Leaves, branches, and roots

Last night was one of those nights when you contemplate canceling your plans, but are glad that you didn't. I was tired after a long, relatively boring day of work and an early morning dentist appointment (3 fillings, yippee!). Upon getting home, the magnetic pull of my bed was rather strong. A shower helped wake me up, though, and I headed to the “ping pong tournament” with Myssi, Jon, Mandi, and her husband Anthony. Raggedy Laura came by later. I think I've met the full Beaman clan now, if only briefly (9 kids!).

So yeah, I lack the ping pong coordination, and everyone else there was pro or semi-pro, but I still had fun. I think I can be decent with some practice, maybe I'll get to play more than once every couple of years now that I know someone who has a table. There's also always our crazy ping pong derivative games we play at work, but they're pretty... odd. Oops, we're probably not supposed to talk about that. :-]

After that we watched Madea Goes to Jail, a play by Tyler Perry. Madea is an older, feisty black woman (played by Tyler) who tells it like it is. I laughed harder than I have in quite some time; it was (total) quality. Good, clean fun with some surprisingly relevant lessons on life. I rather liked the one about the three types of people in your life. The leaves might provide you some shade for a brief time, but are easily blown around and eventually... just not there. The branches seem more stable, but when you put any pressure on them, they break. Then there are the roots, which are strong and hold the whole tree up.

I can't vouch for any of the other Madea plays (there are several), but I highly recommend checking this one out. Apparently Diary of a Mad Black Woman and Madea's Family Reunion are the big screen adaptations of Tyler Perry's plays, so I'm going to have to check them out soon.