Year: 2010

  • What’s left of me

    Well, between the Aggies losing to Purdue in the NCAA tournament and the government trying to be the boss of me and the four new gray hairs that sprouted overnight in the region of my bangs, I’ve got a bad case of the Mondays. And technically it’s only Sunday night.

    Of course it doesn’t help that Spring Break is officially over and we have to go back to the real world with all its daylight savings time nonsense, especially since this was the first time in the history of Caroline’s life that she fully embraced the concept of staying up late equals sleeping in late.

    We made it back home on Friday afternoon after another big day of fun. One of the first things Caroline noticed after we checked into our hotel room was the big menu on the night stand that read “Breakfast in Bed”. And so, after a little campaigning on her part, I agreed that we could order room service on Friday morning.

    A diva is born.

    She ate at least three bites of her $20 pancakes and $8 eggs (Apparently room service is run by the same people who work on government budgets.) so it was totally worth it. Plus, she really needed her energy because we had a big morning of ice skating at The Galleria ahead of us.

    I wish I had a picture to share, but if you think I’m coordinated enough to balance on ice skates and take photos at the same time, then you have grossly overestimated my skill level. It took all my energy and balance to stay upright and not humiliate myself in front of three levels of Galleria shoppers.

    Caroline was a little disappointed because she wasn’t as good as she remembered herself being. This came as no surprise to me, especially since she spent most of the Winter Olympics telling me that the female figure skaters were “pretty good”, but she couldn’t help but notice that none of them showed her talent for being able to clap to the rhythm of “We Are the Champions” by Queen while skating at the same time, which was a skill she picked up at a friend’s birthday party back in January.

    I tried to explain that it usually takes more than two times to really be good at something and that many of those Olympic Skaters had probably skated three or maybe even four times before they were ready for the Olympic Games. Finally, somewhere between five and too many laps around the ice, she was ready to call it a day. It probably helped that I noticed a bungee jump in the food court and decided that $7.00 wasn’t too much to pay to put an end to sliding on a slippery surface with razor blades on my feet with thirty-eight year old ankles that are unreliable at best.

    So she bungee jumped and then we walked around the Galleria for a while and, oh, how my heart wanted to really shop, but it wasn’t going to happen. There was a shirt in Zara that I’m still thinking about and it was only FIFTEEN DOLLARS. Or maybe a little bit more than that. The details are vague. But finally we just ordered some drinks from Sonic and hit the road.

    The minute I walked in the house, I realized how tired I was from the week. But I powered through and unpacked our bags and started a load of laundry because I knew once I sat down that it would be hours, if ever, before I got up again.

    P and I visited in the kitchen while Caroline played in the backyard. (I can’t even bear to tell you that in the last ten minutes of our drive she asked if we could go roller-skating when we got home. Seriously.) We talked about what we wanted to do about dinner, which led me to ask him what he’d done about food all week long. He confessed that he’d lived on leftover sloppy joes until he ran out and then ordered pizza one night and sushi another night. Oh, and he’d also made a trip to HEB to buy essentials that consisted of the following:

    Vanilla Duncan Hines frosting
    Promised Land chocolate milk
    bag of Kit Kats
    one Terry’s Chocolate Orange
    Honey-Mustard Fritos
    six pack of Dos Equis

    At least all the major food groups were represented. Assuming that you’re twenty-one and live in a fraternity house.

    On Saturday, he took Caroline to the ranch and I sat on the couch in my pajamas with the remote control by my side and didn’t move all day long. It was my own personal Spring Break and it involved hours of reality television and yelling, “OH MY WORD!” at the end of “24” which was so satisfying because the previews had promised this would be the episode that would make me freak out and for once they were actually right. Unlike last year when I had to suspend all disbelief when some terrorists scuba-dived their way into the White House.

    By Sunday it was inevitable that I was going to have to make a trip to the store. I mean, not that the Honey Mustard Fritos aren’t totally delicious but they don’t really constitute a school lunch or a well-balanced meal. Caroline went with me and asked if we could buy two cans of Campbell’s Chicken and Stars soup. I told her we could and she said, “OH MAMA. YOU ARE THE NICEST MAMA EVER! NOT MANY MAMAS BUY THEIR KIDS TWO CANS OF CHICKEN AND STARS SOUP!”

    Which totally seals it. Next Spring Break, we’re going to HEB and buying two cans of Chicken and Stars soup.

    And maybe a bag of Kit Kats.

  • 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.

  • We’ve been very busy having all the fun

    We are having a great time and I would really like to write about it using a lot of words, but it’s midnight and Gulley and I have been talking non-stop for the last two hours with no signs of stopping. And I need to get to bed at some point because Caroline and I are leaving for Houston later today for the next stop of Spring Break Road Trip 2010.

    So I promise I will be back tomorrow with a long, LONG post about all the fun we’ve had in Bryan/College Station because OH THE STORIES, but for right now I just have a few quick thoughts about some things.

    1. American Idol is officially on my nerves. I can’t put my finger on the exact problem, but it has something to do with Randy giving everyone the exact same feedback last night. And Lily getting voted off last week. I think I may be done with Idol forever.

    Or just until next week.

    2. Gulley’s mama made a pan of delicious homemade brownies for us last night. During a commercial break I went into the kitchen to get a brownie for everyone. A few minutes later, Gulley went to get another brownie for Will and walked into the living room holding the pan of brownies and wondering aloud if I was trying to cut the brownies in some sort of creative stairstep design.

    Doesn’t everyone cut brownies that way? Am I the only person who believes that the edges are the best part?

    Honey just said she was glad I was comfortable enough to cut brownies that way when I’m not even in my own home.

    3. We went to visit Nena yesterday at her new retirement community. Caroline and I had to make a stop in the public restroom where I saw this sign hanging on the bathroom wall.

    Is that a fork in the picture? Because, if so, I think that might be the oddest assortment of non-flushable items I’ve ever seen depicted.

    4. Just in case you haven’t been to Target, I feel that I need to let you know that they have a new collection of all kinds of cuteness by Liberty of London.

    Like this floral halter dress.

    Or this trench coat.

    Or, be still my heart, this cutey cute tote bag.

    Y’all have a great day.

  • We hit the road

    I had the best of intentions of documenting every minute of our road trip, but you know what they say about intentions.

    Caroline and I left San Antonio around 11:00 a.m. yesterday morning which was approximately two hours later than my original plan. I blame the cough medicine and the Sudafed. And the fact that I had no idea what to throw in my suitcase because the Texas weather is completely unpredictable.

    After two and a half hours in the car, one bad McDonald’s lunch, and introducing Caroline to the musical stylings of Chic performing their hit classic “Freak Out”, we finally arrived at Big and Honey’s house where she was happily reunited with her very best boys.

    You don’t want to mess with the Scooter Gang. They are dangerous and have been known to whine profusely once the juice boxes run out.

    Later, Honey hid some eggs and presented each of the kids with their very own Easter Baskets. It took them all of two and a half minutes to find every single egg in her backyard. And less time to eat more than half the candy.

    They’re not as sweet as they look.

    Actually, that’s not true. They are every bit that sweet. And more.

    Most of the time.

  • Sudafed, pizza and road trips

    Well, I spent most of my weekend trying to find the perfect combination of medications that would allow me to breathe through my nose and sleep at the same time. Needless to say, it’s been exciting around here.

    Fortunately, my background as a pharmaceutical rep has given me just enough knowledge of the pharmaceutical world for me to feel confident about practicing medicine without a license. Of course my knowledge is limited to the conditions that match the drugs I used to sell. Do you have high cholesterol? I’m your girl. Urinary incontinence? I can help. Respiratory problems? Oh please. Give me a challenge.

    But if you happen to have a migraine headache or some type of fungus? I can provide absolutely zero help and would really prefer to not hear about your fungus. However, I do know that the cure for diabetes is drinking two glasses of wine every night. Granted, I learned this bit of information from Gulley’s grandaddy’s cousin George who wasn’t any kind of medical professional and whose only experience was his own bout with diabetes. It’s probably also important to keep in mind that he referred to diabetes as “the sugar diabetes” which isn’t really a term that many practicing physicians have used since 1943. I suspect that George just liked his wine. And I’d suggest that you consult your physician before following George’s advice.

    Ultimately, I’ve discovered that the best pharmaceutical combo for my current condition is one Sudafed and a Benadryl served with a cough medicine chaser. Two Sudafed help me breathe better but my hypersensitivity to the pseudoephedrine makes me feel like a Rhesus monkey on crack which tends to inhibit my ability to get a good night’s sleep.

    But in spite of my ill health, we managed to have a decent weekend full of activities. Mainly because Caroline’s Spring Break began when she got out of school on Friday and she wasn’t really game for my suggestion that we ought to just take a really long afternoon nap on Saturday.

    Saturday morning we headed down to El Mercado with Mimi and Bops to just look around. We weren’t really looking for anything in particular, but it’s fun to just go down there every now and then. Caroline was thrilled to discover they had a mechanical bull.

    They offered an assortment of cowboy hats for the kids to wear while they ride the bull, but I told them we’d just take the bull ride, not the free case of head lice. Except I think what I actually said was, “NO, NO, NO! DON’T PUT THAT HAT ON HER HEAD!” because I’d taken two Sudafed that morning and was in Rhesus monkey mode.

    On Sunday morning, P and Caroline went to church while I opted to stay in bed and count all the things that are fundamentally wrong with Daylight Savings Time and all this incessant falling back and springing forward of the clocks. Especially when you’ve spent half the night trying to breathe without resorting to taking another Sudafed.

    After they got home, we all seemed to feel that a nap was the way to go. Or maybe just P and I thought that. Caroline was more inclined to play her Nintendo DS and occasionally poke me and ask if I was ready to get up and do something fun.

    Finally, I gave in and we headed to Central Market because we were invited to a pizza party at the home of some friends and we were supposed to bring a few toppings. Let me add that the mom is a food stylist and a chef, so I didn’t really feel like some sad little pepperoni was going to do the trick. So we picked up some vegetables, basil, and fresh mozzarella cheese to go along with our sad pepperoni.

    We went to the pizza party and had the best time.

    Here’s Caroline rolling out her dough. In her new dress that we bought at El Mercado after the bull ride.

    And here she is showing me the dough. Which actually kind of messed up the dough and caused her to have to roll it out again.

    All the best pizza chefs make smiley faces out of pepperonis.

    Putting it into the oven.

    One of the dogs really wanted to eat Caroline’s pizza. He just knew it was a matter of time before a pepperoni fell.

    His tenacity paid off in spades when Caroline dropped a whole piece of pizza.

    This is the pizza I made. It was delicious. Seriously, I can’t really think about it or I’ll be sad that it’s all gone and worry that we didn’t really savor the time we had together.

    And this is the other dog. Her name is Mama.

    I’m a little bit in love with her even though I cut her head off in this picture. The blame lies squarely on my lack of photography skills, not a lack of love.

    Tomorrow (actually today if you’re reading this and it’s Monday) Caroline and I are headed out on a little Spring Break road trip. We’re just like Thelma and Louise. Except not really because that would be wrong. So we’re like a mother and daughter on a road trip who wish they had some sort of movie reference that tied in to wrap up this post in a neat little bow.

    Oh well.