okay, okay, time to catch up

I think I've said it before but I will say it again.  Eric the First Year is quite the scold.  Also, not as bendy as he claims.

But we should move on.

I have arrived in Mississippi.  

It's country.  Like, country.

Here is the end of my street:

Here is  the dog in front of our porch swing:

I was trying to get her to actually sit on the swing and puff on a corn cob pipe but she wasn't having it.  She has recently discovered the joys and frustrations of hunting frogs (she can't smell them so she has to rely on her just okay eyesight) and spends most of her days strategizing, drawing parabolas of hop-trajectories, calculating cross-breeze sheers, etc .  Apparently she can't be bothered with photo ops.

As you probably can't tell from the photo, we live in a very pleasant neighborhood.  I think its mostly MSU faculty here.  Most of the neighbors have introduced themselves and everyone is incredibly friendly.  The Southern Hospitality thing is no joke.  EVERYBODY waves and says hello.  And the department faculty have all been checking in on me regularly, as promised.  I've run into people I know while shopping at the Piggly Wiggly's (they have a Piggly Wiggly's here! Just like in the movies!).  It's all very quaint.  I like it.

I'm trying to keep a running list of ways in which rural Mississippi is like Los Angeles.  Thus far I have the following:

1. The mornings - like, before 9 am - are the very best parts of the day. 70 degrees, sunny, a slight breeze, everything moist from the dew but not yet humid/smoggy.

2. People drive crazy.  It doesn't help here that the stop signs are faded and the street paint has been completely rubbed off.

3. Lawn-obsession.  There are some beautiful lawns here.  It helps that there is plenty of rain but people also devote a lot of time to lawn care (MSU actually has a Turf Department that is separate from Groundskeeping).  When my Dad and I were returning our rented dolly to the local hardware store we spent some time looking over the tractor mower selection.  I have to say, the Husqvarnas are superior to the John Deeres all around.  For one thing they come with roll bars, which seems to me to be a pretty basic safety feature.  And they have seven different settings for blade length.  They are also bright orange.  I wish our lawn were bigger.

4. Holier-than-thou attitudes.  Sort of.  I saw a vanity plate on a Pontiac GT yesterday that read: GODS GT

In other news, the piano was safely extracted from the truck.  It was both terrifying and amazing.  I fully expected to witness (from my safe perch guiding the piano out of the truck to the open arms below) the death of the blueberry farmer, my father, and the future of the MSU history graduate program.  I'm hoping the grad students eventually need rec letters from me (though they do US history so its unlikely they'll ever ask me) so that I can praise both their piano-pressing abilities and their nuanced understanding of current historiographical trends.

I keep expecting something to come out of someone's mouth that I find stunningly offensive, but it hasn't happened yet.  Not even close.  The other day the black woman helping me sort out my textbook orders at the university bookstore scolded me for not knowing my course number by cheerfully saying she was going to whip me but that wasn't so much offensive as baffling.  As I understand it most locals here are either direct descendants of slaves or slave-owners.  I had no idea how to respond to that.

Okay, I think that's all for now.  I'm going to go make a sandwich and read up on the Olympics and/or war in the Caucuses and/or Bernie Mac.