back from 'vacation.' spent almost a week in my favorite place, the world-famous indianapolis, indiana, visiting my big brother with my niece/his daughter and my mama.
we wasnt originally supposed to spend my mama & brother's time off in innanapolis. what had supposed to happen was, my mama was gonna take off a week two weeks ago, and so was my brother. we were gonna drive to cleveland to pick up my nephew/his son, and then we'd all drive to sandusky to go to cedar point. but by some stroke of genius, my brother took the wrong week off so we hadda push it back 2 weeks. three days before we were all supposed to go, my mama's car started actin up and she hadda put $300 of what she'd saved for vacation into fixin it. then, a distant cousin of the family died and my brother thought he was gon hafta be a pallbearer in the funeral, which was earlier today (he wasnt, btw, but he didnt find out til after he got to the funeral). so long story short, we were sorta limited to innanapolis due to money and morbid obligation. i wld have liked to have seen my nephew cause i havent seen him in well over a yr and a half, but whatever. this time wld give my niece some quality time w/ her pops, plus i was sorta missin my big brother too (and i'll murder anyone who leaks that information to him).
we had fun for most of the 4 days we spent there--we left monday and just got back like 2 hrs ago.
the first day we went downtown somewhere and rented a paddle boat on this creek/stream thingie that sorta weaves thru the area and lemme tell u what--that joint wore me OUT. evrybody, man. see, the first problem was my brother (who has gained some more weight again) & my mama were sittin in the back & me & lil niece sat in the front. it's easier to push weight than it is to pull it, right? well me & the niece had quite a bit of weight to pull, lemme tell ya. but it was fun tho. plus we got a lil work out. after that we grabbed sumthin to eat & went to the ZOOOOOOO! i love the zoo man. and innanapolis has a damn fine zoo, i can give yall that.
the next day, tuesday, we went to some place called Good Times or Great Times or Super Happy Fun Stuff Times of the Day or sumthin--they had go karts and bumper boats and an arcade and a chuck e cheese type game area inside. it was fun; my mama didnt ride the go karts with us, but it was for the best man cause i DUSTED trav & tiara on the track the first time around. 2nd ride some racist white cat (im only guessin he was racist cause i mean most white ppl are, right?) kept cuttin me off as i was gettin closer to passin them. that bastard. inside, we played skee-ball for like an hr & got a million tickets and then i discovered the air hockey table. i got an air hockey fetish sumthin terrible man; when im @ a table, this competitive streak jumps out in me and i end up playin too hard and hurtin myself. my whole left side hurts right now. my pinky is swollen, i broke a nail, and it hurts to hold my arm above my head. i beat moms one game, tiara one game, but i just cldnt beat big bro. damn him. anyway, Good Great God Super Happy Fun Ball Times was good stuff. we all gave tiara the tickets we'd won playin skee-ball and various games and she redeemed them for a buncha crap she doesn't need. fun times.
i believe that this was the night that my brother got me drunk offa some concoction he made w/ some remy. it wasnt really all that great, but he was proud of it so i drank it & got kinda loopy. yall, ONE DRANK. 's all i had. and that's why i dont drink.
wednesday: we went to the fair. we just happened to be in town for opening day, and my brother lives like literally right in frunna the innanapolis fairgrounds--there were ppl parking in front of his house and in his backyard and he was pissed and rightly so. we had a pretty nice time. he played lotsa basketball games and typically lost, but he finally sunk a shot and won tiara a big super huge blue bear that my mama strapped to her back and carried around. we ate and ate and ate and ate. i was introduced to a new level of fatness--deep fried cookies, candy bars, and other already-too-fat goodies. my brother had a deep fried snickers that i didnt taste cause i was too pissed off @ him to do so. i ate a chili dog and a buncha other stuff i cant remember and a deep fried twinkie. i mean really, who's idea was that?! it was a heart attack on a stick. it was pretty good tho, lol... basically tasted like a funnel cake.
and now, a quick word on the national tendencies of men:
each city, i believe, or used to believe, has its own standard cat call that ppl, typically men, give to attract the opposite sex. in louisville, it's this slick, flat kinda 'eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhd' sound. i'd hafta do it for u cause it dont sound right written. in lexington, ky, where i went to school, it's a loud, high 'yee-YEE!' sounds kinda stupid. not as cool as the 'eeeeeeeehhd' at all. went to chicago. asked some folks & found out chicago doesnt have one. went to philly. asked some folks & found philly doesnt have one. went to atlanta. went to indianapolis. didnt ask nobody (i dont think--nate i cant recall if u said yall have one or not), but i did observe the menfolk there and have drawn some conclusions.
southern nigras are far bolder.
in chicago i cant recall men ever paying any public mind to any females. in philly, they'd look @ ladies and occassionally comment, unless drunk, i found, when they grow a lil touchy-feely & intrusive, but i think its fair to say that's w/ anybody anywhere. in indianapolis they just stared like a motherfucker. happened sparsely, tho. in atlanta they were much, much bolder, starin u straight up & down & all up in ya grill & even doin some verbal propositionin whether u got a man on ur arm or not. ive not seen any men as aggressive as louisville dudes, tho. never. lil observation.
anyway.
the entire trip was peppered with me & travis trading insults, of course. examples:
at the zoo:
tiara: daddy, i want a pet monkey!
travis: go play with tracy.
today @ some department store:
moms: travis, will u stop being an idiot please?!
me: that's not fair. give him something he's got at least half a shot at accomplishing.
and so on and so forth. travis takes it too far tho, man. he's the type of person who teases and teases beyond the pt of it bein funny til u just wanna smack him, which i did a couple of times. it usually ends up in me swearing not to talk to or look at him anymore, which i dont for bout 25 minutes. but he's like, incapable of holding grudges and i can tell when he's not mad anymore so i just be like fuck it and we started gettin okay again. even tho i dont like him a lotta the time i love him very very much. he's a very good man with a beautiful heart & one of very few positive male figures in my life. PLUS he's got a typewriter that he says he's gonna gimmie!
thursday: i was mad at my brother for most of the day. i think we'd all spent too much time together in close quarters. we tried to take tiara school shoppin but the places we went to aint have shit that she needed and she was gettin mad and my brother's an ass and we just cldnt get things together so we left and went to eat at BW3's and then came on home. im zippin thru this part cause im tired of typing.
we came home to find that my granny had burned a wooden cutting board in the kitchen and had a jar of hair relaxer creme in the freezer.
*sigh*
i got lotsa pictures that ill share soon.
plz leave all ur 'i missed u so much' messages in the comment box below.
