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.
