Best laid plans...

Went to get my hair cut Friday. It's always fun to see my cousin Pat. She's a peach. We made plans to all get together some Friday night and eat dinner. That means her, her husband John, our uncle Punk and his wife. I can't wait to get all these folks together with Mom. It'll be fun.

After I got sheared, Denise and I were headed north from Salado to Temple to get my dry cleanin' and she asked me if I wanted to go get Chinese food. My nipples got hard instantly!

It was her turn to pick so I was expectin' to have to wait another week for the good stuff. But she thought, since we were over there already, what the hell. I think, secretly, she was also thinkin' about the great green beans, broccoli beef and eggrolls she likes there at Dynasty.

So we headed over to my favorite Chinese food place in Temple and had a great time. The food was wonderful. You've seen this stuff enough, I'm just gonna show you the best shot I've got. The generals chicken, shrimp fried rice and an eggroll. Wonderful! Denise ordered herself a "Shandy" there for the first time, so we had to explain what it was to yet another waiter. I stuck with unsweetened tea.

After dinner we headed over to the mall and ended up getting right in to see "Body Of Lies". We missed the previews and crap, but who cares.

The flick was excellent. You should all go out and see it. It basically purports to look critically at how we run spy ops in the middle east. The message is a potent one, but I'm not sure if it's a completely accurate one. Best line in the movie? "In the words of the great Sam Snead, 'If you're not thinkin' about pussy, you're not concentratin'.'"

After the flick we stopped at Dairy Queen for a Blizzard and then headed home. We stopped briefly at HEB in Killeen for kibbles, and then spent the rest of the evening at home, relaxing.

Saturday morning, we slept in. In the early afternoon we hit Jack-in-the-box for breakfast. Two Supreme Croissants and hush puppies, thank you. Then we drove to Florence so we could discover how long it's gonna take me to get from there to San Saba four days a week. On the way we picked up coffee for her and diet Mtn Dew for me. Breakfast of champions.

It turned out to be a fun drive through the country. Mostly nice roads with 70mph speed limits. It took about an hour and ten minutes to get us to the parking lot of the prison. We did one turn through the place, with a bunch of dudes in white pajamas checkin' us out from behind a tall fence. I told Denise they could probably smell her. Then we jetted out of there. My new students. Such a joy.

We wandered around the area for a while, checkin' it out. It claims to be the pecan capital of the state, and sure enough, we saw LOTS of pecan trees and stores sellin' the stuff. I ended up gettin' a bag. We drove back to Lampassas, where Denise picked up a Mum plant from a roadside store, and then we headed west to Kempner.

We had plans to stop and eat at a great little German place there called the Brick Oven. but we got there too early, so we drove around, lookin' at houses.

Kempner could eventually be a nice place to relocate, being closer to my job in San Saba and only about 20 minutes from her job in Killeen. We've got no plans to move any time soon, but when the time comes, Kempner will probably be the shpott.

After a wonderful meal at the Oven, we drove back to the house and spent the rest of the weekend relaxin'. I flipped through the DVD folder Saturday night till I found a few things Denise hadn't seen, and then we sat back to watch them. Se loved Behind Enemy Lines, but didn't like The Freshman. No accounting for taste there on the second one. I love it.

Sunday was a late sleep-in, followed by a lazy all day lay around in front of the TV. We watched the Texans pull it out in the end, and then watched the Cowboys choke. We'd found out about the Longhorns burnin' up Oklahoma Saturday, causing both of us to want to try to find tickets to a college game.

We ended up havin' that beer and pizza dinner Sunday night, with the pie provided by a local Pizza Hut (Our much better, normal place wasn't answerin' the phone) and the beer provided by my fridge. Last thing we did was watch Iron Man. Love that flick.

Anyway, that was it. I had Monday off, while Denise had to go back to work. I slept in, worked on a few posts, watched Tony Bourdain wander through the world, enjoyed a great lunch with the little woman, and then spent a little time workin' in the yard. I made some of those Kolaches for her so she could take them back to work and hand them out to her folks. They love 'em.

During lunch we found out that Tony Romo has busted his little pinky finger, so the Cowboys are probably fucked for the next few weeks. We'll see.

Dinner was pork chops and taters. It turned out good. Fillin'. Baked 'em in a pan, wrapped up in foil, with butter, all sorts of spices, and some beer, at about 250 for about 4 hours. Yummy! After that we watched Iron Man and then hit the sack.

Well, that was it. I give finals today. One more semester over. My last full semester on Ft. Hood. Hood begins again next week and San Saba begins the 27th. More about that later. Cheers!