Hello from Indianapolis!
So far, being twenty-two has treated me well. I’ve decided that birthdays aren’t as fun when you’re out of college and when there’s a six to seven hour drive looming in the distance and when you work all day (and when work included visiting a high school at lunch time and answering questions like, “What’s this about?” How do you even answer that?), but even when you’re a grown up and all your grown up friends live in Memphis, you always have a handful of good friends with whom you can spend your otherwise totally lame birthday. Thanks to two of my favorites for the cake and closing down Chili’s.
(Side note: The best thing about working at the school I graduated from is that I still know so many people. The bad thing is they’re all still in school. I need more grown up friends.)
Yesterday, I woke up, went for a run, got ready, loaded my new rental car, and headed to Indianapolis for the rest of the month. I traded in the Dodge Caliber — also known as my home for travel season until I blew a tire in Georgia or the car I put over twelve thousand miles on between the beginning of September and this past week — for a Nissan Sentra, and that sucker is fast. It doesn’t have cruise control, either, so you have to watch the speed like no one’s business. It feels like you’re going seventy, and then you look down and see the needle is creeping closer to ninety … ridiculous. I’m going to use that to account for how I made the trip in six hours and fifteen minutes (with stops!) when it usually takes closer to seven. Whoops.
After making it back to my parents’ house, we did the birthday thing. My parents bought me some fabulous Paula Deen cookware. I have a feeling that whatever’s under the Christmas tree this year will look like a little housewarming party … once I actually find a place to live, that is. It’s maybe the most practical birthday gift I’ve been given, and I absolutely love it. Once all the birthday-ing was finished, my mama and I went to The Music Mill to see my absolute favorites ever. They were wonderful, as always, and I always love having a little bit of Tennessee in Indiana. I do not love venues with limited seating, the new restaurant side of The Music Mill, girls who don’t understand leggings do not equal pants, girls who don’t understand that shirts do not equal dresses if you wear leggings or tights with them, and lots of drunk people in one confined area. Also, I am eighty-seven percent sure there were more people in their late thirties/early forties and older there than there were people in their twenties, which is an anomaly (and also very entertaining) as far as I am concerned. All in all, a pretty good two day birthday celebration.
Oh, I almost forgot: my grandmother gave me a cookbook for my birthday. It’s called Gifts from a Jar, and it’s full of recipes of soup mixes and things like that that can be given as gifts. Guess what I’m giving for Christmas :).
