Capital P

We went down to A.J.’s ranch on Saturday after the mighty Rainbows won their soccer game. It was really no surprise that they won given their intensity for the game as depicted in this photo.

I’m not sure if it was P’s pep talk or their pride in being able to balance their Gatorade bottles on their head that pushed them to victory, but they came from behind to defeat the Purple Flakes.

As soon as the game was over, we loaded up our gear like a modern-day version of The Beverly Hillbillies and headed south. There was barely room in the back of P’s truck for our suitcases due to all the weaponry. I wanted to point out that it seemed like overkill since a person can only shoot one gun at a time, but I knew he’d turn it around on me and my multiple pairs of boots. Which is totally different by the way because one gun goes with any sort of outfit but black boots with a brown sweater? So wrong.

We arrived at the ranch a little after lunchtime and I hopped out of the truck to open the gate because I have been chief gate opener since the day P and I started hanging out over fourteen years ago. He gives me the combination and I jump out, search the area for any rattlesnakes hiding in the grass, open the gate and close it after he drives through. We are a well-oiled machine.

I walked up to the truck and discovered another driver had taken over the wheel.

It’s our very own Toonces the driving cat.

After Toonces got us safely to the ranch house, we unloaded all our stuff and spent some time visiting with A.J.’s friends. This was important because Caroline had composed a list of our scheduled ranch activities and the number one thing on it was “Chat for a little bit”. The next thing on the list was “Go fishing” but we decided to wait just a little while.

P was on the riding lawn mower (I could tell you why he was mowing, but it’s a long story that involves needing to see any pigs that might come to a feeder) when he saw a rattlesnake. He attempted to run it over with the lawn mower in what would have been a truly grisly experience, but the snake flattened itself out so P jumped off the lawnmower, stomped on the snake’s head with his boot (hence the need for tall snake-proof boots) and killed it with his knife. He’s my very own Bear Grylls.

Best of all, A.J.’s friends told him they wanted the dead snake because they were going to cook it (I will spare you the sight of smoked rattlesnake because there are some things that just aren’t right), and they were sweet enough to cut off the rattle and give it to Caroline.

Look at the pleased look on her face. It’s the same way I used to look at my Ballerina Barbie when I was a little girl.

But the fun didn’t stop there.

We played some pool.

Caroline and A.J. found something they wanted to show me.

What is it? Maybe a bouquet of wild flowers?

It’s a giant Iguana that’s about to eat my baby.

Or maybe it’s just a Texas spiny lizard.

Either way, make the screaming in my head stop.

P missed that precious moment and when I showed him the picture I said, “Can you believe that?”

He replied, “No, I can’t believe it. How did that thing’s tail not fall off?”

Because, clearly, that’s the biggest wonder. Not the fact that I have a daughter who will hold an enormous lizard which is just a distant relative of a snake.

Later they went hunting because Caroline desperately wanted to shoot a pig. While they were gone I took a Tylenol Allergy and Sinus pill because I’m either coming down with a horrible virus, a terrible cold or just suffering from seasonal allergies. Unfortunately I didn’t pay attention to the part of the package that said “Nighttime Formula” and so I fell into a dead sleep due to my low tolerance of diphenhydramine, otherwise known as Benadryl.

(I know stuff like this because of my drug rep days when I was practically a doctor but without the eight to twelve years of school. I learned all I needed to know from a workbook and two week training sessions, otherwise known as just enough to be dangerous.)

Anyway, I woke up just as the hunters were coming back from the evening hunt and happened to catch a glimpse of the Texas A&M vs. Kansas State score. I was sure the cold medicine had made me delirious and there was no way we were losing by that wide of a margin, but unfortunately after I sobered up from my Bendadryl hangover yesterday morning I realized that it was real. We are just that bad.

And I’d had such hope that maybe we were pretty good in spite of getting killed by Arkansas since Arkansas almost beat #1 Florida on Saturday. But, alas, it was just my optimism getting the best of me.

P and Caroline didn’t see any pigs on Saturday night so they were as sad about their loss as I was about the Aggies loss. Fortunately, they went out Sunday morning and she made a perfect shot on a javelina, which is like a pig but uglier and with bad teeth.

(Picture to follow. Do not look if you don’t want to see a dead javelina.)

Thanks for having us down, A.J. It was the perfect weekend.

Except for maybe when I overdosed on Benadryl.

And when the Aggies got destroyed.

Love,
Melanie, Bear Grylls, and Toonces

I keep trying to think of clever or, at the very least, coherent ways to begin this post but I am struggling because I am just so tired. TIRED. I went to bed last night at 9:00 p.m. which hasn’t happened since I had the flu two years ago and was certain I was about to die and wanted to be in bed watching old episodes of Little House on The Prairie when it happened. If it was my time to go then I wanted to go out the way I lived, totally lame.

The weekend in Orlando was unbelievably fun even though I had nary a glimpse of any sort of theme park. Deeper Still was phenomenal and I am not kidding when I say I have about sixty pages of notes that will take me weeks to process. Kay Arthur taught the entire book of Hebrews, Beth Moore talked about discernment, and Priscilla spoke on Ephesians 3:20 and how God can do above and beyond all we can ask or imagine. In fact when Paul wrote Ephesians, he basically used language that says God can go beyond our beyond. He can do beyond beyond. Believing that truth is the foundation of our faith.

So I crawled into my bed in a hotel in Orlando on Saturday night reaffirmed in my belief that God can do beyond beyond.

Then I tossed and turned and didn’t sleep much at all because I was worried I wouldn’t hear the alarm go off and I’d miss my flight. At 5:30 a.m. I finally gave up, got out of bed, checked out of the hotel and headed for the airport. It wasn’t my finest hour. I feel certain there were several children on my flight to Atlanta who were convinced that Cruella DeVille was following them home from the Magic Kingdom. It probably didn’t help that I was wearing my dalmation fur coat.

(Why is spellcheck telling me I spelled dalmation wrong? Doez it thank I can’t spell gud?)

(Edited to add that apparently I can’t spell gud becuz dalmation is spelled dalmatian.)

Also on an air travel side note: If you haven’t traveled enough to know you have to take your shoes off when you go through security, then you probably shouldn’t get in the Expert Traveler security line. I know you may feel like an expert and you may do a lot of things really well, but getting through a security line in a timely manner isn’t one of those things.

Anyway, I ended up sitting next to a very chatty girl on the way to Atlanta and she told me all about some type of herbal supplements she’s selling that could change my life. Apparently they are made from some kind of super jacked up Chinese herb and will lower my cholesterol and help me get off my diabetes medication. It didn’t really seem to matter to her that I don’t have high cholesterol and am not diabetic. And then right as the plane was about to land, she said, “Can I ask you a really weird question?”

I was so frightened because I just knew she was about to give me the hard sell on the Chinese herbs in the form of “How much do you think is too much to pay to change your life with Chinese medicine? $39.99?”. But instead she asked, “Does my hair look okay?” So now I’m paranoid that people think I’m odd because I ask that same question about ten times a day and have never once thought it was weird. I thought it’s what people do when there isn’t a mirror in close proximity.

We landed in Atlanta and I had ten minutes to make it to the other side of the airport. I checked the monitor to confirm my departure gate, saw that my plane was boarding and sprinted through the airport with my carry-on bag in tow and my unbelievably heavy purse on my shoulder, only to arrive and discover that the plane was actually running about thirty minutes late. I’m totally sending Delta Airlines the bill for my eventual knee replacement and shoulder surgery.

Once we were on the plane, the pilot announced the delay was due to some maintenance issues which why? Why do you need to announce that? “Welcome to this small metal tube. Fingers crossed that we got everything fixed. Would you like some peanuts? Perhaps some paper and a pen to make out your will?”

Obviously it all turned out alright or this increasingly boring blog post wouldn’t exist. I landed in San Antonio and P and Caroline picked me up from the airport. As soon as I got in the car, Caroline announced she’d played a practical joke on me and pulled all her clothes out of her closet and thrown them all over her room. I figured that was actually the joke and when I arrived home that her room would actually be neat and tidy.

But I was wrong.

She wasn’t kidding. There were clothes all over her room and I wanted to cry, but instead I tried to gently explain the difference between a funny practical joke and things that will cause Mama to have a permanent break with reality. Then I took some deep cleansing breaths and we cleaned up the room.

All I really wanted to do was unpack my suitcase and get in the shower. Preferably a shower used by Hazmat crews because I was convinced that I’d contracted some strain of tuberculosis while I held on to the handrails on the Atlanta airport shuttle and probably should have bought some of those life-changing Chinese herbs. Hindsight.

So I unpacked my suitcase, sorted some massive piles of laundry, started a load of wash and jumped into the shower. I felt totally revitalized or at least like death was no longer imminent until I heard this odd BEEP, BEEP, BEEP coming from the laundry room. The washing machine was having a major case of PMS and decided to rage. I couldn’t get it to work despite all my best mechanical efforts which basically involved unplugging it and plugging it back in repeatedly. I did what I always do in these situations and yelled for P.

He walked into the laundry room and unplugged it. Great minds.

When that didn’t work he performed a series of maneuvers where he pulled out various tubes and what not. It would act like it was going to work but would go back to flashing F2! F2! F2! And I felt pure hatred for an appliance, a three-year-old appliance that was not cheap. Kenmore is dead to me. DEAD.

And so I curled up in the fetal position and went to sleep at 9:00 p.m. just to make the day go away.

Yesterday morning, a repairman came out, tried a few things and announced that the motherboard on our washer appears to be fried.

I’d like to be more upset, but in all honesty I know exactly how she feels.

At one point yesterday I told God that none of this was really my idea of Him going beyond beyond. All the reality came in and stole my joy. I just felt tired and frustrated.

But then last night I sat at the dinner table while Caroline told us about her day and P said something that made us laugh out loud and I realized that the gift of those two in my life is an example of how God does beyond our beyond. They are more than I asked for or imagined.

The Kenmore washer, however, is not.