Baton twirlers, sore bodies, psychics and a guy who made me speechless. Just an average Sunday in Atlanta.

My boring Sundays normally consists of me cooking all of my lunches and dinners for the week.

This week I will be eating ham sandwiches and cereal all week because I cooked nothing this weekend.  I was too busy having fun.  Except for Sunday morning when I could have cooked but instead lounged in my pj's on the sofa watching my stories.

When we were at my neighbors' house watching football on Saturday, they asked my brother and I if we wanted to go to a festival with them on Sunday and we said yes.  The part I didn't realize is that we were going to walk there.  I'm not opposed to walking normally, but I have the horrible plantar fasciitis and it is a vicious cycle:  once you get up and walk for a little bit, it stretches everything out and it hurts a little bit less (but never goes completely away) but then you can go just over the line and walk too much and then it hurts like hell and walking a lot also makes it hurt even worse once you stop and sit for a little bit and then stand back up.  Apparently when you walk about 3-4 miles, it will make you cry because it hurts so bad which is what I learned yesterday.

My brother has it too and so when he got to my house I told him I was wearing my Nike Air sneakers to see if they would help and he suggested I throw a couple of cans of vegetables in the freezer and put my feet on them when I got back home.  So I did:

It felt pretty good and they were feeling a little better after 10 minutes of icing them.  But if I were you, I would not eat any cannellini beans if I offer them to you at my house.  By the time I got upstairs to my bedroom I was in severe pain again and I took some ibuprofen and went to bed.

At 5:00 a.m. I had to get up and pee and I honestly was unsure I could walk to the bathroom my feet were in so much pain.  I tried stretching, and then I just held on to the wall and stumbled slowly to the bathroom while a stream of curse words came out of my mouth.

As Monday went on, everything else started hurting.  My butt, my hips, my thighs, etc.  We were sitting on a steep hill on a lawn and trying not to slide down while we watched some bands at the festival and I looked at my two female neighbors at some point and said, "I have tons of padding.  But my ass is killing me.  And my right foot is completely asleep because I've had it dug into the ground in one spot to keep from sliding down the hill."  They said their asses hurt, their hips hurt, their feet hurt, everything hurt, so we decided to get up and walk around some more.  Which helped my plantar fasciitis is what it did.

When we first arrived at the festival and before we tried not to slide down the hill, we walked around and looked at some art.  And then we looked at Baton Bob standing in a fire pit in his flapper-ish get up and tiara:

Baton Bob is my most favorite local Atlanta celebrity of all and my brother and friends all looked at me like I was crazy when I suddenly exclaimed, "AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!  BATON BOB IS HERE!!!" and ran over and started snapping photos of him.  They had never seen him or heard of him and I had not heard my 7-year-old neighbor ask, "Why is that man dressed up like a lady?" right before I saw him and had my outburst.  He is the self-proclaimed Ambassador of Mirth for the City of Atlanta.  He marches, dances, sings, blows a whistle and twirls his baton proudly around Atlanta while dressed up in various costumes - on the streets every single day, and at festivals, parades, etc. - and he makes me so happy when I see him.  He is fabulous.  One of my friends gave me an artwork print that says "Live Every Day Like Baton Bob" for my birthday because she knows how much I adore him.  I am friends with him on Facebook and I posted one of these pictures and tagged him in it.  He commented that he was Rolling Down the River and another person commented that This Guuurrrrllll is on Fire!  Yes, indeed.

Later, after we tried not to slide down the hill and after I went to a psychic, I was standing with my brother and my friends and I happened to see this out of the corner of my eye:

And I almost lost it on the inside.  Almost lost the Jamaican meat pie I had eaten 15 minutes previously, that is.  I was speechless on the outside.

I was trying to sneak another picture from the front and just as I was about to take it, he looked right at me.  So I asked, "Do you mind if I take your picture?"

He very sarcastically responded, "Oh no!  Can't you tell I just hate attention?  I can't stand having people look at me and wanting to take my photo!  Wait just a minute and let me put my drink down so you can get a good one."  And then he put his drink down (no telling what was in his sports bottle) and started shaking his Shake Weight at us.  Oh yes, he did.

We have interesting folks here in Atlanta.  Yes, indeed.

At some point in the day, we walked past a booth that celebrated baldness.  So my neighbor bought my brother a new shirt but he would only buy it if my brother agreed to wear it right away:

This brother is a detective so I'm just waiting for him to investigate why I posted his photo on my blog.

And yes, at some point we passed a psychic booth.  I looked at my friends and said, "I've always wanted to do this.  I'm going to do it right now."

For $20, I had my tarot cards read.  One of my neighbors came over with me and asked, "Do you mind if I stand here and listen?" and I told her it didn't bother me at all.  The psychic told her she needed to back up some because her energy would get too mixed up with mine.  Yes.  Of course.  She backed up.  The psychic told her she was still to close.  So she left.  

She had me shuffle the cards and then she placed them in different piles in front of her and said, "Hmmmm.  Oh.  Hum?  Oh, yes.  I see," several times.

She then asked me to think of two wishes and I was to tell her one wish and keep one to myself.  She told me my verbal wish was a good one but then said nothing else about it during our session.  It was about my mom so it did not give this psychic any information about what she talked about with me.

The wish I kept to myself was actually what she immediately began discussing which was kind of weird.  Y'all know I'm in the oddest of relationships and situations with my boyfriend being stuck in Brazil right now, fake kids, etc.  She looked at me and said, "I see you are under an unusual amount of stress and this stress is from something that has recently started.  I also see you're in a relationship that you are having some doubts about.  You feel like you are putting all of your energy and emotion into the relationship but you don't feel like this guy is reciprocating and he's not putting the same amount of energy and effort in that you are.  You've recently begun having some doubts.  You should not have any doubts.  This is a very good relationship, he is a very good man, and he loves you very, very much.  The issue in this relationship is not him.  It's not how much he is committed to you or loves you.  He is 100% committed to you and loves you with all of his heart.  The issue is yours.  It has nothing to do with this man.  It is something from your past.  Someone left you and it's causing trust issues with you to this day.  Don't let it mess up this relationship you are in.  This relationship is very good for you."

She asked me if that made sense and I told her it did.  She then said, "There is someone that was a very important part of your life, it was a man and you felt like he let you down when he was the one person who should never have let you down.  You trusted him.  You loved him.  And he abandoned you.  Tell me what happened."

I told her my ex-husband walked out on me fairly unexpectedly.  She said, "I'm so sorry that happened.  But that's not it.  This goes back much further to when you were a child.  Someone special in your life abandoned you at a very critical time.  There was something very traumatic going on when he abandoned you and you are now having trust issues in your relationships because of it. Tell me what happened."

And I explained that my biological mom died when I was 5 years old and my dad emotionally checked out from all of us for pretty much the rest of his life.  And she said, "That's it.  You must figure out how to get past this because it's holding you back so much.  There is a part of your spirit that feels dead because you've never worked through this and you are not happy.  You can't find happiness in your work even though I see in the cards that you have a very good job and have had some accomplishments.  You can't feel happy about it because a part of you feels dead.  You aren't truly letting yourself go and open up in your relationship.  And you need to find a way to do that.  You are in a hole.  It's not a deep hole and it's not a horrible hole, but it's a rut in the road that is holding you back from complete happiness.  I see that you are a very good person.  You give to your friends and family whenever they need anything at all.  You are surrounded by good people and many blessings but you can't enjoy them completely because of this.  I see a very long and healthy life for you.  But you need to figure out how to move on from this thing from your past so you can enjoy it fully.  You are not happy."

She then said she wants to look into my birth date and examine things further and she will not charge me for it.  I gave her my birth date and phone number.  So we will see......

Before I got up she said, "Don't go over there and tell all of your friends here with you what we've talked about.  I feel a lot of gossip surrounds you."  She didn't say I couldn't discuss it on my blog....

After we walked away, I told them what she said.  My friend said, "We don't gossip.  We say stuff straight to your face!" They absolutely do.  In fact, she had just had a long talk with me the day before about my relationship and that she loves me and worries for me.

I realize the stuff this psychic said is somewhat general and probably applies to most of the population, but it did hit dead on for me.  I've never been one to totally believe in that kind of stuff, but I also know she's right:  I need to figure out how to move on from how my dad made me feel most of my life - emotionally abandoned and like I need to totally look out for myself and not completely trust people.

I totally forgot to do Music Monday yesterday so we'll have Music Tuesday this week.  The theme for this week is:  psychics!  The song(s) you submit must contain a word in the title that have something to do with psychics:  fortune, cards, tarot, magic, etc.