please make it stop hurting
dezzikitty in Athens, GA again once more until 30th June. The flight across with Delta was acceptable. Since arriving, we have eaten wonderful food, often quite inexpensively. The first place we ate was The Brick Store pub in Decatur, GA, at which I had an excellent vegetable pitta and side salad; Meg's burger and fries were also wonderful. We also had giant pretzels as a starter, which I enjoyed with a mustard sauce. (Salty pretzels and mustard are mind-blowing.)There was a busy crowd. I used the gents, washed my hands and thanked another patron for wandering out of the way. Wearing bright orange, he recognised my accent as European and we got chatting, as you do. (Especially you, ladies.) A little later, he asked me whereabouts in Britain I was from, and I replied Middlesbrough; another patron who had recently entered said "No way, I'm only from Stockton-on-Tees" - just six miles away. Meg and I eventually got talking to this other gentleman and his wife originally from Alabama. It's not on the cards in the foreseeable future, but we could move to Atlanta if we wanted to now we know there's a Teesside expat community :-)
Other than that we have continued to eat, mostly barbecue brilliantly cooked by Meg and her folks, and went to Atlanta to see the Braves - Red Sox game, not least in part as a Father's Day present for
dezzikitty's Dad. It was a lot of fun, but watching sport when you're rooting for both teams equally is just weird. Unfortunately I have a very sore throat; I am not sure if it is merely one symptom of a cold, or a symptom of something more specifically throat-y. (I remain betonsilled and another person at work turned up for a 12-hour shift despite suffering from tonsillitis. Gee, thanks.) If the sore throat persists past a second day, as directed, I shall consult medical expertise. I am really not looking forward to having to learn how to claim on my travel insurance for the first time ever. Already I have wasted away three pounds, but that's actually welcome.I have just been watching Championship Dominoes on ESPN 2, of all the things. It was very strange and is not something I would look for, unlike TV poker or TV Scrabble. I didn't end up really appreciating why a play was particularly good or particularly bad, which is a problem. Perhaps, like backgammon, it's just played too quickly to be able to commentate on move-by-move? In any case, it reminded me more of bridge than I expected it might; both are partnership games where being able to communicate your hand to your partner is crucial, but heavily restricted. The dominoes tournament purportedly banned all coded communication gestures, but I have a suspicion that coded communication gestures are officially banned but practically prevalent in British tournaments. Who knows? Either way, it led me to think about all sorts of sight-screens, bidding boxes and other bridge communication-prevention paraphernalia and their possible adoption in dominoes.
England v. Sweden tomorrow. Why is everyone being so negative about Peter Crouch and Paul Robinson who are legitimately doing the business at the moment? Admittedly Crouch's goal should have been disallowed for a hair-pulling foul, but he looks like our most likely scorer by far. That said, I would start Rooney and Owen tomorrow, who need match-fitness desperately. There's always the possibility that they might get injured, but (though they need not to lose and have things go against them) Sweden won't be going all-out.
