Another day

  • An update from Dallas and the antithesis of a high speed wireless connection

    Yes, I am still in Dallas. It has been more fun than y’all can imagine spending two and a half days going over things that could have been summed up in an email. A short email.

    But on the bright side, I got to eat dinner tonight with my dear friend Hite who took me to a fabulous restaurant called Hatties. He described it as “gourmet soul food” and let me tell y’all it was some of the best food I’ve ever eaten. Fried green tomatoes, meatloaf and macaroni and cheese that was so unbelievably good that I wanted to lick the serving bowl. Heaven in a bowl is what it was. I will think about it for days with fond remembrance.

    Oh yes, and the conversation was good too. Hite never fails to make me laugh and he told me a story tonight that left me with tears running down my cheeks. I’ll share it at some point, but he has pictures to send that will better illustrate. One of my favorite memories of Hite is the day of my college graduation when there was literally a tornado touching down in College Station and he looked at me and said “In spite of the wind, your hair is holding up beautifully”. It was a complete lie, but it made me feel better.

    The other bright spot is that the hotel where I’m staying is the hotel where I stayed with Gulley, Jen and our other friends every New Year’s Eve when we were in college and A&M played in the Cotton Bowl. There are so many memories when I look around the hotel and think about what fools we were, but one of the best is the year that we were having a little social get together in our hotel room at 2 a.m. the night before the game and there was a knock on our door. We opened the door and there stood our star running back whose room was right next to ours. Apparently, we were keeping him awake with our festivities so he came on in and joined the party.

    The next day, he fumbled the ball which essentially cost us the game. I’d like to think that we weren’t partially responsible, but I’m afraid we were. I have never admitted this publicly. In fact, as we sat eating our hot dogs in the stands that day, we vowed we would never tell anyone for fear of being outcasts.

    Fool is the word y’all are looking for.

    Anyway, later today I will be headed home to my people and for that I am thankful. I have my .25 cent Ziploc to safely tote my lipgloss on the plane. Honestly, the more I’ve thought about it, if someone wants to cause harm on a plane is a Ziploc snack bag going to stop them? My best guess is no.

    The best part is that if my flight is on time and there are no delays, I’ll be home in time to tuck my girl into bed tonight.

    And in other news, today is my Mama’s birthday. I won’t reveal her age because a lady never tells, but I wish her a wonderful day. Mom, I have a whole new understanding and appreciation of how many nights you went without sleep because “I couldn’t see” and other such issues. I am paying for my youth as an insomniac. I love you and hope you have a day filled with all good things.

  • If it happens before 6 a.m., it can’t be any good

    Yesterday morning I had to do something that is, in my opinion, completely barbaric. I had to catch a flight to Dallas that left at 7:30 a.m. which means I had to leave my house at 6:15 which means that I was up before the crack of early at 5:00 a.m.

    See, the “bank” where I work decided that nothing really puts employees in the Christmas spirit more than shipping them off away from friends and loved ones right in the middle of the holiday season. And just to make it more festive? Let’s allow them to see what early morning at the airport (otherwise known as hell) looks like.

    So, the alarm goes off this morning and since P loves me and is the greatest person ever, he has already gotten up and turned the heat on for me so that at least I won’t freeze to death while getting dressed. I sleepwalk through the basic functions of personal hygiene, stopping only to admire the lovely red sleep creases etching themselves across my face. Then I wrestled with my suitcase in a vain attempt to get it to actually zip all the way closed. I’m a chronic overpacker. It’s what I do. I need options.

    At 6:15 the cab company calls to let me know that my cab is arriving, so I walk out the back door since I had requested that the driver pull up on the side of my house. We try not to use our front door while Caroline is asleep because due to the fact that the house is almost 100 years old and the foundation constantly shifts, opening the front door produces a sound somewhere in the same decibel range as a building being demolitioned.

    I didn’t see the cab until I noticed red brake lights coming from the front of the house, so I wheeled my suitcase around the house and got in the cab. I told the driver that I thought he was going to pull up on the side of the house and his response was the he couldn’t tell what the side of the house meant, so apparently he just went to the FRONT side. Turning on the side street that runs along the side of our house would have been too obvious a choice.

    I know I’m grumpy but the moon was still out and everything. That’s how early it was.

    I get to the airport, check in, and wait in a security line where I’m told that I can keep my lipgloss if I want to buy a .25 cent ziploc bag to put it in. Um, yeah there’s no profit margin in that is there?

    I take off my shoes and my jacket and unload the entire contents of my computer bag. Business travel is just so glamorous. I am so grateful to the bank for giving me this opportunity.

    Finally, I arrived at the hotel and checked in. While checking in at the bank reservation table to get my meeting itinerary, the lady smiles and tells me that there has been a change in schedule and the meetings won’t actually start until 1:30 p.m.

    It’s 9:00 a.m.

    The whole thing has filled me with so much holiday cheer that honestly, I’m thinking this trip must be my Christmas bonus.

    How could it get any better?

    Wait, I just realized the icing on the cake, high speed wifi at this particular hotel is a complete oxymoron.

    Now it’s like Christmas and New Years all at the same time!

  • Big Mama for President or you know…not

    I’ve never been an extremely politically minded person. I mean I vote in every election and I definitely have my political thoughts and beliefs that I feel strongly about, but I’ve never been one to want to run for any kind of office or even volunteer hours of my time at a campaign headquarters.

    Even in high school, I was content to be just a member of Student Council because after all, there were very important issues to be decided, such as prom theme and the various dress up days for Homecoming week. Serious, serious stuff and I didn’t want to be left out of these crucial decisions. But as far as making some poster board signs and pins that said “Big Mama for President. A vote for Big Mama is a vote for Pajama Day and Enchantment Under the Sea Prom theme”?

    No, not for me. Way too much pressure. I couldn’t have the final decisions regarding prom and what everyone would wear the week of Homecoming hanging solely on my significantly padded shoulders (remember it was the 80’s).

    In college, I was a member of COSGA which stands for something like Conference on Student Government Associations (shout out to Hite who interviewed me which started our lifelong friendship), but that wasn’t about school politics for me. It was about meeting really cool and potentially cute young politicos from other college campuses around the nation.

    And oh yeah, it wouldn’t look bad on a resume. I could put it right under “Diamond Darling for the Aggie Baseball Team” so that potential interviewers could see that they were dealing with a serious, academically driven candidate. Right.

    I guess I’m saying that I personally don’t understand why anyone would want to be a politician. I mean someone has to do it and I’m glad they do, but I get stressed about having to get to the grocery store and then Target in the same morning, so do I really need to be making decisions about what to do with North Korea or the federal deficit?

    However, I will be waiting in line at the polls today because I do believe that we should take our right to vote seriously. In my opinion, if you don’t vote then you can’t complain about the state of the Union and since I like to be able to complain, I will vote. It’s not just about politics, it’s about democracy and freedom of speech. It’s about the ability to have a voice in the whole big system. Our founding fathers and our veterans fought way too hard for our freedom for me to not use my voice.

    Heaven knows that if I lived in North Korea, there is no way Big Mama would be able to write as freely as I do. I’m proud to be an American, even if the votes don’t go the way I would like today.

  • Fall has arrived


    The weather has finally cooled off and it’s starting to feel like fall. Can y’all tell we’re excited around here?

    We got home from our big weekend just a little while ago. We had a great time and I have so much to tell, but I need to get us settled in and maybe do some things like unpack and do some laundry.

  • Here is what I know about medieval forms of torture


    I believe that I have mentioned that I currently have braces on my teeth. Oh yes, yes I do.

    Nothing really makes you feel more awkward than being in your mid-30’s and having to worry about one of your rubber bands shooting out of your mouth while engaged in adult conversation. So y’all will understand when I say that I feel like Ugly Betty is a little bit of a kindred spirit.

    I had thought about getting braces for years. My teeth were pretty straight until I was about 18, and if y’all think I was going to get braces before going off to college, well you’re grossly overestimating the state of my self-esteem at that point in my life.

    About 5 years ago, I went to the orthodontist (which is the Latin derivative for sadistic, cruel torture wielder of incredible pain) and took all the initial steps to make my dream of adult orthodontia come true, but I backed out. Then one night last October, I told P that I was going to do it. I made an appointment for the following Tuesday.

    Little did I know that my orthodontist knew me well. The moment he got me back in that office, he slapped these metal torture devices on me so fast that it made my head spin. He knew that if he let me walk out the door without them, he may never see me again.

    I called P on the way home and let him know I actually had braces on my teeth. Actually ON my teeth. P is known for his complete honesty in all situations and I gave him advance notice so that he could be kind to my already damaged psyche. He said he didn’t believe me at first, but then realized that while I was saying “I have braces on my teeth”, what he was hearing was “I hath bratheth on my teeth.”

    Later that afternoon I had to pick Caroline up from school. I couldn’t have felt more self-conscious so my plan was to get in and get out fast. I walked into the classroom, waved to the teacher and picked up Caroline’s things. I looked at her and said “okay, let’s go” while keeping my mouth as closed as I could. She immediately looked up at me and said in her best non-indoors voice, “YOUR MOUTH, MAMA, WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR MOUTH?” Subtlety…not so much the hallmark trait of 2 year olds.

    One of the things that made me the happiest after going through the ordeal of having FOUR teeth pulled and metal spikes glued to my teeth was when people would say “Why did you get braces? I never even noticed that your teeth were crooked.” Which just goes to show how little other people notice the flaws that drive you crazy. I spent years thinking people were looking at me and thinking that I might have in a set of those fake Billy Bob teeth that you can buy at the convenience store. I guess that was all in my head. A fact that would have been nice to know a year ago.

    Yesterday morning I had my monthly visit to the orthodontist’s office. I knew I was in trouble when he walked in and gave me a cheery “Hi Sport!”. He then proceeded to twist wires and teeth and use a rubber mallet to hammer something into place. A mallet…in my mouth. Needless to say, last night I gave myself a triple dose of Advil followed by a pain pill leftover from childbirth. Pain my friends, I am in pain.

    At one point, I was so uncomfortable that I started biting down on something to help get through the pain. He had to tell me that it was his finger. Y’all know what? I wasn’t even sorry.

  • I’m not one to quit on a garment just because it’s got a little wear *

    Yesterday my OCD tendencies were raging and I decided it was time to clean out my closet. This is a bi-annual event at the house of Big Mama wherein I give away any clothes that did not make it on my body for the season that is now over, and I sort through what remains of my wardrobe for the upcoming season. Fortunately, I had a helper.

    Caroline is modeling a summer top with a fab winter scarf and a lime green bag that gives the outfit that extra something special. This is an indicator of how the afternoon went. She would pick and choose items that she thought needed to be on her body immediately and I would stop what I was doing to help her accessorize. Good times.

    I made some interesting discoveries in my closet. First of all, I am the proud owner of no less than 16 black sweaters. I wish I could say that each one has distinguishing features, but really they are all just black sweaters with their redeeming quality being that they hide a multitude of toddler sins. Y’all would think that maybe I could weed a few of them out, but the answer is no because what if something happens to the other 15 and I no longer have a black sweater?

    Secondly, I realized that while I proclaim to have no pack rat tendencies, I found this disturbing scene lurking in the far back corner of my closet. Just seeing it was enough to make me break out in a cold sweat.

    Maternity clothes. Taking up precious closet space is an array of garments that can only be described as some of the ugliest clothing to have ever adorned my body. Why do I keep them? No, seriously I’m asking why?

    I really do pride myself on being able to throw out the old, evaluate my wardrobe and think about what I need for the new season. It is one of the few things I do with this level of organization. In fact, it’s the only thing I do with this level of organization.

    But I do have some things that I look at every time I purge my closet and I just can’t say goodbye. I’ll share them with you.

    Denim vest circa 1991. This, at one time, was the crowning glory to every outfit I wore. My absolute masterpiece was a bandana print wrap skirt with a white t-shirt topped with this denim vest. I give that outfit credit for singlehandedly helping me get asked out on several dates in the early 90’s. The skirt is long gone, but I cannot say goodbye to this vest. It’s like an old friend who isn’t a good influence, but yet brought me so many great times.

    Y’all might think that I would be ashamed to put on a garment that confirms that I was in college in 1992, but you would be wrong.

    I’d like y’all to notice a commonality between this sweatshirt and the one featured above…they are both enormous. Can you guess why? Whoever guessed that it’s so I could wear them with leggings back in the early 90’s wins. Y’all can’t see the logo, but this sweatshirt was bought courtesy of my Daddy’s credit card (a little bonus I added while buying my books for the semester) back when there was still a Southwest Conference.

    Now before y’all accuse me of being a Britney Spears wannabe, let me explain that these are a true family heirloom. They belonged to my Aunt Sandra when she was a teenager and while in the interest of privacy I won’t reveal how long ago that was, I will say that you can tell a true pair of vintage Levis by whether Levi has a capital E on the tag or not. If there is a capital E, then they were made before 1950. These have a capital E. They are one of my most treasured possessions and I don’t wear them anymore…well, not in public anyway.

    So there you have it, the skeletons in my closet. In spite of my refusal to get rid of these items, I did manage to load up an entire box of other things. Caroline thoroughly enjoyed herself and kept asking me “how’re we doing with our teamwork Mama?” as she tried on EVERY single thing she could get her hands on, including this.

    Does it make y’all wonder if maybe I really am Sydney Bristow?

    *Does anyone know what movie the title of this post is from? No prizes will be awarded, it’s for pride only.