Love is in the Air

When Grace finished college in December, she moved back in with us. I, of course, was thrilled. I consider Grace one of my closest friends and love having her around. That's not to say we don't annoy each other occasionally...
One of the difficult things for Grace, as she turned 23 in January, is dating while living at home. At Thanksgiving, she started dating a guy who she liked. They grew closer and ended up dating for three months. Then, the Monday before Valentine's Day, they went out one night, had a lovely time, and she didn't hear from him again. Usually they texted each other several times a day, sharing news of their lives.
She finally got a text from him on Friday before Valentine's Day. He said he was busy all weekend so she should go out with her friends and have fun.
That is the last she heard from the guy.

This is one of Grace's new headshots for her acting career

I know Grace liked him, and I know she was heartbroken, but she surprised me by not wallowing in it.
Last week, she had dates with three different guys. She created her own version of the Bachelorette. She'd come home and say, "Chad is not getting a rose."
But while she was trying to assuage her broken heart, she accidentally met a guy she really liked. And that's why, now, a week later, she's had half a dozen dates with one guy. Sometimes, they have two dates per day, meeting for brunch then later for drinks.
"See!" I said. "This is what it feels like when you really like someone."
With the other guy, the one who disappeared, she'd be figuring out her schedule and saying things like, "Well, I have to work early tomorrow so I don't think I'll go out tonight."
With this new guy, she stayed out until 3:30 in the morning without a thought for the next day's schedule.
Last night, the new guy picked her up here at home. We never met the guy she dated for three months, but we met the new guy last night, after a week.
After I came home from teaching yesterday, I had worked out. I still wore a sweatshirt.
"Aren't  you going to change your shirt?" she asked. She must really like him if she wants me to make a good impression, I thought.
So I changed into a more fashionable shirt with a cardigan, and I was ready when he showed up.
He came to the door and knocked, and she brought him inside for awkward handshakes. He's even taller than Earl, which is like a pot of gold under the rainbow for Grace who stands 5-foot, 10-inches tall. He seemed nice and personable, he has awesome dimples, and he makes my daughter smile.
Whether it lasts or not, Grace knows what it's like to fall hard for someone.

Bachelor Irony

I've watched The Bachelor, a show on ABC, for four or five seasons now, and I was excited when Juan Pablo was chosen as the latest bachelor. Why? Cause he was hot. He had an animal magnetism that became apparent even when he was shown speaking on camera less than any other guy on the Bachelorette. His accent -- he was raised in Venzuela -- limited his on-camera time.
So, like millions of women around the country, I was sold on Juan Pablo simply because of his looks, his smile, the light in his eyes.

At the beginning of the season, with 27 girls and one bachelor, the activities and the interactions were interesting, wondering who would stand out, who would get cut. None of the women were especially onerous this season -- no one to hate. Sometimes the women got a little snarky, but overall they were well behaved.
And Juan Pablo seemed pretty straightforward. When one of the girls got drunk and made a fool of herself, he sent her home the next morning, explaining that as a father, he couldn't bring someone unstable into his household.
I thought Juan Pablo was fairly honest with the women. In the beginning, I may not have noticed that he didn't have a lot of intelligent conversation because he was busy listening to the women's stories. He definitely had chemistry with some of them.
For the first time since I've been watching, it became obvious fairly early in that he slept with one of the women during a romp in the ocean. He later regretted that and told the woman he regretted it. That was pretty selfish on his part. Nothing either of them could do about it afterward.
During the season finale Monday evening, I read a book while Juan Pablo had his final dates with two beautiful blonde women. The words, the women, the families...it just didn't catch my attention.
Juan Pablo, a Latin man with expected sexist tendencies, had shown himself to be fairly shallow. The conversation shown between him and the women consisted of him telling the women how pretty or sexy they were. Things didn't seem to go much deeper.
And now, there's an outcry that Juan Pablo was in it for the fame, for the sex. Stories abound on the web. Here's one from CNN. Juan Pable didn't tell the woman he picked that he loved her, only "liked her a lot." Truthfully, how many people, dating only one other person, can know in 10 weeks whether they love someone.

Here's a picture from Conde Nast showing Juan Pablo with his top choice Nikki.

The irony to me is that people are angry that Juan Pablo was superficial, when they picked Juan Pablo for superficial reasons -- simply because he was handsome.
We rooted for him to become the bachelor because he was beautiful then we're disappointed that he picked women who were beautiful.
We kinda got what we asked for.

The End of College Football Season

As I sit here blogging, a college football bowl game is on television. All of the men who live in my house are out for the evening, so it's just me and my daughter with the football game. She doesn't watch, but she agrees that it is comforting to have the game on as background.
I love football.
True, I cringe when the loud crack of a helmet hitting someone resounds from the television speakers, but I love to watch the games.
I think when I was young, similar to Grace, I didn't so much watch football. But I grew up with two brothers and a father who watched. When I moved out on my own, I found myself turning to football to feel at home.
Now I'm kind of addicted. I'll rarely go to a social event at the same time our local university is playing football. I don't want to miss the game.
It's been a long run of good play for Ohio State. The past two seasons, they've lost only one game. It's tough to root for a team that is losing, but a little boring to root for a team that wins all the time.

But the Ohio State Buckeyes lost a game and they have one more game to play this season on Friday night.

I think I'm ready, for the first time in many years, for college football to finish. I think I know more about the players and the teams than I usually do, but I'm not as emotionally connected. 

Maybe I'll change my mind as the game draws to a close on Friday and Ohio State completes its season. There will be one more big game on Monday night -- the national championship. But I'll be tempted to turn to The Bachelor instead. After all, Juanuary only comes around once in a lifetime, and this year's bachelor, Juan Pablo, might trump a field full of college boys. 

Ch-ch-ch-Changes

How are you with change?
I'm pretty good with it. This may have something to do with me being shallow. In my adult life, I've moved from city to city about every five years. If we didn't move, I would get a little antsy, like I needed something new, something different.
That has faded some as I get older. We've been in Columbus now 15 years! But we have lived in three different  houses in three different parts of the city.

Grace is exhausted by change even at age 1.

My daughter Grace hates change, but she's working on it. The other day I had an epiphany and called to tell her why she hates change. We lived in four different houses before her 1st birthday. That's the year we moved from Sebring, Florida to Tampa, Florida then Jackson, Michigan where we lived in an apartment for a few months before closing on our first house and moving into it. Four houses and the chaos that goes with it probably led to her aversion to change.
Our household has dealt with recent changes as first Grace, then Spencer graduated high school and marched off to faraway colleges. Grace accepted change once again when she transferred to a college closer to home.
But in the coming year, we'll face an even bigger change, not just Tucker graduating and going off to college, but Earl's work schedule is changing.
Earl has been working evenings for nearly five years.
It was on Tucker's 13th birthday that we learned the newspaper would have layoffs. We held our breath to see if Earl would lose his job. Luckily, he didn't, but he did move jobs from assistant city editor to copy editor. We felt fortunate that he would have a job at all with the way the newspaper business was going. And the company left his salary the same. All he lost was a free parking space.

Tucker at age 13.

The new job as copy editor required Earl to work evenings rather than days. In his previous job, he'd go in to work at 10 a.m. and come home at 8 or 9 p.m.
When he switched, five years ago, he started to work 3-11 p.m. or 4-midnight, sometimes even 5 p.m. to 1 a.m.
From the time Tucker was 13, Earl has been absent in the evenings. Now as Tucker begins the downhill slide to 18 and his last semester of high school, Earl will switch to day times again and begin working as a reporter.
He's okay with moving to the reporter position. Working as a copy editor was good because he worked his eight hours then came home and put it behind him. As a reporter, the job won't go away quite that easily. He may work longer hours and he may continue to do work at home, but he will be here in the evenings.
That may mean I have to fight for the remote on the nights that The Bachelor or The Amazing Race air. That probably means I'm going to see a lot more old movies or specials on airplanes on television.

Hottie Juan-Pablo appears on The Bachelor
 starting in January.

I'll  probably need to start making dinner regularly too. Between me and Tucker, I sometimes make a pot of macaroni and cheese or bake a pizza that he can eat whenever he gets hungry. With my husband home, I'm probably going to feel obligated to cook real meals again.
Things will change for Tucker too. When he got old enough to drive, he started coming home from school for lunch. Since I teach college, sometimes I am home and sometimes not, but Earl is almost always home. He cooks grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup for Tucker, or slathers peanut butter and jelly between slices of bread. Tucker then takes his lunch and turns on ESPN for his 30-minute lunch.
This Wednesday, I had a meeting at 11:30. Earl had a meeting too.
At 11:47, my phone rang.
"Where is everybody?" Tucker asked.
I explained the meeting situation and then told Tucker he'd better get used to it since Earl moved to days in January and I was scheduled to work at least 3 days during the week.
"Do you mean I'm going to have to make my own lunch?" Tucker asked.
"That's how it looks," I said.
I knew Earl never should have started making Tucker's lunch. Now he's just looking for a handout every day at noon.
I'm sure we'll all get through the changes coming our way. Until then, I'm keeping the remote and I'll probably make sure Tucker gets lunch through next week anyway.