Day Four Highs and Lows.

Highs:

1) Reading the Panama City Herald at the diner during breakfast. My favorite stories, which were on page two of the paper, are:

“Rumors bites! Headmaster denies vampires at school.

BOSTON (AP) -- Apparently, it's not the bloody truth. After stories spread that vampires were strolling the campus of Boston Latin School, the headmaster of the prestigious college-prep school put a stake in the rumors. Lynne Mooney Teta sent a notice out Thursday to faculty, students, and parents denying the presence of bloodsuckers. She declined, however, to offer details about the rumors.”

“Toilet sausage chef causes prison unit evacuation.

CLALLAM BAY, Wash. (AP) -- An inmate's attempt to heat up sausages in his toilet went up in smoke when the cooking fire forced a unit evacuation at a Washington prison. Clallam Bay Corrections Center spokeswoman Denise Larson says 130 inmates were evacuated to a dining hall when smoke was spotted coming from a sewer vent pipe Wednesday evening. She says the smoke was traced to the inmate's cell and he admitted to trying to heat up snack sausage bought from a prison store in the stainless steel toilet. The inmate's identity has not been released. The toilet chef has been placed in segregation pending discipline at the prison on Washington's Olympic Peninsula.”

I’m glad that during our current natural disasters and economic recessions the AP is covering such important and crucial stories. And though that sounds sarcastic, it isn’t. I haven’t read anything light-hearted in the paper for a long time so it’s nice to see there are still things going on like men who try to warm sausage in a toilet.

2) I got my own room last night. Before we left for our trip, Grammy came over to me and said: “I have a little present for you.”  The present was a package of earplugs and after night one as bunk buddies, I know why.  I guess I should have realized that Grammy and Papa snore loudly since I can hear them in my room at home from their room upstairs. I really wasn’t sure who snores so loudly, but Papa and I decided it is Grammy.  Papa kept asking me why I wear the earplugs and I told him I can’t sleep with the snoring so Grammy gave me earplugs. He told me:

Papa: It’s all in your mind. You just have to tell yourself that there is going to be some snoring going on over there and it isn’t going to bother you. 

Julie: Papa, I’m not sure if that works. 

Papa: Sure it does. Once you get used to the noise, it won’t bother you anymore. Like if there were a train outside, it wouldn’t bother you after you got used to it. 

Julie: Well, I haven’t gotten used to the snoring yet.

Papa is a firm believer in convincing yourself of things. Like how he tells me that on nights when I can’t sleep, I just need to tell myself to go to sleep. When I tell him that doesn’t work, he just tells me that I’m not convincing myself enough.

3) We all took naps today.  Yes, we drove all the way to Florida to nap.

4) Andrea sent me a picture of baby Jayson, and we all passed the computer around to look at how cute he is.  Grammy and Aunt Dotty kept talking about how wonderful it is that people are having babies and how he has such a beautiful complexion from sitting in liquid for nine months. Grammy said: "You tell Andrea she has a beautiful baby. And I should know, I've seen a lot of them." When I showed the picture to Papa, he just looked at it and said: "Well, look at that. It looks like a normal baby."

Lows:

1) It is still raining and there are tornado warnings. Actually, that is a mixture of high/low because I think tornados are exciting, apart from the damage, that is. When I was a freshman in high school, I told my counselor that I wanted to be a tornado chaser, which meant I wanted to be a pilot and a meteorologist, but the counselor told me that I had to be in the Air Force to be a pilot and that “tornado chaser” wasn’t a real job. I’m still bitter. She crushed my dreams.

2) Aunt Dotty is also a republican so all week we had to talk about how she doesn't trust President Obama and how he is going to ruin this country and spend all of our money.  I think Fox News is to blame.

3) My hair doesn’t like Florida. What was previously a curly mess in Missouri is now a frizzy disaster in Florida.

4) We went to a buffet called ChowTime for dinner. Personally, I think buffets are the most disgusting displays of gluttony and obesity, but everyone else seems to like them. They did have a pretty amazing sushi bar, and though it was good, I’m still waiting for my food poisoning to begin; there is something about sushi at a buffet that I don’t trust. Papa was happy because he got to eat oysters, clams, and crawfish. When he got his crawfish plate, he would crack the heads off, look at Grammy and slurp out the insides. He just sat there and chuckled while we talked about how disgusting that is.