Whew! We just saw Cathi and Paul off at the airport for their "cattle call" (they fly Southwest, where no seats are assigned, so it's first-come, first seated") after a fun 2 days of fun, chatting, laughing (lots of that!), eating (lots of that too -- I may have met my match in Paul), and visiting the various sites of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill.

Since I was lucky enough to find a sub for my paper route for both Saturday and today, I got to sleep in LATE both days. Well, as late as a hungry dog and a surly cat would let me sleep... It was wonderful. And I needed the rest, after all our running around and fun on Saturday -- we watched the Iowa Hawkeyes tromp Northwestern at a bar in Durham where all five of the University of Iowa grads living in the area assemble for football games, and then we ran to the mall for a bit in the afternoon, our throats still sore from karaoke the night before, and then stopped at Clarke's to chow down on snacks and enjoy the handiwork she and her mom had done to Clarke's new house.

Paul and I would've eaten more of the great snacks at Clarke's, which included a batch of beer cheese and bbq and cheese, along with a 24-oz can of Icehouse that I HAD to take care of for them (didn't want it to get skunky!), but we found and all-you-can-eat rib place next to the bar showing the football game, and Paul HAD to have some. Sounded like a good idea to me, so I joined him! Two baskets of ribs and fries later, we were sufficiently stuffed (and Cathi couldn't hound us about "eating meat at two meals today, mister!!!"). It's probably a good thing, in one respect, that Cathi and Paul live in the Chicago area, otherwise I'd be about 400 lbs....!

And then we went to drag bingo.

Holy crap, I have not laughed so hard in my life. Our host was Mary K Mart, and it was Super Hero Bingo Night, so she was decked out as Wonder Woman. Now Mary is probably 6 feet tall in normal clothes, but in her WW high heels and with her teased black hair, she was close to seven feet tall, tiara and all. And she was a wonderful emcee, cracking jokes and nibbling "delicately" on the occasional pickle or Twinkie. Lots of great costumes, including the Ambiguously Gay Duo and Green Lantern, and all for a great cause -- we raised $5,000 for AIDS research. We're going again in January. My cheeks and ribs were sore from laughing so hard. (The cheeks on my FACE, thanks!)

After sleeping in quite late today, Cathi, Paul, Lizzie, Whit, and I hung out on the back porch in the sunshine and talked about a screenplay idea Cathi has had brewing for a while, and I got lots of great ideas for it. Then we grabbed a late breakfast in Chapel Hill, drove around a bit, and then had to get them to the airport for their cattle call.

And just like that, the weekend's over, pretty much. Lizzie and I are both about spent, and we'll be doing good to stay awake during the movie we rented. It was wonderful seeing Cathi again and getting to know her new hubby Paul better -- they're a great match for each other, and great people. It's been an awesome weekend. Later!

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