TKD tournament, weekend with my parents

This past Friday Elise and I trucked southeast in the early evening to make it in time to have catfish at the Cross Roads Tavern in Cat Spring. Definitely something you shouldn’t miss in this lifetime. Elise has yet to eat catfish at Cross Roads. Having said that, it goes without saying that we didn’t make it in time. We didn’t get to my parents’ house until 8:30 p.m. So we drove back to my parents’ house and ate left over El Arroyo chicken fajita sandwiches and clam chowder.

I’ve been indescribably stressed the past few weeks and haven’t been sleeping well. Friday night was no exception. I stared at the ceiling in my old bedroom while laying in bed. I got up and laid on the couch in the living room until I finally fell to sleep. I woke up at six-something on Saturday morning. I showered, ate, etc., woke up Elise and we drove to Brenham for Master Park’s 20th Annual Unified Tae Kwon Do Invitational Tournament. This was supposed to be my comeback tournament. Unfortunately your humble narrator’s ankle collided with his instructor’s knee last week while both were traveling at full speed.

Being at the tournament was exciting. I was able to size up who I would have fought. I could have taken first place. Anyway - we were at the tournament for a few hours and my parents came picked us up and took us to lunch at Billy Bob Jo Jimbob’s Kountry Kitchen Steak & Slaughter Haus (I can’t remember the name of it but it’s that restaurant that serves the best chicken fried steaks and hamburgers and the sort - you know, country comfort food). I have catfish nuggets since we couldn’t have them on Friday night. My parents had burgers, Elise had a CFS smothered in cream gravy. I only mention that because Elise used to never eat anything with gravy on it. I’ve yet to tell her this, but I’ve been playing those subliminal message CDs at night while she’s sleeping. I’m hoping by the end of the year she’ll be fluent in conversational Texan:

Elise: “Hey y’all - I’m fixin’ to go get a Coke… inny y’all want one?”
The y’alls: “Yeah, we’ll take a Coke”
Elise: “What kind do ya want?”

We went back to the tournament to watch the fights in my division. We left around 5 p.m., went back to my parents’ house and chatted for a while before Elise and I came back to Austin. We had a short trip with my parents because Elise had to work on Sunday.

I spent most of Sunday in the backyard while Elise was at work. I pulled weeds, ripped up a ’sitting area’ where our garden is going to be planted and mowed. That evening we went to John and Christine’s to watch the Sopranos. John cooked some awesome mashed potatoes and pork chops smothered in cream of mushroom soup.

My friend Travis came over last night. I made .6563 lb. hamburgers and we watched American Chopper and chatted. Travis is moving to Belize for a few months to work at a botanical garden and continue writing.