Schedules

Since I only play at being a responsible adult, schedules are something that I try to completely ignore.  Sort of like my dog, Sister, who thinks if she has her head under the couch…I can’t see her.  My children are grown and gone, so I don't have to be concerned about where they are and what time they need to be there (life after the nest empties can be quite wonderful...I am enjoying it a lot).  My work schedule is pretty easy.  I try to be there during the 8 o'clock hour (I'm mostly uninhibited by time) and stay until pretty close to 5.  Sometimes I go early, sometimes I stay late and sometimes I work right through lunch (like today).  Unless I'm sick or have adult supervision, I rarely go to bed on schedule.  We aren’t big on scheduling events months in advance and I have been known to get everything ready to go on a 10 day trip with 24 hours notice.  Schedule-Schmedule, I say!

There are 3 kinds of schedules that I am paying attention to these days.  The first would be that of the University of Georgia Bulldog Football Team.  We are part of the Bulldog Nation in MolliWorld, and the fall of the year brings just as much red and black into our lives as it does yellow, gold and orange.  I know the order of the games, which are home and which are away games, when we play the bye and when the SEC Championship game is scheduled.  I don't have to check my calendar.  I already know.  From week to week, I can often tell you what the other SEC team schedules are for the upcoming Saturday, should you want to know.  I check the odds during the week to see who is favored.  I get updates on my iPod letting me know of any injuries that might have been sustained and who is having a quiz in their ‘breathing for credit’ classes.   I know my football team, the coaches and the schedule. How about them Dawgs?

The second schedule is not quite as important to me but I keep up with it because there are whole months of the year that I'd really like to have meaningful conversation with Rocket Man.  I really love college football.  I'm a good sport about college basketball.  While we are Bulldogs in the fall (Rocket Man was born in Georgia and lived there until he was 12), we are Memphis Tigers (he moved to Memphis when he was 12 and lived there until he graduated from college at Christian Brothers College)  from the first tip-off of the first invitational tourney until March Madness rolls around.  I can hold my own in anyone's conversation about coaching, rules, whose point guard is hot and the merits of any given top 10 team.  I know the appropriate things to yell at the TV screen (‘Dunk the ball, son!’ and ‘There’s just no substitute for putting the ball in the basket!’).  I wear blue and white.  I have even gone into a sports bar during my lunch hour to make sure that a particular game would be shown that evening on their screen. (That got me a nomination for ‘Wife of the Year’ by the two guys who were sitting at the bar when I explained that I was making sure my husband would be able to see the game that night).  But, the only reason I really care about Memphis basketball is because Rocket Man’s blood is very blue during basketball season.  Like I said, if I want to have a meaningful conversation with him…I need to be articulate about basketball. 

The third kind of schedule is a NASA schedule.  That would be the schedule that we don’t have today, and probably the reason Rocket Man is not likely to be in his assigned seat on a Delta Flight coming home tomorrow.  I’m sure that there are a bazillion details that go into making that schedule.  I’m equally sure that since the US Government and its agencies don’t have diplomatic relations with MolliWorld, the set of people who really care that this is upsetting my apple cart is a miniscule  Almost an imaginary number, actually.  This  would be the schedule that has barged its way into my MolliWorld and has laid siege to it for quite some time.  I’m not complaining, mind you.  That schedule pays the bills.  That schedule keeps a lot of very fine people employed.  But that schedule is somewhat tyrannical and occasionally even fascist, not to mention stress-inducing to a whole myriad of other people.  Some of them don’t even reside in MolliWorld!  I honestly believe that the schedule I’m referring to has taken on a life of its own.  I’m quite certain that I don’t even begin to be smart enough to understand the schedule.  I know I will never ‘be one’ with the schedule.  I imagine if I could kick the schedule in the rear, I’d do it. (I think I'm very big)   But since I can’t, and stomping my little feet has never once in my whole life gotten me anything, and since I have never been intimidating to anyone…I’m just going to act like I’m a mature adult and reach back into my upbringing and smile and be polite to the schedule.  Bless it’s pea-pickin'heart (and all y’all Southern Girls know what I mean when I say that!)