Look out, armadillos

I spent the last few days in a place called Dadeville that has two very important things in common with hell: there is no internet connection and there is no real coffee.

On the other hand, there are fried things. I ate a whole meal composed of fried okra, fried shrimp, fried crawfish, fried alligator, and sweet tea. In retrospect, I should have had the tea fried. Oh, and there are armadillos, which are pretty cute. But that's about all I can say for Dadeville.

I went with my parents because my grandfather was holding a golf tournament for his 85th birthday. The tournament only consisted of men from my extended family, but it was pretty hotly contested, from what I hear. The weekend was both good and bad. I hardly ever see members of my mother's family, so it was nice to see my cousins. I'm about to live near three of them for the first time, so it was good to reconnect with them.

On the other hand, there was my grandfather.

My mother's father has never particularly liked my siblings and I. Not only did none of us play football, we all inexplicably failed to go to Auburn. And then we didn't become conservative Republicans. And we aren't good Christians. So! Basically he has nothing to say to us. I mean, it's not like he's mean, he's just completely baffled by the lot of us and has never bothered to take an interest in anything we might be doing.

Lately he's taken on two hobbies that I found extra disturbing. The first one is making loud disparaging remarks about anyone who happens to be nearby (neighbors, servers, cash register attendants, family members, etc) and the other is killing small animals. He shoots any squirrels that try to eat from his birdfeeder and any armadillos that come into his yard. Actually, he doesn't get the armadillos much, because they come out and night and he doesn't like to stay up anymore. But his most recent wife (from whom he is separated) likes to shoot them from her deck, and he tried to get my dad to run over one that we saw on the road.

But none of this compared to the bizarre speech he made on the occassion of his birthday dinner. It was sort of a telling of his life story, but with interesting additions and omissions. Most of the speech focused on how much he loves football, his oldest son, and his deceased first wife. He spent a lot of time on how talented his oldest son is, made some half-assed remarks about his other son being technically proficient, and left out my mother entirely. Seriously. Never mentioned her. He also failed to mention his second wife but did include an imaginary relationship with a Broadway star. It was seriously weird. It made me wonder if some day I'll tell a heavily revised version of my own life story that includes embarassing details about other people.

So that was upsetting.

But I suppose there were some good parts of the weekend. I've always been afraid of babies, but my cousin Abby has two that seem pretty cool. I even took one of them in the pool, and not only did he not break, but he seemed downright tough. He's at a phase in his life where he enjoys hitting, throwing, and splashing - or is that a phase? Maybe he's just a boy and that's a life-long thing.

In other news:

Before I left, I spend a delightful evening with someone else's husband. Thanks for the loan, Val. (Why oh why isn't there another Kelly brother for me?)

Right now my parents are keeping the neighbors' dogs, which means we have a whole house full of terriers. I love it. Lots of chaos and barking and snuggling.

I made the mistake of looking at expensive handbags, and now I'm getting a little lustfull for a Coach Addison briefcase.

I'm approaching finishing my brother's wedding present.

Almost time to move!