Day 4: Amarillo by evening..

We made it to Amarillo just in time to see the sunset over Cadillac Ranch. Somehow the grafitti looks prettier in the evening sun.

We also made it to see the world's largest cowboy, but we couldn't make it out to Ozymandias. It was off the beaten path and was too dark once we got near there. Ah well, there's always a next time.

Let me tell you why Amarillo has such weird roadside attractions--It's because liberals go INSANE there. We couldn't find anything to eat because the restaurants close down at 8! We finally found an Italian chain restaurant that stayed open til 9 but was ready to usher us out the door midmeal. Plus, we made the mistake of ordering a glass of wine. 25 min background check and 2 pages of paperwork later, she brought us our glasses, but she said she had to keep our IDs until the end of the meal. Amarillo is a dry town, btw. When we asked why everything closed down so early, people looked at us puzzled, "Why would you need to go out after dark?"

Headed home the next day on the long trek to Houston. Our diets blown from necessity (there is nothing to eat on the road in Houston that is even somewhat good for you. DQ is a staple in west Tx), we decided to stop at Braums for ice cream and a limeade (I love Braum's) and then rejoiced at the first Starbucks since Abq. It was like a shining mecca in the distance, the green, black and white shining like the light at the end of Daisy Buchanan's dock!

Made it home in time to drop off the car and head out for sleep? No, we were so tired of being cooped up that we went walking and then headed off to dreamyland before our return to reality the next day.

Day 3: The guerrilla guide to Abq

Sunday was a crazy day, as we tried to fit in everything in Abq in a few hours. The cats hung out in the hotel until 12. You would've thought it was Disneyland for cats there. They had the best time playing in that hotel, particularly under the king sized bed. As you can see, they passed out on the way home.

We, on the other hand, woke up at the ass crack again, and headed out to find breakfast. Went to Old Town first and walked around a little and then decided to go into the museum to kill time until the restaurants opened. Strange that the museum was open earlier than the breakfast shops, but whatever.

Ate at a great little patio cafe. Green chile sauce was fantastic, as was the fry bread Edgy got. Even the water tasted good. Plus, the people in Abq (even at the grocery store) are fantastic. It's easier in this post to sum up Abq in the top ten things I love about Abq on the fast track. Here they are in no particular order:

1. Weather--breezy, no humidity, and warm!
2. Landscape--mountains, mesas, and cacti. I love cacti.
3. People
4. eggs and potatoes with green chile sauce and dark bitter coffee
5. petroglyphs
6. Trader Joe's!
7. the drive in on I-40
8. they have K-mart and Albertsons. I miss both.
9. walking. Everywhere you walk is fantastic
10. random sculptures and artwork

Ok, so they are weird top tens, but we only had about 6 hours on a Sunday when nothing was open. Whatd'ya want?

Sad to leave, but I vowed to go back when I had more time. Headed out to Amarillo.

Day 2: The longest leg through Weird Texas

Determined to make it to Abq by early evening, we got up at the ass crack of dawn and drove from FW to Abq in record time. Therefore, we had no time to stop at the roadside attractions, but we did see this nice sign at a truck stop in Clive's Corners, a city named after the truck stop, strangely enough.

I walked through the truck stop without searching for road kill apparel. I have no idea what it or the buffet looked like, nor do I care to know.

• Kitties were precious. They held hands throughout the trip. In fact, Cosette tried really hard to make sure that her paws were directly in line or perfectly on top of Mia's the whole time. It was really cute.
• Finally made it to Abq; called Iggy who invited us over for dinner.
• Wonderful dinner and great company at Iggy's. Thanks to him and to G who set it all up.
• Crashed. So tired.

Do you know the way to Santa Fe? Leg 1 of the trip

Obviously we don't, and neither does MapQuest because it took us so long to get to Abq that we didn't even make it to Santa Fe.

• Still a good trip. Here are the highlights:

• Glinda dropped us off at the Hertz. Kudos to G.
• Hertz people were fantastic, and we got a free upgrade to an SUV, which worked out well with luggage and cats.
• Cats doing ok. One little bobble at the beginning when one of them puked on the piddle pads we borrowed. Puke contained the feathers from a recent toy, so I think that it was a combination of things. No accidents after that, though!
• Got caught in a time warp (or at least a smattering of small towns with speed traps) so it took 6 1/2 hours to get to Fort Worth, a trip that should've only taken about 4 1/2. Word of advice: Don't follow MapQuest. Of course, the 6 1/2 hour drive was made worse due to the hangover from the antics the night before with G and Dave, the unknown drunk boy.
• Before making it to FW, we stopped in a little shit town called Mlittleshittown or something. I dunno. It started with an M, but the rest is a blur. Pull up to the hotel but can't go in because after dark, they have a drive up check in window that looked like those box office windows at a theatre. A really large sweaty woman comes up--beads of sweat everywhere, in places sweat glands don't even exist. She just stares at us and finally says with a sweatytoothed drawl, "Whatcha need?" I ask for a room for the night and she says, "Nu-uh. Ain't got none." How the hell Mlittleshittown is booked for the night, I don't know, but if she's sweating that much indoors, I don't want to stay there anyway.
• Make it to FW and stay in a Country Inn, which charges 15% tax! Unbelievable. I almost fell over.
• Kitties, though they slept peacefully in the car, were happy to be free in the hotel and ran around all night long. They also got a kick out of the disposable litter box and played in it all night long.

I did grow up

It happened. I am officially an adult, though many of Glinda's kittens thought I was already. It used to be that I saved every cent for Olympia beer and spaghettios--oh, and any cover charges, though we usually tried to go out on ladies' nights to avoid those.

Post college, I saved my money to help me through my Killian's and/or Jack Daniel's phase. It was a step up, and I even stashed enough money away (from manipulating men to buy my drinks) to buy my first big purchases--a sofa and a computer. Still saved money for the cover charges and also found that I had to save money for hangover remedies all of a sudden. Not good.

Chicago era, I saved lots of money because I worked for a TV station for 72 hours a week, where I partied with rock stars and took home all the free booze that was left over from the parties. Where did that money go? It went to flying back and forth to Houston for family gatherings (which seemed to multiply once I moved away).

Now, I'm stashing money away for a house and just got really excited about the sale (and 5% educator discount) I got from Office Depot (I'm still an educator and still teach at HCC part time, thank you) on some file cabinets. I'm stashing away my teaching stuff and bought file cabinets AND got excited over them. I spent until midnight with Edgy putting them together. I'm not saving much money because I'm buying food at Whole Foods and have decided that when I drink, I'm only putting top shelf in my body from now on. I'm officially embracing 30s. What's next, a minivan and private schools for my cats?

Ah well, I've got to get ready to go to the fabric store with my friend to help her redecorate her house (OMG, I'm OLD!) This is the same friend who is going to pay my expenses in China next year (sans airfare) when they go over to adopt another kids. They want an extra person to help look after their oldest while over there. Way exciting!

New Mexico highlights and pics to come.

I'm TAINTED!

Now the Warrior will never like me.

OOO OOO OOO

The 2nd largest cross in the world is in Groom, TX across from the Leaning Water Tower of Groom. I've seen the world's largest cross in Effingham, IL. It's 198 ft tall, so I'm not sure if I'll even be affected by this tiny 190 ft one.

Weird NM update: stonefridge, concrete cowboy and a dressed up dino. Hmm

Ozymandias wore tube socks?

Well folks, I'm headed to NM but plan to stop by some Weird Texas sites on the way, including this one. WTF?

We're also planning to see the Cadillac Ranch--10 Caddys buried nose down in the dirt. In Conway, there's a Slug Bug Ranch, as well.

Am bypassing the Big Texan Steak Ranch, where in Simpson's fashion (and Bobby Hill's), you get a steak free if you can eat the 72 ozer. Yuck.

Do plan to see the Big Muffler Man. What's up with Amarillo? Thin air? Dust? Weirdness abounds there.

Amarillo is not alone in it's weirdness. Also on the trip agenda is the bathtub man and purple gorilla in Corsicana.

Should be fun. Not sure what Weird NM has to offer, but I know we'll find it.

Ah need Co Colah's New Energy Sodah

Ugh. I won't go into the details of last night bc I'm sure Glinda will post the highlights in her Monday report. Suffice it to say that we both should take some lessons from G's triathlete. Sleeping for 10 hours a day would be much more beneficial than what we did. My body feels like it did a triathlon, if that counts for anything.

I went to bed at 5:30 and woke up 4 hours later, wide awake, to the sounds of Dragontales. The TV was on.

Don Eduardo is not pleased with my behavior. Bert and Ernie hurt, too, but I'm not sure why. Probably it was because I wore a bra. See, that's why I don't wear them often.

Cranky hates the world

Woke up this morning. Walked down to my car. Stopped because there was a Chili's black book bill thingy in the street. Turns out it was someone's till or whatever, so we put it on the lawn across the street because I think that's where it belongs. Thought it was weird to see the Chili's thing in the middle of the street, but whatever.

Turn around to see my car door open. Trashed. Inside totally trashed. Glove compartment ripped open. Papers and things strewn everywhere. It looked like a wet rabid cat went into a frenzy in my car. The console was ripped open and tapes (yes, I have some Aerosmith and Whitesnake tapes in there) smashed. The backseat looked like it had been through a tornado. Important papers EVERYWHERE! Best of all, the lightbulb in my overhead light was stolen, as was the extra lightbulb in the little fuse box thingy on the dash.

No bags. My two work bags stolen.

Get to work. Email from front desk saying that the middle school near my house found the bags. Edgy picks up the bags at lunchtime but says stuff is missing and that the bags are soaking wet, as are the papers and books inside.

Had late meeting. Get home at 8. So excited bags are there. Look at bags. The only three things I needed out of those bags (attendance book, grade book, and lesson plan book) are missing. Hiked all over middle school property. Not there.

I'm buggered.

The Baby Shower

I hate baby showers. In fact, the only thing I hate more than baby showers is a wedding shower, particularly the Southern tradition of a "personal shower," which usually adds up to a hen party with older women telling younger women about the negative aspects of sex and how you need to wear nothing under your apron while you cook in high heels (as if this is some big marriage secret) to make your husband happy and do your "wifely duty" with style. Then the bride opens boxes of ugly lingerie and giant phalluses (usually ethnic so that the white girls can giggle) and, after playing some game where we dress the bride in toilet paper, we all eat a penis cake. Yes, those are worse than baby showers.

Saturday was my cousin's baby shower. The person giving the shower backed out at the last minute, so my cousin gave herself a shower. It was at Ryan's Steakhouse, which is white trash heaven. Plus, it was the Ryan's in Texas City, which was voted Best little city in America or something like that years back, and I'm not sure why because all they do is drink, screw, and eat, and they think that going "all the way to Houston" is something that you only do once every 5 years. Texas City practically borders the city limits.

I arrive early to see my cousin, larger than a wooly mammoth, waddling sadly in with this tiny little "It's a girl" balloon hanging over her head. She looked like that Zoloft commercial, the one with the big blob who has something floating over his head. This restaurant was unbelievable. Every person in there was just gross. Buffets gross me out anyway really because of the unbelievable gluttony involved. People pile mounds of food on their plates, as if they can't go back for seconds, which they all do.

Anyway, we waited in a line of people hitched together stomach to stomach like a human freight train. Then we were escorted back to the party room to meet our 2 servers. The upshot is that only 4 people showed: my mom, me, my cousin and her mom. NO ONE ELSE. It was mortifying having 2 waitresses wait on us. They kept bringing rolls, baskets and baskets of rolls. Fucking surreal. 3 hours of surreal, too, because she was positive someone would show up. They didn't.

I didn't eat the rolls. I am still on the diet and was feeling awesome until after the Ryan's experience. I ate as carefully as possible, but whatever they put on their nasty ass food made me sooooo sick. I felt like a truck ran over me and have since then. It's like I'm back where I started before this diet with the aches and joint stiffness. I'm so freakin pissed. Now I have to basically start over from square one because I can't add anything new until I feel good for 24 hours. I was supposed to add potatoes tonight because it's my anniversary with Edgy, but now I'm back to square one. FUCKING RYANS. FUCKING SHOWERS.

Bo knows

...my computer.

While I've been cleaning the viruses out of my body, my computer has been infected with them. Bostack got ahold of my poor PC and wreaked havoc. I think Bo is still wreaking havoc because I can't search the internet without ending up at Ebay. Emailed Microsoft and talked to all techie friends, and no one has heard of Bostack, and McAfee and all the spyware can't delete him. Time for a computer overhaul.

Well, I made it through the cleanse, and now it's time to add food back in slowly, one day at a time. Yesterday was brown rice. Yea! Brown Rice! Today is wheat! Yea! Wheat! I've never been so happy to eat shredded wheat dry before (can't add milk yet). Tomorrow is bananas. Yea! Bananas!

To those of you who think I'm nuts, this is working. I can breathe through both nostrils for the first time in 10 years, and all the aches and pains are pretty much gone. Edgy has finally gotten into the diet, too, and actually found out that he has allergic reactions to green beans. He's lost a pants size (why do men always lose weight so easily?) and I've lost a 1/2, which is difficult because my 8s sag, and my 6s fit too tightly (except for this one fabulous size 6 skirt that has fit all along, and I think it must be magic).

To celebrate the end of the cleanse, I played hooky yesterday and today. Damn it feels good to be a slacker! Yesterday, I led the cat's life, following whatever my cats told me to do, which meant that I sprawled out on the couch watching Back to the Future and National Lampoons Vacation, napped, and then, when deciding to do something productive, took 2 hours to clean off my coffee table because I was so engrossed in the movies. Ah, the cat's life rules. Oh, and last night I finished The Class, so no more class for me!

Today, I've eaten shredded wheat and typed this. That brings me to 10:58, so I guess I should do something productive. Naaaah!