M<small><small>c</small></small>Afee: April 2006

Eat and Run

I left work early Friday to drive to Lexington to attend the Stonewall Jackson Symposium and to meet WCG's parents. I stopped by the lunchroom first to get something to eat on the road. Just a sandwich; I didn't want anything messy I might spill on my suit at 70 m.p.h. OB called out to me as I was rushing through:

OB: Hey, Jim, I got some good beans for you today.
JM: Not today, Oscar. I'm just going to grab a sandwich because I have to drive somewhere.
OB: That's no problem. Just open the windows.

Cruise News

Royal Caribbean: If You're Still Hungry, It's Your Own Fault.

A great cruise with a great group. Seven had to miss the trip because they were in school or in the process of moving to a new town. We missed them and wished they could have come. Especially JRP, who had some stage shows and, we hope, some schoolwork to take care of. He would have been in his element. We celebrated RMH's 50th birthday and JSH's 90th. JSH and JFH won several hundred dollars at the gaming tables. ABM, D, and I learned to ride Segways and tooled around Cozumel on them. D and I thought they were cool, but ABM, the only one of us to graduate to the zippy red key, has higher standards. He pronounced them dweebie. My tattoo is only India ink and will wear off by next weekend, but that should be time enough to decide if I need a durable one.

The best news of a great week, however, was that WCG brought his grandmother's engagement ring along. On the last night of the cruise, he offered it and a little Moët Brut to CPM and asked if she would marry him. She said Absolutely. He took this development more calmly, as shown, than the rest of us:

Opening Night

Almost as soon as the show opened this afternoon someone bought ABM's painting of prom feet, but there was more chatter about his connect-the-dots portrait of JRP and a construction crane, made of 4,784 numbered dots.