Stuffed

It's 6:30am and I woke up on the pull-out couch that serves as my bed when I visit my mom's house.  I'm told that other guests have complained that it's not comfortable, or that the AC vent blows directly on it, but I really have no complaints.  I sleep well on it and always have.  Perhaps most importantly, it's here in my mom's house.

I haven't traveled in a while but it's not something that fades away quickly.  I left Charleston on Friday for Austin, dealt with some tiresome maintenance issues, and arrive 90 minutes late.  I spent Saturday (a) at the hair salon and (b) hanging with my son.

Here's a photo from the hair salon.  I had a couple of inches trimmed off the back and things cleaned up a bit.  I've gone to this stylist for a number of years but haven't seen him since my trip across country to drive to Harrisburg last fall.  I think I look tired in this photo, but it's a fairly accurate portrayal of how I'm looking these days.

My afternoon with my son was great.  He's got one of my dogs so it was wonderful to see Cody again.  We ran some errands, chilled at his house, and had dinner together.  I need to soak these moments up because they don't come around as often as I'd like.

Yesterday I went to brunch with a friend from high school, drove the 200 miles to Dallas, and enjoyed a wonderful dinner with mom at her favorite restaurant (Red Lobster!).  Needless to say, these have been very full days.

Speaking of full - it feels as though the one constant over these last several days has been food.  It has been an orgy of eating and I'm absolutely stuffed even as I wake up this morning.  I feel as though I've gained 10 pounds over the last few days and will take some time over the next few days to get back into the groove.

I head back to Austin this afternoon, will see my son one more time, and then fly out for Phoenix in the morning....

As an American I have been watching the Debt "crisis" in Washington over the past few weeks and am just shaking my head.  I'm absolutely amazed at how broken and dysfunctional our government is.  As a citizen I'm disgusted, frustrated, and just plain fed-up with all the shenanigans that somehow passes itself for "leadership" these days.  I have absolutely NO confidence in anyone or anything happening at the highest levels of government, and have come to the conclusion that we're far more FUBAR than we know.

Although they may have come to an 11th hour agreement to avert the current "crisis" that doesn't change the deeper problems.  I am embarrassed for our country.  Truly embarrassed that things were allowed to get to that point and that the leadership that we so badly need was so glaringly lacking across the board.  I fully expect that the country's debt rating has been irreparably damaged and many of the doomsday economic things we've been trying to avoid are going to happen anyway.  There's a price to pay for ineptitude, and I hope that all of this remains fresh enough in the minds of voters by 2012 to clean house and start fresh.

Anyway - enough of that.  Good thing I don't have any credit or any money.  I don't feel as though I have too much to lose in all of this, except what remains of my confidence.