On Saturday, Jim was at the University to print out some photos.  This is a time consuming process and since we had planned on meeting up and running errands afterwards, I decided to walk to campus and meet him there.

It’s about 3 miles and took me about 45 minutes to get there.  The trip was uneventful, though I did go past an abandoned warehouse/factory that no amount of scooby snacks could have convinced me to go in – even in broad daylight.

When I got to the art school, I found the print lab and walked in – and it was so unexpected that Jim didn’t recognize me for a moment.  I went and got some hot chocolate at starbucks and then came back and played a game on my phone until he was ready to go.

I think that may have been my last long walk for a while – winter arrived the next day like it was trying to prove something.

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We went to dinner at PizzaFire that evening and while we were waiting for our meals Jim tapped his straw on the counter to remove the wrapper.

Now, I’m good at a lot of things but there are a few areas where I completely fail. And one of those failure points is removing straw wrappers – I can never get it to work.  I usually try a few times and then just tear the dang things to shreds trying to get at the straw.

It’s a minor thing, but for someone who enjoys figuring things out and doing things, it kinda irks me that I can’t get this.

I can’t knit either.

This time, though, I paid very close attention to the technique and replicated it exactly – and the straw promptly popped through the wrapper.

I was so excited I could only point at the straw – speechless.  Jim figured out what I was so excited about and congratulated me.

“You’re a big boy now!” he said and I laughed because I was thinking the same thing.

Later on as we were walking downtown, I confessed that while eating my pizza I bit my tongue so hard that I started to bleed – and that it was still bleeding.  I apologized in advance in case I ended up spitting blood.

He considered this a moment and then said, “Well, maybe you aren’t such a big boy if you can’t chew your food without biting your tongue”

In mock outrage, I stopped and turned in the other direction to walk away. I took a couple steps and he stopped me.

“Stop right there.  You aren’t allowed to cross the street by yourself,”

He’s quick.  🙂