Onward Ho to Maryland!

So, here I am. It's ten thirty-five. I am again at Comfort Suites in a room in my own bed, next to my Grandma, who is snoring (don't tell her I said that) while the TV is showing "48 Hour Mystery" or whatever that show is called. I don't care if she killed him. They're all dirty, rotten scoundrels anyways. So...deja vu...or however you spell that. In May for graduation/homeschool conference, it was the same ordeal, except we were in Winston-Salem and not somewhere in Maryland. The room is backwards, too. The lobby is nicer...I like it a lot, actually. The pool is indoor, and very small. I am dead serious when I say you can do a flip-turn at one end only to immediately do one at the other end.

The day started off normal-ish. I don't ususally get up at 7:40 am on Saturdays, and we usually eat pancakes on Saturdays. SO maybe it wasn't so normal. I made myself some cereal, ate the cereal, took a shower, got ready, packed the rest of my stuff, put all my stuff in the van, sorted and folded laundry...and...the rest of everybody was still taking a long time getting ready. So, I sat down at the piano bench *squeak* *rock* *squeak* *threatens to collapse* and thought about looking at some sheet music I had gotten from the library Friday evening. You know what? Sheet music really complicates something that is so simple. It took me a whole minute to figure out one chord for "With a Little Help from My Friends". At this time, Marck applauded loudly at my success. After two measures, I got bored of doing such a tedious task. After all, the week before I was just playing around with the same song, rearranging it classically or something I cannot remember...it sounded fine. It was on key and everything.........anyhoo, I don't know. I DO know I need to learn to read music. But really.

Once I started grumbling and banging around, I was asked to find something useful to do. So I made sure that my chinchilla had enough water, food, dust, etc. After doing that about five times and saying goodbye to Nancy (we took Mitch to the Bradburn's last night), we finally all piled in the van and started down the road. We weren't on the highway for long before a...house...came on to the entrance ramp. Yes, a house. It took up two and a half lanes. Some cars got around it, and others were trapped behind as the highway went down from three lanes to two. We were one of those cars, and we were stuck there behind the house for about five miles, going about 35 mph, till the house finally got off a little bit after Zebulon.

We stopped somewhere past Richmond for lunch. I ate a lot there. I should have just gotten a salad, but got a Swiss mushroom Burger instead. Do you know how hard it is to say that out loud? It's happened to me at Lonestar, too. "I'd like the Swish mussroom burger." It's very embarrassing. They are yummy, but I don't think I am going to get one again, unless I remember to practice saying it right before I order.

I texted Nathan a bit as we drove on, and then he had to go do something else, and I got tired. I listened to my iPod (Bob, as you may know from my profile) some more. The rest of my family really likes books on tape, you see. I can't stand them. The person reading the story hardly ever reads it right. Only ever so occasionally is a book on tape enjoyable for me. That's when I really appreciate my iPod on long trips. I run out the battery quickly and probably start going deaf, but I just like the turn up the volume really loud and concentrate on writing or thinking. I can't read with any music but instrumental, and I can't write anything but dialogue unless I have complete and utter silence. I like silence. Sometimes I wish my whole family would pick an hour or two every day and just leave the house for that length of time, and I could just stay home and write or work on music stuff. Unfortunately, when they DO leave, I am given a long list of things to do. I like to ignore that list. Okay, I ignore it accidentally. I'll start doing stuff on the piano and I'll just get lost.

ANYHOO, I then somehow took a nap, sleeping through what I thought would be the rest of this story about some boy who somehow acquires a duck who likes the quiet but can't stand commotion. I actually got into it when I woke up and discovered that I had NOT slept through it and instead had a back-and-neck cramp. We stopped at MacDonald's to use the facilities and get some milk. I was looking forward to some whole milk and what do they give me? 1%. I hate 1%. The only thing worse than 1% is skim, but really 2% all I can stand, though I prefer whole.

Somehow we ended up here in Maryland, at this hotel, checking in. There was a lot of traffic, but that's about all I can remember now. I made a startling discovery--this lotion I bought a while ago that doesn't smell the best when I put it on actually smells fine once it's dry.

Anyways, we went to Denny's for dinner (I had a party with myself about that. I love Denny's). We came back, I read a bit, everyone went to bed, and I decided to do blog stuff. Once I drank three cups of coffee at Denny's, my mom reminded me that even decaf coffee has a tiny bit of caffiene in it. Aw, shucks.

Plans for tomorrow...eat breakfast, swim in the little tiny pool, go to the family reunion, be friendly, eat food, come back here, sleep, get up, go home, beg to stop by Mount Vernon on the way back, be ignored, go home, collapse on familiar furniture, eat healthy food for the meet on Tuesday. Good plan, but now SNL is coming on, and I'm going to watch a bit to see if they happened to think up anything funny this time...

Goodnight!
~Jessica