I just had a discussion with my fellow IT workers, and I just dropped a southernism they don't recognize. I stopped to think about it for a second or two, and realized that I don't know the 'real' name for what I'm describing.

Growing up in Arkansas, we were careful about where in the yard we went barefoot, because there was a certain type of grass we called 'stickers.' It was grass, but it has small but definite thornlike parts, and they stuck in your skin (thus the name) and made it very uncomfortable to walk barefoot on grass.

Anyone know the real name of what I'm describing?

Dateline: New Westminster, BC.
(Note to self: Go see the old one sometime.)

As I've retold this story countless times in the time since I've returned, I figured the least I could do is share it here as well. I suspect it loses some of its boozy, imperative nature when committed to the written word, though; I think it's probably far funnier in person.

A cultural difference worth knowing: I was raised to hear pretty words, but not to take all of them at face value. An invitation to come stay with someone, if not repeated or mentioned again, was very likely someone just being polite -- not something to be acted upon. It turns out this is not true of everyone: some people issue an invitation only once, really hoping you'll take them up on it, and then shut up if you don't act on it. Ah, North versus South, are there any gaffes this cultural divide can't inspire?

Fast-forward.

While I wait for today's Godot -- Adobe CS3 -- to attempt (yet again) to reinstall Adobe Acrobat CS3 (of which install, I might add, there are several known problems, especially regarding upgrading) ... well, guess what, kids, you're stuck with me for a little while.

If you want to know how to keep a webmaster from getting anything done, deny her access to her email and her web browser. After a few tumultuous minutes of foaming at the mouth, she will subside into quiet, trailing whimpers while she waits for the pain to stop.

Three hours and fifteen minutes into Thanksgiving, I'm playing a nearly-inaudible set of songs over Winamp, cursing my nocturnal habits, and wondering just when the heck I'm ever going to grow up enough to have holidays at my own house.

Southern families have rules. Nobody bothers writing them down, because why waste paper writing down the obvious? These things are all on the same level of obviousness:

• Left shoe goes on left foot. Right shoe goes on right foot. There should be no leftovers, either of shoes or of feet.
• When someone dies, don't send flowers. Send casseroles.
• You're coming home for the holidays, and don't give us any lip about it either.

So what's the dividing line, exactly? What causes the change in stature from Scion Of Existing Family to External Independent Familial Unit? When is it not just accepted, but expected, that your holidays will be spent under your own roof?

As days go, not bad.

Fall has awakened the cotton gin near our house, and tipped the edges of a few early-adopter leaves with gold. Each day brings a different number of bales of raw cotton piled up near the side of the road. Bales, not in the sense of man-sized or tractor-sized, but eighteen-wheeler-sized; one enormous bale per truck.

We drove off to dinner, Jeff and I, and he cocked an eyebrow toward the field of bales and wondered aloud how the owners of the cotton gin moved the bales from field to truck. In the four years we've lived here, I've never seen a bale loaded from the field onto a truck, and only in the past couple of days have I seen a bale being deposited onto the field in the first place. They simply appear during the quiet of late morning or late night, when no one is around to see their arrival.

By such things are the seasons marked.

News agencies (and my husband) are reporting that a 4.9 earthquake delicately nibbled at the toes of northeast Alabama just before four a.m. local time. Initial reports from news agencies contained the phrase "seismic event," prompting many sleepy Alabama residents to call 911 to inform the local police "There weren't no size-mic event - would you please tell my neighbor to quit playing with those damn explosives he stole from work last week? If he don't stop I'm gonna shoot his redneck ass."

Those who want to see firsthand evidence of the American love for alternately-spelled words have to look no further than the myriad Southern spellings of the word "barbecue," or the vast creativity that goes into Southern church names.

I'm not much for proselytizing. Nor much, outside my close circle of friends, for expounding upon my spiritual beliefs. I tend to draw the line at random strangers publicly announcing religious beliefs, especially with intent to convert. (We should so make that a tort.) For me, there's a vast (and only rarely blurry) difference between two friends talking about the things that matter over coffee, and some random, unknown person trying to take a few minutes to convince me that their belief system is the right way to go.

This, from the person who still takes a quick look up at the sky every time she sets foot outside. "Yep, still blue," I catch myself saying, before carrying on with whatever life-fulfilling activity I was doing in the first place. (Trying to convert me is like trying to talk to a cat. Expend as much effort as you want, but all you'll do is wear out your voice and annoy the cat.)

There's not much between Huntsville and Birmingham, except somewhere near an hour and a half of scenery that can be compressed into approximately three minutes of equally unexciting viewing:

"Hmm."
"Look. Trees."
"More trees."
"Is there anything else to see?"
"More trees, I think."
"Are we there yet?"
"Given that we left five minutes ago, and it takes nearly an hour and a half to get there, I think that highly unlikely."

It's a pity, really; Alabama seems to be missing some of the out-and-out oddness that is the freeway scenery in Arkansas. Anyone who has driven I-30 has encountered one of the most famous (and enduring) billboards in central Arkansas:

Enormous capital letters, the billboard equivalent of a shout:

"WARNING! PREPARE TO MEET GOD!"

Ever heard the saying, "Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should"? Today's interaction with a grocery-store cashier brought this axiom to mind. Granted, I had plenty of time to think about it, given that it took her an exceedingly long period of time to ring up my order.