Well when I said I might not be posting every day this summer I certainly didn’t realize it was a cue for my whole blog to crash and become forbidden on the internet. But it kind of worked out because our week last week ended up being busier than normal.
And by busier than normal I don’t mean the usual kind of busy where I realize we’re out of dog food and have to rush to the store to buy more.
(Is it just me or is busier a weird word to see spelled out?)
Anyway, Caroline and I ended up driving to Bryan on Wednesday morning because it was Honey’s sixtieth birthday. Gulley and the boys had already been there since Monday and I really wanted to make the trip but was in the middle of my brilliant plan to redo the walls in the guest room and needed to finish.
Normally I would have felt like the walls could wait, but since I have actual guests coming to stay in our house this week it seemed imperative to finish the walls because I may not be Emily Post but I know proper etiquette probably involves providing walls for a guest in your home.
But when P and I plowed through and finished the walls on Tuesday afternoon, I felt like it freed me up to hit the road. And I really wanted to get to Bryan for two reasons. One, I was at Honey’s fortieth birthday party and felt like I should be at her sixtieth. Two, Nena isn’t doing that great right now.
In fact, when we got there on Wednesday afternoon we went straight to the hospital to see Nena. Her heart surgery in the spring didn’t really fix the issues with her heart and she is continuing to have problems. As we walked into the hospital room I prepared myself to see her lying there in a weakened state but instead she waved from her bed like she was the Rose Queen in the Tournament of Roses Parade as she said “HELLLOOOOO!! MELANIE, WHERE DID YOU GET THAT PURSE?”
In other words, she is totally herself.
(Does anyone else think of Donna Martin anytime they hear about the Tournament of Roses parade or are you all normal?)
We spent some time visiting at the hospital and then headed home before Honey’s party that night. The whole family was meeting at Longhorn Tavern because birthdays are meant to be celebrated with chicken fried steak.
Everyone had a great time and then it was time to go back to the house. On the way there Caroline kept tooting in the back seat where she was sitting with the boys and I finally said, “Caroline! You need to stop! A day is going to come where boys won’t think it’s attractive or funny for a girl to toot in the back seat!”
And Jackson dryly replied, “Yes. That day is now.”
I’d planned for us to drive back to San Antonio on Thursday morning, but then Nena called to inform Honey that her doctor was discharging her from the hospital in a few hours. Which would be great except they had no idea where Nena was going to go since she needed more care than where she’d been living.
So Gulley and Honey drove to the hospital to figure out that situation while I took the kids to go swimming. At least I tried to take the kids swimming until we got to the pool and found out it didn’t open until 1:00. And that left us with an hour and a half to kill.
The park clearly wasn’t an option because it was hotter than the surface of the sun. I brainstormed and decided it was a great opportunity to take the kids on a little tour of their moms’ college years. The G rated version.
We drove by the duplex where we lived our last year of school and then got a drink from the Sonic that we singlehandedly kept in business from 1991-1994 with our love of Route 44 Cherry Vanilla Cokes. Since College Station is a small town this only took about fifteen minutes. And so I drove toward campus because they never get tired of seeing Blue Bell Park and Kyle Field.
Then I saw this and a tear came to my eye.
The future is now, my friends.
And then we saw the new baseballs they’ve put in front of Blue Bell Park.
Finally, we stopped by the gigantic Aggie ring for a photo op.
They’re all pretending that they’re putting the ring on their fingers because they’re at that age where they’re goofy as heck.
At last it was 1:00 and the pool was open. They spent the rest of the day swimming while I sat in the shade since I hadn’t thought to pack a bathing suit because I didn’t imagine my twenty-four hours in Bryan would include swimming. However, I used the time to beat my high score on Bookworm and even had a conference call with Tyndale because all true professionals conduct business while their children come up and beg them for giant pickles and snow cones from the snack bar.
By the way, I feel like I need to confess that I ate nachos from the snack bar in a weak moment. The kind with the cheese that pumps out of a spigot.
It was a low.
We left the pool at the end of the afternoon and met Gulley and Honey back at the house where they reported they’d gotten Nena settled for the time being. But when Honey called to check on her later and to tell her she’d bring more of her clothes over tomorrow, Nena said, “Oh, don’t bother. I’m not staying here.”
Then Honey called the next morning in the hopes the night had changed Nena’s mind and Nena told her, “This place is like an old folk’s home.”
Yes. Because it’s an old folk’s home.
Needless to say, Nena is going to be moving again soon.
Friday morning Caroline and I packed up to leave. We got in the car, waved goodbye and she cried all the way to Caldwell where we stopped to get her a BLT from Subway because that’s her love language. I kind of want to judge her for it but I eat nachos from a public pool snack bar. Her love of low rent foods is genetic.
The Subway happened to have a drive-through window which felt like the hand of God in my life at that moment. Until they told us to pull around and wait for our BLT sandwich.
We waited.
And then we waited some more.
And then we waited some more.
Twenty minutes later they arrived with the sandwich and apologies because they’d forgotten about it. I was annoyed but let it go in my anxiousness to just get on the road and get home. Which was a great plan until Caroline unwrapped her sandwich about ten minutes later to discover they’d given us a bacon and mayonnaise sandwich.
No L.
No T.
Who wants just a bacon and mayo sandwich? Besides someone I don’t want to know?
And isn’t the L and T implied when you order a BLT? Am I right?
The bacon sandwich pushed Caroline off her already perilous edge and she wailed, “I WAS ALREADY DEVASTATED TO LEAVE BRYAN AND NOW THIS.”
At least she’s not dramatic.
The rest of the weekend was a blur. We had Caroline’s last swim meet and I cannot express how overjoyed I am at the prospect of no longer having to set an alarm for 6:00 a.m. on Saturday mornings.
I plan to watch the Summer Olympics in August with a whole new respect for all those swimmer’s mothers.
And that’s what we’ve been up to.
(Lamest ending ever but I have no idea how to wrap this up and I’m at 1325 words which is just obnoxious.)
