Catchy Name Needed

Somebody in my apartment complex has a bumper sticker that says "An Aggie's Girl" - which just makes me want to barf. (The same person also has a license plate with her first name on it; I think between those two things, I know all I need to know about her.) You used to see those "Aggie Mom" and "Aggie Dad" stickers a lot, but they're not as popular as they used to be. Of course, I suppose they're a concept that's at least a couple of decades old, because they started turning up when I was in college. (At one point after my sister started at A&M, my dad had "An Aggie's Dad" on his pickup and my mom had "I'm a Longhorn Mom" on her car. I know that's fairly barf-worthy, too, but we thought it was funny at the time, mostly because of the UT/A&M rivalry aspects of the thing.)

That reminds me that I added my high school to my user info page earlier this week, and for some reason the dates on that really make me blanch. (Pause while everybody runs to look.) I've had the college dates up there for a couple of months and it never bothered me a bit, but somehow the high school ones - jesus, the mid-seventies ?? That was an eternity ago.


Sign in the restaurant where we had dinner: "We believe you only get what you pay for, but at Kelley's you get more than you pay for." Does that make any sense at all?


We had planned to stay on the island - and on this end of the island, to boot - all day today, but there weren't any movies showing that we wanted to see, and it rained all afternoon so we decided it was probably safe to go to the mainland. Good Night and Good Luck was the movie we actually wanted to see, and it's apparently not showing anywhere on this side of Houston any more. We toyed with the idea of going to see Match Point instead but couldn't really work up any enthusiasm for it, either one of us. So we just went to Kelley's to eat - I had a truly enormous breakfast, even though it was the middle of the afternoon - and went to the big HEB in Dickinson to buy groceries. I like to go there once in a while because they carry a lot of things the other stores don't, especially Wal-Mart. (Yes, we buy most of our groceries at Wal-Mart. Yes, I know it's of the devil and all that, but it's cheaper. Not to mention being right across the street. If HEB would get off their collective asses and put a decent store in here, I would switch like a shot.)

Anyway, we were right about it being safe to go off the island. The issue was that the Momus parade was supposed to be tonight, and the traffic is normally horrendous. But it was nothing. It stopped raining, finally, so I'm assuming the parade went off as scheduled, but I don't think there was much of anybody there. Not many people are going to drive down from Houston to see a Mardi Gras parade when it's cold and raining.

I finished Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, finally. Yay, me! (Now I'll probably start it again tomorrow. Because I kind of adored it.)

This is the first weekend of Mardi Gras, which means horrible traffic. Although it might not be too bad, I'm hoping. Next week I might have to make some sort of alternate arrangements for going to see Mom - or just spend the night up there. Because last year it took me about an hour and a half to get back into Galveston on Saturday night. Seriously.