The things I let my friends talk me into

Last night at bunco, my friend and I decided that if my tentative plans for today fell through, we would pack up our blankets and our books and head to the river.

My plans fell through. So, after taking my friend's 15-year-old to lunch and dropping him off at home, we headed to the river and spent more time talking than reading, mostly about a certain someone who continues to make my head spin in circles and keeping my options open so I don't let a good thing slip away while waiting for my head to stop spinning. I told her that it would be a lot easier to keep my options open if I actually had options, which I thought was a very valid point.

After she decided she didn't want to battle bugs anymore, (they didn't like me-I must smell bad or something), we headed back to her house to finish our books and work on her puzzle. Yeah, we're wild like that. The puzzle is proving to be a real bitch though. It's a 3,000 piece puzzle of the castle James was going to take me to in 5-10 years when we went to Germany so he could custom build a BMW. My friend did not know this when she got and asked me to help with the puzzle. I've been working on the sky. A good friend is one who comes over and does the crappy part of your puzzle so you can focus on the fun part.

As the afternoon wore on, the mild sinus pressure I had when I left the house this morning continued to build up and grow into a headache (guess I still need the allergy meds). Her son was playing in an out of town soccer tournament and we were getting regular updates on the game as not wanting to leave a 15-year-old home for an entire weekend unattended and a sick puppy prevented her from going, which was absolutely driving her nuts. After finding out that we won the game against the #1 team in the region due to her boy (my godson!) scoring the only goal of the game (yea!! I am SO proud of him!!), I decided to come home to see if taking out my contacts would help with the sinus pressure (it made it worse).

As I was leaving, she told me that she was going to post personal ads for me on Craigslist. Yes, I know people get killed responding to ads on Craigslist. But it's free, we are easily entertained and that is how her sister met her boyfriend and how the best friends' of another friend met. She did one that was pretty straightforward but funny and one that was more generic. The generic ad states I am widowed; the other does not. This was the extent of my input-and it was done this way to see if one gets more of a response than the other. I do have to say I find it a little amusing that in the straightforward ad she stated no liars, but got my age wrong (although she did make me a year younger so that's good).

Then she proceeded to send me a bunch of ads she has received in response since they are going to her e-mail. I don't know if I will actually respond to any of them and I am surprised at how many people are browsing Craigslist personals this evening. This means that unless they are on laptops, they are probably not watching the Braves game, which is nationally televised tonight on ESPN (Joe Morgan drives me nuts). That could be a big red flag for all of them. Three guys have actually responded to both ads-one sent an identical response to both. That's a little lazy in my opinion. And I am pretty sure another one of the responses was written by a woman.

Good Lord. What kind of monster have I allowed to be created this time?