So, here I sit on my last day of summer vacation…possibly ever…and what am I doing? Procrastinating, of course! I figure that yesterday was eventful enough with the evacuation and chemical fire that I thought I deserved a lazy day. (Wylie would argue that I have had nothing but lazy days for the last 2 weeks, and he might be right, but this particular lazy day was well-earned!) We did get up super early to go get our Texas driver’s licenses, which is quite an accomplishment. There were some characters at the DMV…my favorite was this very elderly gentleman who reminded me of a Billy Goat Gruff–kind of crotchety on the outside but really sweet deep down, you could just tell. And a big ol’ white beard. A nice start to the day.

This afternoon I had intended to work on some dissertation stuff, but then we went to Downtown Bryan for a little jaunt and a stop at one of the two soda fountains. Wylie had a malt and I had a sundae…pretty great. The other part of the store is an antique shop, so I browsed some really amazing old costume jewelry as well.

So…here I am back at the computer again with dissertating intentions. I already gave in to some 10gallon-hatting. We shall see if I can resist the siren call of the new TV that we got on Wednesday (kind of on accident, but I will let Wylie tell that story)…hmmmm…..

Hooray! Today was an exciting day in Texas because I met most of my intern cohort! And ate some pretty super pizza with Wylie! I met 2 of the other 3 kids who will be interning with me at the TAMU counseling center, and they were super fun and nice, so I am looking forward to getting to know them more and having some giggles and learning with them. We met at a local burger joint–The Chicken Oil Company–which was full to the brim with local color and charm…and crinkly fries. Which are pretty fabulous. (Crinkly sweet potato fries are even better, but you usually have to make those at home, or at least unfreeze them at home. Wylie and I did that last night, and in the process burned up a silicon cookie sheet that was being stored in the drawer under the oven…that smelled bad…but the sweet potato fries were delicious!)

Then this evening Wylie and I did some spontaneous errands…about which there is a rant coming at the end of this post…and tried Gumby’s Pizza, which was ALSO full to the brim with local color and charm. It was super yummy (don’t tell Mr. G though) and super cheap, and pretty much the definition of “no frills.” It seems like lots of college kids go there and they have a dining room that is a haphazard collection of various kinds of tables and posters that a 15 year old boy would like (i.e. a Monty Python Ministry of Silly Walks, a Mullet Guide (hairdos, not fish), a monkey drinking beer, etc…). The tables and posters are unattended, and there are no plates in the whole place. They called my name, gave us the pizza, and we ate it straight from the box. So, it’s kind of like being at home, only in a restaurant. I liked it. It is my new favorite place…the only negative was that they have Pepsi products, but even that was forgivable in such a relaxed atmosphere…Everyone seemed to be eating these little pizza roll things, so we will try those next time.

I have also been busy with dissertation stuff, which is good. I had to buy a subscription to Zoomerang for a year, so it is quite possible that you will start seeing random surveys around 10gallonhat.com because I want to get my money’s worth.

In other news…WARNING, A RANT COMING…I got my Texas vehicle registration yesterday, and it turns out that TX requires front and rear plates, which I do not now nor have I ever had on Atom, and it seems that getting a front license plate mount is more of a hassle than it should be. Here is my opinion: There should be a standardized rule for all 50 states–one plate or two–and cars should come at least with the holes so that you can easily attach a cheap mount. The Scion dealer wants $35 just for the mount, then who knows how much to drill the holes…I am going to try to sweet talk them into putting on my cheap $5 mount from Auto Zone tomorrow…we shall see. For some reason this particular detail of moving has made me more annoyed and upset than it should, and for that, I apologize to Wylie because he has had to deal with it. A couple of naps helped. Also, the memory foam for the bed came yesterday, so sleeping like a baby angel tonight will help too…

Well. Here we are at the start of our second full week in Texas. The weekend was pretty nice–there was some relaxing done, some major progress towards getting my dissertation survey online, and a $3.50 matinee of Public Enemies seen. I am sort of obsessed with the fact that you can see a movie here for $3.50. The movie itself was OK…more violent than I had expected, but good story. We also checked out the Farmer’s Market that happens on Sat mornings. We got some major cucumbers and some squash that look like UFO’s and a watermelon that ended up being too ripe…I was sad about that. It seemed like they had some local honey and coffee as well, but we didn’t need any of that stuff. I had been spoiled by the farmer’s market in Auburn, so while I am glad that there is one nearby, it will take some getting used to…

Yesterday we tried out the local burrito shop Freebird’s World Burritos. It was pretty tasty…and you can get the hugest burritos that I have ever seen in my life. Wylie got one–but you can get one that is 2x as big as that if you wanted. You can see in the photo that it is really big. Burritos are pretty high on my list of favorite things to eat, so I am happy that there is a place in town creating some for my eating pleasure. Something that I liked about this place was that people made art out of their foil burrito wrappers and put it up all over…and also that even though they have Pepsi products and not Coke, they included Diet Dr. Pepper, so it is not a soda bust, which is something that is important when you are eating burritos.

Then we headed over to Kroger for some grocery shopping…and there was a bird in there. What in the world is going on with all of the birds in TX doing crazy things? Are they just messing with us? It’s very interesting…hmmmm……

Today Wylie is working and I am headed out to get my vehicle inspected so that I can register it in TX. I can’t say that I am thrilled about that, but, as my parents told me yesterday while I was whining, I do like driving on paved, pothole-free roads…so I guess I need to get over it.

The good news: One week untill internship!!!

Yesterday was pretty eventful. I felt a little stir crazy in the afternoon and went out to look for a tallish table or some sort to put by the door in the kitchen (which is actually where we end up coming and going from the most) and see what I could learn about a couch/futon of some sort. Well…what I learned was that the Goodwill here doesn’t really have too much furniture, but lots of new things…including a whole wall of new undies…though I am not sure I would want to buy undies from the Goodwill, even if they were new and still had tags on…hmmm…

I did, however, find The Funrniture Shack that has some things we might be interested in. And “Quality Used Furniture” which would be the place to go if I had the space, money, and desire for lots of 1970′s looking end tables. They had one tall table thing that I liked for the kitchen, but I am not sure that Wylie is sold on it just yet…

The evening outing was super and fantastic. I was so excited to see the public library full of families and kids all milling about and having fun. The librarian kept apologizing that the library was “not the quietest library”, and I had to tell her that I would rather see a well-loved library than a quiet, empty one! I am excited to start renting books there, as they have a much bigger selection of some of the authors I love…bigger than Auburn Public Library, that is.

Then, when we were eating dinner we saw all of these high-school looking-ish kids gathering for some sort of event. It seemed that they were trying to be dressed from another era, and it was very strange. We could not guess what they were doing…some of ours were: a group of friends having a mystery dinner theater; a late prom thing; a sweet sixteen birthday party…we are interested in your thoughts on what a group of kids (probably 30) would be doing dressed up in the middle of the summer on a Thursday night. I tried to take some spy photos below. They are not that good.

My favorite thing of the evening: A girl scout troop at DQ eating Tagalong Blizzards!! (That is, of course, what I was having as well!) Cutest thing ever.

My least favorite thing of the evening: A bird pooed on my head!

The weirdest thing of the evening: That crazy duck! It looked like it was kind of out of it, and Wylie thought that something was wrong with it–besides, you know, being alone, out of place, and on a phone wire. So, we were a little relieved when it flew off when I clapped.

So, it is our first weekend in TX where we don’t have to get the house set up…so we’ll see what kind of trouble we can get in to. I’m sure not very much, as we are still finding our way around…

So…the last few days have been good here in the Tejas. The office works nicely and Wylie seems to be doing work in the day. I am trying not to bug him–too much. I was able to get out into the neighborhood a little bit yesterday morning and found that the nearby park is quite nice and equipped with several horsehoe “courts” (I found out that this is what they were called just now…every day, learning something) and a small public pool that we can use for $1!!!

We thought we’d try out “The World’s Best Pizza” that is conveniently located just 1/2 mile from our place, we had even planned on walking there, but were stopped by some major raindrops that quickly turned into full sheets of water…so we drove. And Mr. G himself was there, directing curtious college boys on where to seat customers, as well as conducting some very important mafia (? This is speculation only) business from his office which is easily accessible in the back 1/3 of the dining room. His stacks of business papers rival Dr. Pipes’, only in a restaurant. Happily, the pizza WAS quite delicious PLUS we got to see the rainstorm. The add on the table enticing us to order Jalepeno Poppers, however, may have been my favorite thing…Wylie had to stop me from putting it right in my purse–reminding me that I did not want the mafia on my tail after a mere 5 days here–and let me take some photos with his phone. You will see why it was so irresistable/hilarious. Then we got the living room kind of set up with TV and video games, and I discovered that My Katamari (?) is an awesome game, and had my first glimpse of Grand Theft Auto…boys…

Today was another exciting day with a trip to the Bryan Recycling Center for me (it was rad–they came and got everything out of the car for me and put it in the bins, I didn’t even have to get out!) and a Target run. Then Wylie went with me to check out a potential new-to-me bicycle, and we found Academy Sports and Gander Mountain Sports. I tried on helmets and discovered that I have no business on a Ripstick. We are having dinner with my friend Zach again this evening at a new spot, so expect an update soon about that. (We have actually eaten some things at home, I promise!)