10 Things I Don't Hate About Corpus

I've been coming down pretty hard on Corpus so far in this blog. So here's a list of great things about this town:

1. No allergies. I used to get really bad seasonal allergies in Austin. In all the time I've lived in Corpus, I've been sick a grand total of once. It blew over after a day, too.

2. My hair! Something about the combination of the humidity, the temperature, the wind, the salt content of the air - I don't know what it is, but I have really great hair here. It's almost never flat. It's bouncy and curly and luxuriant and simply fabulous, dahling! Never underestimate the importance of good hair, girls.

3. The weather is almost always very nice; and when it isn't nice, it's exciting. Granted, it can be uncomfortably warm in the summer (February-November). But since the city is right on the water, there's usually a good strong breeze going.

4. Shrimp. Once a week or so, in season, you can bring an ice chest to work and buy shrimp from some guy in the back parking lot.

I never do this. What do you take me for, a complete lunatic? I'm not buying seafood from some random stranger who lurks in parking lots! But you gotta admit, it's kind of cool that you could.

5. If you're into biking, hey! No pesky hills!

6. Ha ha, our gas prices are lower than everyone else's in the country. Even Houston's. And the row of refineries along the shipping channel looks really cool at night, like some huge, futuristic fairy city.

7. Traffic! Well, there's a good and a bad side to this.

Good: there just isn't that much of it, and people don't drive very aggressively. You can go months without ever hearing the sound of a car horn.

Bad: As far as I can tell, every driver in Corpus graduated from the Mosey-Along school of driving. (Graduated? Dropped out, more likely.) They mosey through red lights, three or four cars after the light has changed. They mosey out of parking lots right in front of you when you're driving down the street at full speed (because you're from Austin - you're supposed to be moseying), forcing you to slam on your brakes. They mosey from one lane into another without signaling. The exception to this is the kids I can hear drag-racing down Staples at 3am on a Saturday night.

8. Beaches... I guess. Since moving here, I've discovered that I like the idea of the beach a lot more than I like the actual beach, what with all the sand and seaweed and stinging jellyfish and such. Still, it's nice to sit safely on the beach (away from the jellyfish) and sip a cold beer, maybe read a nice book, and listen to the screams of the children in the water, getting stung.

9. My commute to work, and my office, have a bay view. On a couple of occasions, waiting at the light to turn left onto Ocean Drive, I've seen dolphins sporting a little ways from the shore. This is a pretty nice start to the day.

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10. It provides a great subject for a really concise blog post!