A Pilgrimage of Sorts.

Sorry I have been so absent. I know you've all been hanging on the edge of your seats and everything,dying to know what I have been up to that is keeping me away from my ever important blog duties. Well, I was in Mississippi. The b.h. has a grandmother whom I have never met, and who has been quite ill, so we took a couple days to go see her. We didn't even get to see her that much, really, because we got a late start on Sunday, due to the loss of an hour that we could ill afford, what with getting to bed at five in the morning and all. The drive was around six and a half hours, which were spent white-knuckled, due to the driving skills (or lack thereof) of our good friend M. M's mom and dad live about thirty minutes from the hospital where granny is staying, so we decided that we would all ride together, see our respective families, and then take a ride up to Gr@celand to see the King.
We got to M's house, and to our great surprise, M's mom had supper on, so we couldn't very well leave. We spent about two hours there, all the while very aware that the window for hospital visiting hours was rapidly closing. M's mom is a real hoot, and she really likes to talk. Really, really likes it. I think I counted to twelve once during a silence that fell in the living room, but that was as high as I got.
We left M and his folks, sped to Tupelo, and promptly got completely turned around (Thank you, mapquest!). We got to the hospital around seven, an hour before visiting hours were to end. There were several different visits from various doctors and hospital staff while we were there, and from their remarks we understood that gran had had a very bad day on Saturday, and that she let everyone know it. It was pretty amusing. We stayed for a couple of hours (aparently they aren't overly concerned about "the rules" for visitors).

***I interrupt this program to bring you a special report***
The biggest effing bluejay I have ever seen is outside my window at present, alternately pigging out at the bird feeder and calling for a friend. He is making quite a racket. There is also a tiny woodpecker who is pulling a "Crazy Neighbor Ed", which I would explain by link if I knew how to link, but since I don't I will try to give you the short version:
He is perched on a very thin branch, pecking at a spot on the branch that is closer to the trunk of the tree than he is. I hope this makes sense. He is not making a lot of progress (just like Crazy Neighbor Ed!), so he is in no danger of actually falling.
***And now back to my regular scheduled blogging***

So we hung out with gran for a couple hours, then went to find a hotel room. On the way, we stopped at a grocery to grab a snack. The b.h. got himself a sandwich in the deli, and since they had no vegetarian options, I chose to hold off. "No problem," I said in what would have been a foreshadowing moment if only this scene were from a movie rather than my own stupid life, "I'll just eat some cheese and crackers and one of the yogurts we have in the cooler when we get back to the hotel."

We found a hotel. We went inside. I was so tired as to be very close to tears. I opened the cooler while the b.h. sat down to eat his deli sandwich. The cooler is a the small squishy kind, an insulated bag rather than a big blocky plastic thing. We use it for road trips because it takes up so little room and holds plenty of snacks and a few drinks for a day's drive. It also has an extra piece of insulation that goes on top of the food and ice after you put it in, providing extra prtection from the outside, or perhaps providing a barrier in case there are foods in it that do not need to be cold (or cannot get wet). That piece of insulation had been packed, in the haste of a sleepy morning, between the food and the ice. Twelve hours later, the yogurt and the cheese were inedible, and the poor frazzled guy who had packed the cooler was enjoying a sandwich at the table in front of me. Again, I almost cried. Instead, I opened the box of crackers, eating them dry and trying not to say anything that I knew I would regret (I knew it was an accident, after all, and I felt bad enough for him already). I also took a chance on an Odwalla fruit drink thingie.
We slept some, and then got up in the morning and went back to the hospital. We brought our wedding album, which gran hadn't seen yet. She remarked that J, our friend who performed the ceremony, looked like "a gangster." She actually made that remark about half of my family members, which goes to show that stereotypes about Chicago die almost as hard as those about rural Mississippi. The funny thing is that my family is not italian. Nor are they Greek, nor are most of them terribly olive-skinned at all, but I guess that hardly matters to a rural Southern septaugenarian. It was quite funny.
When we left the hospital, M's mom dropped him off ouside and we all drove up to Memphis. M was again at the wheel, and I found myself relieved that my stomach was completely empty. I made a note (out loud) that I would be doing the rest of the driving. We stopped in Tupelo to see Elvis's boyhood home, which as you might imagine stands in stark contrast to the one he built after he got famous.

This isn't a trick of the photography, by the way. the house was really tiny. Looks like one room. (We didn't pay to go in and find out, but how much could we have missed?) There really isn't much at the site, but they tried to fancy it up with a scary statue of Elvis (age thirteen)
, as well as a chapel and "The Fountain of Life", which is not nearly as impressive as its name suggests. There were a bunch of quotes about Elvis from famous people posted on signs along one wall, and a walkway that went around the house that had a square for each year of his life. The early ones showed stuff like this:

In the later years, there are no words inscribed, just numbers. I guess "Addicted to prescription meds, Elvis performs completely wasted on live television and forgets words to songs" isn't what they want us to remember.Anyway, it was interesting. And free. And, most importantly, the weather was completely beautiful and the trees were in bloom:


Okay, folks. That's all I've got in me for today. I have a bachelorette party to attend before I go to work, and I look like hell. Tomorrow (or, barring that, Monday): We go to Gr@celand!