Catch Up

Meli & I had a very productive noontime texting session. We have come up with the names for our firstborns. I picked Germeca from a list of names at work. (I'm thinking it's a combo of Germaine and Tameka?) Meli picked Frodo, but I said it wasn't a shem name- Frodo is definitely a boy! She settled on Frodwyn. That has a nice ring to it. Germeca & Frodwyn.....

I haven't blogged yet about Jason's & my trip to Texas or our day at the Glasgow Scottish Festival or our recent houseguests because Facebook is sucking up all of my time. And the only thing I ever do is mess with my green patch. I know it's for a good cause, but I think my green patch is going to have to go. I spent an hour last night accepting plants. An hour. That's an hour I could have used to blog. Or to actually email one of my friends who I never talk to or see (which is the whole reason that I joined myspace and Facebook in the first place!).

Now let's get down to business and turn the calendar back to Memorial Day weekend. I came home after work on Friday and immediately went to bed. I got in a good 6 hours before getting up, packing up, and heading to the Watts-Lamb-Crenshaw House in Wylie. Jason snoozed, and I drove until about an hour outside of Memphis. I wasn't too, too tired, yet, but I have a fear of bridges. And dark water. So driving across the Mississippi at night is only done by me in extreme emergencies. Jason took over, and I slept to Little Rock. Then we had a yummy breakfast at one of my favorite places- Waffle House. Mmmm.... With a full belly, I took back the driver's seat for the rest of the journey.

The drive took about 12 hours. Kiersten was waiting by the front door for us, and she had put a welcome sign out, too. Uncle Gib stopped by before heading out of town for the weekend. Then Jason & I went to Cren's shop so I could get my toetats redone. I knit while I waited for the pain, er, art to begin.

Then Cren got down to business. Um, it had been awhile since I had a tattoo, and I am not ashamed to admit that it really, really hurt this time. I believe what came out of my mouth was something like this: "Mother f$%^er! That hurts!" This one kid, Hulsey, said my tattoos were gangster (or would that be gangsta?). Ha ha, I have gangster toes!

Sunday, all of us except Grandma headed to the mall. My brother had requested a Texas belt buckle. Wow! It was really hard to find one! There was a Texas store at the mall, but it only had stupid buckles, like one the size of my behind & surrounded with rhinestones. That just wasn't going to do. Then we went to a western-wear store. They were in the process of "packing up" and "moving." I use the quotes to denote my skepticism. The store was huge and jam packed with boots and clothing and Texas-themed purses and Makers Mark accessories (uh, wrong state). But. Not. One. Belt. Buckle. Apparently, the only products that had been "packed" to "move" were the belt buckles. We finally came into luck at Cavender's. They had quite a selection of buckles and also some of the coolest boots I've ever seen!

We left Monday night around 11. We weren't too far from Rockwall when we saw four cars on the side of the road, 3 of them were cops. Jason pulled into the left lane, like he was supposed to do, while we went past them, and I made the mistake of making eye contact with one of the cops. (It was like a slow motion scene in a movie.) Then Jason got back into the right lane. Nothing out of the ordinary. Not one minute later, guess who was pulling us over. You betcha. Jason pulled so far over, my side of the car was in the weeds. Guess which side of the car the cop came to. You betcha. Guess why he said he pulled us over. Give up??? He said it's against the law in Texas to drive in the left lane unless you're passing someone. So Jason said, "Well, we're from Kentucky, and in Kentucky it's the law to pull into the left lane when a cop has someone pulled over. It's for your safety." And then Cop said, "Well, that's the law in Texas, too. But you didn't get back into the right lane within a reasonable amount of time." Then he went back to his car to do cop things with Jason's license & insurance card. Meanwhile, I watched all of the cars pass us, in the far left lane, not getting back into the right lane for quite awhile. Then I got mad and teared-up. Cop came back and I said, "I'm not trying to be a smart-alek, but what is a "reasonable amount of time"? Because nobody who has passed us has pulled right back over." So he pointed out a van, and said, "You see where the van is? That's where you were." So why aren't you chasing down that van, I silently wondered. Anyway, we didn't even get a written warning. Cop just wasted our time, messing with Jason and ogling my chest. And he wasn't even a state trooper. He was a city cop. Can they pull people over on the interstate?

Things were uneventful for awhile, and I fell alseep for a bit. I woke up to rain lashing the windowshield in nearly opaque sheets. Could hardly see a thing. I told Jason (because I am a bossy you-know-what) to pull over at the next exit. Like 10 miles later, we came to an exit called something Hill. The first thing that came to mind was "Silent Hill." (I haven't played the game, but I really like the movie.) There was nothing at the exit, and we could only see that by the strobe-like lightning flashes. We were there with fellow stranded motorists for about 30 minutes. Jason was searching the internet on his phone for the next exit with a bathroom. Naturally, we both had to go. I can't describe how intense and scary the lightning was. It seemed like it was almost constant. The thunder was so hard it shook the car. I think the storm added an hour to the trip!

We finally got home at 1 pm on Tuesday. We immediately passed out in bed! I got up at 5 to go to my 80s-themed Bunco, but I was just too travel-weary to get back in a car. Oh well, we'll have another game in a few weeks.

Speaking of falling into bed.....It's time for me to end this blog installment. Stay tuned!