Things Learned Since 09/01/09

• Having to be at work at 6am does not get easier over time, even if you only share a bed with the person with said early job.
• The Billy Goat Tavern in Chicago has really good and cheap food, as long as you order a cheeseburger
• The Great Lakes are just that.
  
• We love Chicago, even if driving in Chicagoland is a pain in the . . .
  
• We can say we love Chicago, even after we did the seven mile walking tour to include the camera store.
• The camera store was worth it though, if only because of the way Matt was beaming once we got inside.
• Upstate New York is very pleasant.
• They may give you trouble at airport security if you try to carry on a ten pound bag of pistachios with Arabic writing on the outside. The item which they may have believed was a knife may indeed turn out to be the freshness pack.
  
• The Detroit airport is quite sleek and even announces things in Asian languages.
• Michigan (at least western Michigan along Lake Michigan) is very beautiful.
• By all accounts the high school reunion that you missed was not worth it anyway (over a hundred dollars to get in with a closed bar!).
• Back pain, high school reunions, the realization that any "in" cultural references you used to know have no lost their currency among the freshmen, etc, have just emphasized the fact that you're now going down that slippery slope of oldness.
• Like for my mother, listening to the motab has become a painful experience for me. If it weren't for "O Divine Redeemer" I might have been forced to write them off completely after last week.
  
• If your husband works the early morning shift, and you have classes in the afternoon and teach at night, you might look at each on Friday and ask "You look familiar - have we met before?"
• Ever since my own, I still get misty eyed at weddings.
• Ole and Lena jokes are pretty funny.
• "Date night" at the membership warehouse eating cheap hot dogs followed by browsing at the chain bookstore has not gotten old yet.
• The hopes and dreams of keeping the furnace off until November have been thwarted by the fact it snowed yesterday.
• The girl scouts will mow your lawn if you buy their cookies.
• Having a baby shower at nine in the morning on a Saturday is sadistic.
• If you miss church for two Sundays because you were in New York and Michigan, someone might send the missionaries over unannounced. They will come over the morning that you've been doing laundry in your pajamas reading Derrida. Fortunately your husband won't be home so they can't come in to see the piles of clean laundry waiting for Jacques to get to the point so they can be folded.
• I'm lucky to have a brother who will listen to my concerns and give me good advice even when he's out and about with his children.
• You can't practice the organ if someone has taken the pedals and turned off the power to the chapel.
• Surprise parties are fun, especially if the person being surprised takes it well.
• My waist has gone missing - I think it's being held hostage by fried cheese curds.
• Playing in a band is as awesome as ever.
• And here's something for you to learn: