FINALLY open again

    As mentioned yesterday, Congaree Creek Heritage Preserve is finally open again months after the flood. I would have liked to return there with Tamara, but then, it had been a muddy mess all last year even before the flood, so it seemed prudent to go there myself first to see how good or bad it might be. Also we had dreams of bringing along a chihuahua or two and so that possibility needed to be explored as well.
    The bad news is that it's still a muddy mess. The good news is that it's way better than it was before the flood. Lots of areas where the trail bogged down into quagmire have been bypassed. It has been rerouted for the better many times, affording many extra opportunities to spot alligators. Some of the new trail sections are borderline electrifying, where you're tiptoeing along a ridgeline between small bodies of water. (Once canals or once clay pits, I don't know. Neat regardless, though.) All the storms mean that it's not as shady as it once was, but it's still nice. I'm thrilled beyond measure that it's open again and was thrilled beyond measure to be back. The fact that I saw no gators, nor anything more interesting than a great blue heron, bothered me not at all. We're recovering and it was good to be home.

We have adventures without having adventures

    Today, we visited an organic farm in far Blythewood, a consignment shop in central Blythewood, ate tacos in Five Points, walked a bit on Old State Road and my beloved CONGAREE CREEK HERITAGE PRESERVE, WHICH IS FINALLY OPEN AGAIN(!!!), visited His House Thrift Store on Augusta Road to see their salvage doors and windows and such (and bric-a-brac), I showed her the patio home Alice and I used to live in and my dream tumbledown house. She liked it too, but agreed that there probably isn't enough money in the world to restore it. And we had crazy fun doing basically nothing. We plan to continue like this. Yay!

She's ruined my life

    I was all set to live out my life as a broken old man, alone and convinced that I would never be any use to any woman at all ever. Boy has she blown that all to hell! The nerve of some people, I tell you! I don't think she even asked permission first!
    The not remotely agonizing reappraisal going on in my life right now is nevertheless thoroughgoing. I kind of like the new guy living in my body and if I haven't already recommended to everyone that they get tested or test themselves for gluten sensitivity, well I'm recommending it now. If I have, I'm recommending it again.
    Our big problem right now is deciding whether we can realistically do a summer program in India, whether we could stand the weather if we actually did it, and whether we can someday really pile two people, three rabbits, two chihuahuas and two cats into an RV and go off to see the world. I'm thinking they might not make an RV that big. What our problem isn't is compatibility; we seem made for each other. And I'm so grateful to her for pulling me out of my half-life.
    PS: If you missed it, you should see the new X-Files episode #3 with a title like "Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-man." Hardly ever has anybody had more fun than they were having. All it needed was Trebek and Governor Ventura.

But does it count?

    Yesterday and today, I went walking with Tamara. Each day as the day wound down, my poor scattered brain said, "Oh no! I forgot to go walking today!" Apparently, it doesn't count if it's fun and if you're with somebody you love. But yes, brain, I did go walking each of the last two days. Get used to it.
    Yesterday's chihuahua-kitty showdown was totally anticlimactic. Lucy just enjoyed gamboling around in my apartment and just ignored the cats completely. The cats weren't scared or hostile. Puzzled maybe describes it best. We took Lucy walking at Old State Road, my favorite local long dirt road. She loved it, Tamara loved it, we met a possum (oh all right, an opossum) which brave Lucy protected us from) and we enjoyed a gorgeous day, not even minding the occasional huge mud puddle.
    Today Tamara and I went to Sesqui(centennial) State Park and walked the trail around the lake and also got information about their dog-walking park. The trail seemed quite chihuahua-friendly and we had a lovely time again. I keep trying to take Tamara to my beloved Los Bellos Portales (Puerto Rican restaurant), they keep being closed at lunchtime, and we keep ending up at nearby Village of India. But that has worked out well, too, because their lunch buffet is quite lovely. And Tamara got the electrician to come out and rewire her burned up outlets, so a win all the way. I'm sure it doesn't sound very exciting, but we have fun whatever we do. Nice, isn't it?

The showdown

    Oh no! We're less than a half hour from the first meeting between the devil chihuahua and the calico empress of Olympia. I sense that it may be a bit anticlimactic since Lucyfer the chihuahua can't exactly jump and Amelia the cat is enamored of high places. (High for a chihuahua anyway.) Also Lucy is the sweet chihuahua. She just has the name because somebody once thought she looked like a devil dog and Tamara thought it was funny. Now when Harry the charcoal tabby and Zoey the more excitable chihuahua meet-- then there might be fireworks! Please stand by.

That whole "The Customer Is Always Right" thing

    Pet Supplies Plus are a great bunch, on the whole. They have a wide variety of high quality cat foods, a much better array than anybody else around here. However, they have a certain gulf between the local management and the corporate brass in Michigan. I've been trying for years to get them to stop sending me email every time I breathe, but no matter how many times I tell them that I want at most one email per month, they just send and send and send. Every time I use my preferred customer card, I get an email asking how my visit is, which I invariably ignore in hopes that they might take the hint.
    Thus, I only use the card when there's an actual discount involved. Today there wasn't and the checkout girl was very pushy about me using it. "It still records your purchases," she said, or something very like that. In other words, I'm doing your market research for free. This has never been one of my prime interests and is why I shop at Aldi and Publix, companies that don't have loyalty programs or preferred customer cards, whenever possible. Ms. Tamara would like me to throw down PSP because they sell live rabbits. I am growing ever more sympathetic with this view.

Life event

    Everything about my real-life relationship with Tamara is glorious, fun, wonderful. The Facebook version though turned very slightly strange, reflecting entirely on Facebook and not at all on us. Never having done this before, I tried declaring that we're in a relationship by using the Life Event status update. One of the choices is New Relationship and you can tag the Facebook Friend with whom you're in the relationship. (That came out odd, but I really don't want to add another "with.")
    Declaring that I'm "in a relationship" on my profile proved impossible on the phone for whatever reason. (For non Facebook peoples, this is a different thing than a status update. So I did so from this here computer. In this case, I could also fill in Tamara's name, but it would only be confirmed when she responded to a message from Facebook saying that it's true. I so approve. What I find odd is that they didn't do this on the In A New Relationship status update. Granted that my friends who might have been waiting with baited breath got the word a few hours earlier than they would have otherwise, and moreover we really are in a new relationship. But in theory, I could have said I was in a New Relationship with any or all of my 215 Facebook Friends, including four or more recording artists. Kind of slack, Facebook, not that it was any problem for us personally, but a little weird nonetheless.
    So in short, in case you missed it, I'm in a relationship, and beatifically happy about it.