With Full Intention of Joining the General Mills "Fitness Squad"...

Okay, can I just say it? I miss Caswell! I miss it so much it makes me quite sad to think about it. I made it through an entire summer of being at home (my first summer in four years) without much trauma but then Nathan comes home from Caswell on Sunday and Jeffrey leaves for a week at Caswell volunteering on Monday and its hit me like a ton of bricks: Caswell withdrawal. That acutally sounds a little more flippant than what I'm experiencing now which is more of a melancholy homesickness, but thats what I always call it in conversation with Yam. Yam, if you're reading this, I miss you and please get to work this year coming up with a reason to get me back down there next summer! I've already planned to make one of my two weeks of vacation a "Volunteer at Caswell" week next summer so there you have it. You all are my witnesses: I shalt not spend another summer without so much as a visit to Caswell (parent's weekend doesn't count because i'm not there to work and it feels like more of an "outsider" experience). I'll even do inventory in the PX for an entire week if i have to. If I can have as many oreo cookie ice cream cakes I want. Okay, okay,fine. Even without the Oreo cookie ice cream cakes. Though that would be nice.
I suppose sitting here at my desk at work listening to our version of K-LOVE (His Radio 91.1) doesn't help. I find myself getting all weepy over Steven Curtis Chapman and Mark Schultz songs. And Mary Mary songs ("Take the shackles off my feet so i can dance..."). Just the thought of Grits' beloved "Ooh-wah" brings a tear to my eye. I think i could pull linens and scrub toilets with a smile on my face, Jenny! Yes, maybe even singing some Grits as I work ("My life be like oooh-wah, oooooooh! My life be like....") Sigh. Visting my brother's blog and seeing all his Caswell pictures has made it worse (i've currently set one of his Caswell sunset pictures with the lighthouse as my desktop wallpaper). I don't even know most of the people in the pictures but give me a glimpse of vespers or a sunset or even Pa in a trucker hat on a bunk bed looking alarmingly like the DJ mannequin at the Pizza Inn here at home (right you are, Nathan) and I just have to take a deep breath and change the subject by playing computer solitaire or something. Maybe even *gasp!* working. Speaking of which, I should get back to it, but for all of my Caswell family out there, I miss you terribly and I so look forward to seeing you all again, whether that's at a retreat or at Summer Staff Reunion when Nathan discovers upon arrival that that thudding noise in the back of the explorer whenever he slammed on brakes was my head hitting the back of his seat. Seriously, I love you all and all the "hey!'s" delivered to me from you via Nathan or Jeffrey have done so much to make me smile and lift my spirits. You're all such a huge blessing and I'll always be thankful that God saw fit to give me three summers with you (and one in Virgina with Shay!). Keep in touch! (and i'll try to use the phone every now and then myself).
Delaying work even further, I have to let you guys know what my weekend is shaping up to entail though the whole kit and caboodle you won't receive until monday, i'm sorry to say. you must wait with baited breath until then. In the meantime: Chew some gum. Give your dog a bath. Listen to some Grits. I will be setting out tomorrow evening after work with Jeffrey (yaaay he'll be back from Caswell!), Craig, and my sister Elizabeth for the beautiful city (actually more of a "hamlet") of Bath, NC, of which Craig is a native son and where they're currently celebrating their tri-centennial. I'm hoping to conduct and/or participate in what I'm currently calling a "Ye Olde Haunts of the Pirates" tour in which we will retrace (with optimistic and over-active imaginations) the footsteps of Blackbeard and his scurvy crew. Being a landlubber myself, at least until I become a pirate after retirement (if you want to hear my plans about this future venture, leave me a comment and i'll fill you in in a later post), this prospect is thrilling to me beyond civil comprehension. I'm basically bouncing in my Adidas over this. We're going to ride the ferry and attend the "Blackbeard: Knight of the Black Flag" outdoor drama, at which I fully intend to wet my seat with excitement. I'm planning to take tons of pictures, find some sharks teeth, and hopefully head home with some cheesy pirate paraphenalia. And possibly some doubloons. Aaarrrgghh.
Okay, okay, fine!!! the voice of Responsibility in the back of my mind is nagging the crud out of me and reminding me that I need to get back to work being a useful and upright citizen in society. I'm hoping to have some action-packed pictures for you on monday and a sea-shanty or two to regale you with, much to your great joy and enthrallment, I'm sure. If not, learn how to act enthralled between now and then and me and me mates won't come after you once I retire.

Current count on books I own about U2: 3.