Southern Pride and Prejudice

Georgia.  Day 71.

                  Hour 1,680.

                            Minute 100,800.

                                     Second 6,048,000.

                                              Two months, 9 days in and counting...


And I'm adapting well.  So many unspoken Southern rules and necessary Southern survival techniques to learn.  About driving, eating, conversing with strangers, surviving the zombie apocalypse.  (Thank you, Kristal.)

Unspoken Rule #1:  The light isn't red unless someone is looking.

Unspoken Rule #2:  All senior citizens must stop before entering any highway from an entrance ramp.  Especially entrance ramps with long merge lanes lesser, ignorant states  use for accelerating-to-speed in.

Unspoken Rule #3:  Thou shalt not refuse 'to-go' tea from restaurants.

Unspoken Rule #4:  Turning left on red is optional.


Survival Tip #1:  Avoid convenience stores on Sundays between the hours of 8p and  2a.  Quite possibly earlier and/or later pending the store's volume of beer...

Survival Tip #2:  If approached by a person dressed in leather, especially leather chaps, with POW MIA stitched across every inch of their ensemble,  and compliments your butterfly headband you recently purchased at the friendly, neighborhood Target, asking you where you got it, LIE.  Or you could be shot--or severely lectured--for not supporting your troops and veterans.  Because Target is evil.  Apparently.

Survival Tip #3:  Assume all citizens are packing heat.  Because they likely are...  Especially the children.  So mind those P's and Q's!

Zombie Apocalypse Survival Tip #1:  Read the manual.


I am absolutely loving life here.  Sure, starting over has its moments of sheer panic and random bouts of anxiety. It's easy to forget how much is involved with the ABC's of life.  There's you, A.  And your actions, B.  And your goals, C.  And between them all of life's little forgotten bullet points and numerical cause and effects directing your ABC's from one end of the alphabet to the next.

                             Ex:  A: Me
                                         a. Who I Am
                                            1. who or what motivated me to be
                                            2. who or what has created me to be
                                            3. who or what dissuades me from being
                                         b. Who I Think I Am
                                            1. who motivates me to be
                                            2. etc, etc, etc...
                                         c. Who Others Think I Am
                                            1. and so on, and so forth...

But overall I remain mostly excited to be here.  Lately I've been held prisoner by the weather, forced to keep my camera zipped safely away in its bag, my adventuring to a minimum and my stories home to friends and family work related.  It storms.  Every day.  

                                          The storms as they sweep southeast


Not that I'm complaining.  Because I love storms.  Every day.  I'm bummed to have missed out on the improved tornado sirens I single-handedly argued into existence.  Or installment...?  You're welcome, Burleson.  Venus?  Sleep easy now.  At least until the sirens blare.  Then please, PLEASE, at least sleep UNDER the bed...  Venus, Texas is barely considered a 'speck' on the map, Mother.  Any tornado determined to visit town will likely knock right on your door.  So, please do mind the siren.  I say these things because I love you...


 E-Boo is also settling in just fine.  He refuses to leave my room most days and has developed a good case of Kitty Tourette's.  Everything is "Hiss that!"  and, "Hiss you!" and, "Get the hiss out of my room!" but he cuddles when no one is looking and continues to guard my feet at night.  He also prefers the step-monster's lap when she's near and tolerates the pops' friendly pats in passing.  I guess some cats like leashes and harnesses and traveling diapers and fifteen hour road trips more than others, with E-Boo, sadly, being an other...

                  (Can I just add, this video is all my happiness right now...?)

Complaints?  I haven't many.  The local 'news' here is kind'a sad and/or embarrassing.  Watching/reading it makes me feel smart/intelligent, like Corporal Joe Bauers/Luke Wilson in "Idiocracy"   For example, in today's news one could read about--a missing monkey being sought near a Ga. research station.  And that's big news, folks.  Or maybe one would rather read about the Pope tweeting from his iPad...  Oy. I'll say it again, Oy.


And I miss Whataburger.  And Central Market.  But, on a lighter note, I finally found me some Gold Peak Tea!  And some of those Seneca Apple Chips I love so much.  So I can't really complain.


The people here laugh easily.  The neighbors remain neighborly-- even when you don't want them to be...  And despite their driving habits, Georgians HAVE to have driver's insurance.  Or they have their licenses revoked.  Unlike some people I know.  *cough* *Texans* *cough*  So, go ahead and hit me.  I dare you.  I double dog dare you.  Just keep in mind Survival Tip #3, you pesky red light runners...
 
Love to my friends and family back home.  Be safe and mind those tornado sirens!



Heather

                                                                             Toodles!

How 'Bout them Canadians, Eh?

Dear Canada,
        Thank you.  Thank you for maple syrup, for Superman, for Jim Carrey and Ginger Ale.  And now...for Jeremy Fisher.  If ever I find myself on the run from the law, I will most certainly now consider running north.  Especially since running south would likely only result in decapitation...  And no one likes losin' their head...

Gratefully yours,
Bennett

To Kill a Mockingbird. Or Two.

Day 17: Our sanity is starting to slip.  The end is certainly near.  But whose?

Georgia is known for many things: juicy peaches, Gone With the Wind, Paula Deen, the fantastically fun FX show "Archer", and... mockingbirds!?

Come again?

That's right, Texas-- mockingbirds.  The kind Texas should be known for.  Territorial, aggressive, loud, fearless, and proud.  And wiiiide awake at two in the morning.  Every morning.  Until just before sunrise.  Like a screaming car alarm just outside your bedroom window, with a fully charged battery and a busted 'disarm' button.

Every night he taunts us, hiding in the shadows and screaming his way through the bird kingdom's top 40 chart before hitting the bottom, clearing his throat and starting all over again.

Neighbors started complaining-- shouting and spitting profanities from their porches, flashing branches with industrial grade spot lights, tossing rocks or empty barbecue bottles at anything that moved.

Something had to be done.  Someone had to end all the madness.  And that someone was Mr. Stu Miller.

A good man, Stu, full of knowledge and wisdom.  Why, I love him as though he were my own father.  *nyuck, nyuck*

And he wasted no time with putting an end to everyone's suffering.  Following a quick briefing with a few of the neighbors, a game plan was soon created. We'll call it: Operation To Kill a Mockingbird.  Or Two.

The briefing led to a hasty trip to a local Dick's Sporting Goods, where we soon discovered that Remington air rifles and mockingbirds are a match made in birdy heaven:

I wanted to take it a step further and construct a city of tannerite bird feeders in the side yard as well, but Pappaw stepped in, directing a metaphysical megaphone at my inner conscious to say, "Well, sh*t in one hand and want in another and see which one fills up first."  And I suppose the other birds, who are just as equally tormented as we, wouldn't appreciate accidentally nesting in a house made of explosives....  So just air rifles, it was.

That evening we sat in silence as we waited for the fevered bullfrogs to wind down, which usually signals the calm before the storm. Even the neighbors sat quietly upon their porches, limiting their alcohol intake for a better aim and silently willing the condemned critter to pass into view. 

And we sat.

                         And waited.

                                                 And waited.
                                    
                                                                        And two hours later...

...nothin'.  Like a man on the run, he remained hidden and silent in the shadows, as though aware of our combined forces to stop his nightly tyranny. 

The night passed and day came, and with it the mockingbirds.  They flew down in waves, chasing away wild life and screaming at pets and small children, as though outraged by their ring leader's inability to speak his mind.  They perched atop light poles and roof tops and fence posts, threatening all within range to take their best shot. 

Stu Miller didn't even hesitate.  Anyone seen those news reports lately about birds just falling from the sky?  Thousands of them just dropping from the clouds, dead on impact?  Stu did...

Day 18:  It's down to just us and the ring leader now...

He sits hidden in the shadows of a cedar tree, watching as the lights click off one by one by one, waiting for the neighborhood to sleep.  And then:

 *twitches nervously*

SO, aside from helping rid the neighborhood of most of their unwanted pests, my first month here in the Deep South has been filled with marching ducks, all happily stepping into place and directing life back into order again.  I have a job, I have new hobbies, I have a new-found respect for green beans and pork.  And I can't wait to start traveling.  Savannah, Atlanta, local events and historical hot spots, I have these places scribbled down on my "to see and share" list for future posts and updates.  So don't be a stranger.  And rest assured, I still miss my family and friends back home and think of y'all often and even hope to see some of you soon.  Keep me in your thoughts, as I keep you in mine.  -Heather-

To Kill a Mockingbird. Or Two.

Coming Soon...

The Secret Life of Killer Bees

Nothing like a dozen or two near death experiences while driving a beast of a moving truck cross country to make one appreciate the dawning of a new day.

It was my second time driving a U-Haul truck.  I'm only slightly ashamed to admit that I wrecked/destroyed the first one, BUT thanks to something called insurance U-Haul was willing to overlook my first strike against them and decided to give me a second chance in the form of a set of one-way keys for a haul from Central Texas to Southern Georgia, and it went something like this:

-killer bees
-helping paws of doom
-loud profanities
-separated shoulders
-drunken GPS systems
AAAAND
-food poisoning

After being tricked by U-Haul to rent a much larger truck than originally reserved, getting behind the wheel of a fourteen footer didn't help with easing me back into a comfortable zone of confidence with driving any of their beasts.  It's one thing driving across town, which I wasn't really good at anyway.  It was an entirely different kind of terror and adrenaline laced horror getting it from one part of the country to the next.

But I survived.  Likely in part to having planned my travel time through Alabama perfectly, I'm sure--in and out before the sun fully sets...

         (Dear Mom, if you move to Alabama, I will never visit you...)

The dealer also tricked me into paying for extra miles.  Tip: Research EXACTLY how far it is to your destination before picking up your moving truck.  They're sly, those dealers...  I ensured him, however, that I had absolutely no intention of joy riding through town in a U-haul and only settled with an extra twenty miles for any unexpected detours or gas stops. 

Somewhere between Louisiana and Mississippi, I gave in to the sad eyes peering up at me from their cage of shame and made the poor decision to let Edgar out of his carrier.   Road trips, much like tubs of water, are rarely found on a cat's bucket list of top 100 things to experience before they die.  E-boo (as his friends call him) had lost his voice from singing "Highway to Hell" from Dallas to the Louisiana state line and was, at that point, only interested in hugging my hip.  So following yet another gas up at yet another Love's, I cracked the window, turned up the radio and continued on with Ed at my side.

That is, until I was shanked by a honey bee...

                                         honey bee^

He may not look threatening, but zoom in a bit and his intentions are made much clearer...

Straight up gangst'a!

Little bastard swooped out of nowhere, flashing a blade and threatening to cut me if I didn't cooperate.  It was sometime at this moment when Ed decided to take his chances and clawed his way across my lap to wrestle it to the ground.  As in....the floorboard.  The battle lasted long enough to earn me confused glances from two passing vehicles as the U-haul went from sixty to forty to sixty again before Ed pulled himself back into the sunlight, victorious. 

Following a few spatted profanities on my part, he stayed on his side of the truck for the remainder of the trip...

It wasn't until after my next stop at the next Love's to gas up and grab a bite to eat (which is really a tale for another paragraph), as I reached for the handle to pull myself back into the driver's seat, that I realized I had separated my shoulder during the battle.  I had just reached the Alabama state line and wasn't looking forward to passing through the towns of Where the Hell Am I!? and Is That a Hooker!?, especially since their construction projects were still forcing people to crawl through them at twenty miles per hour...

                                  (Dear Mom, I meant what I said.)

The pain in my shoulder quickly went from 'Ouch' to 'JUST CUT IT OFF!' before I could get to Georgia, forcing me to drive with one hand.  Now, I know that most of you kids like to set the seat back and drape a wrist over the steering wheel in an attempt to look good at what you do.  But trust me when I say, you don't.  It's ten and two for this chick.  I could be driving a puttering golf cart, and it'd still be ten and two.  Which is a reference to what I feel is a funny story, actually, for I've thrown a grown man from a moving golf cart before.  My grandfather.  Into a holly bush.  Just because I was gettin' comfortable.  So, ten and two, folks.  Ten and two.

Unless you've separated your shoulder...  Then it's ten and a pinky.  That's all I could sacrifice.  I made it to the Georgia state line as my legs started quivering.  Why they would have anything to say about my shoulder, I haven't a clue.  The sun had set, my shoulder was threatening to evict tears from their ducts and my legs were causing the cab to shake.  My GPS was leading me into the final lefts and rights and exasperated reroutes and frustrated u-turns (she was just as tired as I, apparently) of the trip, as she guided me onto a random street and just left me there!

Claiming that I had arrived at my destination, she patted herself on the back and passed out.  Looking around, I realized I was nowhere near my destination.  There was a man in house slippers pushing a complaining shopping buggy across my headlights and a cat with half its tail missing diving out of his way and under a porch of a nearby house.

Three words came to mind.  Whiskey, Tango and Foxtrot.

I didn't type in the street address but rather just the city and state, and I was lost on the other side of town.  And then I heard a voice.  My voice!  Mocking me!!

I have absolutely no intention of joy riding through town in a U-haul...

Damn.

So I arrived a little later than intended.  No big deal.  I had twenty extra miles to spare!......

And here I am.  New home, sweet home.  Where I spent the first two days with my face in the toilet screaming for Ralph.  Mississippi's Love's, apparently, had no love for me...

To my friends and family back home,  I love and miss you all.  Wish me luck, and I'll see you all again.

                                                            ---The Beginning---

A Bit of Funeral Music

Midnight with the Blog of Good and Evil

It is in my opinion that there comes a time in every young adult's life when they should create a blog to rant or 'list' or ramble on about one thing or another, whether or not blogs border on extreme narcissism.   I myself have chosen to build mine around and ramble on about my time spent in the Deep South. 

I’d like to say that my decision to head south for a few winters wasn’t impulsive.  That there was at one point a logical conversation I had with myself weighing the pros and cons of such a decision.  To drop everything I knew and start anew in a land relating to the West as much as forks are to spoons, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that somewhere within my subconscious self is a voice who is quite outraged at their being completely ignored and  shut out of the happenings in my life.

I had two months to pack.  Two months to tie off loose ends and set fire to bridges.  To embrace loved ones and throw together a year’s worth of doctors visits and checkups.  Two months to get my fill of Whataburger, Gold Peak Tea and Deja Blue bottled water.  Two months to brace myself for phase two of my adult life.

 Georgia.

Land of peaches, swarms of lightning bugs, rolling thunder, and a people ready and willing to warmly embrace any stranger they brush shoulders with.  Where it’s almost a crime to refuse a free refill of sweet iced tea before heading out of the local barbecue joint.  Where pickles and onions are served with just about anything that can be spooned onto a plate.  Where country gravy is a major food group.  Where history is found in more than just reading material.  And where neighbor isn’t just a word describing the persons living on either side of you.

These next six months I shall reside at my parents’ house, hidden within a cul-de-sac, which is itself hidden behind a historical, nineteenth century school building.  It is a modest house, whose porch swing points west towards the Chattahoochee River.  One wrong step and one could find themselves rolling down hill and splashing into the waters below where history and modern times meet.  The house rests high enough to challenge the summer’s lightning bugs to a slow climb but close enough to the river bank to catch the bull frogs' song in the evening breeze. 

I think I’m in puppy love.

I’m committing to making this a three year move.  Three years to finish with the majority of my schooling, to rinse out the bad taste the West has left in my mouth, to embrace the change, to line up a few more ducks to help me better march towards my ever drifting goals, and to allow the puppy love to fade.  And then?  Who knows.  Perhaps this is permanent, the South and I.  Only Father Time can tell, for Father always knows best…