Playing Hooky with the State's Full Blessing

This is my last "cost-savings day" for this fiscal year, so I didn't get out of bed until 9 a.m.  (In our last contract, the union agreed to take 10 unpaid days off per year.  To make this less of a blow to the pocketbook, 3.2 hours are deducted from each paycheck during the life of the contract.)

I'm typing this before I leave for the McCoy Community Center for the Arts in New Albany.  My friend Jacques Angelino is a finalist for the Jefferson Award, given by WBNS-TV (Channel 10) and Nationwide Insurance.  This is an award honoring extraordinary public service and achievement.  I nominated Jacques because of his tireless, single-minded efforts to end hunger in Central and Southeastern Ohio--mainly through this weekly trips to the Feed My Sheep food pantry in Mineral, Ohio.  Since I nominated him, I'm invited to the award ceremony.  Jacques, accompanied by his 96-year-old mother, will be picking me up soon.

This isn't a black-tie affair, fortunately.  Jacques is wearing blue jeans, he told me on the phone.  I'm wearing a button-down oxford and black jeans.  I joked with him about whether we'd wear tuxedos.  (The last time I wore a tuxedo was when I was a best man at a friend's wedding.)