Driving in Texas

When Joe visited his cousins twenty years ago, he wasn't old enough to drive. On this trip, we rented a little car, mostly so we could make the drive to Austin and back. Since we weren't familiar with the area, Joe packed our GPS.

Here's how a GPS works - you put in an address, it tells you how to get there. It's up to the driver of the vehicle to actually do what it says. If the driver fails to do so (what, turn HERE??!!?), you don't get where you're going and the GPS gets all snitty because of all the "recalculating." Also, I'm pretty sure that "recalculating" is GPS-speak for "you are such a freaking moron, you should pay better attention!"

So Joe spent a lot of time making the GPS angry. Eventually, I think it was just giving us crazy directions to see if he would actually listen. Things like - get on the highway. Get off the highway. Okay, get back on the highway. And then I think it laughed at us.

The ultimate maneuver from the GPS came on the drive back to Houston to catch our flight. The GPS told us to exit at the next ramp. Joe listened, for once, and in the process ran over a huge dead dog with the rental car.

me: Holy crap, what was that?
Joe: A dog. It was already dead.
me: You didn't see it?
Joe: I was just following directions!!!
me: I didn't hear the GPS tell you to run over a dog.
Joe: The GPS said to exit there!

Fortunately, there was no damage to us or the rental car (or the already-dead dog, though JoeJohnston still felt bad for hitting it). And Joe will probably never listen to the GPS ever again.

Dinner of Champions

One of the yummiest meals we had in Texas was at Chuy's. If you ever have a chance to eat there, try the creamy jalapeno dressing. Try it on salad, on tortillas, dip in it, roll in it, bathe in it. It's THAT good. You'll thank me.

On our second night in Austin, we weren't really feeling like going out. It had been a long, cold, rainy day and we decided to get some wine and hang out in the hotel room. This is the night the power went off. This is also a night that the GPS had its way with us. And this is the night that we ate the Dinner of Champions.

First, we went in search of wine. Joe ignored the GPS for awhile and we finally ended up at an HEB (grocery store) in a not-so-great part of town. Twice we were asked by other shoppers for cash because they didn't have enough money for their purchases. (Protip: put the beer back before you ask me for money.)

Once we had purchased our wine, we made our way back to the safety of our glorious Super 8, stopping next door at Jack in the Box. Add our new purchases to our Chuy's leftovers and you get our Dinner of Champions:



And yes, we DID drink wine out of paper Super 8 cups. Totally keeping it classy.

Six Word Saturday

too much waiting; need a plan

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sorry for the lateness - blogger ate the post and im fixing from my phone. Hope this works now!

Want to play along? All that's necessary to participate is to describe your life (or something) in a phrase using just six words. For more information, try clicking here. Feel free to explain or not explain. Add an image, a video, a song, nothing. I love seeing what everyone does with their entries.

Each week (probably on Sunday or Monday), I use random.org to select a bunch of entries to visit.  Or I visit everyone. Depends on what's going on that week.  In addition, please visit the person ahead of you on the list (or visit everyone if you like!). That way everyone receives at least one visit!

If you play along in your blog, please add a link to the Mr. Linky. I appreciate a link back (shiny code below if you like!). Otherwise, you're welcome to leave your six words in this post as a comment.

Please be sure to link either to your main page or (preferably) directly to the 6WS post. Links to blogs that do not contain a 6WS entry will be removed (sorry, just the button in the sidebar doesn't count as participating).

<a href="http://www.showmyface.com/search/label/6WS"><img src="http://i395.photobucket.com/albums/pp35/showmyface/guts/6wsButton.jpg" /></a>

Friday the 13th

Are you superstitious? Does Friday the 13th scare you? Because I'm going to tell you a REALLY scary Friday the 13th story. Ready?

Are you sure you're ready?

You might want turn all the lights on and grab your wubby!!!

Here's the scary story. Today is Friday the 13th. I am on a plane (with JoeJohnston) going to see my family. Brother, sister, niece, nephew, mom, dad, gramma, in-laws. The whole bunch.

THE END.

What, you aren't scared? Because I'm TERRIFIED!!!

Formality

We stayed with one of Joe's cousins while in Houston. His cousin's name is also Joe, because despite approximately 19 male cousins (this is not an exaggeration - think large Irish Catholic family), there are only about five acceptable names. This leads to a lot of overlap and so they must find ways to distinguish between people, especially for the kids.

Apparently in this case, Joe's cousin decided to introduce my Joe (see, it's confusing already!) by both his first and last name. The six-year-old boy caught onto that immediately. "Hi, JoeJohnston, my name's JimMurphy." And for the rest of the weekend, and forevermore, I have decided I will always call my husband JoeJohnston. It's all one word, sort of like when Phil on "Amazing Race" talks about "aracearoundtheworld." Are you leaving today, JoeJohnston? Can I sit by you, JoeJohnston? Goodbye, JoeJohnston! Listen to me count to one hundred, JoeJohnston, without even getting tired! I think JoeJohnston is at the door!

Little JimMurphy is a bit on the wild side. He's the child we will remember for singing "Crazy Train" at the top of his lungs during breakfast. He's also the child that literally set fire to their house by playing with matches. (This was before we visited - nobody was injured but there was a lot of damage.) I mean, you always hear about kids starting fires by playing with matches but have you ever actually known of a case where that happened? Because after meeting JimMurphy, suddenly it seems VERY plausible. And it was also fitting that JimMurphy became so possessive of JoeJohnston, since JoeJohnston himself has done community service at the fire station for an incident involving bottle rockets and a dry field.

But JimMurphy is a good kid. He comes with a twin sister who claimed me as HER Cate. Twins, I can't escape them. It's always reassuring to me when youngsters seem to like me. I'm just not sure if it's reassuring that I might some day be good with a kid of my own or if it's just reassuring me that I'm right in thinking most children have very bad judgment. Either way, the whole herd of kids was a blast to be around the entire weekend and a lot of our best memories from Houston will be associated with the 12 and under crowd.

And, by the way, I am CateJoeJohnston. Pleased to meet you.