"You have wonderful grandparents."

Or so I'm told.  Many times.  Yesterday morning, to be precise, to everyone they introduced me to at their church.

I agree with everyone. *smile*

It was a lovely weekend -- admittedly, part of me was running away from the heat (they have delicious a/c, and the area they live in was a few degrees cooler than Denver), and another part of me was running away from the issues with which I'm currently dealing.

Sometimes we just need to retreat, no?

We had lots of lovely conversations, thankfully nothing personal (remember, I was taking a break from my issues) -- mostly about the church -- generally and specifically.  I was encouraged to note that the "guest pastor" at their church that morning (the recent seminary-grad son of their former pastor), along with a fellow recent seminary-grad friend, are hoping to do a church plant in Denver.  Hmm.  The g'rents promise me they'll keep me updated on the status, and perhaps I'll check it out when they figure out how to jump past all the loopholes their denomination keeps requiring.

This week is my last week of teaching (huzzah!).  As much fun as it has been talking to kids about sex and chastity, I'm ready for it to be over.  Indeed, I've told El Capitan that I've reached my quota for the next decade.  I will be starting up a gals small group this fall, but I'm much better one-on-one than I am in front of a big group (or so I insist, despite those who tell me I'm actually not too terrible at teaching.  "Yeah, you're just glad it wasn't you," I retort).

Oh, and Friday night I saw Third Day in concert.  For free. Certainly worth the price of admission.  I wasn't overwowed, but it was fun, especially hanging out with two dear ladies and their youngest sons, one of whom defends me to the other by insisting I'm a "cool girl."  Yep.  A ten-year-old has a crush on me.

Today the weather looks like it shall stay below 100 degrees.  Which is exciting.

Even if I'm currently wearing a sweater.

Apparently I am now a member of Facebook.

I had little say in the matter (well, ok, I had a lot to say, but it was ignored).

That being said, I am unable to access Facebook because my primary source of internet is at work, so if you befriend me, I'll never know.  Then again, it wouldn't matter if I could access it, because it wasn't my email address that was used, so I wouldn't be able to sign-in even if I wanted to.  (Oh, the tears.)

Nevertheless, I trust those silly boys to not abuse their power.

Maybe.

For two nights in a row, I have been awake for nearly 24 hours.  If that makes any sense.  Because I haven’t been up for 72 hours.  But very nearly, if I hadn’t taken the odd hour-or-two nap throughout the day.

I took off work Friday – on purpose – because I knew I would be staying up all that night, and quite frankly, I didn’t want to get up at 5am on Friday, work all day, and then hang out with teenagers all evening – with no sleep.

Instead, I went to bed at 6am on Friday morning.  Yeah, genius.

It was worth it, though.  LilBro, BritBoy and I went out after youth group (as is our wont), enjoyed some live music at one of our regular haunts (this was actually surprising, because typically on Thursday nights, the live music… well… leaves a lot to be desired.  But both LilBro and I were astonished that we were actually diggin’ the music instead of merely raggin’ on it).

Then we went to the 12:10am showing of Dark Knight.  Yep.

I’ll attempt to restrain my comments (well acted – of course, I’m rather biased in terms of Gary Oldman and Christian Bale, and then every knows about what’shisname who played the Joker – but very… ah… brutal.  That caught me off guard).  However, I will mention that people are… interesting.  The multitude of folk in Joker face paint, I can understand.  But the guy dressed in a penguin suit?  Seriously?  He looked like he’d be more at home at the premier of, say, Happy Feet.

Then we decided to get some breakfast afterwards (the film is 2 hours 40 min long, not counting previews).

Don’t get me wrong – it was a lot of fun.  I couldn’t believe I made it until 6am.

Not to mention the making it until 8am the next morning after only about 6 hours of sleep spread out across the day.  That was fun – hanging out the kids, playing silly games, bringing back the ultimate game of Sports!, laughing and swapping stories with LilBro and DrummerDude whilst El Capitan brought down the hammer on a couple of yahoos (smoking… inside the church… where we’ll be walking by… ok, they mightn’t be the brightest 14-year-olds of the bunch, but seriously… inside the church?).

Yes, it was fun.

But all this male-bonding, while delightful and to no end entertaining (especially since I seem to get the brunt of the teasing), makes me realize that perhaps I need to find some girl friends.

I’ll do it, as soon as they can promise me there won’t be any drama.

Or am I asking too much?