I DID have social interaction and got out of the house last night. And it was pleasant, enjoyable, and fun! An old college and radio buddy moved from Amarillo to just north of DFW a few years ago. We got together last year at another friend's funeral and then a month or so later we met up at my sister's band gig. We enjoyed that, but then I completely forgot about them, I'm afraid! He texted yesterday and asked if I wanted to meet them and another college friend couple for dinner. Yes, I said. I haven't seen the other couple in 40 years and would love to get reacquainted. Unfortunately, when I got to the meeting place, only the first couple was there. The others had an emergency with their air conditioning and had to cancel. But the three of us had a great conversation and talked about more than just memories and it was fun. I have GOT to remember them and invite them over or offer to meet up for dinner again. They bought my dinner, which was nice, but they didn't have to.

My reunion last weekend was okay. I didn't have that exhilaration I usually have while in that county. I just wasn't enthusiastic about any part of it. I did get my usual late start on Friday so I wasn't there early enough to do anything in town. Saturday I didn't want to drag myself out, but finally did. I did go by the library and had a nice conversation with the weekend librarian who didn't even know my cousin who ran the library for about 60 years. They have cleaned and rearranged the library a lot and have big plans for it. I'm glad for that with libraries under so much attack.

After the library I did some running around to the cemeteries. It was below 100 degrees at least until noon so it was tolerable. I went to the Shiloh Cemetery. I tried to go to it last year and couldn't find it. I have only been there once before. This time I had my directions more clearly in mind and I found it. It looked COMPLETELY different than it did in my memory. First, it was all facing a different direction. It was much flatter and more desolate than I remember. And I remembered a sweet abandoned church being right beside it. I have often fantasized of turning that sweet abandoned rock building into a little house way out there by itself where no one would find me. Just me and my cemetery for company. This time there was no church! I was really perplexed. I went in and checked on the relatives and walked around and took some pictures. There's an NFL football player buried there! His marker was paid for by the NFL, it said. Interesting. He was a player WAY WAY back. As I was beginning to leave, I finally "found" the church. It was a bit farther away than I remembered, but it was there, but the roof had completely collapsed in on the walls and most of them were down, too. Very sad. It's not going to be retrofitted to be my house. I did liberate two of the stones from the walls to memorialize it in my garden.

I went up to the Gardens of Memory Cemetery that is "new." It is pretty spartan and soulless to me. But I have several relatives there so I took some pictures. I was a burial there just a few years ago and another where I went to the service at the funeral home, but didn't come out to the burial. I got pictures of their new gravestones.

Next stop was the downtown Oakwood Cemetery. It is a HUGE cemetery. Mostly I just drove around. I wasn't seeking anyone in particular, but I did find my great-great-(great?) aunt and uncle who I had never found before. I took pictures and saw that her oldest daughter and her husband are buried right beside them. They have a sweet love story and I have lots and lots of pictures of them and their young friends because cameras really came into fashion about the time they were in their 20s. They were madly in love, but their parents wouldn't let them marry! I need to double-check, but they may have been third cousins. That is plenty far enough to be married, but their parents would not "allow" it. They obeyed their parents and didn't marry. But, unlike some other couples you hear about, they didn't marry anyone else either. They were constant companions and he was "part of the family" but they weren't married and there are differing opinions about how "close" they were. Mom always said that they lived together, but others have said absolutely not. Anyway, they lived their lives closely and when all of their parents were dead, and they were in their 70s, they married. Very sweet (but sad).

I found a few other graves of relatives I hadn't really seen before. One I was there for the funeral, but hadn't seen the gravestone or realized who was buried around her. I took some more pictures and moved on.

I bought a chicken sandwich and a chocolate malt at the Dairy Queen and took them back to my room at the motel and ate and cooled off. Finally got going again and went to the museum. A very distant cousin (and/or the cousin of a cousin) was there and we visited a long time. I was expecting another cousin from the reunion bunch to show up. She was very slow to get there and looked awful when she did. Her husband and mother have died in the last five years and she has aged 15 years, I think. She always seems extremely frazzled and overloaded with responsibility, but I don't quite know what is burdening her. She is trying to sell her mother's house and getting no help in that from her brother, but that doesn't seem like it could be quite that overwhelming. She sat down and in a few minutes she said, "How's your mother?" I reminded her that mother had just died and she looked surprised and then remembered that maybe she had known that. She was one of my cousins I had to write separately to make sure she knew and her response was a bit of a brush off with little concern. Kind of weird.

It was funny... As she sat there she was cutting up some computer labels that she was going to use as name tags at the reunion because she couldn't find normal stick-on name tags. Apparently she only thought about needing them that day or the day before. She was cutting them apart and then she walked away for a bit. Her grown daughter reached over and picked up the next sheet of labels and creased and tore it along the perforations. It did not need to be cut at all.

The museum did not have the normal crowd of family members I am used to. I often get a bit overwhelmed with too many people to talk to and to gather information from. There was hardly any this year.

Eventually I went out to the reunion grounds. It was very quiet that early, but my younger closer cousins were there and had their table set up and their kids around them -- only 5 of the 6 were there. The oldest adopted daughter is now living in a group home for adult mentally-deficient people. I hope she does well there, she's a sweet girl. All of the other kids were so adorable. All very grown up now and able to carry on conversation without being irritating. Ha, kids can do that to me. The baby is almost 4 and he was absolutely adorable. He has the sweetest smile and dimple. I expect he gets spoiled a lot.

A cousin from Austin that I have a semi-crush on was there. Don't worry, we aren't related closely either (ha, like we would be young enough to have kids!). He had recently posted on Facebook that a girlfriend dumped him so he was down in the dumps. His wife died a few years ago after a lengthy fight with cancer and he's been bereft ever since. This new girlfriend had been around almost a year and then she dumped him with a TEXT. That is so rude. She didn't sound like a good match for him anyway, but he was heartbroken. I'm certainly not a good match for him either... he's a musician, an extrovert, a talker. But he is a fascinating individual. And he's my age and not nearly as decrepit as I am or most of the others I know my age!

The hotdogs for dinner were okay. It had been 113 in Comanche and most of that heat was hanging with us (though the grounds are shaded). There wasn't a lot of activity except for the kids on the water slide. I left pretty early and went back to the room and a cold shower.

Sunday's breakfast was amazing, as usual. I've decided it is really the gravy and the "light bread" (as we called it growing up) that I crave, not the steak. The steak is fabulous, but it is the gravy and bread I want. I had plenty. I had decided on Saturday that I didn't need to stay until Monday so I canceled my room reservation for Sunday night. So after breakfast I went back to the motel to get my food for the reunion and to load the car. I did that while the cousin I am not fond of at all had a church service. I did swing by the cemetery where most of my relatives are buried on the way back. No one else was there. That also was unusual. Usually I end up leading a tour when I'm there. I guess everyone was just laying low because of the heat.

Got back to the grounds and visited with some folks and heard about more births and deaths. Finally we had the business meeting and I said my piece very quickly. The girl that I want to take my place wasn't there this year. We had the lunch, which was okay. I really do eat so little meat now it just wasn't that good. I mostly had the side dishes.

Before we had hardly finished and the clean up hadn't really even begun, I made an Irish goodbye and left. It was getting hot and I was cranky and my stomach was rebelling against the meat. I drove as fast as I could and got home by 4 pm. Back to the cats, a cold shower, and a hard long nap.

There are still several things I need to do to wrap up my reunion self-imposed responsibilities. They'll get done sometime.

I took Monday and Tuesday off and they were both lovely days. I just really love days with no reasons to get out of the house or worry over something or feel pressured.

Back to work was fine. I'm working hard on Christmas music right now and there is a lot to get done.

I think I drank too much cheap wine Thursday night. I felt very sick all night long and lousy all through the work day. I needed lots of things so I had groceries delivered. I haven't done that in months. My sister had given me some samples of a product called Liquid IV that her son had recommended to her. He takes it after a workout to rehydrate. I like to have Gatorade or the like around when I am feeling puny and I drank several of those and they were great. They taste good and "slick" and I think they did help get my body back to normal. So I ordered a big box of those. They aren't cheap, but they are a lot more convenient than Gatorade and take up hardly any space since it is a powder.

I slept a lot on Friday and got back to normal pretty fast. I think just the reunion trip, eating lots of meat through the weekend and the week, and the HEAT all combined to make me sick. The heat seems to have an effect even when you are inside in air conditioning the whole time. Of course, I am going outside and hand watering some things and putting out sprinklers on my new trees, so I am exposed to it some.

I wish I could swear off Amazon and quit being "acquisitive." If that's a word. I have a long list of things I'm yearning to buy and try not to buy things until they've been on that list a while. So many things are just impulse purchases if I don't. But I've been impulsive as of late. This morning my coffee pot was irritating me. It was used when I got it from my sister two years ago. I didn't like it that much when she had it and I haven't liked it since. If you pour the coffee, it's bound to leak and drip (pour) on the counter. There seems to be no way to hold it, pour it, use it, without it doing that. So I started looking at the ones on Amazon and their reviews and remembering what I liked about my last coffee maker and then I saw one with a new feature I hadn't really heard about. Ended up clicking "SEND IT" impulsively. The excuse I use is that I ordered a refurbed one and it is returnable. It was about a third of the price of the new one, which was way more expensive than I would pay for a coffee pot. I'll give this one a go and if it isn't an improvement I can return it. I also ordered some vitamins. I haven't been taking any vitamins for a while and I know I need some since I eat so poorly. That became an impulse buy after reading an article in the New York Times about the cheapest good vitamins to buy. So I did get the cheapest good vitamins and maybe that's okay.

Man, I'm long-winded today. Probably because I am avoiding doing things that need to be done. I do love it when it is a pleasant day at home and the house and cats are quiet. I could just go get my book and read a while. I might do that and THEN start doing the things that need to be done.