have an evaluation report completed and in the mail.
The very same report that has yet to have one word typed in its general direction.
And yes, that quite exactly the same report that I was fixin' to take home this evening, with the full intent of typing a word or two, in its general direction.
And precisely the spot-on, very one report that I left sitting on my desk.

Later this week I am hosting a Thanksgiving meal in my currently filthy home.

To Sum: A little earlier than later,between this point in time and that, again, there will be little to no blogging done 'round here. S'more.

In the meantime, may I present...

Celebrity Scumbag Look Alike Monday





*Pretend stress that occurs because you have to work 30 minutes later than usual, and will therefore miss the first show of your daily back-to-back Judge Judies.

**Extreme stress that causes one to perceive the pooping of the pants as the only available coping strategy, short of sudden death.***

***Actually, I might be on to something with this. Think about it.

P.S. I totally made up some, or even many parts of this post. For example, my friends didn't ditch me. This time. They were merely keeping a safe distance. From me. And the stick. Mostly the stick. I think. Plus, I walk fast. That's what they told me. That I walk fast. It's really hard to keep up with me. When I walk fast. In fact, you wouldn't believe how many friends I've lost on account of that fast walking. And my hootchie finder/traffic stopper/pageant leader/great diviner stick. And I'm not making that part up, at all.

P.P.S. I don't know if it's blogger or if my keyboard is on the fritz but I have been editing, saving and re-editing the same words over and over and nothing is sticking. It's like typing into the Twilight Zone, without Delete capabilities. And I really should go to bed. So please forgive any grammatical and editorial transgressions. And goodnight.

Labels: North, Pho-Ho'