They're Already Planning a 25 Year

We voted on it. While listening to the Chief of Police's band. Yes, we're back from the Land of Sheep and Cotton, and I can report that T-Bone's reunion was actually pretty fun - and funny. There were three events over the weekend, so it felt kind of like when you're in a wedding, and every time you turn around, you have to get dressed up and go eat somewhere. Which I hate. But I know several of his friends, so it wasn't like I was ever left stranded without anyone to talk to. They also had an awesome continuous slideshow of awful 80s fashions and hair (hellyeah, T-Bone had the West Texas Mullet), and there were the requisite pictures of wacky school pranks and illicit keg parties. And one picture of The Pregnant Girl. Umm ... yeah. I asked T-Bone who she was, and he DIDN'T know. How do you NOT know The Pregnant Girl in high school? Whatever. And while I didn't have time to craft my own long-lost classmate character to portray, there were plenty of real characters to observe and read about in the class directory.

Ahh, the class directory - the source of hours of entertainment already, I will cherish it always. Former Bobcats (or 'Cats, if you wanna be cool about it) were asked to submit their standard contact information, spouse, kids, etc., and then, should they feel so compelled, answer the question: What have I been doing these last 20 years? And then the floodgates opened, y'all. Now I'm not sure if they understood that this was going to be printed and passed out to several hundred people or they thought no one would read it or they just consider a high school class reunion directory to be the appropriate place to confess their sins and air their very dirty laundry and bizarre personal histories, but I enjoyed the HELL out of it. Here are but a few gems (as printed) I culled for your reading pleasure:

What have I been doing these last 20 years?

• Lovin' the Horns, hunting, and NASCAR
• After missing my actual graduation by one credit, I joined Job Corps in New Mexico ... moved home, and then, like an ignoramus, moved back to New Mexico, where I learned first hand what gang life was all about.
• Staying at home has been the equivalent of poking my eyes out every day, but I would not trade it for the world ... My boys certainly know who RUSH and Kansas are!
• Makin Babies! LOL! ... At a [semi-pro] hockey game, I met my soul mate and love of my life. Dammit if he didn't get me pregnant 4 more times! I never thought in a million years I'd have this many kid's! LOL!
• I have a four year old cat named Royal and he is fabulous!
• Hi everone! Writing this wasn't all that easy, but here it is ... My son is a handsome, gifted boy. I married his father 2 times, but we just can't seem to make it work, so life moves right along ... I have a very special friend in my life. He is a farmer and farms about 4000 acres of crops which are oats, wheat, onions, cotton, maze, and Mexican fan palm trees ... I had forgotten how great a man could treat me and make me feel so special.
• I have had my peaks and valleys, but in general I have been happily enjoying life ... I've made some good decisions, bad decisions. Some I regret, but mostly, I see them as the path that has led me to where I am. And I am o.k. with that.
• A little bit of everything, and a lot of nothing ... I was married, but that would take too long to talk about now.
• I own a brake place and still work at Pizza Hut (been there 16 years).
• I have a daughter, which has pretty much stopped me from going out all the time. Now just been working as photo manager at Walgreen's ... Hopefully will go on a cruise for my 40th birthday and meet the man of my dreams! [even though she listed a spouse in her contact info]

Also, lots of professional bios written in the third person, some very complicated, and extremely detailed, marital histories, and a few outright lonely hearts ads, complete with turn ons and turn offs. This shit is SO right up my alley. Laughing too hard to type anymore ...

There Will Be Singing

I went to see Mama Mia! with a gaggle of gals last night, including the lovely Karla May and the lovely Jaye, and the soundtrack of my youth has been on continuous play in my head ever since. KM and I had seen the Broadway show some years ago, and we loved it, but it seems Miss Jaye was not quite prepared for the "musical" component of this cinematic masterpiece, so nearly two hours of fits of laughter and tears later, I was glad to see she made it through the thing. I was worried there for a minute, honestly. For those of you who are similarly untouched by the stage version, be warned: There will be singing. Copious amounts of singing. In places where you would least expect it. By people who you are not used to seeing or, God love Pierce Brosnan, hearing "sing." So get ready.

In other news, we're off today for T-Bone's 20th high school reunion. So for those of you keeping score, yes, I married a younger man. Sixteen months younger, and he never tires of the old "age before beauty" gag as he opens the door for me. My standard reply is always, "Yeah, that's funny. Every time." And then we go about our business. Anyway, I can't decide how I want to play this thing - straight or try to convince people that I went to school with them and they just don't remember me. We'll see what kind of mood I'm in once we get there.

Also, I made my boob squishing appointment. Any tits? I mean, tips?

The Old Gray Mare

She really ain't what she used to be. On Saturday, I rang in today's momentous occasion with The Crue (yeah, we were cool like that) from high school, and it took me until Monday evening to recover. 48 hours, y'all. And I didn't even drink all that much. The Iron Gut is no longer. It has been replaced by The Flabby Fish Belly That Is Sensitive to Rich Foods Soaked in Alcohol. I never got sick, per se, but I felt like crap on a crutch for a good while there, particularly on the drive home from Sand and Stonio the next day. In the white hot afternoon sun. Ouch.

But oh, did we have fun. The kind where your stomach hurts from laughing and you're still sore the next day. It's been officially decided that I have a mind like a steel trap, at least regarding all hijinx and petty crimes that may or may not have been committed by one or more members of said Crue, and if money was involved, I could probably win some kind of Supreme Savant of High School Memories contest. And I'm proud to say that of the 10 of us, everyone is still happily married, with 1-4 kids, and doing very well. As we were shutting down the place after dinner, a fellow diner, who I'm sure was glad to finally get the hell outta there, came over to the table to say, "Y'all sure have a lot of fun together!" Yes, we do. We did, and we do, and, Jeebus willing, we will continue to. But I'm thinking once a year is probably all my insides can handle.

And speaking of handling things, so far, at least in the 90 minutes I've been awake, I'm handling the being 40 thing pretty well. Olive and I have some adventures planned for the day (Peach is with the in-laws), and just for fun, I think I may make my first mammogram appointment as a birthday present to myself. How very middle-aged and responsible of me.

T Minus 7 Days and Counting

Until I'm 40. Really, I know you think I'm kidding, but the number doesn't bother me that much. Yeah, so it sounds weird to say, especially when I can vividly remember my mom's surprise 40th birthday party, and the brownies I made my dad when he made the leap. And it freaks me right the eff out when I think that our next president (Jeebus willing) will be just about 7 years older than me. But other than that, it's cool. And again, what can I do about it anyway?

It's just that this milestone birthday happens to come at a time of great change in the ol' casa, so I think I'm feeling it a little more than I expected I would.

In the six months before my 30th birthday, I got married, graduated from law school, took the Bar, and had a most spectacular unicorn-themed birthday party a week later, complete with a pinata that I believe Daddy O finally destroyed with a fence post. Within the next year, I passed the Bar, got a job, moved to Austin, and got pregnant with Peach. A lot has happened since then, most significantly, the birth of Olive and the building of two houses, but for the most part, we've been (thankfully) fairly untouched by drama or turmoil.

Today, however, I'm facing the fact that this fall, both of my little birds will be out of the house, all day, every day, and I'm therefore dipping ever further into the job market waters, pathetic as they are right now, as I try to make the jump from Stay-at-Home Mom to Work-From-Home Mom to full-fledged Working Mom. I have lots of mom friends that have always worked, and lots of mom friends that have always stayed at home, but none, so far, have made the leap from one to the other, so I'm on my own here. Obviously, even after almost nine years with me at home, the change would be more significant for La Familia if Peach and Olive weren't in school, but just wrapping my own head around the fact that I may not be able to go to every program and field trip and dance class is pretty hard. I'm so thankful I've been able to spend as much time with them as I have, and any supposed "sacrifices" T-Bone and I have made to make that happen have been minimal. We chose to raise our family this way, and now we have to move on to the next phase of the plan - steering clear of the poorhouse. Plus, I'm still paying for my law degree, so I guess I should try and put it to good use, however reluctantly.

So, I'm a little blue, not because of the number but because the time between the last big birthday and this one, joyful as it has been, has gone by way too quickly, and I'm worried about the changes to come, especially in the next few months. And as I look ahead 10 years to the next big birthday, one of my little birds will not only be out of the house every day, but also flying much further away, to her own on-campus nest. So I've got that harsh truth to look forward to as I ring in 50. Joy.

But fear not, dear reader(s?). Come next Wednesday, I will wake up with a smile on my face and don my obligatory baby picture/"Lordy Lordy Look Who's Forty" mall cart T-shirt with pride. And then commence drinking. Sounds like a good day to me.

It's All Good

Olive came through her procedure like a champ, but I can't say the same for her mama. I just have to ask - is it really necessary to go through all the pre-op paperwork, most of which includes questions I've answered on at least three other sets of forms, and highlight every worst-case scenario and chance of a highly improbable infected needle-sticking incident right in front of the wee patient, who, by the way, is here for this procedure because she has a bit of anxiety when it comes to things like shots and medicine and people in masks giving her shots and medicine?! After the first couple of ridiculous warnings and disclosures and disclaimers, I started cutting the nurse off before she could get to the "good" part and just said, "Yes - okay - I get it," and signed on the umpteenth dotted line. GD lawyers, scaring the everlovin' outta my baby just to cover the hospital's ass. At least the anesthesiologist had the good sense to cut her canned speech short when she clearly saw that not only was Olive getting upset just by being in our sterile little 5x8 cubicle (Little Einsteins on a fuzzy TV be damned), but that she also understood exactly what was being said, no matter how the nurses or whoever tried to dance around it. Anyway, she finally agreed to swallow a bit of Versed(?), which allegedly will make her forget the whole thing, but she wasn't "out" when it came time to wheel her away, and that pitiful image was heartbreaking. So much so, that as I followed at a short distance and finally propped myself up at the corner of Public and Restricted Space, two different doctors came by and asked me if I was okay. No, not really. That shriek you just heard? That's my 4 year old wondering where in the hell she is and what in the hell she did to deserve this.

About 10 minutes later, she was totally "under," and about 30 minutes later, the dentist came by to say she was through. Another 30 or so minutes later, a tiny, groggy person was rolled into our cubicle, and the first thing she said was, "I want to go home. Now." I got in the bed with her for a good while as she vacillated between sleep and quiet tears and "I want to go home. Now." After she rallied enough to stay awake, she downed a popsicle, and we were given our walking papers. In the car, I had some new sparkly bath stuff and a big compact of kid makeup waiting for her as a surprise, and she and Mama Turista had lovely purple shadow on before we left the parking lot. She managed to stay up the rest of the day and never complained or even mentioned anything about the whole ordeal. I want to explain it more fully to her, but I almost think that, for now, it's better just to leave it alone. And pray that that amnesia juice worked.

Overall, I'm glad that if I had to do it this way, it went as well as I could have hoped, and there was enough work to justify putting her under general anesthesia. It was hard enough doing it once, so God Bless those of you who have had to do it repeatedly as a matter of course. I can't imagine the stress.

When I put her to bed last night, I asked Olive how she felt, and she said, "Fantastic." And, now that it's over, so do I.

When It Rains, It Pours

And I'm not talking about these little BS 10-minute "storms" we've been having the past few days. By the way, they have a word for girls like you, Mutha Nature, and it rhymes with "trick pease." I'm just saying.

No, I'm talking about the outpouring of moo-lah that's been happening around here lately. First, there was the many hundreds of dollars check I wrote for Olive's dental surgery tomorrow (continue reading as I freak right the eff out about that). Then there was the several hundreds of dollars check I wrote Super Handyman for all the work he's still in the process of doing because the friggin' "rain" keeps slowing things down. Again, thanks a heap MN. Ya bitch. Finally, there was the several hundreds of dollars check I wrote today for new glasses since I mothereffin' BROKE mine yesterday. Straight across the bridge. I was talking to Super Handyman outside when another "deluge" started, so I took my glasses off to dry them, and they totally fell apart in my hands. And I swear it sounded just like, "at least 300 bucks" when they broke. The problem is, I have no backup glasses (and only two pairs of contacts left, which I loathe), unless you count the ones from three prescriptions ago, which I tried to wear while I continued ninja-cleaning the house, only to aggravate my already throbbing headache. Then I tried the old tape job on the broken ones, and the perspective was so messed up after a while that I truly almost puked. I gave up and donned my prescription sunglasses for the rest of the evening, wearing them straight through until I laid my wee head down around 1 am. I am just that awesome.

So now I have some nifty new frames, but I can hardly celebrate because I'm consumed with worry about Olive's surgery. She was the lucky recipient of my tooth anatomy, so her molars have very deep crevices in them and are hard to keep clean. I had mine sealed when I was about 7 or so, but she is getting a cavity in one of them, so we have to fill it and seal them all now. Because she's not a big fan of the dentist, or shots, or pain in general, and because I only want to have to do this once, the dentist recommended we do the procedure in the hospital, under general anesthesia. To say I'm freaked out is putting it mildly. I'm okay with the dental stuff, it's just when they say things like "IV" and "intubate" and "at least 60 minutes" that I want to throw up. I've been assured by many medical and dental professional friends, including my cousin, The Dentist, who is truly the smartest person on the planet, that it is very routine and will all go swimmingly, but I would by lying if I said I'm completely convinced. I don't particularly want her to have a mouthful of cavities or abscessed teeth or holes in her head, but I just wish we could do this another way. Or not at all. That works, too.

Anyway, if you think about it, we could use some good thoughts, vibrations, or whatever else you can spare at 6 am tomorrow. Thanks.

Where Am I?

Seriously, I don't DO the back-to-back, multi-location travel thing very often, so it really throws me for a loop. Like, I woke up one day last week in this reeeaaally boring presentation on the evolution of the Petition Clause, and I thought, howinthehell did I get here? I hardly remembered doing 49 loads of laundry, weeding the front and back flowerbeds, packing for me and mine, and visiting my nemesis the orthopedic doc the day before and THEN driving to friggin' Houston in the 5 o'clock traffic. I barely recalled fighting the morning rush hour traffic the next day (in which I travelled 20 miles in 78 minutes), only to be met with the most godawful humidity as I stumbled my way into the State Bar BoreFest, my hair growing ever-larger with every step. I really think I would have to shave my head if I lived there, and I'm not even kidding.

Somehow, I landed in an hours-long Family Law forum, right in the middle of which I remembered, I. Hate. Family. Law. Sorry, but it's depressing. I did however enjoy a spirited diversity forum and a most inspiring presentation from an old coot from Lubbock (his words) who represented several detainees in Guantanamo. Color me educated and impressed. Lunch with Ms. Karen included several thinly-veiled potshots at Obama (pitiful, really), but I was mostly distracted by her ladies basketball coach haircut anyway. Why? Just, why?! Friday's lunchtime immigration debate was interesting, but my favorite presentation was led by a Cali non-lawyer, showbiz-type dude and showed how television impacts juries. It was awesome because we got to watch tv and movie clips. And I got free popcorn and a tote bag from LawNerds, my former corporate master. I rounded out the day with an entertainment law Q&A with Beyonce's daddy and his legal mouthpiece, and some clown actually asked who wrote B's pre-nup. Hearty laughter all around. Except for me.

Mama Turista brought Peach and Olive down after information bible school on Friday, and the party rolled on from my cousin's house to Abuelita Turista's casa to the Gulf of Mexico. There were fireworks, carousels, and WALL-E. There was sand, surf, and Schlitterbahn. And there was food. My Lord, the food. Also, there were about 68 rounds of Chickenfoot and 437 hands of gin. And one trip to the Lego store (yes, they have one!). We rolled back into town yesterday, only to hit the ground running this morning to see Kit Kittredge, which Peach and Olive loved, even though they don't know the dolls from Adam. Or Eve, as it were. We've got plans with my BIL's crew for tomorrow, and other than that, I've got plans for my big fat ass, my lovely couch, and a full slate of TiFauxed goodness. See ya next week ...