Friday, June 09, 2006

Welcome to Texas


I landed in the Great State on Thursday. Today my mom and I toured the wedding site, visited the caterer, the florist, and the photographer. Nordstrom’s and the baker are planned for tomorrow.

Going anywhere in Austin means a lot of driving.

My mom is a nervous driver. The kind who speeds up just to put on her brakes. And then brakes several times at one stop because she’s not sure she braked hard enough the first time. If her passengers don’t have whiplash, then she hasn’t done her job properly. The kind who won’t switch lanes until there’s not another car anywhere in the vicinity of where she wants to be. In a busy town like Austin, that causes quite a bit of stress, cussing, starting, and of course more breaking.

At one point, I eagerly volunteered to take over the driving responsibility, explaining that my carsickness was on the verge of causing a very big mess in the front seat.

And that’s when I remembered that mom is a nervous driver even when she isn’t driving. On our way home we were heading down Slaughter Lane to eventually go south on interstate 35. She was very helpful about providing directions.

“KK, you need to get in the right hand lane before we reach the highway. “ (One mile from the highway.)

“You need to get in the right hand lane before we reach the highway.“ (10 blocks from the highway.)

“You need to get in the right hand lane before we reach the highway.” (3 blocks from the highway.)

“Take a right, right here, right here.” (At the highway.)

I’m glad she said something, I had no idea what that big sign with the markings I35-S and the arrow to the right meant. I might have accidentally rolled my eyes, because then she said,

“Okay smart-ass. And don’t you dare go writing this in your blog.”

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