2003-08-18

Frankly, she’s just too cute, isn’t she? 🙂 Have you bought YOUR Tubby loot yet?

* * * Pet store kitties pics are here. * * * I have to say folks, nothing against you Mississippi-ans, but I don’t EVER want to go back to Mississippi again EVER. I thought Alabama was hot and humid and sticky and nasty in the summer, but it’s got NOTHING on Mississippi. (Just for the record, I have to sing the little MISS-ISS-IPP-I chant to myself to be sure I’m spelling it right.) We got to Mississippi around 2:00 Friday afternoon after what seemed to be the longest 6 hours ever. We’d intended to leave at 7:00, but didn’t get on the road until closer to 8:00, and then had to deal with all the traffic heading for the middle school and high school on the main road near our house. Then we had to stop every hour or so to pee and so Fred could call various and sundry people who needed to do something with the blah-de-blah and the blah-blah. Oddly, although I brought a book with me on the drive down (and 5 more in the suitcase, because the rule of thumb is to have at least two books for every full day you’re going to be away from home), I ended up not reading any, instead sat staring blankly into space like Puddy in that Seinfeld episode. We checked into the hotel and then Fred headed for the job site. “Spud,” I said. “Let us find the vending machines and buy us some junk food!” We hadn’t eaten since sometime around 11:00, and were both pretty hungry and needed something to tide us over. Our room was on the first floor, so naturally we went to the first-floor vending machines. “Hm,” I said. “It appears that there is nothing but soda here.” “Spud,” I said. “Let us head for the second floor and see if they have a food vending maching THERE.” They did not. “Spud,” I said. “Let us head for the third floor and see if they have a food vending machine THERE.” They did not. “Spud,” I said. “It appears clear to me that there are no food vending machines in this godforsaken hotel. Let us go back to the room and think about how hungry we are.” And so, dripping sweat, we did. After we cooled off in front of the air conditioner for several minutes, I had an idea. “Spud,” I said. “Let us walk up that BIG-ASS hill in front of the hotel, past the hotel next door and the hotel next door to THAT, to the gas station, where we can find us some junk food.” The spud readily agreed. So we put our sneakers on, double-checked to be sure we had the room key, and headed out. Halfway up the big-ass hill, I noticed something. “Spud,” said I. “Lookit that bridge thing there. The one coming from the 4th floor, which ends at the top of the hill. We should just go that way on the way back and take the elevator to the first floor!” “Mother,” said the spud, “That is an excellent idea, for I am going to melt into a motherfucking puddle of goo in about 10 seconds.” (Poetic license, people. Jeezus.) We made it, after hours and hours, or at least 5 minutes, to the gas station. I purchased a packet of blueberry Pop-Tarts, which are filled with fruit and thus good for you. A nutritious treat indeed. I laid our purchases down on the counter and waited for someone to ring me up. After three or four minutes of waiting while the two women behind the counter actively ignored us, one of them pointed to the other cash register, and said “I’ll get you over there.” I picked up our Pop-Tarts and walked over there. In the meantime, the woman had disappeared. Two minutes later, the other woman said “Can I help you?” from the first register. I picked our stuff up and walked back over to the first register. And naturally the other woman had disappeared. I was riddled with despair, just knowing that I was never going to get to eat my blueberry Pop-Tarts. Finally, the first woman showed back up and rang up our stuff, took my money, gave me change, and grunted in a surly manner when I happily thanked her. Back to the hotel we headed, walking slower and slower as the heat and humidity got to us, and finally – FINALLY, I say! – we reached the walkway/ bridge leading to the 4th (also top) floor of our hotel. When we got to the hotel end of the walkway, we headed for the elevator. “Those fucking bastards!” the spud said, stopping and pointing to the right. (Poetic license again, folks.) There, sitting merrily, nay smugly, nestled between the soda machine and the ice machine, smirking at us, was a vending machine filled with all types of junk-food goodness. Fuckers. (And the next day when we purchased Big Kat candy bars from that same vending machine, they had turned to liquid and required being put on ice for half an hour before they could be eaten.) * * * I was not impressed with our hotel at ALL. We got a room with two full-size beds (one for Fred, one for me) and a rollaway bed for the spud. The room was so cramped that we had to move shit around to make space for the rollaway bed. And there was NO REFRIGERATOR. Not impressed. Of course, what did I expect? Hotel rooms are hotel rooms, and unless you want to spend hundreds upon hundreds of dollars, they’re not going to be roomy or impressive. That’s my experience, anyway. I don’t particularly want to spend 24 hours a day for an entire weekend in the same room with the spud from here on out, though. I love the child, but I NEED MY SPACE, and she was doing this annoying little cough-type thing that rapidly got on my nerves (more about that in the next section), and she made us watch this goofy-ass “Cheetah Girls” movie on the Disney Channel (my god in heaven, folks, it was idiotic), and all I could do was read and try to escape. I finished 4 books over the weekend, though. That’s an upside. Friday and Saturday night we visited The Lucky Fisherman, a little restaurant that Fred discovered years ago (he used to visit Vicksburg all the time when he worked for another company) with a seafood buffet that was to DIE for. I had my first frog’s legs, and they weren’t bad, though I felt a little ill afterward every time I thought about how slimy frogs are. Blech. Friday night we left the spud in the hotel room and visited the AmeriStar Casino, which was cool. I had a Sex on the Beach (the drink), and almost immediately started feeling swelteringly hot, and my forehead and nose went numb. “Oh,” Fred said when I mentioned these things to him. “Maybe you weren’t supposed to drink alcohol because you’re on antibiotics.” Oh yeah. We won nothing at the casinos, but I had a good time on the slot machines. Fred got bored after a few hours, and we left and didn’t go back Saturday night. We did go eat at the AmeriStar for lunch Saturday, though – another buffet. Buffets rock, actually. Hm. What else? I took 10,000 pictures of kudzu and the mighty Mississipp’, and it’ll probably be months before I get around to posting those. So there ya go. That was my weekend. And I’m mighty fucking glad to be home, thank you. * * * Spud update: she had the ultrasound on Thursday (did I mention that in my last entry? I have no idea.), and when I got home from that appointment (after stopping at Sam’s) there was a message on the answering machine from the doctor’s office. But it was after 4, which is when they close, so I called this morning. Her thyroid levels came back normal, but the scan showed a multi-nodular goiter (which is the exact same thing I had at her age), and they’ve started her on Synthroid and want to see her in 2 months. The little cough/ throat-clearing thing I mentioned in the last section? She’s been doing it for a while now, and it’s got nothing to do with the Bronchitis, and everything to do with the fact that the multi-nodular goiter is pressing on her throat making her feel like something’s stuck there. Thus, she’s always trying to clear her throat. Hopefully the medicine will take care of that right quickly. Or at least before I have to spend every waking (and sleeping!) minute with her again. * * * Speaking of Sam’s (like I did in the section above when I said the spud and I stopped at Sam’s after her ultrasound), we walked into the store, and I distantly heard someone talking. I continued on my way, minding my own damn business as I am wont to do, and then suddenly I heard a loud obnoxious voice directed toward me. “EXCUSE ME! I AM TALKING TO YOU!” the voice bellowed, and I stopped and turned around, raising an annoyed eyebrow. “Did you GET your COUPONS?!” he demanded, holding up a sheaf of coupons for a local photography studio. “No thank you, asshole,” I said. “And FOR THE RECORD, just because you’re FUCKING TALKING TO ME does NOT mean I am required to LISTEN TO YOUR STUPID SKANKY FUCKING ASS!” And then I stalked over and smacked him upside the head and screamed “SO GO FUCK YOURSELF!” Or maybe I just scowled at him and kept walking. One or the other. My fellow humans, that is the PROBLEM with this world today. Everyone’s got something to say, and they think everyone else is required to listen to their stupid ass. Fuckers. * * * On Interstate 20/ 59 in Alabama, there were orange wildflowers as far as the eye could see. They stopped dead at the Alabama/ Mississippi border. Keeping The Daddy’s books warm.]]>