Some of you may remember that I’ve mentioned once or eighty-four times that we are in the midst of a drought. And by we, I mean pretty much the entire state of Texas. Let me present this map of the United States as a visual aid.
Oh yes. For those of you who have always wondered when I would bring the educational visual aids to enhance my blogging, let me just say, it has been BROUGHTEN.
In case you can’t tell, Texas is colored almost completely maroon which indicates EXCEPTIONAL drought. Not mediocre drought. Not NEEDS IMPROVEMENT drought. EXCEPTIONAL. Drought like I foolishly bought a new pair of rain boots back in January and have worn them one time. WHEN IT SNOWED.
And so between the drought and the extreme heat wave, I have spent much of the last six months claiming, and perhaps whining, that what we really need is for a hurricane or a tropical storm to hit somewhere in the vicinity of Corpus Christi. No offense to my peeps in Corpus. I wish you no harm, just some gusty winds and rain that would eventually move through Texas and dump about ten to forty-six inches of rain in the vicinity of San Antonio.
Some of you may know (and the rest of you probably don’t care) that I’ll celebrate my 40th birthday in a little over two weeks. I’m not really stressed about turning forty because I hear it can be your best decade ever. Granted, most of the people who tell me this are in their seventies and possibly senile, but I choose to believe them. The only thing I have against forty is that it seems to have already hurt my metabolism’s feelings and I think they may have had a dump.
Anyway, many, many months ago, like back in January, my group of girlfriends known as Birthday Club began to talk about the fact that Julie and I were both turning forty this year. And we decided that a girls weekend was in order to mark the occasion. This was perfect because I could think of no other way I’d rather celebrate my 40th birthday than on a trip with some of my best girlfriends since a big party would only cause me to hide in a corner and some people might feel that is antisocial behavior.
On a semi-related growing older note, a few years ago Gulley and I went back to A&M for a Diamond Darling reunion and decided to go to the Chicken later on that evening. She decided it would be a fun game to ask various college age kids how old they thought we were. All of them guessed twenty-seven. Gulley was ecstatic and took it as a sign that we’re aging extremely well. And then I had to point out that when you’re in college you can’t fathom an age older than twenty-seven. If we were any older than that we surely wouldn’t have been at the Chicken for fear of missing Murder She Wrote and keeping our dentures in too long and needing to curl up under an afghan after we made our way home in our Cadillac with the box of Kleenex stuck in the back window next to the WWII Veterans baseball cap.
But back to the birthday plans.
We spent months discussing various destinations and decided it would be best to go somewhere within driving distance but where we could truly feel like we’d gotten away from all our responsibilities and people who may want us to cook dinner for them or wipe their bottoms.
So now you may be wondering what on earth this has to do with the aforementioned drought. Well, I’m glad you asked.
We ultimately decided to rent a condo for the last weekend in July in Port Aransas, Texas which is right by Corpus Christi. At this point I feel like I should provide you with an additional visual aid.
Perfect.
Even factoring in THE CONE OF UNCERTAINTY, it looks like God has heard my prayer for a tropical storm to hit somewhere near Corpus Christi. Unfortunately, I forgot to add a disclaimer that I’d prefer it be a weekend other than the last one in July.
As we watched the news last night and realized there was a storm headed right for the Texas coast, P said, “There is no way I’m letting you go down there if that thing turns into a hurricane. That would just be stupid.”
And I nodded my head and agreed with him because that’s the best thing to do in these situations. But Gulley and I agreed that while we aren’t dumb enough to head down there if it’s a hurricane, we are absolutely not going to let some little tropical depression named Don keep us from a good girls weekend even if it means we spend the weekend holed up in the condo with a few bottles of wine and sixteen different kinds of chips and dip while we watch plastic beach chairs fly past the windows.
However, like Gulley said, if we make a run to Super S Foods and happen to see Jim Cantore, we’ll know it’s time to get the heck out of dodge.
Right after we get our picture taken with him.