Campfyre Stories

Lately I’ve been having conversations that would have made good blog posts.  I even start the conversation thinking "Well, maybe I’ll explore this idea with so-and-so and flesh it out" only to discover that as soon as the conversation is over I’m either sated by the conversation or I’ve lost interest in the topic.

I keep thinking about Father’s Day and wanting to write about my dad, but I just haven’t been able to do it yet.  I’m not sure when I will…  probably when it gets to a point where the words are burning to get out.

Something happened to a close friend of mine on Friday that brought me back to Dad’s death, but it’s not my story to tell.  Tied in closely with the event itself was a small thing that brought comfort to me in a cosmic kind of way and also allowed me to share that comfort with my friend, who needed to hear it.  Again, it’s not my story.

Since my niece’s birthday is Christmas Day, she doesn’t really get a birthday.  As a result, my mom decided to hold a half-birthday party for her and piggy-back a welcome summer party on it.  It was exhausting.  However nice it is to see people that you haven’t seen in many years, standing out in the hot sun for hours on end with small children to start the whole party takes a LOT out of you.

Although, I must admit, I could have done without seeing a (very) few of the people there.  There’s one person who I have recently realized has a crush on me.  Or maybe he doesn’t, but he sure acts like he does and he didn’t used to act like that.  It’s creepy because he’s quite a bit older than me and I’ve known him since I was probably 13 years old…  *shudder*  And, frankly, I’m not interested, so I hope against hope that this specific person never does work up the nerve to ask me…  well…  pretty much anything.  The fact that my suspicions were validated by a neutral third party doesn’t help matters.

I’m trying to get better at learning to spot the difference between snobbery and shyness and I can do it well with people who are older than me.  But people my own age or younger, I tend to think it’s snobbery more than anything, but I try to give the benefit of the doubt.  One person in particular, I just can’t get a reading, even though I’ve known him for…  shoot…  I don’t know, 9, 10 years?

Another person I’ve known for probably 8 or 9 years is 10 years old.  I haven’t seen him in a while, except in passing, but he is growing up to be a great person!  I started a conversation with him shortly after he and his family arrived and I feel like I really made a connection.  He sought me out when they left insisting "I’ll see you at the next party!  Okay??"  Kids, once they enter into double digits, are the ones I feel like I can really be friends with, as an adult.  It’s pretty cool to make that connection.

So it was a good party, with good people, good food, good conversations.  Whatever negatives there were are going to be ignored here, because they weren’t really anything worth fussing over.  It looks like I should easily have another party a month at least for the next 3 months or so and, frankly, I’m ready to really get into the swing of party season.  My calendar is already booking up…