OK, back to the road trip...

Gainesville is a neat little town. It has one of JJ's perfect downtowns (though there is the bypass so you have to mean to go there to get there) with the little town square and the old clock tower and the shops with apartments upstairs. You know. We passed an antique store and I swear, visible from the road, were displayed little statues of Jake and Elwood. (We also had to stop and ask, and it was $400 for the set, and if you buy it I will slaughter you.) We had to cruise through there 5 or 6 times until he had his fill. Then off to Gram's and catching up with the folks.

JJ's mom has moved from our side of the state to Gram's house to be there for Gram, who is going to be 100 this month and getting a touch of dementia. At least that's what the docs say, not that I saw any evidence of that, so it must be intermittent. So it was a good thing JJ's mom was there to see to the details of her sister's death, anyway, and we were glad to see them all because they have been looking after things up there a long time. And let me tell you, my mother-in-law? Rocks. In the history of mothers-in-law, she deserves a place in the Hall of Fame. Or at least a spot on the All-Stars roster. Meddling? Uh-uh. Guilt trips? Never heard of them. Unwanted advice? Puh-leeeze. This woman, who took care of JJ (baby of the family) well into adulthood and could have left him a prime candidate for making a horrible husband and mama's boy, instead has let him go live life without her needing to add an opinion on everything. And I thank God every day that she did, that when we married she seemed to actually rejoice in his going off on his own. And that she says things to me like "You're the best thing to ever happen to JJ." Think of your own mother-in-law, if you happen to be married. Does she say that stuff to you?

I love these people, and I hate seeing them only at funerals. So I'll draw a curtain over the service, which was touching and personal, and the after-service get-together in the hotel, which involved way too much snack food, as well as forty-somethings comparing comic book collections of their youth (not that they whipped out any Marvel editions while I was there) and discoursing on the topic of Things I Can't Eat Anymore, and the hotel switching and all. I'll just say the Little Critter went to swim that last evening and I went with her.

So we're up early Sunday ready to leave and go to Gram's to say goodbye, because we have another long road trip ahead, and I say "Hey, Oklahoma is 5 miles away and I've never been. Let's go!

JJ is in a good mood this morning, so he agrees (nevermind that I'm driving) and we putter along northward.

Things I said:

"Hey! There's the Red River! That's not so big, is it?"
"Hey, there's a CASINO right there one mile ahead!"
"Hey! I've got a $20 bill burning a hole in my purse!"

Things JJ said:

A bunch of things I didn't listen to.
"So where in the Bible does it say you can gamble?"

Party Pooper. I think he was worried I'd go in there and empty the emergency fund. So no gambling for Fishie, but, and this takes the cake, last week, after we'd been home a while? Dude goes to the convenience store and buys, get this, LOTTERY TICKETS.

LOTTERY TICKETS! Jeepers, man, if you're going to throw it away, it might as well have some FUN attached to it! You know, the lights, the buzzers, the cha-ching, the bells? But no, he slips a fiver across a counter and goes home to check the numbers on the website the next day and THEN tells me about it.

So my grand trip to Oklahoma was cut short by the fact that JJ is occasionally a doofus. And a spoiler. Because me? As soon as I'd seen Oklahoma I was ready to hit the road for Texarkana and see me a little bit of Arkansas. And from there hop down to Shreveport and see me a little of Louisiana, the part that doesn't have the National Guard posted. And then we could say we hit 4 states in one day. But JJ looked as if I had asked him to drive to Upper Volta instead of tool around our little State here. Man, I hate that look.

But I did learn that Oklahoma looks quite a bit like Texas, except this: Your first site coming in to OK from Texas is a long, squat casino complex. Your first site coming into TX is a naughty book/video store (we call them LookLooks in my family, a story for yet another day) called "Welcome to TeXXXas."

There's a lesson there, but I can't think what.