Travelogue, part one

Ok, before I write anything else, I have to give you this. It is the funniest birth story ever. Seriously. Funny funny funny. Go read it, laugh your ass off, then come back here and read my (by comparison) obituary column of a blog.

Ok, so...Louisiana - wheee. Kiddo, Max, Uncle and I headed out Wednesday A.M. about an hour behind schedule*. The trip was fairly uneventful - we dropped Max off in Houston, went to Bennigan's for lunch (without Max - now I owe him a Monte Cristo), and then Uncle took the wheel. gah.

See, Uncle used to be an excellent driver. Uncle has driven everything from Corvairs to Semis. Uncle is a great guy. However. Uncle has a habit of surging - y'know - hitting the accelarator really hard, then letting go of it suddenly, then hitting it hard, then letting it go. Ad nauseum - literally. As if the roads of East Texas and Louisiana (yes, the whole state) aren't bad enough, we got seasick on top of it.

We dropped Uncle off at his girlfriend's house on the western edge of New Orleans - and here is where I tell you that I'm so so so glad that it was night, and I could only see the big damage. Like, the high-rise Motel 6 (yes, there is such a beast) on the side of I-10 that had plastic covering a huge section of missing wall all the way from top floor to ground. Or like the buildings on the sides of I-10 that had been completely demolished. Or like the fact that there was not one single intact sign anywhere to be seen. I could only see the big stuff. I was spared from seeing the brown water line on every building, and seeing how here it was at the 3 foot mark, and here the 8, but it was still here, there, everywhere. I was happy for the dark.

Kiddo and I headed back to my dad's - which means we had to backtrack some, but this time I was driving, so I didn't have time to look again.

I did have time to discover why you should not re-use a Starbuck's cup. See - Uncle brewed me a pot of coffee and packaged some up for me in a venti cup he found in my car. Other than the hygeine concerns (how long have the holiday red cups been out?? Yeah - this was a white cup - aug) there's also the fact that the glue? It does not like such treatment. In fact, it resents it deeply and will just fucking dissolve about a block away from your kind coffee-brewer's house.

"I have a leak here, hand me a nap - OH SHIT, IT'S A BIG LEAK, WINDOW! WINDOW! ROLL DOWN YOUR WINDOW! AAAAUGH"

Newly christened with Community In-Between, we continued our journey.

We got to my dad's about 45 minutes later.**

Sport, my dad's youngest (yet my middle brother - I'll draw a chart later) was there. I hate to admit it, but Sport is my favorite brother. He's six foot two of Cajun good ol' boy and just cute as a fuckin' bug. He claims that 30 and 40 year old women hit on him all the time, and I believe it. I warned him to be careful with that shit, because a 35 year old woman with a 19 year old baseball player?? She will HURT him. I fully expect to hear a story about him getting chased by a jealous husband one day -- "She didn't tell me she was married!!!!"

Anyhoo - I just click with Sport in a fun sister-brother way that I just don't seem to have with McBrother (the oldest) or Spud (my mom's son). So does kiddo. They're 5 years apart, and due to the kind of strange dynamics in my family, they function more like sister and brother than uncle and niece. Good LORD, they pick on each other and give each other a ration of shit. But last time she and I went down there, kiddo's "boyfriend"*** called and Sport got on the phone and apparently intimidated the crap out of the kid. I know that if anybody messed with kiddo?? Sport would rip 'em a new orifice. And what's cool is that it goes the other way too - you do NOT mess with Uncle Sport, lest you face the wrath of kiddo.

So yeah, I got to hang with him and my stepmom and my dad for a bit before Thanksgiving actually started.

OK, I'm gonna have to divide this shit up, because I am so fuckin' wordy. I'm also hungry and the tamales**** are heated up and the chili's about done. So after I finish the footnotes (goddamn wordy bitch) I'll post this and ..blah blah BOOM!!! my head exploded.

Let's see

*OK, if we ever travel together, I'll tell you that I plan on leaving a X o'clock, fully knowing that I'm a lameass who never leaves on time and that I won't really leave until Y o'clock. Well, on Wednesday we left at Z o'clock. To the untrained eye, that looks like 2 hours behind, but nonono!! With Laura Math, it's only an hour! Whoo!
**Dad lives on the east side of Baton Rouge, Uncle's on the west side of New Orleans, and I drive like a bat out of hell.
***A 13 year-old's boyfriend?? Consists of programming each other's names in their phones and talking until a parent opens the door and says "For the love of God, GO TO BED."
****Aug. I checked my bank account this A.M., and the Ex popped up in AIM, thinking I was the kid. After I clarified that, he said he had some homemade tamales for us. OK, dude....I am NOT going to turn down homemade tamales. It's entirely possible I'd have lunch with Hitler for homemade tamales. Ok, maybe not, but really - tamales = love.