Author: Big Mama

  • Man does not live on steak alone

    So, in case y’all have been up late at night wondering, the folks at Toyota along with other major automotive makers, did not come through with a car for me. Apparently, they only give free cars to people like Oprah, which is ironic considering that Oprah probably doesn’t drive herself anywhere EVER and if she wanted to, she could buy any car she wanted.

    I’m not bitter. She’s Oprah and I can’t compete with that.

    Really, I’m not bitter.

    And while I’m not exactly on this subject, I’m also not bitter that Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon are given free Prada purses and Manolo Blahniks, when clearly they could just buy them. Why not give those Pradas and Manolos to someone who would really appreciate them? Like perhaps a mommy blogger who calls herself Big Mama?

    I’m not really bitter about it at all.

    Anyway, last Monday night, when it became apparent Mr. Honda wasn’t going to give me a car, P and I began to discuss our automobile situation. My official last day of work was going to be the next day, Tuesday, May 1, and the company would be picking up my sweet, sweet Ford Escape at some point, leaving me without a mode of transportation other than Gulley’s Trailblazer or my feet.

    We decided that after I dropped Caroline off at school Tuesday morning, we’d go car shopping. For the last 10 years, I’ve always had a company car, which means I’ve driven a white Ford Taurus, a silver Ford Taurus, a black Grand Prix, a silver Grand Prix and a gray Ford Escape. P has always driven Ford trucks and so between the two of us, our car knowledge was limited.

    We called a friend who knows a lot about cars, and we did some research on the internet Monday evening to prepare for our big day. We knew enough to know we couldn’t go in blind, or we might leave with a 1987 Suzuki Samurai because it’s a classic and they get great gas mileage.

    At 9:00 Tuesday morning, we hit the first dealership. Lord have mercy, we weren’t even out of our car before a salesman came running to meet us. He introduced himself as Jo EL, strong emphasis on the EL, and he shook P’s hand very firmly and then turned to give me the limp, dishrag handshake. Way to go, Jo EL, you just started off with one of my biggest pet peeves. If you’re going to shake my hand, shake it like you mean it. I realize I’m a fragile, delicate woman, but I can handle a real handshake.

    I am a strong believer in equal opportunity handshakes. Do not hold my fingers lightly and turn my hand in a way that looks like you might try to kiss it. I’m here to buy a car, not to watch Prince Charles play polo.

    Anyway, Jo EL began to question us on what we were looking for in a vehicle and P was quick to tell him that we were only looking today, not buying. There were a few cars on the lot that we were interested in, so we took a couple of them for test drives while Jo EL sat in the back and offered a running commentary on the car’s various features and essentially gave us the entire history of the Volvo corporation. The real seller was when he let us know “Volvo’s are still made in Sweden”.

    What?? They’re made in Sweden? Home of the famous meatballs? Well sign us up, Jo EL.

    He also let us know that the seats in the car are designed by the same people who design the seats in Lear jets, which made complete sense, because when I first sat in the car I thought it felt exactly like the seats feel in our Lear jet.

    When we pulled back into the lot, Jo EL asked if we were ready to go in and see what kind of a deal he could get us on this fine, Swedish piece of auto machinery. P stated again that we weren’t buying a car today, we were just looking. And Jo EL said, “Well, you think you’re just looking but I bet if I made you a deal that looked as good as a big old juicy steak sitting on a plate with a baked potato, you’d decide you need to eat today.”

    Shut up.

    Texas Sales Skills 101. Jo EL was pulling out the big guns with his steak analogy.

    And since I hadn’t eaten breakfast, all his closing technique did was remind me I was hungry.

    We thanked Jo EL for his time and all of his information, and headed to the next dealership. Once again, we were met as soon as we got out of the car, but this time we didn’t see anything that interested us, so we left without taking any test drives. Finally, we went to the last dealership on our list and test drove a few more cars. The salesman showing us around was nice enough, but when we went to leave without buying anything, I thought his manager was going to self implode. He began pointing quickly to all these cars while practically yelling at us, “Do you want a Passat? Here’s a green Passat. It’s a great car. Wait! Please! LOOK AT THIS PASSAT! YOU MUST BUY A PASSAT!”

    And I couldn’t help myself, I just started laughing. P informed him we weren’t interested in a Passat, and after we pried him off the bumper of the Escape (which was never so appropriately named) we left. We headed home to do a little more research, but we both felt that Jo EL and his Volvo were the frontrunners.

    Later that afternoon, we decided we were ready to make a purchase. It was a good deal with a great warranty and was exactly what we were looking for. P drove back up to the dealership and told them to start the paperwork because really is there anything quite as fun as making a major purchase after losing a source of income?

    In fact, we were a little concerned that we may not qualify for financing because after all, I no longer have a job and P is self employed. So, essentially the only proof we had with us at the dealership that either of us actually works for a living were P’s business cards. But here’s something I didn’t know and actually, Boomama shared with me that same day, once you’re in your mid-30’s, nobody cares about your source of income. They just figure if you have good credit by the time you’re 35, you must be doing something right and will gladly loan you buckets of money.

    Who knew?

    So, if you’re in your 20’s and reading this, just know that the American dream is alive and well and, if you pay all your bills on time, when you reach your mid-30’s you will be rewarded richly by the banks of America and allowed to go into debt.

    God bless America.

    It’s pure, consumer power.

    Anyway, we were signing the papers and Jo EL walked in and said, “I knew if I made it look like a steak, you’d be back. Everybody’s gotta eat!”. Well, yes Jo EL, yes they do.

    We said our goodbyes, he handed us the keys, and Caroline and I drove off in our new steak, otherwise known as a 2004 Volvo S60.

    I’m just sad that Gulley and I didn’t get a chance to carpool to HEB in the Trailblazer at least once. It would have made a good story.

  • Just to refresh y’all on my eccentricities

    A few people have tagged me to list 7 weird things about myself. And while I could easily come up with 7 weird things, I already did this list back in January except with only 6 things. So, I’m going to repost my original list and add one bonus item for you lucky folks playing at home.

    1. I am absolutely, completely compulsive when it comes to all things involving going to bed at night. P and I have slept under separate covers since about the second week of our marriage because for some reason he didn’t want to sleep under a down comforter every night. I am now unable to share covers with anyone, even my child. If Caroline gets in bed with us at night, I bring her own quilt for her to cover up with because everyone in this family has to pull their own weight…or blanket as the case may be.

    In addition to the no cover sharing, I must have a totally wrinkle free bottom sheet and all three of the pillows that I sleep with must be plumped down to the end of the pillowcase. I don’t need any extraneous pillow case hanging off the pillow, it’s just messy. And if there are any crumbs in the bed, then my night is just completely shot.

    After I get all of this done (and I know y’all can’t imagine there is more), I have to go to the bathroom three times in a ten minute period. It goes like this: go to the bathroom, brush teeth, go to the bathroom, turn on bedside lamp and take down ponytail, go to the bathroom. It doesn’t matter that I may not have to even go, I’m just doing everything I can to prevent a 2 a.m. trip to the bathroom. My hatred of middle of the night bathroom visits made me a complete joy to be around throughout my pregnancy.

    2. I know just about every song that has ever been written. I could be on Name that Tune…well, if it still existed. You give me a song and most of the time I can give you the artist and at least some of the lyrics.

    3. I have mentioned before that I am OCD. I can’t stand clutter. Things pile up and I must get them out of my sight. However, what I may have failed to mention is that I often just put them somewhere else where they don’t necessarily belong, but where I don’t have to look at them. This may explain why a drawer in my kitchen holds takeout menus, batteries, a thank you note from Caroline’s teacher, playdough, some decorative garland from Christmas and other assorted oddities.

    In fact earlier, P pulled out a little ziploc baggie containing a door stop, multiple picture hangers, and two double AA batteries and commented how handy it was to have all those items in one convenient baggie since they obviously all go together.

    I would like to be more organized, really I would, but not enough to actually do something about it.

    4. I know more trivial information than should be allowed. I am truly the Cliff Claven of my group of friends and PROUD of it. There is nothing I like more than throwing out a random fact about something or someone. I can’t always cite my source because I have stored information in recesses of my brain about things I’ve read years before, but oh yes ma’am do I know some stuff.

    The only commonality is that most of it isn’t useful.

    5. I briefly mentioned this in a previous post, but back when I used to go hunting and P would put me in a blind by myself, I would get bored and start talking to the deer. I’d get louder and louder until I was basically yelling “Hey YOU!” at them. Amazingly, some of them still stuck around which completely proved P’s theory that you have to be quiet while hunting totally wrong.

    Either that or they just figured that any idiot yelling at them out of a blind was certainly not planning on shooting them, so they might as well keep eating.

    6. I tend to obsess over things (see #1). I would like to say that I lose sleep at night over things like world peace or the budget deficit, but that would be a lie. I will wake up in the middle of the night to worry about things like if I should have bought the sweater that I saw earlier that day at Gap and if I go back tomorrow will they still have one in my size.

    I also lay awake and compose letters in my head that I am going to write to the head of whoever is in charge of trains, regarding how many times a train conductor should be allowed to blow their whistle at 2 a.m. and wake people out of a perfectly good sleep, people who need their sleep because they have a child who rarely sleeps through the night and if this happens to be one of those rare nights, then they certainly do not need to be awakened by some train conductor blowing his whistle 146 times because he is bitter that he is working the night train shift.

    I don’t limit my imaginary letter writing to the bigwigs at the train department. It’s just an example of one of my most common compositions. Anyone is fair game to end up on my pretend letter exercise, the only problem is that they usually make much more sense in the wee hours of the morning than they do in the light of day, which I’m sure is the ONLY reason that I don’t actually write out my thoughts and send them in.

    And as for the newest addition to this list of oddities…

    7. I have become addicted to American Idol. I never even watched it before this season, but now I will spend Wednesday worrying about who is going to be voted off. I adore Paula and the fact that she can’t make her hands actually connect while she claps, I love Simon and his brutal honesty, and I love that I know Randy will say, “Yo dawg, it was just AWright for me” at least 3 times every week.

    And most of all, I love that the show has the power to cause Bon Jovi songs to find themselves in the top 100 list of most downloaded songs on iTunes. That is some serious consumer influence.

    Hope y’all have a great Sunday!

  • At least she finally went to sleep

    The other night I was trying to get Caroline to go to bed. After repeated attempts at getting her to be quiet and go to sleep, I finally raised my voice in frustration and said “Lay down and GO TO SLEEP!”

    She pulled the covers over her head, peeked out at me and said in a quiet, dramatic whisper, “I’ve made a lot of changes for you, Shrek. Think about that.”

    Nothing like having your three year old quote Princess Fiona from Shrek 2. I’m not sure if she thought the words were applicable to the situation or if she was trying to tell me that I was acting like an ogre.

  • At least my legs are smooth and my mayonnaise is good

    I have a sore throat. And not just any sore throat, THE sorest throat of all time. I’m pretty sure that I got it from my orthodontist while he had his entire hand in my mouth twisting these rubberbands into the proper configuration to maximize my torture and minimize my ability to speak.

    I figure he’s responsible for 50% of my pain at the moment, I might as well blame him for the other 50%.

    So, I’m tired, I’m sick, I’m in pain.

    And yes, I am whining. I don’t think I have much to say of any interest at the moment, but here’s a little something.

    1. Gulley told me about 2 weeks ago that she had bought herself a Schick Intuition razor and it had changed her life. I’m always looking for a life change in the form of hair removal, so I bought one for myself three days ago.

    IT HAS CHANGED MY LIFE.

    Shaving is so flawless, so easy, so quick and painless. Run, don’t walk to your nearest retailer of shaving products and buy one immediately. This is not a paid endorsement, this is just me sharing the greatest invention of the 21st century.

    You’re welcome.

    2. A few weeks ago, I was up way too late watching David Letterman and Kelly Ripa was on. Bless her heart, someone needs to tell her to put down the self tanner. I mean she is a pretty girl, but she looked like an oompa loompa. I’m hoping maybe it was just my T.V.

    However, I am a fan of a good summer glow, especially the kind I don’t have to sweat or get locked out of my house to achieve. What do y’all recommend in the way of self tanners? I’ve always been a Neutrogena girl myself, but since I yearn for knowledge I’m always interested in learning about new products that will change my life…or at least my skin tone.

    The topic is self tanners. Discuss amongst yourselves.

    3. Every now and then I like to look at my sitemeter stats and see how people found me. My favorite thing is to look at the Google searches, because I know that’s just some poor, unsuspecting soul who was looking for real information and instead ended up here.

    I picture them looking at my Wizard of Oz float and wondering what on earth went wrong and how can they get the last 3 minutes of their life back.

    Anyway, the Google search that brings more people to Big Mama than anything else is “Expired Mayonnaise”. I don’t even remember the post where I talked about expired mayonnaise, but I know it was in reference to a Christmas present that Gulley once received from her mother-in-law.

    Here’s my thought. If you suspect your mayonnaise is expired to the point that you’re doing a Google search about it, you just need head to the grocery store and pick up a new jar. Go ahead and throw that Hellmans out.

    Or give it to your daughter-in-law for a Christmas present.

    Another search that brought someone here was “Grooms cake made out of Little Debbies”. All I could think when I saw it was how on earth can I get myself invited to that wedding? A cake made out of preservative filled pastries? That’s just pure, culinary brilliance.

    4. A few weeks ago, the folks at Nature Valley sent me a box of their new Oats N’ Honey cereal to try. It was delicious flaky, granola filled goodness. I always eat my cereal dry, because really, who puts milk in cereal? That’s just weird, deviant behavior. And this was so good that I almost ate the entire box at one sitting, which would have been okay because it’s healthy and has lots of granola-ish vitamins and nutrients.

    Now, P, who eats his cereal with milk (freak), said that the granola pieces tended to get a little soggy before he finished the whole bowl, but that overall he loved the taste and said it was very filling. All in all, we liked it so much that after our free sample was gone, I headed to store and bought another box.

    If you’re a cereal family, y’all might want to give it a whirl.

    That’s all I’ve got, kids. Have a great Friday!

  • Hold on, let me get my purse

    I’ve been seeing this purse meme going around and then yesterday, Boomama tagged me for it and she was just sure that my purse would be chock full of zippered compartments. Yes, yes it is.

    And they would be just delightful if I actually put anything in them.

    But that would be too easy, and I prefer to think of my purse as a carnival grab bag. You never know what your gonna get.

    Here is a picture of the purse I was carrying yesterday.

    I have about 3-4 purses that are in regular rotation and so I base my decision for the day on important criteria like which shoes I’m wearing or how much I have to stuff into a bag for that particular day. And y’all will notice that I am not showing the inside of the purse with all the stuff in it because it’s so crammed in there that you couldn’t tell what anything was anyway.

    So, here are the contents.

    My wallet. It looks so nice and organized sitting there all by itself. And in truth, now that I don’t have a job which requires me to keep every receipt for every dime I spend, it is much better than it was a few days ago.

    Until you open it up.

    That would be a piece of a pretzel stick handily tucked inside. Looks appetizing, doesn’t it?

    Just in case y’all are wondering if it’s there in case I need a snack, let me show you this.

    Obviously, I am a health food nut as evidenced by all the pure, organic foods you see represented in this pile of sustenance. In all fairness, most of these items are for Caroline…well, except for the Sweet-tarts. Those are mine. All mine.

    The bright side is if we ever find ourselves trapped somewhere with just my purse, we can live for 2 or 3 days on the Cheese Nips alone.

    This pile represents my adult journey into the bowels of hell, also known as orthodontia.

    I had my monthly session of torture with my orthodontist yesterday, and I am not kidding when I tell y’all that I now have rubberbands completely sealing my jaws shut. Seriously. I tried to take some Advil for the pain and could not even fit it into my mouth.

    I asked my orthodontist if he thought I’d have my braces off by the end of summer, and he laughed an evil laugh and said, “I don’t think so, Sport.” He’s actually very nice, so I didn’t say any of the vile things that went through my head at that moment. Plus, in all honesty, I can’t really open my mouth to say anything, due to all the rubberbands keeping my jaw hinged in a web of agony.

    As y’all can see, I take my lip care seriously.

    This is my vast array of lipstick, lipgloss, and lipbalm. Nothing really accentuates the braces like just the right shade of lipgloss. One of these is even a lip plumper that stings my lips so they look a little fuller, because I need more pain where my mouth is concerned.

    I’m a sadist.

    This is a pile of change that was just loose in the bottom of my purse. I find there is nothing a waitress at Sonic likes more than for me to count out $1.99 in nickels, dimes and pennies to pay for my Route 44 Diet Coke with cherry and vanilla.

    In all fairness, I normally don’t have this much change floating in the bottom of my purse, but yesterday I had to clean out my company car before they came and picked it up, and all this change was in the console. I used to use it to pay for all the parking garages I had to park in for work because parking attendants also enjoy receiving $2.50 in dimes and nickels. But now, there may be enough here for 3 or 4 trips to Sonic. It’s like copper manna from heaven.

    Or you know, pennies from heaven.

    Let’s just file this stuff under miscellaneous. A business card holder for the business cards I no longer own. Some toothpaste that would serve a much better purpose if I also had a toothbrush in there. An unopened tube of LipSmackers lipgloss in case I find myself needing to entice and/or bribe Caroline to behave somewhere. A plastic bubble from the Buddy Buck machine at HEB. A rubber band for my hair because no matter how it starts out, it always ends up pulled back and one of Caroline’s headbands because she pulls out her hair accessories throughout the day.

    And what do we have here? A real, live paper dollar bill. I am so going to Sonic in just a little while.

    That, my friends, is my purse. I always knew that it was just a matter of time before it came to this…having no shame in baring the contents of my purse for all the internet to see. But at least now if you ever see me somewhere, you’ll know who has some snacks on hand and plenty of change to make a run to Sonic.

  • One more day

    I originally posted this back in September, but since today would have been my Mema’s birthday, I thought it would be appropriate for the occasion. Happy Birthday, Mema. You are missed.

    On Sunday I was reading Parade magazine because I love to see what kind of tricky questions people come up with for Marilyn Vos Savant, the woman with the highest IQ in the world or maybe it’s the United States. I’m not sure. Anyway she’s obviously very smart and knows important things like what sequences of certain numbers mean or how far a train goes if it’s going 55 mph for 6 days…you know, real practical information that you can use in every day life.
    But I digress.

    So I’m reading Parade magazine and there is an article that asks the question if you could spend one day with someone you love who has passed away, who would it be and what would you do? And as I looked at the question, I immediately knew my answer.

    In the last nine years, I have lost three of my grandparents. I miss them all dearly, but the person I would want to spend a day with would be my Mema, my daddy’s mama.

    By the time I knew Mema she was already older obviously. She was plump, had graying hair that she kept dyed black, and wore a lot of polyester pantsuits, but in her younger days she was a real beauty. I have her wedding portrait hanging in my hallway and she is so thin, young and beautiful. She was also a true fashionista back in the day complete with great hats, purses and shoes. But by the time I came along, she had raised three boys and lived a lot of life so she wasn’t necessarily thin and fashionable but boy, she was comfortable in her own skin.

    I can’t think of Mema without remembering the way she would come hurrying to the door to greet you. She’d always have on her aqua colored turquoise pants, a bright striped polyester shirt and some brown SAS orthopedic shoes. She would be wiping her hands on her pants because you can guarantee she was always in the middle of cooking something for lunch or dinner. She made the best spaghetti in the whole world and if I had one more day with her, I’d make her write down the recipe instead of just letting her vaguely talk about what she put in her sauce. When you left her house, she would always stand in the driveway to blow you kisses and to give you hand signals like a flight crew to help you navigate as you backed into the street. Nevermind that she never learned how to drive, she was an expert at directing traffic.

    Mema grew up in a huge Italian family. Her parents immigrated to the United States from Sicily when they were young and finally settled in Beaumont,Texas. Mema spent all of her life living in a two block radius of her entire family. I vaguely remember her mother, a small, wrinkled old lady who I didn’t understand because everything she said was in Italian. Mema’s name was Lena but a few years before she died we found her birth certificate and it said “Carmela”. We asked about it and she said that was her real name, so we asked where Lena came from and she wasn’t sure but thought that maybe they had a horse named Lena growing up.

    Mema married my grandfather against her parents wishes. She was a high school graduate and he was a 6th grade dropout. She was the daughter of Italian immigrants who had raised her to be a good Catholic girl and he was a bootlegger. Her younger sister, Josephina (Fina for short) was scared of Papa until the day he died. If he answered the phone, she would just hang up. I wish I knew more of the story. I wish I knew how she met Papa and fell in love with him. I wish I knew what gave her the courage to marry him even if her parents didn’t necessarily approve. Those are just a few things I’d ask if I had one more day.

    Mema raised 3 sons. My dad was born in 1945. She had several miscarriages and then six years later had twin boys. I would love to know what it was like when she delivered those twins. In the days before sonograms and weekly visits to the doctor, what was that moment like when they said “Oh, there’s two of them!”? Was she happy, was she scared, was she overwhelmed?

    Her 3 boys all turned out well. They graduated from college, married and had families of their own. They were a close knit family and everyone came to her house for a huge spaghetti lunch every Sunday. I don’t know that there was ever a Sunday when someone wasn’t at her house eating spaghetti and meatballs. I’d love to know how she raised her boys. What were her prayers for them? What did she instill in them while they were growing up? How did she discipline them because honestly, some of the stories from their childhood would lead you to believe they could have ended up serving time instead of becoming productive members of society.

    Mema’s best friend was her sister Mamie. Aunt Mamie drove the half mile over to Mema’s house every morning so they could have their coffee together. I remember when I was little, Mema had a little coffee cup for me so that I could join them. Mema never learned how to drive so Aunt Mamie chauffered her everywhere. They were always heading off to “Beall Brothers”, or “the Market Basket” to see what was on sale. I’d love to know what they talked about. What were their thoughts on their family? Were they happily married? Did they even think about those things?

    She had a formal living room that was separated from the rest of the house by a wooden pocket door. She never used that room unless she was hosting a wedding or baby shower. I can count on one hand the number of times people actually sat in there, but as a child I loved going in there and looking at all of her pretty china figurines and playing with a little table that opened up to reveal a copper interior. She also kept a secret stash of premium snack items in the china cabinet and she would pull you aside like a Keebler drug dealer and say, “psst…come see what Mema has in here for you” as she pulled out the Nutter Butters or Little Debbie snack cakes.

    Family was everything to Mema. She was surrounded by the people she loved and who loved her the most. She knew what was truly important and her home reflected that. It was very rare that there weren’t at least 20 people in her house at any given time. She was always there to laugh at a good joke or old story, to cook a great meal or to read a story to a grandbaby. I can still hear her reading me The Little Match Girl over and over again to help me fall asleep. She was a night owl and a scaredy cat like me, so she always understood how hard it was for me to go to bed.

    Mema slipped away from us unexpectedly. The summer before I got married she apparently had a stroke that just changed something in her. She was okay physically, but something changed inside that never really came back. I guess that’s one of the reasons that I wish for one more day with her because everything changed so suddenly. She lived four years longer and would have good days and bad, but was never quite the same.

    Now that I’m married and have a daughter of my own there are so many things I wish I could ask her about her life. When you’re younger you just don’t realize the richness of a life well lived and don’t question how it all happened. I would love to have one more day to ask her about her hopes, her dreams, her heartbreaks and disappointments and just to make her happy I’d let her make me some of that world famous spaghetti.