Year: 2011

So about a month ago I decided it might be fun to get tickets and take Caroline to see Taylor Swift. And then I thought it might be fun to see if my friend Julie and her daughter wanted to come with us. But Julie was going to be out of town, so I offered to just take her daughter. And then decided it might be fun to see if Gulley wanted to go with us.

Are you following me? I’m sure I could come up with a better lead in for this post but that would take more effort than I’m willing to expend at the moment. I’m very tired from all the late night concert antics of Tuesday night and emotionally spent after watching the season finale of Rachel Zoe.

Who knew she was going to be so maternal? Who knew they made Gucci loafers for a six-week-old baby?

But back to Taylor Swift. I surprised Caroline with the news after school one day and she was so excited that she actually began to cry. This was a first. I’ve never seen her so excited about anything, not even when she shot two hogs with one shot. It made me feel like she might actually have a little bit of my DNA coursing through her veins.

We counted down the days and listened to “Mean” more times than I believed humanly possible. And we bought a super sparkly top for her to wear to the concert because seeing Taylor requires sequins.

Please imagine in your mind that the twinkle from the sequins in that photo make a sound like “TING” as the light hits the camera. TING!

Tuesday night we all ate dinner and then drove to the AT&T Center to see Taylor Swift live and in person. And, MY WORD, it did not disappoint.

Maybe that explains why my hand is on my chest in that picture. As if to convey MY WORD.

Granted, it has been years since I’ve been to a concert. YEARS. Unless you count the performances I’ve seen at the rodeo over the last several years and I know now that those absolutely don’t count.

In fact I’ve tried to remember the last concert I attended. I definitely remember going to see Bobby Brown (BOBBY B!) in concert at the Montagne Center my senior year in high school. And I have vague recollections of going to see Stacy Q. (Two of hearts, two hearts that beat as one) at some point when I was sixteen or seventeen. But I can’t remember why on earth I would have gone to see Stacy Q. Except I think maybe she was there with Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam. If you are reading this and went to high school with me can you confirm this? (Tracey? Did you go with me to see Stacy Q.?)

Oh. And I went to see George Strait in concert in Austin before P and I were married. And while George is great, he’s more of a stand and play the guitar kind of performer.

What I’m saying is that maybe Taylor Swift’s concert is just the way the kids do it these days. But it was IMPRESSIVE. I lost count after she changed into her ninth dress. And the stage kept changing. There was a bridge and a wedding set and then a county fair-type thing. And there were fireworks and a large bell that rose up from the stage and a woman popped out like we were at Cirque de Soleil. And at the end she sang Love Story and got in some kind of balcony-thing and flew all around the whole place. Which made me so happy because Caroline and Sadie both showed that they take after their daddies when they remarked, “Wow. If that thing falls it could really hurt a lot of people.”

My pictures could not be worse. I am so sorry. That’s what happens when you just bring your ancient iPhone to a concert.

And then she walked through the crowd and sang by this tree that popped up out of nowhere.

Caroline just sat there and took it all in. I even asked her at one point if something was wrong and she just shook her head and continued to absorb it all. Gulley and I could not get over how fast Taylor (we’re on a first name basis) changed clothes. She’d be in a gold ballgown with her hair down and then two seconds later pop up somewhere else in a short red dress with her hair in a braid.

Gulley even started channeling Nena. I’d hear her next to me whispering, “Well, GOOD NIGHT.”

That picture is proof that you should never lean back at that angle while taking a picture of yourself and your best friend.

Anyway, kudooz to Taylor Swift. I think she’s going to make quite a name for herself.

And in totally unrelated news, we finished our Aslan pumpkin. Not to be confused with an Asian pumpkin.

Is it just me or does he lack the majesty you’d expect from Aslan? Does he look more like a shaggy dog?

Wait. Don’t answer that.

The important thing is Caroline thinks he’s a great Aslan and I’m happy with that. Sadly, one of his googly eyes has gone missing and will need to be replaced before school in the morning.

And now I have no idea how to bring a post about Taylor Swift and an Aslan pumpkin to a close. It seems like there would be a joke there somewhere, but I can’t come up with anything.

See y’all tomorrow.

Okay.

So this isn’t really a post because I just got home from the Taylor Swift concert. Gulley went with me and I brought Caroline and her best friend and OH MY WORD. AMAZING.

But I’m exhausted after watching Taylor make all her wardrobe changes so I’ll tell you more about it tomorrow. There may even be mediocre pictures to go along with it.

In the meantime, we’re invited to a Halloween party on Saturday night and P and I need costumes. Any thoughts on what we could be? Preferably something that goes together and can be pulled together by magic in time for Saturday night?

Help us. Please.

I suggested we could go as Austin Powers and Foxy Cleopatra, but then P gave me a look that suggested he isn’t sure I can pull off Beyonce. I think I’m offended. What does she have that I don’t have? I mean, other than her youth, flawless skin, magical hair, rhythm and billions of dollars?

So yesterday was my day to get things done. Except that should be in all caps. GET THINGS DONE.

Because it dawned on me that I’m leaving for the Amazon in two weeks and may need things like proper rainforest footwear and a hat. Although I have yet to find a hat that doesn’t make me want to sing the theme song to Go Diego Go.

“Deep inside the jungle where nature’s running wild
coming to the rescue is a very special child
talking to the animals and swinging from a vine
this rough and tough adventurer is working all the time”

Which is interesting since I don’t even think Diego wears a hat. His cousin Dora has a hat she dons every now and then for an adventure, but Diego just has his rescue pack. AL RESCATE!

The most disturbing thing is that my mind has chosen to remember this kind of trivial information instead of more important things like where I put the spare key to my car or the ability to do long division in my head.

I believe it has something to do with how many times I watched Dora and Diego while sleep deprived. It’s like the way they wear spies down during an interrogation, repeating mindless songs over and over again until they crack. Or at least that’s how they did it on an episode of Alias I watched one time.

But even more pressing than proper clothing and malaria medication for the Ecuador trip is the literary pumpkin patch. We received a note home on Friday about it, but I was in a medicinal fog and chose to ignore it hoping it might go away.

No such luck.

Naturally, it is not a requirement. Just a fun opportunity. Which is the librarian’s nice way of saying that you don’t have to do it if you can live with the guilt of your child not having a literary pumpkin.

And I think we all know that I can’t take the chance that Caroline will one day tell her therapist, “It all started with the literary pumpkin patch in third grade…” Plus, and I say this in a hushed, ashamed whisper, sometimes I kind of enjoy the craft challenge.

After much debate between a character from Harry Potter or Chronicles Of Narnia, Caroline decided she wanted to make an Aslan pumpkin. So I ran to Michael’s yesterday while she was at school because experience has taught me it’s smarter to shop for the basic supplies by myself. Once she gets involved we tend to end up with glitter and a bedazzler gun and then I wake up passed out in the back of Michael’s with a red cart full of things for which there are no explanation.

I stuck to the basics. Yarn for a mane. Some little puffy things to make cheeks. Googly eyeballs. Yellow paint. Oh, and I got Gulley to buy me a pumpkin because we went to lunch and when I dropped her off we were right by the local pumpkin patch and she had cash and I didn’t. True friends buy each other pumpkins. I believe that’s in Proverbs.

I picked up Caroline from school, told her about the supplies I bought and said we could go home and get to work. She informed me that Aslan is a serious lion and would NEVER have googly eyeballs. So I tried to downplay the googly aspect.

And so we spent the afternoon painting a pumpkin a nice harvest gold color. After she declared it to be dry, which was debatable, we began work on the mane by hot-gluing yarn all over the top. I was at least ten minutes into this process when I realized she’d left the room and gone in her playroom to play.

“Get back in here and help me make Aslan.”

She walked back in the room, glanced at the pumpkin and then at her poor mother with hot-glue burned fingers and said, “That really doesn’t look like much of a lion.”

“Well, that’s because it’s a PUMPKIN. It’s not easy to make a lion out of a PUMPKIN.”

Which is a sentence I always imagined I’d say one day.

And kind of makes me wonder if Diego carries anything in his rescue pack that could help a person turn a lion into a pumpkin.

Did I mention that I was sick with a touch of the bronchitis last week? I can’t really remember.

And right now someone is yelling at their computer, “YES. YOU MENTIONED IT SEVERAL TIMES. ENOUGH ABOUT YOU AND YOUR STUPID BRONCHITIS.”

To which I’d like to say, “Hey P, why don’t you settle down?”

But since I don’t want to leave y’all with a bronchitis cliffhanger, I’ll let you know that I am doing much better and am only coughing 22 hours a day instead of 24. I’ve also apparently developed a bit of the narcolepsy because if I sit still for more than five minutes I fall into a dead sleep. I’m not sure if this is a side effect of the bronchitis or the medications I’m on.

I’ve also lost my appetite.

For those of you who don’t know me in real life you can’t really appreciate the magnitude of this. I don’t lose my appetite. EVER. I am the girl who can be up all night with a stomach bug and then eat a Frito Pie made from Hormel chili in a can for breakfast the next morning. I think this is a side effect of the antibiotic because it leaves me with a taste in my mouth that’s reminiscent of feet coated in metal and that tends to curb all cravings. So, good news! All this time I’ve just been one bronchial infection away from my goal weight.

Our weekend was pretty uneventful. In fact, I’m sitting here trying to remember what we did. That’s how uneventful it was.

Oh! P left to go to the ranch on Friday afternoon and my friend Michelle came in for the night. We have been friends through some other friends for a few years, but hadn’t really had the chance to get to know each other that well. It’s safe to say that we have now remedied that problem since we each told our life story starting with “I was born in ….” and ending with “…and that’s where I see myself eventually.”

And she won Caroline over for life because she helped her with her soccer moves in the backyard AND let Caroline braid her hair. That isn’t an activity for the faint of heart because it generally involves pain. Especially when she decides to start over and rips the rubber band right out your hair.

After Michelle left on Saturday, Caroline and I had to go run some errands because you know what happens when you spend a whole week being sick? NOTHING. Nothing happens. And so NOTHING has gotten accomplished and you find yourself with a To-Do list that’s a mile long and growls at you.

But after about three errands my narcolepsy started to kick in and I knew I needed to wrap it up. Caroline had big plans to attend a birthday party and spend the night with a friend so I dropped her off and watched the Aggies play Iowa State. We won. But it was a win that only a mother could love. Which is to say IT WAS UGLY.

And then I found I couldn’t move myself off the couch so I spent Saturday night flipping back and forth between episodes of Army Wives and the Texas Tech vs. OU game. I really do lead a lifestyle that’s straight from Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

On Sunday morning I decided my hacking cough might offend the folks at church so Typhoid Betty stayed home. We met Mimi and Bops and my sister and her family at Taco Garage for an early birthday celebration because today is actually Bops’s birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BOPS.

Finally, I realized I couldn’t avoid the grocery store any longer. Mainly because we were out of food. Like all food. Like we had a 1/2 pint of sour cream and a piece of moldy cheese in the refrigerator and about six stale wheat crackers in the cabinet. And while some folks in Europe might call that a gourmet lunch, my family in South Texas would call it starving to death.

So I braved the Sunday amateur crowd at HEB to load up on groceries. And now we have milk! And fruit! And ham! And all other manner of foodstuffs that won’t require us to continue to blaze a trail to Chick-Fil-A.

And that was the weekend.

How about you?