So remember how I was going to College Station with Gulley for the weekend and was so excited to see the Aggies play?
Well, the entire weekend surpassed my expectations with one exception. The football team.
Apparently our offense has fallen and it can’t get up. And I could write several paragraphs on all my theories and thoughts on what the problem might be, but I will spare you because I bet the coaches aren’t perusing blogs written by women in their mid-forties to figure out where the football program goes from here.
Anyway, Gulley and I left San Antonio on Friday morning and made a stop in Austin for the Hand to Hold luncheon. Glennon Melton was the speaker and I’m the speaker for next year’s luncheon so they invited us to join them this year. We had a great time and then made our way to Honey and Big’s house.
On Friday night, Honey and Big took us to Christopher’s for one of the best meals I have ever eaten. We laughed and talked all through dinner and Honey told us how when she takes Nena’s friends, Jo and Dorothy Kay, out to lunch once a week that Dorothy Kay always orders for Jo. About that time the waitress came to see if we’d like an after dinner coffee drink and we all agreed that sounded good and Honey took it upon herself to order extra whipped cream in the coffee for all of us. So apparently Dorothy Kay isn’t the only one who likes to order for people.
But we all agreed it was an excellent call because I could have had about six more cups of it if they’d put it in front of me.
We slept in on Saturday morning which was delightful since it was dark and rainy most of the day. Then we sat around and watched Gameday and all the early games before we eventually got ready to head towards Kyle Field to tailgate before the game. The weather forecast showed that all the rain should clear out by about 4:00 p.m. but I’m here to tell you that it was wrong. On the upside, it was nice and cold outside. But on the downside, there was this light mist that hung in the air that made me wish I’d gone with my initial instincts to put my hair in a ponytail.
We stopped on our walk to the stadium to get someone to take a picture of the four of us and we’re so tickled because our chosen photographer had maybe spent most of the day enjoying one or fourteen adult drinks and just took Honey’s phone and kept walking closer and closer to us as he took about seventy-two pictures, including several of himself based on the selfies we found on her camera later. And then we were hysterical over the photo bombers in the background. College students are my favorite.
Our seats were right by the Aggie band and I could have yelled at Will Muschamp if I’d wanted to because he was that close to our seats. Initially I thought I might want to do this, but there’s not much to yell when his defense actually shut down our offense. So instead I just enjoyed the new Kyle Field which truly is amazing and I have to say that seeing it on T.V. doesn’t do it justice. The only low point (other than the football team) was that the guy sitting next to me chose to order and then eat a chicken-fried hot dog during the first quarter of the game. It is exactly as disgusting as what you’re envisioning and it was made even worse when he offered me a bite.
“Sir, I cannot even deal with raw chicken in my own kitchen, so in no scenario will I be taking a bite of a stranger’s chicken-fried hot dog.”
But I guess he wasn’t the only one who felt that the crowd was there to all share food together because I ran up to the concession stand (I needed to stress eat during the second quarter when it became apparent our offense wasn’t going to show up) and ordered popcorn AND peanut M&Ms. I dumped my peanut M&Ms directly in my popcorn when I returned to my seat and the guy behind me asked, “Are you putting those M&Ms in your popcorn?” and I turned to show him I had done exactly that and he said, “No thanks, I’m good.”
Well, that’s good because I wasn’t offering you any. I was showing you. Joey doesn’t share food.
Halftime mercifully came and the Aggie band was awesome as always and then there was this card stunt where we all held up cards to spell something. I’m still not sure what that was all about because I was so annoyed by the game. And then we sat in our seats and watched what can only be described as a huge cloud of mist/rain/drizzle rolled into the stadium right as the third quarter was about to begin and we did something none of us have ever done. We decided to leave early. We were cold, wet, hungry and, frankly, decided that we have watched a lot of bad Aggie football over the years and paid our dues. And, sadly, we all felt pretty confident that we weren’t going to miss any kind of amazing comeback.
So we were home in our pajamas by the fourth quarter eating brownies and drinking wine and I have to say that it eased some of the sting. And by some, I mean maybe 47%. Or maybe like 68% because did I mention it was cold and wet outside? The only bright spot of the weather was that it did cause Gulley to buy herself a new Aggie blanket during the first quarter of the game that she deemed to be one of the best purchases she’s ever made.
Sunday morning we slept in again and then made our way home to San Antonio where we returned to real life things like laundry and grocery lists. But I have to say the whole weekend felt like a win even though the Aggie football team didn’t.