updating from PJ’s, part one

Here I am at PJ’s in Clearview, my internet home away from home, taking a few minutes to write about what I’ve been doing.
The weather outside is not that frightful, people. It is maybe 40 degrees out there, and it was sleeting a bit this morning, but this is New Orleans and you would think we were heading for the blizzard of the century, the way people are carrying on. The older relatives may all be staying home from my parents’ Christmas Eve party tonight because it is too cold for them. And you should have heard the rest of my family fussing last night when we went out to dinner! I am starting to feel like the hearty cold-tolerant one, and if you know me … well, let’s just say that I wear sweaters to work all year and call anything above the Mason-Dixon line the Frozen Yankee Tundra.

The drive from Austin to the greater NO area yesterday was relatively uneventful. I started late because a) I always get a late start and b) I had trouble figuring out how to make the portable CD player work with the car radio. However, my boyfriend came out to the car and fixed everything and put his SpongeBob CD on and I flew out of Austin accompanied by singing pirates. The car’s service light came on just as I drove past Smithville (about an hour outside of Austin) but I took my boyfriend’s advice and ignored it, and eventually it went away.
It was such a good drive, there wasn’t even much traffic in Baton Rouge at 5 pm, just a little around Siegen Lane (there’s a new mall near there … new to me anyway). A little traffic in Houston, too, but there is always traffic in Houston.
Nothing’s perfect, of course. There was the moment outside of Baton Rouge where I grabbed the bag of dried cherries and found out that the bag was open because there was a festive rain of dried cherries, all over the car. Dried cherries are expensive and I had just cleaned the car thoroughly so I did not feel at all bad about picking them off the seat and the dashboard and eating them that way. There are still a few around the car that need to be picked up.
I also discovered, somewhere around LaPlace, that Roger Miller songs sound really good if you sing them in a Cajun accent. Try it sometime! Yeah, I was a little punchy by that time.
I had not been in my parents’ house for five minutes when the TV started blasting that annoying New Orleans Christmas song about the 12 days of Christmas. If you live around here, you know which song I mean. I hope this isn’t some kind of omen.
In a few minutes I have to drive out to the Causeway (or thereabouts) and pick up my niece and take her to my parents’ house while my sister goes to a party. I have to get dressed for Christmas Eve Mass, because I am a good daughter who goes to church with her family once a year. (My mom hemmed my pants for me, even, so I won’t look like a sad little orphan kid. Yay.)
I miss my boyfriend, I miss my computer desk, but I’m about to have a shrimp po-boy to cheer myself up. Mmmm.