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We were up at just after 9:00 this morning, and after a couple of cups of coffee headed over to Lake Johnson, where we did the three-mile walk around the lake. Glorious weather, good conversation, and my cardio workout for the day.
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Cardio (Walking) |
50-60 |
Three-mile walk around Lake Johnson. |
We rewarded ourselves for our walk by trying the brunch at Hibernian in downtown Raleigh. OMG. Absolutely delicious—from the Eggs Benedict to the Bangers to the French Toast—to the Curry Chicken Salad, which I’d absolutely give five stars to!
Back at the house, Robert headed back to Durham, and I made my way over to Helios, making two stops along the way:
- At the post office, where I used a machine to print out a $.17-cent stamp. I’ve mentioned this before: I love when technology does things that actually make your life easier and things more convenient.
- I stopped and filled up my tank, for—another record-breaking total of—$61.00. For posterity, the price was $3.86 per gallon.
At Helios, before getting back to Jeanie’s eulogy, I checked in with mom and dad to see if they’d seen any King Cobras in the neighborhood. In the wral.com article, 2 cobras loose in Onslow county, there’s this line: “Fliers have been posted in a neighborhood off Piney Green Road near Jacksonville that claim two cobras were lost.” My parents live just off Piney Green Road.
They hadn’t seen any snakes, but they had gotten another new car. They used to keep their cars for years and years, but this is definitely no longer the case. They got themselves a 2008 Ford Taurus. They’ve had Tauruses in the past, and they just love the model. As a complete aside, and I’m quite sure totally unrelated, at least I hope so, my dad is a Taurus.
My mom caught me up on the situation with my uncle, which is not at all good. 
In the middle of that, my phone battery beeped low, and I told my mom I’d call her right back. While hooking up my charger cord to the phone, Adam Robinson stopped over to say hello. I haven’t seen him in ages. I really like him. And as always, his teeth were just memerizingly white.
Also, while I was there, I had an instant message conversation with Joe from his waterfront room in downtown Wilmington, and with Robert—from Durham. 
I put on the Verdi Requiem on my iPod and picked up where I’d left off yesterday on Jeanie’s eulogy. It continued to flow easily. There are just a couple of items for which I need to go back to the taped conversation to get exact quotes, but other than that, it’s pretty much done. That is, all but the printing it in large font, and rehearsing it enough times so that it’s somewhat in my memory, and I’m able to get through it without too much voice quivering.
I really had no idea how long it would be, and I was trying to keep it between 5 and 10 minutes, as suggested by all of the eulogy guidelines I’ve read. “No one likes to hear one person talk for a very long time,” is the way one set of guidelines put it. One guideline that’s supposed to help reduce any nervousness said, “Remember, most people will be so glad that they don’t have to deliver it, that they’ll be very generous and empathetic to you.”
I downloaded a timer program, and did a first pass reading through it to get a ballpark idea of how much editing I might have to do to contain it to ten minutes. When I stopped and checked out the timer, a huge smile came to my face.
I dropped over to Flex at about 7:00, where I found “the movie club” (i.e., Rick Enlow, Robert Fox, and their friend David), who, ironically, had seen Then She Found Me tonight—the same movie Robert and I saw last night.
Joe, Phil, and I played three or four games of cut-throat pool, and I hung around for karaoke. At about just before 10:00, I think it was, Phyllis called me to offer to come out and see Jeanie at the funeral home some time tomorrow if I wanted to.
This was such a generous—and timely—offer, as ever since finding out that the visitation was going to be two hours before the service, in the church, I’ve been wondering how it was going to be to see Jeanie, and then follow right afterwards with her eulogy.
Before hanging up, Phyl said, “Have a shot of Johnnie Walker Red for Jeanie-baby.” And I did.
I dropped over to Legends to catch the end of the show there, but it was so crowded in that back show lounge area, that I just stood for a little while out on the patio and people-watched.