No rest for old women

At least there was no rest rest for this old woman this past weekend

And it's my fault.

A couple of weeks ago, I agreed to judge a beauty pageant. I'd judged one before, and it was professionally run. It was the Miss Georgia's Outstanding Teen competition. It took all week, just like the Miss Georgia Pageant, but the winner was crowned on Friday.

Wait, I also judged a reverse Miss Columbus beauty pageant. It featured Columbus Cottonmouths' Jerome Bechard dressed like a woman hosting and singing. It was absurd. But the organizers knew what they were doing.

This time, it was a local pageant, and it was the most unorganized thing I'd ever been involved with.

It was supposed to start at noon Saturday. But at 12:45 p.m., they were still taking contestants!

I was also told it would last about 90 minutes. But I left Brookstone School around 4 p.m.

Toward the end of last week, I found out that one of my best friends' daughter was a contestant. I immediately told the organizer that I was practically there for her birth and perhaps I should recuse myself.

I was told that it was OK because another judge was also a good friend of the couple. I was relieved to find there were three more judges there. So even if the other judge and I gave the child really high scores, the other three judges may offset the scores. We didn't have a judges meeting and we were looking at each other and pointing to the right papers!

On top of that, we were judging on a 30-point scoring system for each category. And it turned out that the people tallying the scores didn't even bring a calculator!

Well, the child I know won.

But I didn't feel bad because I told them that I was close to that child. And I know judged fairly.

Another child in another category came in as the first runner-up. I thought she should have won.

Boy, was her aunt angry! I would not have wanted to be the organizers whom she cornered.

This will be the last children's pageant I ever judge. Ever.

I had just a few hours to get home and eat before heading to the Springer Opera House to see the final show of the run of "To Kill a Mockingbird."

It was a phenomenal show. It just may be among my Top 5 best non-musicals ever done at that theater. I still think "Dangerous Liaisons" was the best non-musical ever produced there. Well, since I've been going to the Springer.

Then yesterday was my mother's 79th birthday. I took her to Sunday brunch at the Hilton Gardens Inn.

The buffett is nothing like one at a Las Vegas hotel or Callaway Gardens, but it's quite good.

At dinner at Tokyo Japanese Restaurant last night, my mother told my sister Nancy that I ate a lot.

I did not.

And I'm sticking to that!

So it's not wonder that I was running late today. I'm just pooped