Diary

  • I also may have wanted to be Laverne DeFazio

    Just when I thought it might be a waste to have over two hundred television channels, P and I discovered a show called Truth Behind the Sitcom Scandals on the Bio channel. We have spent the last hour learning that George and Weezie Jefferson learned their show was cancelled when they read it in the paper and Pinky Tuscadero was arrested last year for shooting out the windows of two cars in her neighborhood. I also had the opportunity to impress P with the fact that I know all the words to the theme song from One Day At A Time.

    (This is it. This is life, the one you get, so go and have a ball.)

    (I may have had a small crush on Schneider the handyman.)

    (Let’s not think about how disturbing it is that I had a crush on a mustachioed handyman that wore a denim vest.)

    Anyway, I think it’s obvious that there isn’t much on T.V. right now and P has watched all his recorded episodes of Uncle Ted’s Spirit of the Wild. Of course I still haven’t had a chance to watch The Bachelor but I’d rather saw off my right arm than watch it with P in the same room.

    And speaking of T.V., I have finally managed to suck Caroline in to the world of Little House on the Prairie. This has been a goal of mine for, oh, the last twenty years when I didn’t even know if I’d have a child but if I did I wanted to make sure she’d watch what I believe to be one of the greatest shows ever.

    It has not been an easy achievement, but I happened to see the “Blizzard” episode was on the other day. Remember the episode where Miss Beetle sends all the kids home from school early on Christmas Eve because it’s snowing and a terrible blizzard blows in and the men have to go out in search of the kids while the womenfolk and Doc Baker stay in the schoolhouse and give the children brandy to help with the frostbite? The whole thing just fascinated me as a kid and I spent hours pretending that my bedroom was the schoolhouse and there was a terrible blizzard going on outside.

    (I understand if this revelation, along with my crush on Schneider, makes you have questions about what I was like as a kid.)

    Anyway, I recorded the episode on the DVR in the hopes that Caroline would find it as appealing as I did when I was her age. And it TOTALLY WORKED. She’s watched it at least five times in the last few days and has requested that I record other episodes of the show. Unfortunately, I’d blocked out the part where Mr. McGinnis dies of frostbite and Pa Ingalls finds him in the snow. I’ve had to assure her that we live in South Texas and the odds of succumbing to frostbite are pretty much nonexistent unless you stick yourself in the freezer.

    (Although I am pretty cold right now sitting on my couch and the fleece blanket doesn’t seem to be helping. Of course that might be because I grab a sweater to ward off the chill if the temperatures drop below 75. Clearly I wouldn’t have cut it in Walnut Grove.)

    Now that Project Watch Little House on the Prairie has been achieved, my new goal is to eventually introduce her to the wonder that is Happy Days.

    But I won’t let her know about Pinky Tuscadero and the car window incident. There are some things in life you’d rather not know.

    Like that Mr. McGinnis died of frostbite.

  • I am now focusing my sports enthusiasm on basketball

    The Cotton Bowl.

    That’s all I have to say about that.

    Well, except for this. I immensely enjoyed the first twenty minutes. The first twenty minutes were glorious and filled me with hope and joy.

    Caroline and I went over to Gulley’s house to watch the game with them and eat a little barbecue for dinner. (If you live in San Antonio and have never had the creamed corn from the Barbecue Station then I feel bad for you. Your life is a shadow of what it could be.) I’d brought lunch to Caroline earlier in the day and was telling Gulley that she’d requested Subway and how I am not a fan of Subway but I’ve discovered that I can tolerate a Veggie Delight on wheat bread with spicy mustard. Gulley remarked that I seem to be into my vegetarian dishes lately and I agreed that I could probably give up meat altogether. However, I feel the need to disclose that I was piling my plate high with brisket at the time. And didn’t really even get the irony until about five minutes later.

    So, probably not going to be a vegetarian as long as cheeseburgers and brisket exist.

    Anyway, we all gathered around the T.V. in all manner of Aggie paraphernalia with great big maroon high hopes. We yelled and cheered and texted our various LSU acquaintances with a little good-natured smack talk. And then, midway through the second quarter, the game and the kids all came crashing to the ground at the same time. Jackson was close to passed out on the couch because he was so tired, while Caroline and Will began to request that Gulley and I referee their argument over some sort of Bakugan toy because they can’t just accept that they’re exhausted and feel the need to fight over minutiae.

    By half time it was clear that Caroline and I should just head home for the second half of the game. This proved to be a good decision as evidenced by the fact that she began to cry over the death of my Nanny’s cat, Rascal, during the drive home. It seems less tragic in light of the fact that Rascal has been dead for about three years now. That’s what you call MANUFACTURED DRAMA.

    I put Caroline to bed and finished watching the game even though I was exhausted and just wanted to go to bed. I held out hope for a comeback long after logic would have said to just go to bed already. Gulley and I texted back and forth and ultimately agreed that watching the Aggies lose the Cotton Bowl in the comfort of our homes was far preferable to January 1, 1992 when we were actually there to watch them lose the Cotton Bowl to Florida State and nearly froze to death and had to share one hot dog between six friends because we were a bunch of idiot college students that had spent most of our money on New Year’s Eve festivities which resulted in having to pool together our remaining cash to purchase one community hot dog.

    (I know what you’re thinking. One hot dog? Freezing cold? Six friends watching our team lose while suffering the after effects of too much New Year’s Eve fun? What’s not fun about that?)

    On Saturday we stayed in our pajamas almost all day. It was cold and dreary and the perfect day to listen to Caroline read some classic literature aloud to me while we sat by the fire. Or maybe we just watched way too many episodes of Phineas and Ferb. I can’t really remember.

    P got home from hunting by mid-afternoon and then it was time for our big event. Caroline’s first basketball game. I don’t know when anything has brought me more joy. She’d never really mentioned basketball, but then several of her little friends all decided to play and now it appears that we are into basketball. Her first practice was last Thursday and she came home and announced, “I already know everything about basketball.” Which is so impressive considering she’d never even dribbled a ball until about two weeks ago. She’s a basketball prodigy.

    The game was hilarious. In large part because none of the girls have ever really played before and it took them a while to get the concept. For her part, Caroline moved around the court and guarded her opponents in a manner reminiscent of Anthony Michael Hall trying to dance with Molly Ringwald in Sixteen Candles.

    In the end our team won 12-8. So I take comfort in the knowledge that at least one of my teams won this weekend.

    And I didn’t have to share a hot dog with six people.

  • A Thanksgiving day in the life

    Here is a brief rundown of how I spent Thanksgiving, complete with a timeline.

    8:45 a.m. – Praise the Lord. Caroline just woke up and is happy to curl up next to me and watch some hideous movie about Barbie leaving for Paris after a break up with Ken and trying to save her Aunt Micheline’s fashion line.

    At least that’s what my sub-conscious absorbed as I drifted back to sleep until I remembered I had to finish cooking some side dishes.

    (On a sidenote: I cannot say the words “side dishes” without thinking about an old episode of South Park where one of the characters is served a plate of waffles and he says, “Am I to understand there will be no side dishes?”)

    (I don’t know why I think that’s so funny.)

    9:27 a.m. – Get out of bed. Put broccoli-rice casserole in the oven.

    9:31 a.m. – Make whipped cream. Possibly lick both beaters clean and eat another enormous spoonful before I hide it from myself in the back of the refrigerator.

    9:42 a.m. – Start thinking about the whipped cream again. Might have pulled it back out and eaten another spoonful.

    9:51 a.m. – Roast butternut squash because Caroline has been obsessed with all the squash varieties and begged me to make some.

    10:16 a.m. – Worry that maybe the whipped cream isn’t sweet enough. Take another taste just to make sure. It’s all about whipped cream quality.

    10:20 a.m. – Realize I have made a strategic cheese error with the broccoli-rice casserole and it has more of a soup-like consistency. Cook more rice in an effort to compensate for the superfluous cheese.

    10:32 a.m. – Look at all the Black Friday specials on the internet and realize that bargains aren’t important enough to get me out the door at 4 a.m.

    10:57 a.m. – Cut up brussels sprouts to make Bobby Flay’s pomegranate brussels sprouts recipe.

    11:06 a.m. – Begin to get the seeds out of the pomegranate.

    11:08 a.m. – Man, these pomegranate seeds are juicy little suckers.

    11:11 a.m. – Change my shirt so I could let my other shirt soak in stain remover in hopes of removing the pomegranate juice.

    11:22 a.m. – Pull the brussels sprouts out of the oven. P walks in and asks if someone has left a dirty diaper in our kitchen.

    Clearly he is not a fan of the sprout.

    11:30 a.m. – Realize we needed to be at Mimi and Bops’ house in thirty minutes. Tell Caroline to go get dressed.

    11:32 a.m. – Put on makeup, curl my hair even though it doesn’t stand a fighting chance against the 112 % humidity.

    11:46 a.m. – Walk in Caroline’s room to find her walking back and forth through her beaded curtain. While wearing her pajamas.

    11:47 a.m. – I think I blacked out.

    11:48 a.m. – Yell, “WE NEED TO GET THIS SHOW ON THE ROAD!”

    11:52 a.m. – Walk back in the kitchen to finish the butternut squash puree. Caroline comes in to taste it and declares she is not a fan. It would have been nice to know that at 9:51 a.m.

    12:16 p.m. – Arrive at Mimi and Bops’ house. Immediately regret that I wore a jacket and my tall boots. The 80 degree weather is not cooperating with my sartorial selections.

    12:35 p.m. – My sister and I jump around like idiots trying to get our children to smile for a picture that Mimi and Bops can use for their Christmas card.

    12:38 p.m. – Realize the smiles only get more fake and the eleven month old only gets more whiny as the minutes tick by.

    12:39 p.m. – Decide that surely we had something that could pass as a Christmas card photo.

    12:45 p.m. – Ate lunch until we were all sick.

    1:00 p.m. – Decide we all had room for dessert.

    1:30 p.m. – I think I blacked out.

    4:45 p.m. – I rally as a cold front begins to blow through town. Hallelujah.

    6:00 p.m. – Realize it is time to get my game face on.

    6:10 p.m. – Shower, put on flannel pajama bottoms and lucky A&M shirt. Heat up leftovers in spite of all our earlier claims that we’d never eat again.

    6:55 p.m. – Begin to hyperventilate and talk very loudly.

    7:00 p.m. – GAMETIME.

    7:10 p.m. – Watch the game and begin to text furiously with various friends in between throwing decorative pillows and trying not to say words that aren’t Sunday School friendly.

    8:15 p.m. – Aggies finally score a touchdown. I’d like to think that the fact I punched my couch repeatedly as Cyrus Gray ran down the field helped tremendously.

    8:16 p.m. – Sophie texts me and tells me she and Sister are cheering for the Aggies and even willing to get out the vacuum if needed, which always works when her Bulldogs play. I shed a tear at the display of devotion.

    9:06 p.m. – CYRUS GRAY!!!! LOVE HIM!!!!!

    9:20 p.m. – FUMBLE!!!! OH NO!!! THE SKY IS FALLING!!!! Maybe it will help if I eat some chocolate pudding.

    9:28 p.m. – These announcers are on my last nerve. They all are in the midst of a bromance with the t.u. quarterback and Mac Brown.

    9:32 p.m. – VON MILLER!!!!! LOVE HIM!!!!! Gulley texts me and says if she ever has another son, she’s going to name him Von.

    10:08 p.m. – I am now texting things like “I’m SICK. I FEEL SICK” and “TERRIBLE CALL! THAT WAS A TERRIBLE CALL!” Sophie texts me and says she has just walked into her kitchen. I know this is her solution when a situation looks dire.

    10:14 p.m. – WE HAVE TO GET A THIRD DOWN. WE HAVE TO GET A THIRD DOWN. I FEEL SICK. MY HEART CAN’T TAKE ANYMORE.

    10:17 p.m. – Tannenhill fumbles. I am dead. I die. WAIT! HE GOT IT BACK. HE FELL ON THE BALL! I WILL LIVE TO SEE ANOTHER DAY.

    10:25 p.m. – We punt the ball, the last five seconds tick off the clock and I begin to breathe normally for the first time in the last three and a half hours. GIG ‘EM AGGIES!

    10:27 p.m. – Resist urge to write, “Dear Longhorns, Good luck in your bowl game. Oh, that’s right. You’re not going to a bowl game.” on my Facebook wall. Because I’m trying to be the bigger person.

    10:32 p.m. – Decide to eat a celebratory helping of chocolate pudding with extra whipped cream.

    10:40 p.m. – Bops calls me to confirm that the Aggies won the game before he watches it. He has learned that he can’t handle the stress or time commitment of watching his favorite teams play unless he knows for sure that they win. So he records them on the DVR and watches the game after he knows the outcome. Unless they lose. Then he deletes the game and saves himself the stress.

    The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

    10:45 p.m. – Going to bed. I have worn myself flat out.

    10:56 p.m. – Say a prayer of gratitude for all my blessings. My family, my friends, cold weather, the Aggie win, and another year filled with so much more good than bad. And for y’all.

    Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

    GIG ‘EM AGGIES!!!!!

    (I promise I won’t use this many exclamation points again. Until our bowl game.)

  • The wonderland years

    While we were in Bryan over the weekend we took the kids to Santa’s Wonderland. It’s become something of an annual tradition for us and I don’t think the holidays would be the same without it. There’s really nothing more than a hayride looking at lights and drinking hot chocolate in 78 degree weather that makes it feel like Christmas is right around the corner.

    We had to see Santa to make sure he knows what everyone wants this year.

    Will was very concerned that he might change his mind before Christmas but we assured him that he could write Santa a letter and let him know about any changes.

    Caroline felt that her time at Santa’s Wonderland wouldn’t be complete without a trip through the petting zoo. And so I squashed all my feelings about farm animals and possible communicable diseases and let her go on in.

    I think the goats got a little frustrated with her when they realized she was doling out her food one grain at a time. She was a little drunk with power. Until a sheep chased her down and she realized her strategy might not be in her best interest.

    And I totally hate to get sappy on y’all, but I’m going to anyway because it’s Thanksgiving week and I just have felt so overwhelmed with gratitude lately.

    From the moment we walked into Santa’s Wonderland, I felt myself get a little bit weepy and nostalgic. The kids were running around trying to catch faux snowflakes falling from the sky. (Not really. They were actually falling from the fake snow machine on the roof, but whatever.) They were laughing and spinning all around and it was just one of those times when I felt like I was witnessing a golden moment of childhood. Just pure delight. And I felt so unbelievably blessed to be a part of it all. To get to be part of these three little lives.

    (It didn’t help my emotions that some guy on stage was singing “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong at the time.)

    Suddenly it dawned on me that the first time we ever took them to Santa’s Wonderland, they looked like this.

    And now they look like this.

    So for Christmas this year I’m going to have to tell Santa that I wish everyone would quit growing up so fast.

    My heart can’t take it.

  • Road trip! With exclamation points!

    On Friday, P and I went to Caroline’s school for a Thanksgiving Feast. And I’ll just go ahead and confess that my expectations were low. So imagine my surprise when I found the instant mashed potatoes with faux gravy to be delightful. If that isn’t a prime indicator of PMS, then I don’t what is.

    Of course, considering that I’m a huge fan of Hormel chili and the occasional can of Spaghetti-Os, it’s not like anyone can accuse me of being a culinary snob even in the best of times.

    Shortly after the feast was over, P headed south for the ranch and I went home to finish packing for the big road trip Caroline and I had ahead of us. There is nothing like the feeling of power that comes over me when I can pack a suitcase and limit Caroline’s wardrobe choices.

    A little after 3:30, Gulley and the boys showed up at the house to pick us up and, after insisting everyone make one more stop in the bathroom, we hit the open road. The kids did not disappoint us. We’d only been in the car about six minutes before one of them asked, “How much longer until we get there?”

    I replied, “We’ll get there when we get there. Don’t ask us that every five minutes.”

    “Okay…but how much longer ’til we get there?”

    The good news is they only asked about forty-two more times over the next three hours. And in between times they alternated which two of them were going to annoy the other one until that one decided to tell on the other two. Then they’d interrupt Gulley and me so they could rat out their fellow man. What they didn’t know was that Gulley and I decided before the trip began that we were going to have a strict policy of telling them “WORK IT OUT YOURSELVES” because we were too busy discussing wrinkle creams and the Aggies chances against Nebraska.

    We finally arrived at Honey and Big’s house and I have never been so happy to be greeted with homemade chicken salad and some incredible artichoke cheese dip. I think I was in my pajamas in about 10.3 seconds with a plate of food in front of me.

    The next morning the kids woke up at the crack of dawn and rode with Big to pick up Shipley’s Donuts. They came home with enough donuts to feed all of us and at least twelve of the neighbors. And then they went outside so Jackson could teach Caroline some of his sweet football moves as I reminded them, “REMEMBER THAT HE IS THREE TIMES YOUR SIZE. DON’T BE TOO ROUGH.” Because Caroline is a little bit like one of those pint-size fluffy dogs that thinks she can take on a German Shepherd and win. And then she’s surprised when she gets leveled.

    By mid-afternoon we headed out to Kyle Field for all the pre-game festivities. Big and Jackson had tickets to go to the actual game, but the rest of us decided to just enjoy all the fun and then go home to watch the game on T.V. Not to mention that since there were 90,000+ people there, extra tickets were a little hard to come by.

    When we showed up at Kyle, it was literally a sea of maroon. I have never seen anything like it and I kept Caroline’s hand in a death grip because I would have never seen her again if she’d gotten away from me.

    We watched the band get ready to lead the football team into the stadium.

    Then Gulley and I posed for a picture because we almost felt like we were nineteen again. Except for the kids. And the fact that our hair is significantly flatter. And neither of us were wearing a Leslie Lucks dress.

    After a few minutes we heard the sirens of the police motorcycles escorting the team bus. The band began to march and the team made their way into the stadium while the kids lined up to give them high-fives.

    That’s a terrible picture of the whole thing and I have no idea who that blonde kid is. Just thought you should know the whole thing was much better in person.

    About that time, three fighter jets flew right over us and the kids were in complete overload that there were so many blessings to be had all in one moment.

    After that, Will and Caroline insisted they needed to get their bounce on.

    Then it was time to watch the Corps of Cadets march in. Caroline and Jackson stood at attention the entire time.

    And then Jackson and Big went in to Kyle Field while we walked around a little bit more and then finally headed back home to make sure we got there in time for kickoff. I don’t know that I’ve ever been more proud to be an Aggie than when I saw how incredible Kyle Field looked on T.V. It was a vast ocean of maroon with Twelfth Man towels waving so much that it looked like snow falling.

    We sat on the couch, we jumped up and down, we screamed and yelled and we watched the Aggies pull off the upset. It was glorious. I even used exclamation points on my Facebook status and I rarely use exclamation points. Especially in triplicate form.

    But THE AGGIES WON!!! We are ranked. In November. And it feels pretty dang good!!!

    As we drove into town on Friday night we were on University Drive, which goes right by the A&M campus. I looked over at Gulley and asked if she remembered that night almost twenty years ago when the Aggies had just beat the Longhorns and we were on University Drive in a car filled with friends and a trunk-load of Frito-Lay chips doing some serious backseat dancing to Groove is in the Heart and eating Cheetos Paws and maybe drinking cheap beer.

    (I feel like I need to give a brief back story. Gulley has an uncle that used to drive a Frito-Lay truck and he always had mass quantities of chips to dole out. And we were poor college students and took full advantage. Her daddy had shown up at the game that night with his trunk full of chips to pass on to us if we wanted them. Which, OF COURSE, who turns down free chips?)

    (Also, the Cheetos Paws were a taste sensation. I don’t know if they make them anymore but it was some cheesy goodness in the shape of a cheetah paw.

    (It was a loose version of a cheetah paw. Kind of an abstract Picasso-type interpretation.)

    (Also, if my dad is reading this then I’m just throwing in the part about the beer for literary embellishment purposes. We were actually on our way to the library after the game to study.)

    (Oh, and on the way into town, Jackson asked if you have a locker in college and we explained that you don’t need one because you only have three or four classes a day and you just bring the books you need. He asked what you do with the rest of your day and we said that we treated it like a full-time job and spent all our free time studying so we could be prepared and make excellent grades. I realize you shouldn’t lie to your children but they really don’t need to know about that semester their mothers failed golf because we decided it was more important to lay out by the pool and get a good tan.)

    Anyway, where was I? I’m just rambling to nowhere.

    So I asked Gulley if she remembered that night and we died laughing because of course we remember that night and those idiots with big bangs and Brighton belts throwing back some Cheetos Paws. And I asked, “Would you have believed it if someone would have told us then that twenty years later we’d be driving down this same street in a decidedly family-friendly SUV filled with McDonald’s Happy Meals and three kids in the back telling each other to stop humming?”

    We both agreed that neither one of those nineteen-year-old girls could have even fathomed such a thing. And it probably would have sounded terrible to us at that time.

    But you know what?

    It really is the best.

    We wouldn’t trade it for anything.

    Not even a bag of Cheetos Paws.

    Gig’em Aggies. Beat the hell outta t.u.

  • Football is good

    Saturday afternoon was the last game of the season for the Cheetah Girls. I really hoped for a win because they’ve had such a great season and I wanted them to go out on a high note. And, sure enough, they ended up winning the game 6-4. I realize there isn’t an actual goalie or scoreboard but let’s not pretend that we don’t all know who wins and who loses.

    I mean, they’re seven years old now. They get it. Personally I believe that not everyone is a winner and sometimes you’re the loser and being the loser isn’t necessarily a bad thing if it makes you want to try harder to be a winner.

    And thus concludes the Monday morning soapbox portion of this post.

    I think Hazel just showed up for a minute.

    I’m also so glad that I went to the trouble of bringing my camera along so I could get this stellar unidentifiable shot of P and Caroline doing some pre-game stretches.

    I am in desperate need of a new camera. Canon, can you hear me?

    So the Cheetah Girls triumphed over the Neon Cobras (Not to be confused with the regular Cobras we played earlier in the season. These cobras were NEON and everyone knows the neon snakes are the toughest reptiles around.) and we went to one of the player’s homes for a little end of the season celebration. P handed out trophies, we celebrated our win and I thought to myself “Well, this has been a great day for sports.”

    AND THEN THIS HAPPENED.

    There is so much right about that scoreboard that it’s hard to keep track.

    And this is where you may want to go read something else if you don’t care about football.

    In the days leading up to the Aggies game against #8 OU, I wasn’t feeling that great about it. In fact, I felt like it might be ugly. But then, about an hour before game time, the spirit of football optimism washed over me and I even boldly twittered (tweeted?) that I thought we could win the game.

    Then P, Caroline and I sat down with our bowls of leftover homemade tortilla soup and began to watch. And here’s what you need to know, I am the biggest football fan in our home. P would have just as soon been sitting in a deer blind. In fact, I still can’t believe he wasn’t in a deer blind. This weekend was the first full weekend in November that we’ve spent together since we met. It was like the Haley’s Comet of our relationship, we won’t see it again in our lifetime.

    The first half of the game was so glorious. I cheered, I screamed, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. And I vowed that I wouldn’t forget my happiness even if it all fell apart in the second half. Until it looked like it was falling apart in the third quarter and there was some wailing and gnashing of teeth. And maybe a throwing of a couch cushion.

    But then we came back and our defense was unbelievable. And we won. WE WON.

    I realize that at least 85% of you could probably care less about any of this.

    Gulley and I texted back and forth the entire game in shock and awe with things like “VON MILLER!!!” and “WRECKING CREW!!!” and “I AM SO STRESSED!!!” Then Sophie sent me a text about thirty minutes after the game to congratulate me on the Aggies win because if there is anyone who understands my football obsession, it’s Sophie. And I was so hyped up on adrenaline and victory that I immediately texted her back with this:

    “I KNOW!!!! IT’S HUGE!!!! WE HELD THEM THREE DIFFERENT TIMES AT THE GOAL LINE!!! BETWEEN THIS GAME AND THE LONGHORNS LOSING AGAIN AND FIFTY HIGH SCHOOL RECRUITS IN ATTENDANCE AT KYLE FIELD TONIGHT, THIS COULD BE SO BIG FOR OUR FUTURE!!!! I AM SO WOUND UP THAT I MAY NOT SLEEP TONIGHT!!!”

    I’m so glad I told her I was wound up because, otherwise, it might have been hard for her to figure it out, what with all the caps-lock and excessive punctuation.

    And then, just like I called the outcome of the game on Twitter, I was totally right about my prediction that I wouldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned all night because I couldn’t wind myself down.

    So much for the extra hour of sleep.

    But I’ll just go ahead and say that it was totally worth it.

    Gig’em Aggies. Beat the hell outta Baylor.

    I promise I’ll be back tomorrow and will talk about something other than football.