Capital P

  • My peeps

    This is one of my favorite pictures ever of Caroline and P.

    And this is one I took of them last week.

    img_6127.jpg

    Hello, time? I’d appreciate it if you’d slow down just a little bit.

    My heart can’t take all the growing up.

  • Lady liberty

    Last Thursday, P headed down to South Texas with a group of men from our church to help rebuild a church that was damaged by Tropical Storm Dolly.

    Or was it Hurricane Dolly?

    I can’t remember. Poor Dolly was the second runner-up in the Hurricane race this year and no one ever remembers the second runner-up.

    If you don’t believe me, ask anyone who has ever been one.

    When P called home on Friday night, he mentioned that they had attended a dinner for the National Rifle Association.

    Church group, mission trip, NRA.

    It’s like a bad right-wing cliche’.

    Anyway, I helped host a baby shower on Saturday night so I was literally walking out the door to go to the shower as P was coming in from his trip. He said he was exhausted and would probably be in bed by the time I got home.

    I arrived home a little after 9:00, set my purse down on the kitchen island, looked up and saw this hanging on the wall.

    img_5238.jpg

    Where am I? What is happening? Did the ghost of Charlton Heston come to call?

    Apparently, P failed to mention that he was a big winner at the NRA banquet.

    And considering the prize, I am playing fast and loose with the word “winner”.

    I walked into the bedroom and he was still awake.

    “What is that thing hanging on our wall?”

    “I won it!”

    “I’m not sure ‘win’ is the word I’d use.”

    “I thought I’d hang it in the kitchen.”

    “Why do you hate our kitchen?”

    We went to bed with the “art” still hanging on the kitchen wall because we’ve been married for eleven years and, clearly, P knew it would be relegated to the backhouse within 24 hours. He even bet our associate pastor that it would take me less than three seconds to notice that he’d hung it on the wall.

    He underestimated me by a half second.

    Yesterday morning, Caroline woke up and came into the kitchen. She immediately noticed the new picture and started to cry, which gives me great hope for her future in art appreciation.

    But the main reason she was upset is because this is what normally hangs in that spot.

    img_5254.jpg

    So as she began to cry she said, “But where is the beautiful picture of me?”

    The good news is she appears to have both liberty and security.

    The NRA would be so proud.

  • I don’t think this is what they mean when they say, “Drill now!”

    Yesterday morning was the kind of day that made me want to walk out on the back porch and say “Hello Fall! Welcome back my old friend! You are delightful!”

    After I got Caroline dressed and off to school, I took Scout and Bruiser for a long walk and didn’t even listen to my iPod because I just wanted to soak up all the nature and the fall-like temps.

    Also, there have been reports of some shady characters loitering around our neighborhood (Canadian booty cleavage man possibly included) and P basically told me I’d be a fool if I went walking with my iPod because it limits my ability to sense an impending attack.

    So I enjoyed all the nature as opposed to a diverse musical mix that includes Chris Tomlin and Justin Timberlake.

    I returned home just as P was getting back from an appointment with the dentist. Last Christmas, P’s dentist informed him that he needed a titanium implant and a tooth carved out of diamonds to replace an antiquated crown that had broken loose more times than we could remember, including one incredibly romantic evening when we’d just started dating and the crown came out in his Milkdud.

    To tell the truth, I’m not sure if the implant and new tooth are carved out of diamonds. It’s just an assumption based on the cost.

    So about six months ago, P got the implant and yesterday was the day he finally got his new tooth.

    When he walked in the back door, I asked how the new tooth felt and he said, “It’s a little sore, but I’m more worried about my finger.”

    Well sure.

    “What do you mean? What’s wrong with your finger?”

    Apparently after they put in the new tooth, P asked the nurse if he could see what the tooth looked like. She handed him a mirror and walked out of the room. After he looked at the new tooth, he attempted to set the mirror on a table next to the dentist’s chair but the mirror slipped and he tried to grab it. As he grabbed it, his middle finger landed right on the dentist’s drill which drilled far enough into his finger that the drill became stuck.

    It was a million to one shot.

    The dentist was able to pull the drill out of his finger, but needless to say the finger did not escape without some injury.

    Anyway, last night we were sitting around and P mentioned that I was probably going to need a new pair of comfortable boots for my trip to the Dominican Republic.

    I got so excited because how often does your husband mention that you might need a new pair of boots?

    So I showed him this pair that I’ve had my eye on for the last year or so.

    pl471622-01p01v01.jpg

    Evidently they aren’t exactly what he had in mind.

    He seems to think I’m going to need more of a practical, hiking, outdoorsy type of boot.

    But what does he know? He drilled his own finger yesterday.

    Just in case he’s right, I thought I’d ask for some help. Do y’all have any suggestions for comfortable, practical shoes that would work for the trip?

    Preferably something not too hideous?

    Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, as well as any other useful hints for traveling to a third world country.

    Muchas gracias, peeps.

  • And then I drank a quart of Benadryl

    Oh, what a weekend we had over here.

    Mimi and Bops picked up Caroline on Friday afternoon and I headed straight to the mall because my birthday money was burning a hole in my pocket. Oh sure, I could save it, but why would I do that?

    I was halfway to the mall when I remembered that it was tax-free weekend in Texas which translates to MASS CHAOS.

    But because I am a fool for shopping, I decided to brave the crowds and take advantage of tax-free savings. I’m not going to lie, I barely made it out alive.

    I limped out of the mall in need of fresh air and a weapon of mass destruction. The good news is that my foray into the bowels of hell paid off because I found a really cute pea coat, which is hard to get excited about in the dead of August but will be delightful in January.

    Earlier that afternoon, I noticed I had a small rash on my chest. It was slightly itchy and red, but I decided it was a heat rash from all of our beach fun. No big deal.

    P and I picked up barbecue for dinner that evening because everyone knows that pork ribs are the traditional celebratory meal for an eleventh wedding anniversary. As we sat at the coffee table, eating our dinner and watching the Olympics, (who says romance is dead?) I began to feel a little itchy behind my knees. And on my arms. And on my back.

    I went to look at myself in the mirror and I screamed in horror. Actually, I’m not sure I screamed, but I did mumble a quiet, “What the heck?”

    It was not pretty, my friends. Not pretty at all.

    So I popped a Zyrtec or six and went to bed in the hopes of sleeping off my rash.

    I woke up Saturday morning at 11:00 with a major antihistamine hangover. I kept splashing my face with water and trying to rub my eyes, but everything remained foggy. It was just like I was back in college after a night of too much Zima.

    The irony is that I sold Zyrtec for years and always assured physicians that it shouldn’t make their patients sleepy and that it was much more tolerable than Benadryl. And, technically, that is true for 87% of the population.

    However, I fall into the other 13%. It knocks girlfriend STRAIGHT OUT.

    In fact, when P and I used to take 75 high school kids skiing every Spring Break and had to ride a bus for 17 hours, I would always take a Zyrtec so that I could sleep the entire way.

    And then I’d take several more throughout the trip to drown out all the teen angst.

    If you are the parent of someone who went on one of these trips, I’m sure someone else was watching your kid. I’m also 87% sure that none of them ever snuck out at night while I was in a comatose state.

    Anyway, about my rash.

    It continued to spread. I spent most of Saturday coating myself with hydrocortisone and popping any antihistamine I could find in the medicine cabinet.

    I’m here to tell you that there is not a more romantic way to spend your eleventh wedding anniversary than all drugged up and slathered in hydrocortisone. That is HOT with a capital H.

    I’d use my most alluring voice to say, “Hey baby, why don’t you come over here and put some of that Benadryl lotion on the backs of my knees?”

    And for some reason, probably fear of contamination, he turned me down.

    I believe the vows say IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH.

    I finally decided that I contracted some sort of beach rash from all that moat-digging. P thought maybe I was allergic to something I used to clean the house earlier that day.

    Later, I was talking to Sophie on the phone, telling her about my rash and our theories as to its origin and she said, “Well, it couldn’t be Mrs. Meyers cleaning spray because it’s all-natural and organic.”

    I told P what Sophie said and he replied, “Well, so is the Gulf of Mexico so that doesn’t mean much.”

    He makes an excellent point.

    If there is any place in the world where a person is likely to contract a rash, it would stand to reason it might be a place where it’s a common practice to carry your Marlboro Lights in your cleavage.

  • Still

    Eleven years ago today, at a little after noon on the hottest Saturday of the summer, this is where I was.

    anniversary.jpg

    I’m the one in white at the front of the church.

    A lot of things have changed in the last eleven years, but the thing that remains the same is that there is no one else I would rather spend my life with than him.

    It’s been fun. It’s been hard. Most of all, it’s been an adventure.

    We’ve laughed a lot and cried a little. We’ve learned what it really means to love someone for better or for worse.

    It’s been more than I could have hoped for or imagined and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

    I love you, P.

    You’re still the one.

    wedding1.jpg

  • Georgia on my mind

    Remember how on Fridays I used to talk about fashion or something?

    I’m not sure what happened.

    And I realize I keep creating false hopes for all three of you who care about Fashion Friday because every Friday I promise that I’ll resume Fashion Friday the following week.

    Honestly, I still intend to do Fashion Fridays because I enjoy them, but it will be sporadic over the summer. Because really, what do you need to know about summer fashion?

    Wear shorts. Wear t-shirts. Wear skirts. Wear a swimsuit.

    It’s all good.

    As long as you have access to some A/C.

    I’m leaving for Atlanta at 6:30 a.m. to attend Deeper Still. For those of you doing the math, that means I’m going to have to set my alarm for 4:30.

    Oh the horror.

    I haven’t set an alarm for 4:30 since Caroline was a newborn and her pediatrician said I needed to make sure she ate every three hours around the clock. That’s what I get for having a baby that only weighed 5 1/2 pounds.

    The good news is that I managed to pack one carry on bag. However, since I’m only going to be gone thirty-six hours, it would have just been embarrassing to have to check a suitcase. Still, I haven’t traveled with just a carry on since my days of riding the Greyhound bus to Houston to visit my daddy with my rainbow duffel bag thrown over my shoulder.

    So yesterday I spent the day meticulously obsessing over the inventory of my carry on. What if I spill something? What if I hate the shoes I pack? What if it doesn’t feel like a day for jeans and all I have are jeans?

    You know, real problems.

    Anyway, in spite of all my suitcase concerns, I spent most of the afternoon at the pool with Caroline. Everything was great until we stopped for a break at around 4:00 and I pulled out my cell phone to check in with P, only to discover that my cell phone wasn’t working.

    Panic. Sheer panic.

    How did my early 90’s self survive without a cell phone? Or as I called it back then, a CELLULAR phone.

    I cannot even imagine all the time I wasted in my late teens sitting at home waiting for some loser to call. Time that could have been spent bettering myself or shopping.

    Clearly, I couldn’t leave town (to a whole other state, no less) without a working cell phone.

    The phone was working, it just said that I needed to insert the SIM card. I’m no technological wizard but I do know that the SIM card is the key to your cell phone universe.

    So I took out the battery and took out the SIM card to research the problem. I used a highly scientific process to try to fix whatever was wrong with the SIM card, which means that I kind of rubbed it on my beach towel and then blew on it really hard.

    After I put it back in the phone, it still wasn’t working. I can’t imagine why.

    Caroline and I stayed at the pool a little while longer and then we left so that I’d have time to go to the AT&T store to say HALP! MAH PHONE IS BROKEN.

    Since I couldn’t call P, I decided to stop by the house to let him know what was going on and share my STRESS. STRESS OVER MY NON-WORKING CELL PHONE. Nevermind that I spent the first twenty-four years of my life without one, I cannot function without it.

    He opened it up while I stood next to him explaining that I’d already done that. “I’VE DONE THAT. I EVEN BLEW ON IT AND WIPED IT WITH MY BEACH TOWEL. CLEARLY, IT’S BEYOND HELP.”

    That’s when he noticed that some idiot had put the SIM card back in facing the wrong direction. And it was kind of stuck. Which required tweezers.

    And maybe some pliers.

    But it finally came out.

    P put it back in and turned on my phone. It worked.

    He looked at me and said, “That’s a little thing I like to call doing it the RIGHT WAY.”

    Whatever.

    He’ll be lucky if I call him this weekend.

    I’ll be posting updates on Deeper Still over at the LifeWay All Access blog this weekend.