Restrooms along the way

Every road trip requires pit stops to use the restroom.  During our trip, I discovered that the bathrooms along the Gulf Coast are quite interestingly decorated.  Observe the following:

Guarding the entrance to the bathroom at a restaurant on the beach in Pensacola:

 

At McDonald’s in Texas:

 

At a French restaurant in Florida:

 

Behind a country store in Texas:

Let’s round to the nearest 5, shall we?

I’m home alone today, and thus baking a frozen lasagna in the oven.

The directions say to place the tray on a baking sheet on the middle rack of the oven and to cook it on 350° for 56 minutes.

I wonder what sort of disaster will happen if I only cook it for 55.

Kids say the darndest things

This morning, as I was slowly emerging from sleep, the Today show anchors were interviewing a group of little kids and asking them about their knowledge of politics.

Anchors: Do you know what Republicans are?
Kids: Heroes on Star Trek.
Anchors: And who are Democrats?
Kids: People who work on your teeth!

We’re back!

Lessons we’ve learned on this road trip:

• Warn the bank that you’re about to leave on a road trip.  Otherwise, they’ll reject your bank card when you try to pick up an emergency refill of a medication that costs $200.
• The further east you go, the more water you see.
• The further east you go, the more expensive the gas.
• Eight days in the car with a seatbelt across your front makes for very sore boobs.
• They must have a law in Florida about handicapped toilets, because they all have their own private sink and paper towels.
• 50 miles of the Ponchartrain Bridge can get old.  (It’s 10 miles long and we crossed it 5 times — 2 of which were by mistake.)
• Make sure you’re not in town on game day.  Otherwise, you’ll get snarled in some pretty gnarly traffic around the Superdome.

Road trip, day 3

On the third day of our road trip, we stopped at an oyster bar on the beach in Pensacola.  After lunch, we ran around in the sand on the beach just for fun.

(Notice that Mom is holding her shoes — she got cold feet, and I got sandy shoes.  That was fun to clean up.)

Road trip, day 2

On the second day of our  road trip, we stopped at a place called Parrain’s in Baton Rouge for lunch.

Then our credit cards were frozen (which we discovered while trying to pick up an expensive refill at the pharmacy), and we went to New Orleans and got stuck in traffic from the Saints game.  On a brighter note, we also got to eat dinner at Emeril’s, which has been a dream of mine since I was 15 (it was my English teacher’s favorite restaurant, and she took her mother there every year for her birthday).

Our cop car count was 3, which was surprising given that we were in New Orleans on New Year’s Day and game day…

I had a great seafood chowder (one of my favorite chowders ever) and a very good sorghum-glazed duck breast.  Mom loved the yellowfin tuna salad, which was composed of butter lettuce leaves, sushi tuna chunks, shaved radish and a garlic sauce.  It’s a good thing she didn’t know the tuna was going to be raw, otherwise she wouldn’t have ordered it!

Road trip, day 1

When I was a little girl, we used to drive from Dallas to Longview to go visit my grandma.  As I had a limited attention span in the car, Mom helped me pass the time by making me count the oil pumps we passed along the way.

There aren’t any oil pumps between San Antonio and Houston, so we decided to count cop cars instead (hey, it’s New Year’s Eve — they should be out in full force!).  We saw five.

Here’s a picture of the Houston pines (reminds me of when I was younger).

 

My mom is a skin cancer survivor, and when she wanted to take her melatonin pill to help her sleep, she said, “I’m going to take my melanoma pill now…”

Mrs. Robinson

You know how Ellen DeGeneres has a segment on her talk show dedicated to photos that just come out wrong?  Well, now I have a photo to submit.  It was taken by the wedding photographer during the reception of my best friend’s wedding, and it is supposed to depict my mom congratulating the groom.  Instead, it looks like they’re kissing on the mouth while my best friend looks on with a strange expression on her face.

I would love to show it to y’all, but I can’t get it scanned on my computer… Windows 7 isn’t compatible with our scanner here at home.

My dad cracks me up, too

Usually I tell funny stories on my mom, but this one is a funny story on my dad.

My dad wanted undershirts for Christmas, so I bought him a pack.  Three days after he opened them, he told me he’d been wearing the same one day-in and day-out, even when he was sleeping, except for when he took his shower.

I told him he’d better switch undershirts or he’d end up stinking eventually.  I reminded him of the joke about the Aggie in the underwear store:

An Aggie is in an underwear store, and the man in line in front of him asks the clerk for seven pairs of underwear.  The clerk asks why seven pairs, and the man replies, “One for Monday, one for Tuesday, one for Wednesday…”.  Once the man has checked out, the Aggie asks the clerk for 12 pairs of underwear.  The clerk asks why, and the Aggie replies, “One for January, one for February, one for March…”

Lalalalalalala, I can’t hear you!

Every time I practice the piano while my mom (aka my piano teacher) is at home, she tells me she isn’t listening to me.  I almost believed her today… she was using the computer, thus a little distracted.  I started the exercises in Unit 4 of my piano book, which is dedicated to accidentals, the G-major five finger position, and chords in G major.  After I finished playing one of the songs, I heard her call out from across the house, “Are you missing an accidental on your left hand?!”

Yes, Mom, I am.  Note to self: F sharp.