Capital P

A bunch of rambling that ends with a duck

Last Friday, Gulley and I took the kids to a local candy store for a treat to celebrate a successful first week of school. We were all so excited to be together because we hadn’t seen each other all week and had a lot to catch up on. Gulley decided last Spring to teach at a local preschool this year leaving her unavailable to meet me at Starbucks on Tuesday mornings and to answer the phone all fourteen times I call in an average day.

Truthfully, when I got my new iPhone and compiled my list of “Favorites” on my phone list, Gulley was first on my list. I realize it probably should be P, but he shows little to no enthusiasm when I call to let him know that I just found a sweater on sale at Banana Republic and it’s a must have. Instead, he just tells me I need to quit spending money which is really not the reaction I’m looking for.

But when I call Gulley to tell her about some boots I just discovered at DSW Shoes or my thoughts on last night’s episode of The Rachel Zoe Project, she is genuinely interested and contributes to the conversation. I have been known to call her to let her know HEB has pork tenderloin on sale and she has been known to call me so I can give her the ingredients to a recipe while she’s at the grocery store.

My point is WE TALK. A LOT.

By Thursday of last week I felt like I was about to explode with trivial information that I hadn’t been able to share. In fact, when my home phone rang early Thursday afternoon for the first time all week, I almost fell off the couch in fear because I’d grown so accustomed to the silence. What’s worse, I almost answered it even though it was a toll-free number calling. I finally decided whoever was on the other end was more interested in getting me to contribute to a fund to save the white-tailed salamander from extinction than they were about listening to who got voted off Top Chef last night and how I have a phobia of seeing scallops on a plate because they are unnaturally spongy and white, like little seafood-flavored marshmallows.

So the whole back to school thing has been a bit of an adjustment. I actually have plenty of productive things I can do during the day to fill my time, but I spent most of last week in a state of shock over all the time I had at my disposal and completely forgot the list of 8,987 things needing to be done that I compiled over the course of the summer. This week promises to be better, even though I spent most of yesterday lying on the couch and complaining about a horrible sinus headache. But in the words of Scarlett O’Hara, tomorrow is another day.

Anyway, Caroline and I spent most of our weekend over at Gulley’s house. Her husband was out of town and P was working at the ranch so we spent Friday and Saturday catching up on things like our thoughts on universal healthcare and the skinny jean with boots. Meanwhile, the kids played in her backyard for hours, only coming in to grab their sixth or tenth popsicle.

Around 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, P called on his way in from the ranch to inform me that the flux capacitor had gone out in his truck and he was stranded on the side of the road needing to be rescued. He gave me a list of things to go purchase from the Auto Parts store before heading his way. I used my handy “Where To” app on my iPhone to locate the auto parts store nearest Gulley’s house and, I’ll be honest, felt a little bit like I had a bat phone because I had instant access and directions to every auto parts store in a fifteen mile radius.

Unfortunately, some of the supercool Batman factor faded after I pretended I knew what I was doing when I walked in the auto parts store and ultimately had to make the walk of shame up to the counter to just hand the salesman the list of things P dictated to me because he needed a blah blah and another blah with an extra gallon of blah.

However, I did save the day by showing up with all the right stuff, not to be confused with All The Right Moves starring a young Tom Cruise.

On Sunday after church, (Wow. Is this the most boring recap of a weekend ever?) P and Caroline headed down to the ranch because she wanted to shoot her new pink gun and rumor had it there were some turtles that needed killing. They took my car, which is totally appropriate for the ranch roads except not at all. Not to mention that the floorboards were covered in South Texas dirt and crushed Cheeto Puffs upon its return.

They got back home late in the afternoon and, as they turned the corner by our house, saw a baby duck walking by itself across the street. On further inspection, it was determined that the duck was all alone and on a self-destructive path to becoming cat food. P and Caroline decided to rescue the duck from a certain grisly death.

This is the dog kennel where the duck resided for approximately twelve hours.

You will notice, thanks to my superb gift of photography, you can’t actually see the duck, but rather the bottom of an old Christmas tree stand that was used as a faux pond.

Yesterday morning, P went to Home Depot to get some chicken wire to secure the area on the side of our house for the duck until it could survive on its own. He worked on it for about an hour, even filling up a little black tub with water instead of a Christmas tree stand. Caroline was so excited to have her very own duck, even though we warned her it would just be for a few days until he could fly.

Long story short, the duck escaped around 3:00 p.m. yesterday. P feels that the hours he spent trying to save a duck are hours of his life he’ll never get back. Caroline was a little sad, but I assured her the duck probably just flew off to meet his family.

Or possibly his maker.

Either way he’s in a better place than swimming in a Christmas tree stand.
And now I’ll never ride in a taxi with a rabid dog

Guess what? Today is the twelfth anniversary of the second day after I was married.

Seriously, I realize it’s enough of all the celebrations. It’s just what happens when you choose to cram all your major life events into a two week window. I’ll tell you what else happens, it causes a little bit of the melancholy to set in because it’s like BAM! my baby is a year older, BAM! I’m a year older, BAM! P and I have been married another year, and, finally, BAM! it’s time to start another school year.

Apparently, along with all these milestones, I have also turned into Emeril Lagasse.

It’s all enough to make me feel like I need some type of mild sedative and a clock that can, in the words of Cher, turn back time.

On Friday night, P, Caroline and I went to eat Mexican food with Mimi, Bops, Gulley and Will. There is really no other way to celebrate a birthday than by consuming large amounts of guacamole and chips. After dinner, Caroline went home to spend the night with Mimi and Bops and P told me we could stop on the way home and buy my birthday present.

Look what I got.

Complete with a really cute hot pink case.

It’s made out of hard plastic because my friend AJ cautioned me against buying the gel case because your hair gets caught in it when you talk on the phone. I cannot tell you how much I value any advice that relates to the care and maintenance of my hair.

I don’t know how on earth P knew I wanted an iPhone other than the fact that I’ve dropped subtle hints approximately every day for the last two months. And by subtle, I mean things like “Wow, I really want an iPhone for my birthday.”

Actually, I almost went and bought one for myself in mid-July but then, the night before I was planning on making the purchase, I went shopping with Gulley and Steph at Nordstrom Rack and found some white jeans that fulfilled every dream I have long held in the pursuit of white denim. Naturally, I had to buy them because a good pair of white jeans are like the mythical unicorn, rare to the point of non-existent.

The next day I told P about my white jeans and he informed me that I was now wearing my new iPhone. I’ll be honest, the white jeans are great but they are totally useless when it comes to texting.

So, I was thrilled to walk into the AT&T store on Friday night to pick up my new precious and made sure to let P know how much more efficiently I’ll run my faux media empire now that I have the proper technology. Not to mention that I couldn’t wait to download the app that makes real live tooting noises because it will keep Caroline entertained for HOURS.

As we walked out of the store, I was completely hypnotized by the screen. I was sliding my finger across the screen trying out everything in sight and attempting to send text messages that read, “I’m texting you from my new iPhone, SUCKERS” to everyone I know, even though most of them have had iPhones for the last two years. I felt that after years of suffering through the archaic predictive texting on my Motorola Razr and being mocked by people who liked to tell me they had my exact same phone back when they were in high school, I deserved just a small moment of Apple glory.

I was totally caught up in the fabulousness when P had to grab me to keep me from walking right into someone and said, “I feel like I just bought you an accident for your birthday”.

He is hilarious.

After we got home I spent most of the night playing with all the different features and searching the Apps store for important applications, such as being able to receive information about a weird law from different parts of the world every day. How did I live thirty-eight years without knowing it’s illegal to carry a rabid dog in a taxicab in London? Now, thanks to modern technology and people with way too much time on their hands, I can get that kind of useful information on a daily basis.

In the interest of full disclosure, I feel compelled to share that we also spent part of Friday night going through P’s jar of change. He was concerned about having enough quarters to run his truck through the car wash on a weekly basis so he poured out all his change and we transformed into two nerdy coin collectors sorting quarters by state.

“Oh LOOK! We have three from Idaho!”

“WOW! I just found one from Wyoming?”

“Do we have a Texas?”

And so I spent my thirty-eighth birthday learning fancy new technology and counting change. Then I took out my teeth and went to bed.

On Saturday morning, Gulley called me because our friend Jen was in town and we needed to figure out our plans for the day. Once we figured out what we were doing, I told her I’d call Jen to let her know the plans and what time to meet us. I decided to use my new phone to call her, so I picked it up, scrolled through my contacts to find her number and then, I KID YOU NOT, realized I had no idea how to actually make a call on the phone, which is kind of important since it is A PHONE.

I have never been so glad that P wasn’t around because if he had witnessed me going to Apple.com to watch the iPhone instruction video so that I could actually use it for its intended purpose?

Well, let’s just say there are some embarrassments too great to endure.
Twelve years of safety lectures otherwise known as a lesson in futility

P and I got married twelve years ago today. To be honest, it feels a little anti-climatic because I spent most of this year thinking we’d already been married for twelve years, but it turns out it was only eleven.

I mentioned to P that some of you were curious to see a list of the ten things I do that get on his nerves and I pressed him further to see what some of those things might be since it’s hard for me to imagine anything. It certainly couldn’t be my flair for the dramatic or the charming way I immediately envision the worst case scenario for any life-changing event.

He said that one of his biggest pet peeves is that I am not very safety conscious. It drives him crazy that I forget to lock doors or quit playing with matches. I told him that was ironic considering that what drives me crazy about him are his constant lectures on safety.

And that pretty much sums up marriage.

His strengths are my weaknesses. My weaknesses are his strengths.

But after twelve (not thirteen!) years of marriage, I wouldn’t trade his safety lectures for anything in the world. He has not only made my life safer; he’s made it a lot more fun.

photo by Hollimon Photography

I love you, P. Happy Anniversary.

And, yes, I remembered to lock my car doors.

I think.
There’s a reason Elvis didn’t make “Blue Port Aransas”

We made it home yesterday afternoon and I am currently buried under fifty-eight pounds of laundry and six bags of half-eaten chips that probably need to be thrown away because I’m the only one in my family who thinks it might not be the best idea to play with live bait and then promptly help myself to a Frito covered in bean dip.

Also, today is my 38th birthday.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to mention my birthday because it feels like a desperate ploy to get y’all to leave me lots of comments saying “Happy Birthday!”, but considering there’s a good chance that later today I’ll spontaneously announce “It’s my birthday!” to the cashier at HEB in a desperate ploy to get her to wish me happy birthday, it only seems natural that I do the same thing here.

Last night, P offered to write a guest birthday post about ten things I do that get on his nerves, but when I questioned him further about what those things could possibly be, he couldn’t come up with anything.

I don’t think it had anything to do with the fact he knows I’m suffering from PMS and was holding a sharp knife at the time. And, honestly, the sharp knife was to cut up the barbecued turkey we were having for dinner.

So, in honor of my birthday, here’s a video of Caroline. Which has nothing at all to do with my birthday unless you count the fact that if I hadn’t been born thirty-eight years ago today, then she wouldn’t be here either.

The Beach from Big Mama on Vimeo.

A few quick notes:

I think “It’s almost like Hawaii” should be Port Aransas’ new ad campaign, even though it’s not at all like Hawaii except they both involve the ocean and sand.

Apparently, being in a tropical locale makes her want to employ her limited Spanish vocabulary.

She knows how to enjoy a piece of bubblegum. I think she gets it from me, which might be one of the ten things I do that gets on P’s nerves.

I mean, if I actually did anything that gets on his nerves.

Which I don’t.

Except for when I do.

Y’all have a great Friday.
I went to Port Aransas and all you get is this lousy post

Here’s something that most of y’all didn’t know, we’ve actually been on a little vacation at the coast for the last few days. However, due to our new and improved heightened state of paranoia, I haven’t mentioned that we’ve been out of town and am only mentioning it now because, by the time most of you read this, we’ll be back at home and any attempts to burglarize our house and steal my jewelry collection, full of quality pieces some of which cost upwards of $5.99, will be useless.

Although one time, several years ago, an evil-doer stole these fabulous Mexican-style pottery urns complete with blooming flowers right off my front steps in broad daylight while I sat on my living room couch glued to an episode of Alias. They’re lucky I didn’t hear them because otherwise I would have been forced to put down my bag of M&M’s, jump off the couch, fling open the front door and yell, “Hey! You! Why are you stealing my urns? Why would you do that? That’s just mean.”

I’m sure my line of intense questioning would have caused them to second guess their urn-stealing ways and place the urns promptly back on my front steps.

We’ve been looking forward to our week at the beach all summer long, even though we knew it would mean the first day of school is right around the corner. But we have carpe diemed the heck out of the last four days.

One of my requests this year was for P to provide me with some sort of shelter on the beach because Ma-Maw is too old to expose my fragile, age-spotted skin to the sun for long periods at a time. I can’t undo the sins of my Hawaiian Tropic SPF 4 past, but I can try to learn from my mistakes and the brown spot under my eyebrow that no Oil of Olay can erase.

When we got to the beach the first day, I reminded him that I needed some sort of shade tarp. In my mind I had envisioned one of those cool tent-like things with maybe a Texas flag on the side and some comfortable chairs.

P went all Survivor Season 1 on me, pulled a few things out of his toolbox, and this is what I got.

I’m just going to say that it’s not easy to have the most redneck makeshift shelter on a Texas beach, but I think we managed quite nicely.

Of course, in all fairness, it served its purpose even though I was a little concerned that the rusted rebar stakes might cause the trip to end with someone needing a tetanus shot. And really, we fit right in because right down the beach from us was this fine structure.

From a distance I thought it was some kind of memorial and a memorial on the beach can never serve as the harbinger of good news. If this was a memorial to someone who was the victim of a shark attack, then I don’t know that I want to be within in a thirty mile radius. On closer inspection, it does not appear to a memorial, but rather a white trash totem pole. I’m not sure if you can clearly see that there are some leopard-print underwear hanging from the top but I assure you that they are there, right above the empty cans of Lone Star Light.

The rest of the trip was spent doing all the normal things we do in Port Aransas.

Taking a picture in the mouth of the large shark outside a souvenir shop.

Trying on kicky fedoras.

Feeding a pound of fresh, dead shrimp to a flock of seagulls.

(And I ran, I ran so far away.) (Did you go there? Because I did the minute I typed it.)

The fresh, dead shrimp cost a little more than the old, dead shrimp, but we feel that they’re worth the investment.

Catching baby sharks which caused me to promptly vacate the water because if there’s a baby then there’s a baby mama somewhere nearby.

Be free, little one. Let your mama know we treated you well.

We ate snowcones thanks to the ice cream man that drove right down the beach.

We ate lots of chips thanks to a mama who went grocery shopping with PMS.

And we watched P do his best version of Captain Ahab because he hooked a four foot shark that got away and spent the rest of the trip trying to catch his nemesis. I don’t have a picture of his quest because did I mention the shark hunt was taking place past the second sandbar, also known as where you become part of the food chain?

But I did get a picture of this.

There’s really no other explanation than that’s an apple that didn’t fall far from the tree.

And they make me so happy.
It’s a tough job but somebody has to do it

Last night P and I were discussing our plans for the 4th of July weekend. He’s in the middle of a huge job right now and has been working long days digging holes and building rock walls, in temperatures that would make the equator feel like a refreshing garden spot, for clients who are actually picky enough to specify that they want landscaping that won’t attract bees and doesn’t have any smell.

Of course. Because who wants the annoying fragrance of nature messing up their yard?

Anyway, I told him that I totally understood if he just wanted to hang out and do very little to celebrate our nation’s independence. “In fact,” I said, “it’s been kind of a hectic week for me too and I wouldn’t mind the chance to just relax and do nothing.”

He asked, “Why has your week been hectic?”

“Well, on Sunday we had that birthday party at the pool. Then my mom was in town on Monday and we spent five hours swimming at the hotel and yesterday we had the party at Chuck E. Cheese. On top of that, I had to drive Gulley to Firestone to get her car serviced today before we could go to the pool.”

He just stared at me for a minute and said, “Wow, I feel bad for you with all your pool obligations. Your life is really hard.”

I’m not totally sure, but I think he was being sarcastic.