Mikey made a great joke post yesterday about 10-4 being Talk Like a Trucker Day and I have to say I think it’s a brilliant idea. Just as silly and funny as Talk like a Pirate Day.

Sure, I rebelled in my Alabama youth by not liking football and trying to speak like a valley girl (that one in California, not the Tennessee Valley) instead of using a southern accent (failing in a big sad way) but I liked Smokey and the Bandit and was known to watch an episode or two of The Dukes of Hazzard (odd factoid: my mom taught a math class at an Atlanta high school in the sixties with the blonde one as a student). I haven’t watched one in a long, long time though and don’t plan to see the movie remake thing, EVER. I do still watch Smokey and the Bandit when it comes on TBS sometimes. I mean, damn that movie is funny in a really silly way. And I still think Fred the basset hound is cute. So there. I had an uncle on one side and a cousin on the other who were both truckers for a while so it’s kind of funny to reminisce about that weird “trucker cool” crap that happened in the seventies.

Anyway, here’s some funny redneck trucker songs to download. Just pretend I put them up on 10-4.

C.W. McCall - Convoy
Jerry Reed - East Bound and Down (the main song from Smokey and the Bandit)
Waylon Jennings - Just Good Ol’ Boys (original theme song for Dukes of Hazzard)
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes - punk cover of Just Good Ol’ Boys

While national US news sites and news-related weblogs never fail to gleefully point out articles that make people from Alabama look like ignorant, racist, illiterate, blindly religious, snake-handling bumpkins, stories about good people who make a difference are quite rare.

Not seen on any other news site.

Cleaned up a lot of the previous photos from xmas as well as some sent from my sister. Also edited the post times so they’re in reverse chronological order so it’s best to start here and hit next to see them in order.

I played around with some filters and the dooce effect a bit with these tree photos. Mouse-over to see the originals.

After very long lines and countless flight delays (dern that snowy midwest Cody made it to Birmingham at 11 pm Christmas Eve - seven hours late but he got here. I hope everyone else got to their various destinations safely despite the interesting weather and godawful transportation issues and got to celebrate Yule / Xmas / Solstice / Midwinter / etc with their loved ones too.

They let Cody and I sleep late since he insisted on wrapping presents when he got here. Then we had a fun morning and early afternoon with tea, coffee, and lots of presents. I got a bunch of fun clothes - yes a good number of them match my pink ipod - as well as books, shoes, movies, all kinds of fun stuff. Everyone else seemed very happy with their gifts too. We managed to get everyone something they had wanted and a bunch of things they would want if they knew about it as well.

Then we heated up the precooked by the country club ladies’ meal and had a nice dinner in the afternoon. We all bummed around playing with our various new toys then when the sun went down we got out the champagne and Christmas crackers! This is an English custom we picked up during our Xmases in Australia where you pop open these little wrapped presents with a small built-in firecracker popper and out come little paper hats, small toys, and a little joke. We’re totally into the English way to celebrate the holidays: drink copiously and wear silly hats. I think every holiday should be celebrated this way.

Susan and Bluejay (remember the Swiss Miss post?) stopped by and we had two extra crackers for them so they joined us and we had a marvelous time complaining about Bush and Company together. Tis the season right? :p

Cody and I are here until tomorrow then we’re flying back home. Having a lot of fun - and eating a LOT of good food but I do miss my little critter babies and will be glad to be home.

I added some of my favorite photos from xmas day to the photo journal so you might have a better idea of the silly hat thing.

Screw this not buying everything for christmas online bullshit. Mah feet hurt!

Cody’s flying into Birmingham tomorrow yaaaay! The puppy is happily ensconced at the new puppy hotel, the in-laws are enjoying their time with the grandhedgehog (hehe they actually do enjoy her she’s hard to resist), the kitties have lots of food and water and central heat (and a whole house without a large dog to bug them). No funny ideas robber people we have an alarm :p

Dad and I picked up the very large precooked holiday meal from the country club today. Mom has been on a cooking strike since about 1991 and it was a sort of fundraiser anyway. Sister and her husband are safely here. We have one present left to buy but manymany to wrap. The gigantically tall tree is decorated. Turner Classic movies is showing fun old holiday movies.

And yesterday I was officially over the cold I managed to show up with on Saturday making me spend most of my week in a lovely green-tinged nyquil haze. With my red nose it was downright festive. Tracers man. Tracers.

I made it to Birmingham with no problems at all. The security checkpoint people were pleasant and the lines moved quickly, the planes were on time, and my ipod was fully charged and loaded with my favorite This American Life episodes. The layover in Atlanta wasn’t too short or too long and the gates were almost next to each other. I’d say it was a pretty easy trip.

While waiting for my dad to grab my checked bag off the conveyor belt mom and I went to sit on a bench to wait. There was just enough room between a tall pale guy and a woman - who both moved for us so we’d fit. Then a minute later the guy says: “Noelle?” Oh shit. I was back in Birmingham fifteen minutes and already running into people I knew.

He had to repeat his name three times before I recognized him. Mostly because the last time I’d seen him he’d had a huge mop of dark hair and was busy being a circa 88 skater boy. Not with a shaved mostly-balding-anyway head and in a really expensive suit and coat. I hadn’t known him very well. He’d been trying to date my friend who was busy making and breaking up with an older skater type guy who played in a local punk band. Or something like that.

So we sat in baggage claim and chatted for about five minutes attempting to catch up after, god has it been almost fifteen years? Weird to catch up with someone you didn’t know well and didn’t necessarily like in the first place. I didn’t pack my bags and go racing back to Mountain Brook in 2000 for the reunion. We didn’t even extend the energy to go to the one in Los Lunas and that’s just forty-five minutes away. This is not exactly a time of our lives that we cherish or wish to relive. Ever.

Anyway, Mr. ex-skater boy cum pediatric specialist doctor was very polite to me and seemed to care about how my life has been going. And I was polite to him (after accidentally blurting “oh my god what happened to your hair?” ooops). I certainly wouldn’t want stupid things I did in junior high held against me. But one of my most vivid junior high memories involves him.

We were in advanced algebra in the seventh grade and the teacher wasn’t there yet. Usual junior high before class bullshit was going on then out of the blue this guy stood up in front of the class and said “Who thinks Noelle is a fat hairy bitch? Raise their hand.” I don’t remember the reaction, or even my own reaction. I knew it was from Eddie Murphy’s drunk father skit even then. Not an original insult, not even an original delivery, but just as hurtful to an awkward chubby twelve year-old girl with bigger tits than the teacher.

Thanks mostly to time, depression, denial, and a fair bit of drinking (coughanddrugscough) I don’t remember a lot from junior high or high school. This one stands out among the few that have made it through. But that purposefully hurtful statement made in, what? 1984? 85? Twenty years ago. I shouldn’t even remember it. Or who made it. But I do. And there he was being polite and successful in the Birmingham airport.

No it’s not all his fault that I had a fat unhappy time in high school there were plenty of others who have reminded me before and since that day that I’m not nor will I ever be considered a skinny girl. I have depression, hypothyroidism, and some pretty serious genetic code to deal with and I fight it all the time. This is one of the permanent burdens of my life and I’m not sure if I’ll ever be entirely comfortable with it. The good part is I also got intelligence, excellent skin, love, support, and good hair (coughandmoneycough) so I suppose having a genetic tendency to be fat is just part of the exchange right?

I try to at least be healthy and as long as I have a husband who loves me no matter what I weigh and I don’t subject anyone to my upper thighs in spandex or clothes that expose butt-floss (which I don’t wear anyway) I don’t see why anyone should give a shit what I weigh. But I wish I could tell that to the little girl who ended up failing that algebra class because, among other things, she felt that maybe if she pretended to be stupid the boys would stop giving her so much shit.

I didn’t say anything about that memory I just politely told him about how I ended up in New Mexico and my geeky husband and listened politely as he told me about his internship and interviews. Didn’t see a wedding band. No girlfriend or wife or kids mentioned at all. Is it weird for me to feel a sense of relief that he might be gay?

It’s very difficult to describe the nuances of my home state or to defend the endless hypocrisy or seeming lack of logic to people that read the random news that gets leaked out of state - usually newsbytes that seem almost designed to keep Alabama residents looking like bumpkins.

But the fact that there’s now an official state whiskey in a state where there are still dry counties and no sunday liquor sales is so damn funny to me. I’m just thanking the gods it’s not moonshine.