Road trips

Start spreading the news, I left yesterday

Well, I’m in New York.

I know.

I didn’t mention it earlier because I have this whole pessimistic thing going on where I don’t really believe something is going to happen until it actually happens. (I’m working on that. I really am.) But yesterday morning I woke up at the crack of awful, my dad picked me up, drove me to the airport, and I boarded a plane for New York City. (Please say “New York City” like they used to say it on those Pace picante commercials because that’s how it’s playing in my head.)

Actually I boarded a plane for Dallas first. Once I landed in Dallas I caught the airport tram to haul myself and my extremely overpacked carry-on bag to Gate A39. All was well and fine until they announced that my flight to JFK was now departing from Gate A14. You wouldn’t think that A39 would be that far from A14, but you would be wrong. Especially considering the fact that I was carrying a sound machine in my purse because I am a high maintenance traveler and don’t think I wouldn’t haul my body pillow through the airport if I could get away with it. I enjoy the comforts of home. And the sound of soft rain falling when I sleep.

Eventually American Airlines finally committed to a gate and I got in line to board the plane. I always start to get a little nervous when I board the plane because WHAT IF THERE IS NO ROOM FOR MY CARRY-ON BAG? And what if I hold up the entire boarding process of the plane while I try to figure it out? Fortunately there was an entire open luggage compartment and I mustered all my strength and possibly threw out my back trying to lift my bag. However, once I got it up there it appeared that it would only fit horizontally. So I left it that way. But then I realized the guy behind me was giving me the dirtiest look you can imagine because my horizontal bag didn’t leave any room for his bag. It was an unintentional error on my part and I started to apologize, but before I could even get the words out of my mouth he shoved my bag to the side, turned it horizontally and stored his bag next to mine. All while giving me the stinkeye.

Looking at him, I quietly said, “Sorry, I didn’t think it would fit that way.” But what I wanted to say was “Dude, settle down. It’s just luggage.” I don’t think he saw it that way.

I spent a large part of the flight reading various periodicals. I wish I could say that if you have any questions about the budget deficit or how the federal reserve rates are influencing the economy that I know the answer. The truth is that if you want to know about Kate Gosselin’s attitude on Dancing With The Stars or how Sandra Bullock is dealing with all her marital woes, then I am your girl. When it comes to current celebrity trivia I am en fuego.

After I arrived in New York, I caught (hailed?) a cab driven by a fellow named Harjab. From what I could tell Harjab appeared to be having some sort of spat with someone and spent most of the thirty minute cab ride yelling into his cell phone and then hanging up. Then he’d answer the phone again, yell some more, and hang up. All while driving across the Queensboro Bridge and nearly steering us right into a lane already occupied by a city bus. But other than my life span being shortened by about ten years from sheer terror, Harjab eventually got me to the hotel.

I checked into my room and immediately took a shower because two planes plus New York cab plus eighty degrees equals ick. Refreshed and relaxed, I stretched out on the bed and came to two conclusions about why I could never live in New York.

1. I have a tendency to get carsick. If I had to spend even a few minutes a week being driven around in stop and go traffic while riding in the backseat of a hot car, I’d never survive. On the plus side, it might be an effective diet plan.

2. While I was laying on the bed, I began to hear loud drumbeats right outside the window. I thought there was some kind of street musical going on or something and I was all OH NEW YORK! You amuse me with your street music! But then I looked outside and saw several men yelling through megaphones, six drummers drumming, ten lords a leaping and the biggest fake rat I’ve ever seen. (Not that I’ve seen that many fake rats in my day, but this one was like ten feet tall and standing on two legs.) It turned out to be some sort of construction workers strike or something like that even though the rat confused me for a minute and I thought maybe they were protesting The Tale of Despereaux. All I know is I’d hate to be the guy in charge of bringing the rat every morning.

But then last night I ate some of the most delicious pasta I’ve ever had in my life, walked by St. Patrick’s Cathedral and took in the sights of Madison Avenue, and all was forgiven.

New York, you’re a little loud but you make up for it with a lot of style.

And ten foot tall fake rats.
I know I have beaten this horse to death

Have I mentioned that we went on a road trip for Spring Break? I can’t really remember.

I solemnly vow that after today I will never speak of it again.

Here are Caroline’s thoughts on our Spring Break.

Spring Break from Big Mama on Vimeo.

Here are my thoughts on her thoughts:

1. Yes, it’s hard not to notice that she’s wearing camo, but she always likes to note what she’s wearing. I don’t know where she gets it.

Also, for those of you familiar with Waco, TX (you have my deepest sympathies) that is a shirt from George’s Bar. I realize it’s probably a little inappropriate for my child to wear a shirt advertising a bar, but it’s rare to find hot pink and camo living together in peace and harmony so we had to buy it.

2. Jackson really was her first friend. However, I’m not sure Will was her third considering that she really wanted nothing to do with him until he started to talk.

3. Yesterday was my day to help out in her classroom and I arrived in time to hear the kids go around in a circle and tell about their Spring Breaks. When it got to Caroline, she said, “We went to Houston and I bought these new shoes.”

I’m so glad that’s what stands out.

Also, it’s hard to tell from the video, but she chose the most understated, simple shoes she could find.

They’re very subtle. Did I mention they light up and provide enough illumination for incoming aircrafts to land?

4. Is it just me or does she totally channel Salley O’Malley there at the end? She can kick. She can stretch. She can kick.

That’s what I thought.
Fashion Friday: Edition no fashion for you

Listen.

I am a mere reflection of the woman I was four days ago because Spring Break has beaten me like a rented circus monkey. If there ever comes a time when Caroline questions my love and devotion for her, I’m going to send her the links from this past week.

(I nearly said I’d email her the links, but let’s not even pretend that email will exist by then. I’ll probably just transmit them through brain waves complete with an Apple logo.)

Yesterday we went to the Houston Zoo. Along with everyone else who happened to be in Houston. And if you’ve been reading here for any length of time, then you may recall that I don’t even like the zoo.

(Although the Houston Zoo holds a special place in my heart because it is the zoo of my childhood. It’s the zoo where I went on an elementary school field trip wearing a terry cloth short suit that read “Huff and Puff” in big orange letters across the front. The seventies were a weird decade.)

So after my initial disappointment that the sea lions aren’t still in that giant blue pool that used to be the first thing you saw when you walked in, it was a good day. It almost made me forget how much I dislike zoos.

Plus, the weather was gorgeous. If you don’t believe me, you can ask any one of the 2,546,987 people that were there at the same time.

And so I don’t have a fashion post today because I have to go to bed. Like now.

Although Caroline would like you to know that she heard from the giraffes that giraffe prints are all the rage this season.

(Bless her heart, she is just barely containing her enthusiasm in that picture.)

Oh, and white tiger prints may be in style at some point. But only if you work out at Gold’s Gym and wear weight-lifting pants.

I hope you find this information helpful.

Y’all have a great weekend.
What about Mel?

I’m sitting in a hotel room in Houston with an exhausted little girl curled up right next to me. Even though we’re in a king size bed, she feels the need to snuggle up as close to me as she can. And, honestly, I’m not complaining.

We’ve already had such a good time this week and we still have two more days of BIG FUN left on the calendar. I mean, sure, some kids are spending their Spring Break at more exotic locales such as Winter Park, Disney World or the McDonald’s Playplace on San Pedro, but I hope Caroline will always remember the Spring Break she spent eating a cup of turkey noodle soup in the dining room of a retirement community or those precious moments we spent perusing the dollar aisle at Target. Who needs snow skiing when you can buy a pack of twenty Easter-themed pencils for $1.00?

Anyway, we left Bryan yesterday morning. We’d planned to go to an Aggie baseball game while we were there but it decided to rain ALL DAY LONG which meant we had to alter our original plans. So instead of Aggie baseball fun, we went and ate lunch with Nena at the retirement community and ultimately ended up at Post Oak Mall where Gulley and I let the kids bungee jump for $7.00 a pop until we realized that we were going to run out of money long before they ran out of energy.

On Monday night, Honey had a big birthday party for Big and the entire Bryan family showed up. And I feel like I need to explain a little bit for those of you who haven’t had countless hours of your life to waste combing through my archives. Gulley and I met a long, LONG time ago when we were both students at Texas A&M. Since she grew up in Bryan, we spent a lot of time with her family. Because you know what college kids love more than just about anything? Besides cheap beer? A place to eat a delicious home-cooked meal and a washer and dryer where you can do your laundry without stockpiling quarters for weeks on end.

In fact, there may have even been a summer where I just moved into her parents’ house because it seemed to make more sense than driving over there every single day. And I think it speaks volumes about what kind of people they are because they let me. And they fed me. And they took me in and made me their own.

Or maybe the whole thing was like the movie “What About Bob?” But I choose not to examine that too closely.

Anyway, the whole family was over for Big’s birthday. I ended up sitting next to Nena and somehow we got into a discussion about obituaries. I’m not really sure how it happened, but it seems to be a popular topic among the senior set. She told me she has a friend who is a former beauty queen and she’s been writing her own obituary for years because she doesn’t feel like anyone else will do her justice. And, apparently, she occasionally calls Nena and reads her the latest version of the obituary. Because that is totally normal.

Nena leaned in and whispered to me, “Oh she goes on and on about how she was a drum majorette and a former Miss Fort Worth County and a Kappa Alpha Sweetheart Queen and the homecoming queen at her high school. But she never mentions A WORD about how she’s been married FIVE TIMES.”

In all fairness, that’s a lot to work in to one obituary.

So now we’re in Houston.

We arrived about noon yesterday and met my friend Amanda and her kids for lunch at a Mexican restaurant because she and I share a love of the Mexican food. I’m a little sad to report that Caroline won the honor of spilling her entire Shirley Temple even though she was the oldest kid at the table. I blame it on her obsession with the maraschino cherries in the bottom of the glass. She will not rest until she’s dug out every single last one of them and semi-destroyed my serenity in the process.

After we cleaned up the Shirley Temple, we left our peaceful, relaxing lunch and let the kids ride their scooters to the park so they could play for a while. Later on, after Caroline and I had arrived at the hotel, Amanda texted me to let me know that Jackson was so worn out that he’d fallen asleep on the couch and said she hoped Caroline wasn’t too tired from the big afternoon.

I looked at Caroline from the spot where I’d collapsed into a chair and watched her jump up and down on the hotel bed repeatedly before I texted Amanda back and reported that, sadly, our excursion didn’t really have the same effect on my child because she has some sort of condition that causes her to never, EVER, get tired of all the constant moving.

We went to eat dinner at El Meson in the Rice Village. If you’ve never been there and you live in Houston, then I highly recommend it. It’s a combination of Cuban food and Mexican food which will probably be the culinary choice of Heaven.

And now I have to go to bed because we have two more days ahead of us and this might be the Spring Break that kills me.

In which case, I really need to start working on my obituary.
Because I am a culinary optimist

My trip to Nashville was fairly short in the whole scheme of things. I arrived on Thursday night and was back home by mid-afternoon on Saturday. Caroline was so excited to see me that she elected to stay at Mimi and Bops’ house and help them finish cleaning their garage instead of riding to the airport with P to pick me up. I’ve never felt so loved.

The LifeWay Women’s Forum was great. Sophie picked me up from the airport and we arrived just in time to hear Travis lead worship. We saw a couple of sweet friends, ate some delicious tomato basil soup and grilled cheese sandwiches (shout out to the chef), and called it a night because we were both exhausted.

We headed over to conference the next morning to teach our sessions and tried to mentally prepare ourselves because we’d been told that they were going to put us on the live webcast around 2:00 p.m. to do some “witty banter”. Live. Witty banter.

Adding to the stress was the memory of the last time they asked Sophie and I to do some “witty banter” after a Living Proof Live event in San Antonio or as we like to refer to it “Remember the Alamodome”. It was the most painful eight minutes of my life as we struggled to come up with even ONE THING to talk about and ended up discussing how we slept the night before which is always a riveting topic. The silence was deafening but you could hear every woman in that place saying a silent “Bless their hearts”.

But for some reason they thought it would be a good idea to give us another try and we spent all morning throwing out potential topics we could revert to if we got desperate. Our list consisted of Thanksgiving foods, Christmas shopping, hair and the dress that Priscilla Shirer had on that morning. And because we are extra nerdy and obsessive, we also had a super secret list o’ conversation topics that we didn’t share with each other so we could create the illusion of spontaneous conversation if times got hard.

Fortunately we ended up getting to interview the delightful and talented Kelly Minter about her new Bible study on Ruth. I think it went pretty well although I did have a moment of desperation and panic where I asked her about her favorite Thanksgiving food. It was turkey by the way, which I find fascinating because you don’t really hear anyone talk about how much they love turkey at the Thanksgiving meal. Personally, I could just get rid of the turkey altogether and just carb load on the dressing and broccoli-rice casserole. And the pies.

And then eat a whole bowl of whipping cream.

Anyway, after our portion of the live webcast was over, we went back to the hotel to recuperate. I had a raging headache (probably from concentrating so hard on my list of super secret conversation topics) and just needed to lie down for awhile. Eventually Sophie called my room and we decided to venture out in search of dinner.

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time then you know where this is heading.

We drove towards the Vanderbilt campus in search of nourishment but we were both totally indifferent about what we wanted to eat. Then all of a sudden we spotted the San Antonio Taco Company and we were powerless to resist. We were compelled to carry on our time honored tradition of eating the most mediocre Mexican food that the Southern United States has to offer. It’s like a sickness.

Exhibit A: Huevos Rancheros in Woodstock, Georgia

Exhibit B: Restaurant with a rat on the sign in Charlotte, North Carolina

But I thought this time might be different because the restaurant had San Antonio in its name. I felt that it lent an air of credibility.

After one bite of the guacamole (and I use that term loosely), I immediately regretted our decision. Yet, I pressed on and finished eating my beef fajita taco.

Later that night I was talking to P on the phone and said, “I don’t feel so good”.

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“Well, Sophie and I ate at this Mexican restaurant and the food wasn’t very good.”

“Why do you do that to yourself? I can’t even feel sorry for you.”

“But it was called the San Antonio Taco Company! I figured it might be good, but I think the city of San Antonio should sue them for defamation of character.”

“I think you have only yourself to blame. Anyone who actually lives in San Antonio should know better than to eat at a restaurant in Tennessee called the San Antonio Taco Company.”

He is a fount of sympathy.

By the time I made it home on Saturday I was in dire need of real Mexican food to cleanse the memory from my palate so we picked up dinner from Teka Molina and all was well.

Now I’m just glad that I’m home to stay for a while. I’ve traveled about once a month for the last four months and I’m ready for a break. It’s not that airline travel isn’t glamorous, I mean where else do you get the opportunity to take off your tall black boots and reveal to the world that you’re wearing white tube socks with your black leggings? It will just be nice to unpack my Ziploc full of 3 oz. toiletries and enjoy my people.

Even though some of them would rather clean the garage than meet me at the airport.
Gone with the wind or Darth Vader or a pirate

Stop me if you’ve heard this one.

A pirate, Darth Vader and a Southern Belle walk into a bar…

I’m not really going anywhere with that but I kept looking at those three on Saturday afternoon and thinking they seemed like a punchline to a joke. It’s not every day that you see such an odd assortment of characters unless it’s time to visit the DMV and renew your drivers’ license.

One of the many reasons we decided to head to College Station for the weekend, other than to visit Honey and Big and avoid vegetable casseroles, was to attend a Diamond Darling reunion. We decided to skip the Friday night dinner, but thought the kids might enjoy going to the baseball field on Saturday for an alumni baseball game. In theory, we’d love to take them to a football game but the tickets are way too pricey for a crew that may decide they’re ready to bail once the $15.00 bucket of popcorn runs out.

Here are Caroline and Jackson at Olsen Field.

Gulley and I laughed after our road trip this summer because we had all these pictures of Caroline and Jackson together and then pictures of Will by himself. Sometimes it was because he was looking for his shoes or in the bathroom, but mostly it’s because he can’t be bothered to pose for pictures. A pirate needs to be free.

But I caught him this time.

Granted, he’s not looking at the camera but I’m going to consider this a W.

The kids had a great time and even got to play baseball with some of the current Aggie baseball players and that pretty much made their life. Well, except for Will. He was off picking up stray baseballs and warning kids that if you walked all the way to the top of the bleachers “you might die”. He’s a fan of the alarming statement.

Here’s Jackson getting ready for a power hit.

And Caroline going for a bunt.

I don’t think she was actually trying to bunt, but it looks really impressive.

After a few hours we headed home from the game but had to make a quick trip to Sonic because, well, it’s Sonic and Gulley and I were in need of some caffeine to help us gear up for the next activity on our agenda.

When Nena heard we were coming to town, she requested that all the kids bring their Halloween costumes and come trick or treat at her house a week early. And, not only that, she called one of her neighbors and Uncle Johnny and told them they needed to have candy for the kids.

So we got everyone into costume and began to take pictures of the odd little trio, but first we had to find the little pirate.

And we have a winner.

They are full-service trick or treaters and believe in the value of a little performance theater to go along with all the begging for candy. It also helped that they were all jacked up on about eight Tootsie Rolls courtesy of Uncle Johnny.

This pretty much sums up their haul

What she doesn’t know is that I’m going to recycle about half of that on Saturday night.

After all the trick or treat fun, we changed their clothes and went to Wings ‘N More for dinner. Normally I’m not a fan of eating establishments that use a ‘N in their title, but I make an exception for Wings ‘N More because it is just so good. I always forgo the wings in favor of a chicken fried steak because OH MY WORD at the delicious and the kids discovered the culinary wonder that is fried pickles. The sad part is that my sodium intake on Saturday night was so great that I couldn’t get my wedding ring on the next day until I drank two bottles of water. I should be embarrassed to admit that but I’m just going to throw it out there so you can realize the depth of my love for the chicken fried steak.

The next morning every one was sad to pack up and leave but it had to be done. Gulley and I loaded up the car and I made sure my wedding ring was secure in the zipper pocket of my purse before we said our goodbyes. Caroline declared that it was “the saddest day” of her entire life and she was “going to cry myself to sleep all the way home”.

I knew I wouldn’t get that lucky.

Instead she chose to take out her sadness in the form of extended whining over the fact that Will was humming a song quietly to himself and it was annoying her. And then Will, sensing his power, continued to hum quietly to himself while staring directly at her.

It was at this point that I dispensed the first of many pieces of wisdom that would be given throughout the duration of this road trip. “It’s all fun and games until all that whining means we don’t get to stop for a DQ Blizzard in Bastrop”.

That statement caused an instant reconciliation amongst the back seat and Gulley and I got caught up in our own in depth conversation wherein I uttered the profound statement that “people want to think the grass is greener on the other side, but you know what’s over there? MORE GRASS”.

In fact, “It’s Just More Grass” may be the title of the self-help book that I’ll never actually write.

But my personal favorite words of wisdom came from Gulley during the last thirty minutes of the trip when she broke up a back seat scuffle by declaring “When you lick the person sitting next to you, there’s a good chance you’re going to get punched”.

I believe the only reason that gem is missing from the book of Proverbs is because Solomon obviously never traveled with three kids in the back of his chariot.