Family

Forever in blue jeans

It all started a few weeks ago.

My dad mentioned that he was in the market for some new jeans, which in his fashion world means that another decade has gone by. As hard as this is to imagine, he discovered that Gap no longer makes the same jeans he bought back in 1994.

They also don’t make rust colored velour jogging suits circa 1975 but, lucky for him, he still owns his original one.

Oh I kid because my dad still wears a gray t-shirt with “SURF, SAND, SUN” written in neon on the front that he purchased on our vacation to Bermuda. In 1990.

Now lest I lead the internet astray, he is very particular about his business wardrobe. In fact, when I was in college and needed more money to purchase essentials like Big Gulps, powdered Donettes, and Whataburger taquitos, he would always tell me he’d have to sell one of his suits. And I will tell y’all that one of those suits would have paid for A LOT of Whataburger taquitos

But not Donettes or Big Gulps because those are pricey.

The bottom line is he doesn’t believe throwing down coin for his casual wardrobe. Therefore it consists primarily of t-shirts he’s received for free from his company and, obviously, the “SURF, SAND, SUN” t-shirt.

Anyway, we discussed his need for new jeans over lunch one Sunday. He and Mimi had spent Saturday shopping, which means they went to two stores, Gap and Dillards. Neither of those establishments had a denim option he felt was appropriate for what he called the “mature man”.

All the denim washes looked dirty or they were cut too low. He said he tried on some Levis, but just couldn’t make a decision. He was in the midst of a jean quandary.

I have never felt closer to him than I did at that moment. I even offered to dedicate a fashion Friday to the dilemma of jeans for the “mature man”, who clearly represent the core of my reading audience. They are a silent majority.

A few days later our friend Benke came over for dinner. He fancies himself a kind of fashion conscious guy and has some really tricky shoes that prove he either goes bowling on a regular basis or is on the cutting edge of fashion. So I asked him to tell me his thoughts on the denim landscape for males. He had a lot of thoughts and opinions, but the problem is he doesn’t fall into the “mature man” demographic because he is twenty-seven, which is practically an embryo.

He said the current look for men’s jeans is a bootcut leg in a darker wash and that Seven Jeans and Rock & Republic make some great jeans for men. That’s where he lost me.

No way am I spending over $100.00 on a pair of jeans for P. The only person in this house who is allowed to spend an insane amount of money on jeans is me. The reasons for this are two-fold.

1. It is guaranteed that I will not come home with my pricey jeans stained with deer blood.

2. I will love them and cherish them as a mama bear loves her precious cubs. I will hang them to dry even if it means I have to live without them for two days as they complete the drying process.

I would detail all the horrid things I have seen P do to a pair of jeans over eleven years of marriage, but it’s just too painful. Denim shouldn’t have to suffer like that.

As for my dad, I think it goes without saying he isn’t going to drop a hundred dollars on jeans if he isn’t going to shell out $15.99 for a few new t-shirts.

Anyway, this past weekend my dad finally took the plunge and bought some Levis. I’m not sure what kind they are, but it’s a safe bet they are not low rise and don’t look dirty. I guarantee they will look fabulous with a “SURF, SAND, SUN” t-shirt.

All I can figure is my dad’s bravery in purchasing new jeans in this ever-changing denim world inspired P to decide he also needed new jeans. Or maybe it’s because all of his old jeans are stained with deer blood and landscape compost.

Whatever the reason, P made an unprecedented announcement on Monday afternoon that he was going to Old Navy to buy some new jeans. He has not shopped for himself since 1996. Well, unless you count buying new snake boots, and I don’t.

I have never been more concerned for him than in those moments when I knew he was in the Old Navy dressing room. Was he scared? Did he feel like he was all alone? Was he intimidated by all the dirty wash and the low rise? God speed, my denim warrior. Be strong.

Later that night he revealed the contents of his Old Navy bag. There were two pairs of jeans, exactly the same, except one was a kind of faded wash and the other was a color that can only be described as Papaw Blue. They were a shade of blue that made me think they might have an elastic waistband.

It was already bad and then he tried them on. I am not exaggerating when I say that our entire family, cousins included, would fit inside these jeans.

“Did you try those on?”

“Of course I tried them on.”

“Do you think they fit?”

“Well, the guy in the dressing room said they did.”

I think I’m going to need some clarification on the guy in the dressing room, because if it’s the same guy that’s always in the dressing room when I go to Old Navy, then he is not a credible source when it comes to jean fit. He wears his with the waistline somewhere around his knees, so in his mind he probably felt that the jeans P had on were close to being skintight.

Or he just figured anyone who would buy jeans in that particular color was one step away from shopping at Papaw’s Senior Shop and wasn’t as concerned about actual fit as much as just pure comfort.

And here’s why I love P, other than the fact that he cooked fajitas for dinner last night. While he had the jeans on he told me that I could take a picture of him in them and blog about it if I wanted to.

He was so speaking my love language by allowing me to mock the jeans on the internet.

But, alas, the batteries were dead in my camera.

Needless to say, the jeans are going back and I will search for another bargain-priced denim option for P. Who knew the world of men’s denim was so fraught with peril? A guy could head out to the mall and come home with these.

No wonder Dad only buys jeans once every decade. It’s a tricky proposition.
The turkey has beaten us

I believe this is what is commonly referred to as a food coma.
The holiday of the turkey

About two weeks ago, Caroline and I were leaving Mimi and Bop’s house. Our usual routine is to turn around in their driveway and then roll down the back window so that Caroline can yell “Ciao Ciao! Ciao Ciao! Adios Cha-Chas!”

She is so multicultural.

But on this particular day she motioned for Mimi and Bops to come closer to the car and said, “I want to spend the night at your house after the holiday of the turkey!”

And lo, Thanksgiving for me will henceforth be known as The Holiday of the Turkey.

I have so much to be thankful for this year. It’s been a year of changes and adjustments, but God has been faithful. We are healthy, we are happy, we are blessed.

And I am grateful.

Here’s praying that y’all have a blessed, happy Holiday of the Turkey surrounded by the people and the food that you love.
Working hard to keep us all entertained

Caroline loves to spend the night with her Mimi and Bops . It’s something she’s done since they moved here a little over two years ago.

It’s what I like to call a golden situation, because she loves staying with them and I love getting to go out with P, then sleep late the next morning.

Not to mention, not being awakened in the middle of the night to serve as a bathroom escort.

She is a high-energy kid. She literally runs, and jumps, and runs some more, until she drops. She rarely admits to being tired.

In fact, one time this summer we finally had to drag her out of the pool and tell her she’d had enough. She argued with us until she finally just collapsed on her little swimmed-out legs.

Fortunately, for her, Bops is a gamer. He runs, he plays chase, he plays hide and seek. Then she says, “ONE MORE TIME, BOPS!”

And I’m pretty sure he collapses on the couch for a nap as soon as we leave.

We came home last Saturday and Caroline walked in her room as I was unpacking her bag. She said, “Mama, I am so TI-RED!”

“Well, you played hard over at Mimi and Bop’s house.”

“I know. Bops just makes me run and chase him the whole time. He just wears me out!”

I’m fairly certain that’s not the real story.

Here she is after spending a day having to play hide and seek with Bops.

Bless her heart. It’s not easy keeping up with a 62 year old man.

Happy Birthday, Bops.
Then we played Old Rugged Cross and prayed for the trip home

On Saturday morning, I did something completely uncharacteristic of me. I flew by the seat of my pants. I threw caution to the wind. I was SPONTANEOUS.

I know. It makes me hyperventilate a little just recalling it.

Mimi and Bops were driving to Beaumont to attend a family wedding. I wasn’t invited to the wedding because it was like my second cousin twice removed, or something like that, who was getting married. Honestly, I didn’t even know she existed, much less that she was getting married.

I knew that Mimi and Bops were leaving Saturday morning and, at one point earlier in the week, had contemplated going with them so I could visit my grandmother, Nanny. Then, on Thursday night, we had the whole throwing up in my bed debacle with Caroline and so I completely forgot about it.

Because once someone throws up in your bed, you pretty much forget how to breathe, much less anything else. My life was consumed with beach towels and buckets and dry heaves. And I was the one with the dry heaves because, seriously, I just don’t do well with throw up on my bed linens and my pajamas. Or within a 5 mile radius.

Then, Saturday morning arrived and Caroline had been feeling fine for over 24 hours. So, I called Mimi and Bops and asked if we could ride with them. Nanny is my only living grandparent and, since Beaumont is about a 5 hour drive, I don’t see her very often. It was the perfect opportunity to visit without having to make the trip alone with Caroline.

By the time I decided to go, I had about 20 minutes to get ready. Bops has never been accused of being patient when it comes to time schedules, so I threw stuff in a bag and headed out the door. I spent about the first hour in the car wondering why on earth I thought this was a good idea.

Caroline was whining. I was whining. And have I mentioned I tend to get really carsick? I do. I get really carsick.

Serious carsick issues. I am a pleasure to have in the car.

And constantly digging through my purse for snacks, juice, and DVD’s to put in the DVD player was not helping my carsickness. At one point I seriously wondered if I should just have Bops drop us off on the side of the road and call a cab to come pick us up and take us home.

In the words of Will Ferrell as Ron Burgundy in “Anchorman”, I immediately regretted my decision.

But then, we stopped at DQ in the booming metropolis of Weimar, Texas and a Reeses’ Peanut Butter Cup Blizzard made the world seem like a better place. Never underestimate the restorative healing powers of chocolate mixed with peanut butter. Hello, my old friend.

Finally, we arrived in Beaumont. I knew we were getting close because I could smell the unmistakable smell of refinery in the air. Not to mention the immediate increase in humidity.

Caroline and I walked into Nanny’s house and I was instantly so glad we made the trip. My parents have both moved around over the years, but Nanny’s house has been the same for as long as I can remember. It smells the same, it looks the same, and it sounds the same. Only in Nanny’s house will you hear 26 different clocks going off all at the same time.

Nanny is my mama’s mama. That side of the family is almost exclusively female. I have one male cousin, but all the rest of us are girls. And as we’ve had families of our own, all the girls have given birth to girls. Nanny’s house has always been a paradise for little girls.

Just look.

Caroline is her first great-grandchild in 20 years, but the toy closet remains the same. A wealth of Barbies, baby dolls, jewelry, and sequined outfits. And the books. There are so many books with pictures that immediately transport me back to childhood.

But this is the best of all. Caroline discovered the electric organ.

Not many people have electric organs, but I still remember when Nanny got hers. I was about 6 years old, and my sister and I would dress up in Nanny’s nightgowns, accessorize with more costume jewelry than you can imagine, and put on shows that were worthy of Tonight Show performances. Think Bette Midler in “The Rose”. Janis Joplin singing “Piece of My Heart”.

Of course, we weren’t nearly that cool and there were no mind-altering drugs involved.

Our go-to number was “Little Brown Jug” because my sister does a mean imitation of a drunk with hiccups. And every now and then, we’d move on from drinking songs and pull out some gospel numbers and have ourselves a revival. I can still hear Amy telling all the “people” that they “better quit their sinnin’ because they were goin’ to hell”.

Grace wasn’t really our forte.

Caroline didn’t hold any revivals or sing any drinking songs, but she did learn how to play some chords with a Samba beat accompaniment. It was a treasure.

And so was seeing Nanny.

We should all look this good at 89 years old.
Our house was a very, very, very fine house

When I was 5, my family moved to the suburbs. It was the mid-70’s and it was the thing to do. We lived in Houston and moved to a fairly new subdivision off of FM 1960. I remember my mama telling me that FM stood for farm to market road and it meant that this paved four lane road used to be nothing but a dirt path that farmers used to carry their produce to the local markets. It fascinated me to no end to think that, in my mind at least, just mere months before we moved there, the road was covered with old men in overalls pushing wheelbarrows full of produce.

We moved in to our new two-story colonial-style home in April of 1976. I remember the month because I was enrolled in a new Kindergarten class just in time to participate in their theatrical performance of The Tortoise and the Hare. Since I was a latecomer, I was given the role of stand-by rabbit #4 and my costume consisted of a pink leotard and tights with a bonnet like thing with white bunny ears. It wasn’t nearly as splashy as the costume a girl named Amy got to wear, which was a full-hot pink bunny costume complete with a yellow fur tummy. Oh, I was envious and, in fact, months later when Amy and I became friends and I spent the night at her house, I saw the bunny costume hanging in her closet and suggested that I try it on. It was rabbit perfection, just as I had imagined.

Anyway, I vaguely remember the day we moved into our new house on Misty Lea Lane. A few things stood out to me immediately. The first was that we had a fire hydrant in our front yard. I thought that was about the greatest thing ever and if, at the age of 5, I had been allowed to write the MLS listing of our new home it would have read like this: 4 BR, 2 1/2 BA, NEW CARPET AND FIRE HYDRANT IN FRONT YARD. The other feature that took my breath away was the fact that it was two stories. The stairs offered an endless amount of possibilities for entertainment. And lastly, the wallpaper in the entryway was a flocked, velvet texture in a lovely shade of avocado green. I remember feeling that wallpaper with my fingertips and thinking, “Lawsy, we sho’ is rich now Miz Scarlett.”

One of the best features of the house was that the downstairs portion made a complete circle. If my friends and I wanted to play hide and seek, we could start in the formal living room, which led to the family room, which led to the breakfast area and kitchen, then the dining room and back to the living room. It allowed for endless games of chase. And there was a closet in the den, right next to the wet bar (love the 70’s and the requisite wet bar), that was tucked under the stairs so that the ceiling of it was slanted. It fascinated me to no end.

All the bedrooms were upstairs with my parents’ bedroom on one side of the staircase and the other 3 bedrooms on the other side. I remember lying in bed at night, trying to gather up my courage to walk to their room, knowing I would have to walk past the stairs and heaven only knows what could have been lurking at the bottom of those stairs just waiting for a 6 year old in a Holly Hobby nightgown to walk by.

I had my own room with a brass bed with an old-fashioned bedspread with yellow flowers on it but, in reality, my sister and I shared her bedroom. She had two twin beds with pink headboards, and I slept in the room with her every night because I gave new meaning to the word scaredy-cat. I’m not sure what kind of defense I thought a 3 year old in Winnie the Pooh pajamas would offer me from the boogeyman, but I felt better knowing she was there. Plus, when insomnia hit us, we had a playmate right in the next bed. And my sister always kept a stash of Sunmaid raisins in her nightstand drawer which, looking back, was sheer brilliance on her part.

The remaining bedroom was a guest bedroom/playroom. It was filled with our Barbies and their townhome, complete with elevator, various baby dolls and doll beds, and a record player so that we could listen to The Bee-Gees or Olivia Newton-John. We spent hours playing in that room and Barbie put on many the concert with her Olivia Newton-John lipsynching skills.

One of the best things that ever happened to that house was when my parents got it professionally landscaped. The landscapers filled the yard with flower beds covered in dark, pine mulch and each flower bed had a little ditch feature around it to keep the grass from encroaching on the bed. My friends and I would fill up those little moats with water, drag Barbie out there in her Winnebago and have a good, old fashioned Barbie campout complete with a river. It was treacherous terrain for Barbie and Ken, roughing it out there amongst the azaleas.

We had a metal swing set with pastel-colored stripes winding around the legs. Whatever happened to the good old metal swingsets? They’ve been killed off by the wooden playscape, probably because all of the tetanus shots kids of the 70’s had to have after being cut by a sharp piece of metal sticking out of a see-saw.

We would spend hours swinging and jumping out of our swings. Twisting them around and around until the chains creaked and couldn’t go any tighter, and then spinning wildly out of control, stumbling off the swing and falling facedown in the St. Augustine grass.

The backyard also had a cement patio and it was the scene of much of my early rollerskating choreography. I would put on my new white rollerskates with lime green wheels and stoppers, and come up with routines that would make Olivia Newton-John and the entire cast of Xanadu weep with envy. It was just a matter of time before a talent scout discovered me on the back patio and begged me to come to Hollywood, or maybe just The Magic Skate.

Our house was on a street with a cul-de-sac and there was never a shortage of kids to play with, night or day. This was back in the days when parents didn’t live in as much fear as we do now, and we were allowed to freely roam the streets of the neighborhood in pre-adolescent gangs, searching for the next game of kickball, freeze tag, or hide and seek. And finally, dusk would fall and you’d hear mamas all up and down the street calling for their kids to come inside and eat supper. My best friend, Caroline Fletcher, lived two houses down and we probably killed the neighbors’ lawns in between our houses with all the running back and forth we did all day long.

I’m the one on the end with the goofy look on my face. Obviously, I have always been shy and reserved.

We lived in the house until the summer before I started 7th grade. By then, Caroline Fletcher and her family had moved away and so had several other families. I guess on to bigger and better parts of suburbia. My parents had gotten divorced, so my mama moved us to Beaumont to live down the street from her mama and daddy. We moved into a smaller house in Beaumont, one that holds just as many memories, but memories of teen years and bedroom walls filled with Homecoming mums and cheerleader pom-poms.

When I think of my childhood home, I always think of the yellow two-story house on Misty Lea Lane with the white shutters and a mailbox out front that my Big Bob built that was a perfect replica of the big house. It was the place where I built my memories of childhood; long summer nights filled with fireflies and kick the can, 4th of July block parties in the cul-de-sac, walking home from the bus stop after a long day of school, and riding my blue bike with the flowered banana seat up and down the block while Caroline Fletcher rode her Green Machine right next to me. Memories I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world, memories that surprise me even now as I sit here with tears in my eyes, filled with more nostalgia than should be allowed.

If you want to share memories of your childhood home, head on over to Mary at Owlhaven’s for more information. Or if you just want to read some other memories, then go check out all the links.

Meanwhile, I’m off to help Caroline create some childhood memories of her own.