Things that have happened to me in the last month:

1. I chaperoned a girls camp from Hell and all I got were these lousy chigger bites. Incidentally, according to the University of Missouri website, this is what a chigger bite is:

Chiggers do not burrow into the skin or suck blood. Instead they pierce the skin with their mouthparts and inject a digestive enzyme. This fluid dissolves the tissues of the host, which are then sucked up by the chigger as food. Within a few hours, tissue around the feeding area solidifies into a hardened tube, called a stylostome. The chigger remains attached to the stylostome and sucks up liquefied tissue - like a person drinking through a straw. Feeding will continue for three or four days if left undisturbed.

Mmmmm… dissolving tissue… What’s even better is that it isn’t the adult chigger that does all this, it’s the larvae.

2. I lost my job while at girls camp (I was notified on my voice mail).
3. I interviewed for a job in Indiana.
4. Maria and I went to Utah for “vacation.”
5. I ate way too much food during a two week period.
6. I was crowned “Shuffleboard Master” (Maria is “The Iron Shuff”).
7. I was offered the job in Indiana and I accepted.
8. I was the best man in at my friend’s wedding and had no idea what I was doing. I’ve never given a toast in my life. I received counsel to act drunk, say a couple of inappropriate things about the bride, and rub my booty into the wedding cake. It went well, but I just can’t get the frosting out of my pants.

Now I just have to finish out my obligation to my current job, pack up our lives in a week and a half (in the middle of horrible head colds, completing two paintings, selling a car, and apartment hunting), shove Fran into the car, ignore her yowling for three and a half hours, bid Chicago aieu and drive south as part of our annual move. Piece-o-cake.