That In Which the Hapless Heroine Goes To The South

On Friday I took a mini-trip to Charlotte, North Carolina to visit Ami for a couple of days.  I prepped the house and Pack and I left work early and cancelled a college class and flew out and back in a whirlwind.  Before I left I tried to get Randi and Earl to take pledges to be good ("I (state your name) do solemnly swear to be good for Jessica and to not take anything out of the garage and to definitely not leave the yard or kill my sibling.")  They refused, but I decided to leave anyways.  I had some goals while I was in North Carolina.

1.  Get a NASCAR hat.

2.  Eat some BBQ.

3.  Not be in terrible pain.

I only really did one of those things.  My mini-vaycay started out with a sore back because on Wednesday my impatient self found myself in front of a lollygagging student who would not move he and his desk fast enough so I pushed the said student's desk until he was in the spot I desired.  This, turns out, was not the smartest thing I've ever done and I felt it nearly immediately.  I was a bit worried about how I might manage on my vacation.  As it turns out, not so good.  The combination of the desk pushing incident, the 5.5 Susan Kommen breast cancer walk, massage and who knows what else had me so sore on Sunday I had to dope up to go to Target.

I wanted to get a NASCAR hat because NASCAR is funny and I thought it might help me get a man if I was walking around wearing a NASCAR hat. Unfortunately there were no NASCAR hats for sale in the Charlotte Target and Ami flat out refused to take me to the NASCAR Hall of Fame and she laughed at me when I suggested that I might walk there while she was at work.  If me, my mom and dad and Max could just pick up and move I think I might want to move to Charlotte because despite being a large city it doesn't feel like it at all.  There's green spaces and everything!

Walk with 24,000 people

Me and Ami after the walk

My dad wanted me to bring back some Carolina BBQ which caused some fierce discussion about whether or not I could buy some BBQ and then freeze it and then bring it home.  (Ami said, yes of course she used to freeze bacon to take to France and me and her boyfriend Kousay said, that's dumb.)  I settled for a bottle of Mac's BBQ sauce which I purchased and packed into my bag.  This, of course, cause a minor hiccup with TSA because BBQ sauce is not among the TSA allowable items and due to the security issue I had to check my bag making my dad's BBQ sauce the most expensive bottle of BBQ sauce ever.

Grits and biscuits.

BBQ

No dangerous weapons or BBQ sauce

 I got home and Jessica reported out that Randi and Earl and Clark had all been fabulous and well-behaved.  Again, Jessica is not prone to exaggeration so I had no choice but to believe her.

Carolina Panthers' newest fan.