What a good idea! The problem with this sort of success, though, is that it is not easily repeatable. It's the sort of stunt one person can do once, but copycats will be simply ignored or reviled. ;&)

My weekend was all right. On Saturday morning at 8 (well, it was supposed to be 8), we started our journey down to the coast. We stopped for a good long time in San Antonio, though, because we didn't have to meet relatives in Corpus until the evening. In S.A., we saw the Alamo, briefly, and walked down the Riverwalk for a bit. My dad and younger siblings went on one of those boat tours, but wisely, I decided against it. They later reported that it was boring. After all that, we were pretty hungry for lunch, but the deli that my dad had wanted to go to (which I have visited before--it's a good place) was closed, so we went to Luby's instead, after a lot of hassle and stress. Well, my mom and dad were stressed: I was fine. Once we were done with lunch, it was time to drive the remaining two hours to C.C.; they passed uneventfully. My dad has a mean trick of putting on the radio just when I want to hear music in my headphones (which are not those kind that go into your ears), and turning off music that I want to hear on the radio. He did that several times this weekend, to my teeth-gritting, yet humble, annoyance. Anyway, when we got into Corpus, we spent a few minutes finding lodging, which eventually turned out to be a La Quinta. We were all in one room, which was a good rate. The kids went swimming in their pool, but I did not. At dinnertime, we went out to Souper Salad, at which we met my aunt and uncle and two cousins. The elder, Chelsea, was and is very, very obnoxious; somehow, it is in her nature to behave so. The younger one, Brittany, who is only four, was nicer and cuter. After dinner, we went over to their house for a while. Then back to the hotel to get some sleep, after watching Ocean's 11 on TV. When one doesn't have cable at home, so one has to take advantage of these opportunities.

We woke up Sunday morning with no clear plans of what to do. It is most vexatious to me to have time to loaf around a hotel room and watch a Harry Potter movie on HBO, and yet not have time to get to Mass. Yes, we did not get to Mass this entire weekend. Thank my subjectivist father for that. Can you tell I'm still bitter? In any case, the continental breakfast at the inn was surprisingly good. They had a waffle iron and cups of batter you could pour in to make your own fresh waffles. Quite a treat, they were. Instead of any religious activity, we (meaning my dad) decided to see the USS Lexington. (Oh, on the way we saw an African-American preacher and small congregation by the side of the road. Apparently they didn't have a church building yet. My dad turned off a nice song on the radio which I and my sister were enjoying in order to hear some of the preaching, which included invocations of Billy Graham.) The Lexington was cool. It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there [on a ship]. Next, we went to Sun Harvest to pick up some snacks and some tofu dogs for us to eat for lunch (which would supplant the barbequed meat that the rest of our relatives ate). I am using too many parentheses here. Oh, well, then of course we went to the family get-together thing, which was weird and normal, torture and leisure, warm and cool, and altogether an experience that one goes through because one must. Most of my relatives on my dad's side are nice people in general, but...well, even get-togethers with relatives on my mom's side are weird. This one was no weirder than any other. We were there from around 1:15 to 5:15. The drive back home home was nothing much to talk about. We managed not to murder each other. It is hard when a three and a half hour trip must be filled with such contention. The food was good, though, so I won't complain.

And today, I am back home and tried to do something to better myself--meaning schoolwork. There is always school to be done. I tried to do some on the trip, but it IS hard to focus on King Lear with the radio on and kids in the backseat complaining every five minutes. I did what I could...perhaps even a little less. Oh, last night I stayed up until 11 having snacks. My mother likes to binge late at night, and if I didn't assist her, she would have eaten all my swiss cheese! However, I really didn't need the milk chocolate chips she forced on me. I ended up throwing a few away. She doesn't know I did. Is anyone really still reading this? I highly doubt. I'll leave you with a link, though: no more sugar.