The phone rang today from an unknown number. I answered it and the voice on the other line said, “Hello, my old booby.” It was Antonio Balayan, one of my absolute best friends from high school! He joined the Air Force several years ago and I haven’t seen him since… had to be the weekend of Andra’s birthday in 2003.
The “booby” thing, it’s an inside joke, in case you’re wondering. We found some letters (to or from the landlord, I can’t remember which) in the attic of the house he lived with Lynette Hawvermale’s family (now his wife) in in high school. In it the writer referred to his friend as “my old booby” and it’s something we’ve used ever since.
Man, it was so awesome to talk to him. He and Lynette are living in Japan still, although he’s stationed in Korea right now (coincidentally, perhaps, North Korea launched a rocket today, getting many a world leader’s panties in a wad). There’s not a lot to tell really I guess, except that he seems to be doing fine and sounds pretty content with things. He was in Iraq for a while and for his next assignment wants to possibly go to Italy or Germany.
Amanda and I spent some time tonight reading our small group study book. We either forgot or didn’t realize that it’s structured in a way to be read a little bit every night, so we crammed most of it tonight and plan to finish the last two sections of questions before small group tomorrow.
I got a call from Ed Castro tonight too. Ed was the guy I helped set up as the leader of a small group. I’ve been meaning to call him since I got back from Costa Rica but I kept putting it off then forgetting. Sounds like he’s happy with the way his group is going, which I’m really glad to hear. We’re planning on doing lunch sometime either later this week or early next week.
I picked up from Cheetos for the NCAA Championship game tonight. You see, last year I had asked Amanda to pick up some chips for the Carolina-Kansas Final Four game. I was expecting Doritos or plain chips with dip, something to that effect, but Amanda brought Cheetos, which I was a little disappointed in. I mean, I like Cheetos, but not like I like the others. I changed my mind, though, when the Heels went down 40-12 to the Jayhawks, fought back to make the game close, then still lost by a comfortable margin.
Well, I thought Michigan State could use all the help they could get tonight so I bought some Cheetos for the game. When I showed the bag to Amanda and explained the reasoning she reminded me that she had bought Baked Cheetos. I think the color might have drained out of my face when she told me that.
When she went to bed I took the Cheetos and some cookies I’d gotten her to make over to Seth Holloman’s. The cookies? For the Duke-Carolina game earlier this year we’d gone to Seth and Dana’s and Amanda took cookies. Duke was up at the half, but then we left and Duke lost.
Well, the cookies and the Cheetos had no effect. The Heels dominated the Spartans. I’m not going to bother listing the reasons it sucks so bad that the Heels, with Roy Williams’ own players, including Tyler Hansbrough, won the fifth NCAA championship at Carolina. Just know that it does. Suck, that is. However, I already knew it wouldn’t be much of a game, so, having prepared myself for just such an outcome, I wasn’t as upset as I’d have been if I thought Michigan State had a prayer.
I did take some action. Out of spite, I posted a video on the walls of all the Facebook accounts I saw that said anything pro-Heels, though I don’t think anybody realized my reasoning, particularly people I haven’t talked to much or in a long time. Michael Mercer had given me the link earlier so I thought I’d at least do something with it. Here it is.
Zach Dotsey