actual update? nope...

I've been living in Houston for about 5 months now, and have posted about twice. There are good reasons, which you would know if I was about to post all about them...but I'm not going to. Yet, anyway. I am breaking my blogging silence to share something with all of you (you know, all 4 of you that read this blog).

I love KFC because they serve mashed potatoes. Startling revelation, I know. I was in a fantastic part of town (yeah, sarcasm comes in the form of italics) and was waiting in line when the person in front of me ordered dog meat. Yike. I wasn't aware KFC served man's best friend. I had ordered my mashed potatoes when the person behind the counter said to the person behind me in line: "dog meat or light meat?" that I realized what was going on.

anyway, life apparently is busy enough to distract me and make me think KFC is now KFD (get it? Kentucky Fried Dogs. I crack myself up). But I'll try to, I don't know, write something remotely interesting/important/informative next time.

Oh, and I don't advocate the eating of pets...even if I don't like dogs.

NERAK

It was an interesting thing. Scott, Shaliece, the visiting Bawdens, and I watched The Watcher in the Woods. The first time I watched this movie, it was my fourth or fifth grade field day at Oak Hills Elementary. I remember sitting in the huge, dark multi-purpose room and being so flaming scared. When Sheesh lived at our house, we talked about this movie a lot, but never ended up watching it. I eventually found it on DVD and had it in my collection, and so out it came.

The thing I remember most from when I was a kid was the name of the new pet dog, Nerak, which is Karen spelled backwards. I've mocked it often. Several new fun things I've learned to appreciate from this movie are the creepy housekeeper, the fantastic special effects (sarcasm is hard to indicate when typing, but it's there), and the hairdos. Man.

I also enjoyed picking up some new quotes, including my favorite: "Lightning struck the belfry...suddenly the church was aflame!"

Before we started, Shaliece was worried about post Watcher in the Woods nightmares. As most things from childhood turn out, our experience this time was very different from those scary elementary school field day experiences. What used to be scary was funny, what was dramatic was cheesy. Time really does change things.

i wasn't kidding...

no shame at all!

how could i forget?

dad reminded me of a very important part of our trip that i forgot to include in the previous post...
Dreamland Barbecue in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. this really had to be experienced, in order to understand. but the story of the adventure is thus:

we were in the south and we wanted barbecue. the real stuff. so i looked up "best bbq tuscaloosa" on my phone and was informed i must go to Dreamland. after several errors (because it was in the freakin' boonies!) we found ourselves on the right road to this little restaurant, which is in the middle of a flaming trailer park and has been around for over 50 years. it's hard to tell from this picture, but the place is the epitome of "hole in the wall". i think dad was concerned for the safety of my things :) but stepping out of the car we were hit with a most amazing barbecue smell. they only serve ribs (except, we were informed, they "just started serving coleslaw and potato salad"). so we got our ribs and dove right in. which, knowing anything about me and meat, is pretty impressive. they were excellent and the atmosphere was fantastic.

a sort of initiation, if you will, into the southern way of things.

on the road again...

i broke out my camera once on our 2 day drive to Houston. it could be because i'm lazy. it could be because i did my best to sleep away the miles. it could be because much of the journey looked like the picture on the right.

dad and i left very very early. luckily, my sweet sister lauren, dad, and i had packed it (to the freakin' brim!) the day before, so mostly we had to just get in and drive.

sadly, all the effort i went through to get an eAudiobook from NetLibrary failed. so dad and i spent two days finding alternative ways of entertaining ourselves. for dad that was mostly "meditating", for me that was mostly trying to sleep. i did have a fantastic Discover magazine that had the 100 top science stories of the year. luckily, we had my new iPhone, because i had to look up a bunch of words i didn't know. good to know there are still things to learn.

we drove through the French Quarter of New Orleans. it was a really nasty day, and i didn't really want to get out of the car, but dad performed an excellent feat of auto-tourism and i got to see what it was like, and occasionally rolling the windows down, i even got to hear some live jazz. too bad it wasn't marc broussard. but i would have gotten out of the car for him.

eventually...and i mean eventually...we crossed over the border of my new home state. this was when i broke out the camera. and i took these two good shots from my car going over 65 mph.


impressive, no? and i'm definitely feeling welcomed.

then i messed around with the camera for a few minutes, attempting to capture our little trip for posterity. or whatever. i won't post the first picture of dad, because he looks like he is driving while high on something. but this one is nice:

and here's me. this isn't the first one i took of me either (or the second, or the third...) but i had time to kill.
eventually we made it to the Moser's in Humble, Texas. I have since learned that this is pronounced "UUMMble", not "HUMble". ah, Texas. how i'm learning to love thee. so now i'm here, and i'm loving catching up with Sheesh and Scott, playing with Riley and Garrett, and learning to get around. i'll post again soon about school, etc!