lakes may not be the ideal choice for weekend travellers.  or actually they may be just that, come to think of it.

*sidenote: the spell check just told me "travellers" is spelled wrong.  it also told me the same thing the second time just now.  i would like to set the record straight by letting everyone know that i don't care, and i intentionally left it misspelled, in both cases.

*end sidenote*

in any case, i'd never been to a lake in missouri in the 4 years i've lived here.  mostly i think it's because i was always gone during the prime lake season--(summer... for those who don't know what the prime lake season is)--but i don't know if that's an accurate assumption.  case in point, i was here all this summer, yet it took me until labor day (the unofficial end of summer) to get out to one.

my lake of choice today was table rock lake, though i didn't choose it.  it's actually quite beautiful, and i had a great time.  it was fun being with my friends, as well as a few friends with whom i'd never really hung out before.  i realized a few things today, however:

1. i am by no means a strong swimmer. by the time i'd reached the buoy line where my friends were, they had had enough time to take out a second mortgage, in addition to the first one they also applied for in that time and had been paying on for several years (the second one was to cover some minor home improvement projects). also, i was dead tired by the time i got out there.
2. i am very good at tipping canoes. this was unintentional...of course. the two girls in the canoe already (dana and liz) were convinced that i could get in without error, andhad already started trying to convince me of this as well. before even attempting it, however, i could foresee that this wasn't going to end well. sure enough, it tipped, they were thrown clear, and the canoe was 3/4 filled with water. fun times.
3. i am not fond of walking on gravel in bare feet. the shore of the lake, from the sand to the water and even well into the water, was all gravel. enough said.

with all of these learning experiences happening before my very eyes and under my very feet, it was hard not to think of it as a school day. ironic, since i am both no longer in school, and today was labor day, on which all the schools were off classes anyways. i guess i could be considered a student of life.

one more bit of irony....labor day is intended to honor and celebrate laborers and other workers in this country. ironic, then, that on labor day, all of the white collar workers are off, while all of the blue collar workers (whom this day is really intended to honor) all have to work to facilitate the increased shopping and eating-out of the white collar workers who have the day off. interesting.

well i'm gonna go to sleep so i can get up and labor over some video projectors.

*edit*: i am not yet familiar enough with the formatting tools on blogger to really master them, hence some of the screwy formatting on this particular post.**