"the thing i hate about bars..."

So, Saturday I get home from work about 8:30. My manager's out for the next little while (we're looking at mid-November but let's hope it's not that long) so I had called her up to give her an update on how things were going in the cafe. I finished up that conversation at around 9, trudged upstairs, collapsed on my bed and heaved a big sigh. Sheila was kind enough to run down to Dreamland to pick up some bbq for me because I was feeling lazy and Sheila was feeling restless. I ate dinner and Sheila roamed the hall and called everyone she could because she wanted to do something and both Liz and I were being bums.

Well, she wasn't able to find anyone and about 15 minutes passed before I heard, "Oh!"

I ignored it. Several minutes later I heard, "Kaitlin... there's a bug in my room."

"Hmmm... so kill it."

Silence. "Kaitlinnnnn...."

"What?"

"There's a bug. It's scary."

"So... how big is it?"

"Big."

".... Is it a roach?"

"No, it's one of those praying manty thingies."

I rolled off my bed, passed through the bathroom. "Where?"

Sheila pointed. "There. On the door."

Yup, that would be a praying mantis. It was about 4-inches. Decent size. I turned around and searched for a cup. Since I'm an absolute slob and hadn't thrown out the venti Starbucks frap cup that'd been in my room for several days, I grabbed that and an old envelop and returned. Sheila hadn't moved from her spot on the far side of the room. I looked at it, looked at her and said, "Those things fly, don't they?"

She shrugged.

In case you are wondering, they do fly. Erratically. I managed to catch it and toss it out the bathroom window and securely close the window without it flying at my face. I hear this, "Yay! Kaitlin's saved me!" Momentary pause. "I want to do something. Go out. Go the the beach. I almost went to the beach today."

"I want to go to the beach."

"I want to go out. Something besides sit around here."

I gave in. "If you let me take a shower, I'll go with you. Provided it's some place I can sit down. I want to sit."

"Yay! You saved me again!"

So I primp myself and we wander around downtown before we end up at this bar in the historic district right next to the October fest place and Urban Standard. The band was ok, the singer was good, and the place didn't stink of smoke. I'm blind as a bat and can't see what's on tap so I go with a New Castle (having to scream over the music) and we find a table. Sheila and I chat, as much as we can, before she says, "The thing I hate about bars is the guys checking you out."

I laughed. "Well, it kind of goes with the territory. As long as they don't touch."

Anyway, I ended up sleeping through church. I work up Sunday at 1pm. Storms rolled in that evening. The power went out (a transformer blew, I saw the flash) Sunday at 8pm so I had to hunt down my flashlight and then the box of matches and light the candles in the dining room. The rest of the house remained dark. As everyone else returned, we hung out in the dining room eating cake and chatting.

No fears. We got our power back at around 5 Monday morning. The utility truck woke me up.