Arkansas, part 2

1. Arkansas is much nicer that I would have thought. There are lots of trees, rivers, and lakes, and I hear the hiking is awesome. Can't wait to get out and do some of that. Little Rock itself has been nice as well...once we have a day off we're going to go downtown and explore.

2. I have this thing called a shopping habit, but I have myself convinced that if I have little to no credit card debt, that it's okay.

3. I think Jason Statham needs to try a role that falls outside of the badass/transporter persona. I think all of his movies probably could have been called the Transporter. Same with Kate Hudson...can she even play a role that doesn't involve her being the girl next door that every guy in the film wants to sleep with? Don't they get bored playing the same character over and over again? To be fair, I haven't a see film with either of them in it in years...the previews usually give enough away to discourage me from wasting money on a film I've most likey already seen.

4. Metallica should wrap it up and call it day. I heard a track off their new album recently and it took me back to 1997.

5. I'm currently reading the book "I'll Fly Away," a book written by prison inmates in a women's correctional facility. It is editted by Wally Lamb, who is one of my favorite authors. It's sad to hear about how 80% of these women were raped as children, or how they killed their abusive spouses in self-defense and are now serving life sentences for it.

6. I still hate to exercise. I do like to walk the dogs though, and I count that as exercise. I also live on the second floor of the apartment building, which is almost like the third because I have to go up two flights of stairs from the parking lot to get to my front door. There are also a lot of hills around here, so that's a bonus, I think.

7. I love my Jeep. Never have I paid so much money for a car, but it's worth it because I love it. Don't ever lease a car...unless you love it and don't mind paying $5,000+ extra for it in fees.

8. Billy Blanks is insane, but I do love Tae Bo...when I'm actually motivated and able to keep up.

9. I'm still disturbed by the fact that one of my dogs ate the other's poop the other day. I still wonder who did it. Brie has pretty much been ill since we got here, so I'm thinking it was her, but I don't have any proof.

10. Augusten Burroughs is brilliant. Someday I want to grow up and be just like him...without the whole gay man part...I've finally accepted that I'm a woman (and that I will never be able to pee my name in the snow) and should probably stick with that.

11. I love Nathan Lane's character in The Birdcage...one of my favorite movies, yet I still have yet to own it. I should probably get on that. I ask for it for Christmas every year, you'd think someone would get it for me one of these days!

12. I am going to go to Boston this year...twice.

13. Had I known there was going to be so many rivers and lakes in Arkansas, I would have brought the kayaks down here with us. Unfortunately, Arkansas has no travel guides that I've been able to find, which made planning for the trip difficult.

14. I had just about given up on the idea of thong underwear, and then I went out and bought some dress pants. I hate the idea of a visible panty line more than the idea of a little piece of material riding up my butt, so I purchased a couple at Target last night.

15. I wish I had the energy to sit down and journal, but I love emailing so much more that I do that instead. I'm thinking that I'm going to save all my emails, print them out and stick them in a binder instead. That way it's like a journal with outside commentary.

16. Simon and I are getting a washer and dryer and a new mattress for the bed today. I'm anticipating both with more excitement than is necessary. Four nights of bad sleep on a crappy mattress will do that to a person, especially while sleeping on pillowcase-less pillows because the pillowcases smell like gas from the scooter-leaking incident.

17. I was quite upset to learn that the best buffalo wings in Little Rock are to be found at Pizza Hut. :( Apparently they aren't big on the buffalo down here. They are big on barbeque though, which may or may not be an adequate substitute for the time being.

18. Sometimes I miss living and working in Rochester, and then I go there for an extended period of time and remember why I left in the first place. I don't think anyone in that town can speak a whole paragraph without mentioning Mayo. I think I was like that when I lived there too. Funny how getting out of there has made me see there's a great big world outside the hallways of Mayo, and that people can get really good care in hospitals all over the country without having to go to Rochester for a second opinion.

19. I'm working on getting into the habit of flossing my teeth everyday. So far I'm doing okay...I flossed everyday the first week after going to the dentist, and I've flossed everyday for the past two days, so I guess I'm doing all right.

20. Little Rock is not a smoke-free town, which sucks.

21. I am completely enthralled by black people. I want to know everything about their hair, their skin, their culture. Unfortunately I'm not sure how to go about that without sounding completely ignorant. I'm just curious, I guess.

22. Sometimes I struggle between wanting a small-town life in a little town and a big city life in Minneapolis. I wonder about the ablitiy to combine the two.

23. I miss owning a house. A friend of mine told me yesterday that she refinanced her house at an interest rate of 4.8%, dropped her mortgage term to 15 years, and is now paying $50 less a month. WHY am I not in the right place to buy a house right now?? Had I been smarter, I would have bought a house in May and rented it out to my friends Dana and Chester. I'm always a day late and a dollar short.

24. I hate the drivers here in Little Rock. If I make it out of this assignment without getting in a car accident, I'll be impressed. Anyone that knows me knows that I drive fast...I'm a grandma compared to these people. It's funny because with the whole southern drawl and the stereotypically slower pace of life down here, you'd think they'd drive slow, but that is definitely not the case. I've already been warned to stay as far from the roads as possible when they get their ice storms in February. I'm frightened.

25. If there was one food in life I couldn't live without, it would be peanut butter. I love peanut butter.

So here I am in Arkansas...

So here I am in Arkansas, I've officially been here a full 24 hours now and have a few observations and things to say about the whole thing.  

First: WORST...DRIVE...EVER.  Thanks to my parents, I've basically been going on road trips since I exited the womb, so they're nothing new to me and are usually quite enjoyable.  This one was not one of those enjoyable trips.  To start out the trip, the weather people completely screwed me at the last minute, and the clear, chilly morning they had originally predicted quickly backfired into 3 inches of snow and blowing wind.  Oh, and to add to that, freezing rain at the Iowa border.  Perfect.  It took over four hours for us to get to Des Moines, and I can usually make it in three.  There were periods of time where I was going 30 miles an hour on the interstate.  Getting passed by a semi put me into such a blizzard that I thought for sure my life was over.  Somehow, we made it through there intact.  

Second: a road trip is no place for a moderately stressed-out girl to get her monthly visitor.  Enough said.  

Third: A scooter leaking gas in a covered trailer very quickly makes everything in the trailer with it smell like gas.  Yes...all my belongings smelled like gas.  After half a bottle of Febreeze and some lengthy time hanging outside over the deck railing, most everything is back to a tolerable scent.  There are a few things though that are going on a much needed trip to the laundromat.  Hefty doses of Clorox 2 are in order...that stuff is the best invention ever...really gets the stink out.  The scooter appears to be fine, by the way, not sure what the leaking was all about but it appears to have stopped.  

Fourth: Arkansas is very pretty.  Granted, we came in at night and didn't get to see a whole lot, but the town of Little Rock is surrounded by those woodsy river valley bluffs that I spent so much time living amongst in college in Winona.  The Arkansas River goes through Little Rock, and it's actually quite a large river.  After growing up so close to the Mississippi, most rivers seem small to me, but I'd have to say the Arkansas gives the ol' Mississip a run for it's money, at least in this area...I don't think it's that big for as long as the Mississippi is.  We're kinda wishing we would have brought the kayaks.  Our apartment is on the far west side of Little Rock...we still have a Little Rock address, but we've found that our location isn't even included on some of the city maps.  We're in the "urban spawl" area, if you will.  Our aparment sits at the top of a hill, and we're completely surrounded by pine trees.  There's a big open-air mall about half a mile away, but you'd never know it living where we do...it feels like we're living in the middle of the woods.  I was a bit disappointed at first when I found out how far we'd actually be living from downtown Little Rock, but I could get used to this rustic feel.  I think I was originally expecting the worst of suburbia...tiny trees, a Starbucks on every corner, everyone driving a Hybrid or a minivan (no offense, I like both of those vehicles), and golden retriever for every 1.25 people.  If I didn't know better I'd think I was either in Flagstaff, AZ or somewhere in northern Minnesota with a lake just around the corner...that's what it feels like anyway.  Drive a half mile down the road and you've got a movie theater with IMAX, a coffee shop, laundromat, Petco...all the essencials and then some.  

Fifth: The drivers down here are idiots.  I almost t-boned someone already, and it was totally and completely not my fault.  Then, Simon and I almost got run down in a Target parking lot...by someone that appeared to have no intention of stopping.  Still don't know if they saw us or not...it wasn't that dark out.  To lay it out a bit, a lot of the main roads around us are three lanes going in each direction, and there are stores on both sides of the roads with drives entering on to the main roads...and these are high traffic roads with 45 mile-an-hour speed limits where everyone is going 55, and people making left-hand turns are basically taking their lives in their hands.  Also, the right-hand lane is always coming and going, forcing whomever is in it to turn right into a parking lot with no warning ahead of time, forcing people to swerve around or turn right where they may not have wanted to...that's pretty much how I got into the Target parking lot in the first place.  It doesn't feel very safe and it's making me quite nervous to get the Scoot out.  I might just have to drive it around the parking lot a few times just to make it worth the hassle we went through to get it here.

Sixth: I realized tonight that this is the first travel assignment I've taken where I'm completely on my own.  In all the locations there was always someone there to help me find my way, to find the bars with the good wings, the malls with the best stores, the restaurants with the best burgers...someone to basically help me navigate the city without getting too lost and without ending up in the wrong part of town.  Simon and I are completely on our own this time, and we have to figure all that stuff out for ourselves.  It's exciting and daunting at the same time.  We're going to visit the Department of Tourism tomorrow and pick up some pamphlets and whatnot and find some things to do.  There's also a Little Rock forum I might join to get some insider information...I have to know where to get good buffalo wings...that is definitely a priority...all other things can wait.  

Seventh: this wouldn't be a note from me without some sort of poop talk.  So we got here last night, Simon and I are about ready to kill each other after the stressful trip.  Mostly we just had a lack of anyone else to scream at...not that either of us blamed the other for any of our trip mishaps.  So Simon was outside messing around with the trailer, and I was inside trying to figure out where we needed to return the trailer.  Cooper pooped on the floor...I didn't see him do it, but I know it was him...he always poops in a scatter, never in a neat little pile like the other two, and this was definitely a scatter.  So, with a lack of anything to pick the poop up with at that point, I put my head in my hands, ground my teeth and just sat there for a minute.  When I picked my head up, the poop was gone.  I hadn't imagined it because I could still smell the turds in the air.  Apparently one of my dogs ate it.  I don't know who, and I didn't go to any great lenths to find out (this sounds terrible, but a part of me was glad that I no longer had to deal with it).  I have not accepted kisses from any of them since.

Eighth: I have no idea how I did it, but somehow I managed to bring almost an entire walk-in closet full of clothes with me...in only two suitcases.  I thought that since I had trimmed the clothing down to two suitcases that I had done pretty good with the over-packing problem I usually experience.  By the time I got done unpacking the little suitcase I was quite sure that I had brought too much and could probably have left the big suitcase at home.  I'm quite sure I could go for over a month and not have to do laundry and still have plenty of clean clothes to spare.  I've gotten so good at packing and organizing things in boxes and bags that I've become my own worst enemy...I no longer have a concept of what its too much because I've gotten so good at compressing things into smaller and smaller areas.  One would think I'm bringing less, but in fact I am bringing the same as before if not more.  Luckily, Simon doesn't have this problem and doesn't seem to mind my monopolization of the closet...and the dresser.  He was quite impressed though with the quantity of things that managed to make it down here with us though.