July 23, 2008
I’ve been semi looking back at my journal entries and realizing how horrible my writing has become. Seriously dudes and dudettes. I got the English Department’s Senior award and now look at my writing. Great. I’m sorry readers; I’ll try to dictate my adventures in a more enjoyable manner.
We arrived in Slidell, Louisiana and went straight to Beth’s workplace. It was raining, but it was a welcomed change. Rain when it’s unbearably humid is a blessing. Our wet trio stumbled into the Honda Dealership at around 11:45pm. I spotted Beth right away. She looks the same as I remembered, and was donning a cute black button-up dress and heels instead of a bathing suit or jeans that Alaska called for.
Our little reunion was cute, but a little weird at first. We could both feel it. We hadn’t seen each other in a good three years, so I expected a little awkwardness. The dealership wasn’t busy, so we stayed a little bit with the pup and exchanged a few “So what have you been up to-s?” and “How’s the family-s?” Beth is the receptionist and did a fantastic job juggling our reminiscent conversation with answering Honda’s phone line. We arranged to meet up at a coffee shop down the lunch together during her lunch break.
The coffee shop was called “C C’s coffee,” and provided me and Bea with free wifi and comfortable chairs. Mayo was a real well behaved service dog in training while we uploaded, flickr’d, and blogged away. This girl sitting next to us wouldn’t stop staring at us! Granted Bea was on the phone with her doctor discussing her urinary tract infection and the continued symptoms, but still- uninhibited staring for prolonged periods of time makes me feel a little uncomfortable.
Beth met up with us and we headed over to this little place in a strip mall sort of area. It was cute, and not a chain food place.. and I don’t remember the name of it. Bea and I split this salad with avocado, artichokes, tomatoes, mixed greens, and onions in it. She got some grilled chicken on the side. I didn’t. It was good! I really enjoy avocado in my salad. I wonder where the concept of salad came from.. I’ll google that later I suppose.
Anyways, Beth and I caught up a lot. Mango was good and so he got Bea’s leftover chicken. Beth left to go back to work late and Mango got a little obedience training session. We worked on “stay,” “come,” “down,” and “dance.” He’s so bad at laying down on command! Real good at staying, real good at coming on commant.. but can’t lay down when I say “down!” I must have helped him do it at least thirty times with the aid of Bea and leftover pieces of chicken. I feel like he can do it, since he caught on to “come, dance,” and “stay” awful quick. Eh, in time little Chihuahua.
We went back to the coffee shop to take advantage of their wifi. Bea needed to find a doctor to take a pee sample from her to tell if she still has the bladder infection. I needed to find a pet store to buy some wet dog food to mix with my dry for the anorexic pup.
The pet store we went to was about two minutes away and had the sweetest pups for sale. There were two Dotsons, a Yorkie, two Shiatsus, and a Pomeranian. I fell in love with the black Dotson with soft curly haired ears and Bea fell in love with the shy white Pomeranian with fleas (we found out later). I hate when people buy pups from pet stores when shelters everywhere are overflowing with babes needing homes. Although playing with the pups made me realize how easy it is to fall into the “guilt” trap, as Rob says. They were precious.
We really had nothing to do, so back to the coffee shop we went to internetz. Once Beth got off work we met her and headed to her house. Her parents, her boyfriend and his parents, her dog Bear and her two cats Tinkerbelle and Tigger were home. We all had a delicious dinner of rice pilaf, sourdough bread, and kabobs. I had a veggie kabob. We kids sat at the kiddie table while the adults sat in the dining room. Dinner time discussions were hilarious. Sean/Shawn/Shaun is hilarious. Him and Beth have been together for almost three years now, and they’ve got great chemistry. We talked about LA (Louisiana) slang, including “Como Homo” (how gay), and “I’m Gucci” (I’m good).
Hah! “How are you?” –“Oh- I’m Gucci.” I guess that little town where Sean/Shawn/Shaun lived five hours north of New Orleans uses that phrase quite often. Let me paraphrase what he said:
“They use that term for everything, thinking they’re real cool. Most of them probably don’t even know what Gucci is!? There isn’t a Gucci store for miles and miles. They also think their lives are so gangsta and that they live in the ghetto. What ghetto? the cornfields?”
We busted up laughing. (All this time Mango and Bear were dishing it out to each other in the backyard.) Bear is this enormous yellow lab who’s about two years old and was found in a field by Brook’s (Beth’s older brother who’s in the Air Force right now) ex-girlfriend. Bear is a love dog, but know his own strength. Mango is too small to successfully hump Bear, so they ended up running around like crazies. After dinner I let the dogs in and Mango was SOAKING WET. It was like he jumped into a swimming pool. Turns out it was Bear’s slobber. Gross.
Beth’s dad had just quit his job (or something like that), so we all celebrated with him. Beth popped open the champagne and we toasted to the man and his freedom (or something like that).
We got to talking about my future for some reason, which of course= Bioko. Bioko island is an island off the coast of West Africa in the Gulf of Guinea. For those of you who don’t know, I’m going to Bioko to study and research sea turtles with a professor at Drexel, and grad and PhD students for 6 months. The beaches where the turtles lay their eggs are along the southern portion of the island. Malabo, the capital, is on the northern part along with the university and most of the population. I’ll be in a tent in a rainforest a stone’s throw from waterfalls, chameleons, and seven different species of drills and monkeys. I’m so flippin’ excited. My plane leaves on the 6th of October. No Mango for 6 months L
Anyways.. turns out both Brook and his father have spent a decent amount of time on Bioko Island. I guess Beth’s dad worked/works for Shell and he went to the island to help oversee the construction of a natural gas plant on the northern part of the island. Um.. kind of the opposite of what I’m going there for. Wildlife research versus extracting natural resources. It kind of made me sad that we were both going there, but with completely different aims. Oh well, unfortunately it happens.
He kept telling me how I wasn’t going to like it there- that there are two really scary types of poisonous snakes and lots of humid jungle land everywhere. It was all I could do to hold my tongue. I mean, I love that kind of stuff. I love nature, I love dirt. Whatever. Different strokes for different folks, and I respect that. By the end of the night I have to admit I was feeling a bit beat up.
Oh, there was a little fiery talk about politics, too. Beth’s mom Sharon hates Obama and went on a little rant before Beth muffled her with a hand over her mouth. Get a little champagne in people and inhibitions are lowered. Personally, I enjoyed it. I like listening to people rant about something or someone they feel strongly about. We’re in the South. Personally, I don’t feel like I’m leaning towards anyone in the presidential race right now. I mean, I’ll be in Bioko in November anyways and am probably not going to bother with an absentee vote. This will probably drive my AP Government teacher nuts, but I honestly know jack shit about either of the candidates. Besides, the popular vote doesn’t matter nowadays anyways.
Bea and I retired to Brook’s room/ the guest bedroom before midnight after a hearty “Thanks for dinner” and a “I’ll see you in the morning.” After driving all night I was exhausted.
-S & M
No comments:
Post a Comment