Horrible Horrible Day

Okay, I know this is called rants and raves, well tonight I am adding whines. What a miserable, miserable day. Janet turned seventy four today and it has always been a tradition that we went out to eat at her favorite seafood restaurant, Pappas, which we continued today.

We were out on 1960 a few days ago and I thought I saw a Pappas Seafood just west of I45. Since we have been trying to get together with my nephew and his wife I sent them an email and invited them to meet us there today. Maybe they did not get the email, anyway, I did not hear back. I hate to go out to eat, beyond a fast food restaurant, by ourselves but it was a birthday. Since we try to miss the lunch and dinner crowds we usually go around 4pm, so about 4pm we show up at Pappas only to learn that it was a Pappas Barbeque, which I do not like. Janet wasn't hungry so I made this questionable decision to take her to her very favorite Pappas Seafood in Webster some forty miles from where we were and on the other side of downtown Houston.

Now what ever persuaded me that I wanted to get on I45 south of Houston on a Saturday afternoon is beyond my comprehension. Traffic was heavy getting into Houston, completely stacked up on the Pierce Overhead through downtown. It thinned a little until we got to 610 South and started getting heavier and that was before we hit the road construction, which meant a max of ten miles per hour for about ten miles. Then the NASA 1 exit was blocked so we had to go farther south and swing back. It took three loops around through Webster and down the feeder before I located Pappas.

We ordered our usual, Janet shrimp and me oysters. The coffee was bitter, no cream nor spoon came with the coffee. The food was eatable but not really good and Janet insisted on eating everything with her hands. When I suggested a fork she got mad and refused to eat so we left a plate full of fish and shrimp to be dumped. It was not a pleasant meal.

The traffic back into Houston was worse than it had been coming out so I cut over to Hwy 3 back through South Houston before I decided to try I45 again. When we travel I frequently ask Janet if she needs a bathroom stop, which she said she did. I was pleased to get that over with before getting back on I45. Once in, she absolutely refused to go. Okay, so much for that bright idea. Back on I45 ten minutes later and it was NOW time for a bathroom stop. I was battling very heavy traffic, we were in an area where their were almost no service stations and I am not sure I would have wanted to stop at one if there were. By the time we got to downtown Houston, well by then you might as well go on home.

It was one of those days that really makes me glad that I live in the cheap seats. I must have been out of my mind to get on either 1960 on in the NASA area. If I had to put up with that traffic on a daily basis I would go bonkers. You couldn't pay me enough to get me to live in either place.

I know that friends, relatives and previously coworkers pitied me for living in the cheapseats but I pity them. Here the worst thing I have to put up with is swivel heads. If you do not know what swivel heads are they are like bobble heads but the heads only go right and left. You put three men in a pickup and automatically each one has to convince the others that there is no doubt that they are straight so every time they see a female, regardless of age or attractiveness, their head swivels in that direction. From driving behind them I can assure you it is almost done in unison, the pickup slows down and like a compass swinging to magnetic north all the heads swivel on cue.

My favorite swivel head story was the day I was coming home from work behind a pickup with three fellows and we were driving past a house had was in the final stages of a remodeling job. They were working on the lawn and had installed a concrete "sculpture" of about a three foot high woman in a gauzy dress that was being wrapped around her by the wind, if you can imagine capturing that in concrete. So help me as soon as they noticed the "sculpture" the pickup came to an almost squeaching stop and I almost rear ended them. All I can say is that all three must have been married to gosh awful looking women to be so mesmerized by a three foot high woman made out of concrete. Yeah, I know I rant about the swivel heads but believe me, given the choice, they are by far the lesser of the two evils.

It was such a miserable day that I missed my favorite birthday tradition, doing the birthday portrait. I was so discussed with myself for thinking that I wanted to drive to Webster by the time that we got there that I was in no mood for taking photographs, Maybe tomorrow.