the weekend at a glance…

okay, so this weekend was long (22 hours of billable work time, followed by a 10 1/2 hour day monday), full of driving (over 1,200 miles on the rental in 48 hours, plus another 145 on my car on monday), but it was also educational. some things i learned…

1. laredo girls, always rumored to be snobbish, don’t particularly like me or phillipe

2. just because backless halter tops come in double digit sizes, does NOT mean they need to be bought, let alone worn

3. the girls in the aforementioned halter tops (typically bra-less, and typically getting raped by gravity when we saw them) REALLY liked phillipe, much to my amusement

4. the mexican “delicacy” adobada is quite possibly the scariest thing i’ve ever attempted to ingest (i was warned about barbacoa and menudo before taking the plunge; although the latter scared me off with the pastel outfits and their first couple of albums anyway, but i digress). it was just described as “pork” on the menu…as in SOME part of the pig. i REALLY don’t wanna know which part. really. don’t tell me. i DID have a bite or two, and i still kinda feel it…

5. 2001 ford explorer sport 4x4s have a governor to keep them from going over 100mph (if you work for enterprise rent-a-car, please disregard this one; or just trust i was TOLD this, but never found out for myself…yeah…that’s it)

6. if you give some people a severance package, they WILL turn it around in their head to be “paid vacation”; i guess forgetting that in order for it to be technically a “vacation”, work has to be waiting for you at the OTHER side of it; in the case of these people (i.e. EVERY albertson’s employee in the rio grande valley) it won’t be…but they still VIEW it as vacation, which meant they didn’t look at me as some “symbol of the great white oppressor” as i was afraid they would…one could see how i would fear this; still not sure how the vanity plate “WHT DVL” ended up on my rental…does get you some ODD looks in brownsville, tx, though…

7. making subtle suggestions to the folks in numero 6, like, “you know what i like to do on vacation? kick back on the couch, turn off the tv, and REALLY look through the want ads…just see what’s out there for jobs, and see if i wanna try something new,” falls on FULLY deaf ears when they basically think they got handed their first six weeks paid vacation EVER…

8. taking a friend to the valley who’s half puerto rican, and half trinidadian, so people can’t tell if he’s dark-skinned hispanic, or light-skinned black, can really get you some puzzled looks from the locals; i think most were just afraid he might be middle-eastern and was there to scout out a few things…although after some of his border cuisine “experimentation”, some bombs WERE dropped; and let’s just say there are some roadside service stations that i don’t think he (or me, since i was driving) are very welcome at any more…

9. even though you get reimbursed for mileage, and being in your car all day means having CONSTANT mobile phone contact with the one person on the planet you can’t get enough of, having the aforementioned weekend followed up by a 150 mile, 10 1/2 hour day REALLY sucks…except for the phone companionship…and the kick-ass sesame chicken at your favorite chinese joint in san marcos.

10.no matter how long your gone from home, and how bad the road (or pork in a tortilla) treats you, you can come home and your dogs will still look at you like you are a GOD to them.