Car Update

Okay, so I haven’t decided on the car yet.  What I have decided is that I need more information.  I need the nitty gritty.  For instance, when I go to Target to buy toilet paper and laundry detergent and come home with the big plastic pool, is that thing going to fit in the back?  Or when I’m going slightly over the 65 mph speed limit and I see a cop, can I slam on the brakes without sending everything flying through the front windshield? 

 I’ve taken both of these cars (reminder:  Ford Edge and Honda CR-V) for a test drive, but I think I need to do it again.  This time, I’ll walk up to the salesman while holding a large drink. 

Hello, I’d like to go for another test drive.  I need to see if my Diet Coke (large, from McDonald’s, because they have the best ice to syrup to carbonation ratio) will stay intact under the following conditions:

• fast corner
• bumpy driveway, forward, at an angle
• bumpy driveway, in reverse, at an angle
• speed bumps
• slammed brakes
• while reaching into the back seat to do any number of things and the car somehow momentarily swerves
• etc, etc, etc.

Seriously, I think I’m going to do this.  Whichever car wins the Diet Coke challenge might be the right pick. 

Stuff Christians Like

My friend Brian has a blog at brianseay.wordpress.com.  He was really my inspiration for this whole blogging experiment.  Anyway, yesterday he had a link to another blog called stuffchristianslike.  If you grew up in church, or if you are now involved in any type of mainstream church, you MUST go there and scroll through his list.  Absolutely hilarious!  My favorites are #22, #20, #8, and #5.   Let me know what cracks you up.

Cotton Candy and a Snow Cone

 

Last week a friend of ours gave us tickets to High School Musical:  The Ice Tour.  Abigail was thrilled.  I was somewhat less thrilled, but still enthusiastic.  Abigail and I headed out on Wednesday for a GNO (Girls Night Out for those of you who don’t get enough of these to need an acronym, myself included.) 

We managed to find FREE parking, and I thought maybe this was a sign of things to come.  Free tickets, free parking, heck, this isn’t going to cost me a dime! 

Truth be told I was planning on buying cotton candy, because I LOVE cotton candy and I always buy it if it’s available.  (I mean, you never know when you’re next going to have the opportunity!)  However, I wasn’t prepared for TWELVE DOLLAR cotton candy.  Yes, folks, I said $12.00.  For one bag of cotton candy, with a plastic “Ryan” fedora attached to the top.  Was the cotton candy available without the fedora?  No.  But still, I’m thinking, it’s okay, the tickets were free, the parking was free…it’s all good. 

Abigail, on the other hand, wanted a snow cone.  I grew up in a world where we rarely got these kinds of treats.  My dad would fill us up with cheap food before we went to one of these things, and then we’d drink water from the water fountain while we were there.  So I enjoy the fact that on occasion I can splurge and get my daughter a fun treat.  But a FOURTEEN DOLLAR snow cone?  Yep, you heard it.  14 bucks.  For a snow cone in a handy to-go water bottle-type thing.  Did they have snow cones in a plastic cup?  No.

 So, $26.00 later, we head to our seats.  I’m thinking, well, that sucked, but at least now we can start the show and not worry about it.  That lasted about a second.  Because here comes the guy with all the light-up toys.  Light-up microphone, light-up necklace, light-up twirly thing.  And the whining begins.  Mooooommmmmm (imagine the voice going up and down in a typical 9 year old fashion) I HAVE to have the microphone so I can sing along during the show! 

 Those of you who know me know that I am a singer.  And while my daughter is hearing-impaired and may never sing a beautiful note in her life I nonetheless want her to love singing as much as I do.  There is nothing in the world that makes me happier than holding a microphone and singing my brains out.  Maybe it’ll be that way for her someday.  Probably not, but will this High School Musical Light-Up Microphone be the difference?  Is today the first day of the rest of her singing life??  Will she be so inspired by these singers on ice skates that it changes the course of her own history???

 Sir, how much is the microphone?

$20.00.

Pause.

Nope.  Sorry.  Can’t do it.  I literally don’t have $20 left in my pocket.  And Target sells really cool microphones in the dollar spot.  (Lots and lots and lots more whining.)  And then God had mercy on me and the lights went down and the show started.

She loved it.  Until intermission, when we had to go through it all again.  And then on the way out, when we had to pass the gigantic carts of goods, all of which can belong to your child for mere hundreds of dollars.  I pushed the doors open and felt a breath of fresh air as we left the Alamodome.  I breathed a sigh of relief that the parent torture was over.  Until the guy selling Half-Price Color Programs greeted us just outside.  Good grief.

 Abigail was so focused on the “stuff” that I don’t even know if she remembers the show.   She was convinced that I was lying about not having any more money.  She was sure I was just being mean.  I asked her if she had heard anything recently about the state of the American economy.  (No.)  I took the opportunity to remind her that blah blah blah we need to make smart decisions blah blah blah lots of children don’t even get to see an ice show blah blah blah there are people in San Antonio who don’t even have food to eat blah blah blah.   She tuned me out.  Not interested.

 I was mad.  Mad at Disney for cramming all that crap down our children’s throats.  Mad at society for encouraging our children to always want more and never be satisfied.  Mad at myself for raising a spoiled child. 

Key to a Happy Marriage

Sorry, I haven’t found THE key to a happy marriage, but I’m always looking.  I heard something on the news this morning that strangely corresponded to a friend’s recent blog.  Apparently, a study has been released that says that women who marry ugly men have happier marriages.  This goes hand in hand with my friend Brian’s theory that men always marry up, and women always marry down, hotness-wise.  Personally I married a guy who is hotter than me, so I guess I’m out of luck on this one. 

 I have a good friend who will be getting married this year, and I was trying to think of advice to give him as he enters this blessed union.   Not pithy advice, but the real stuff…what I wish someone would have told me.  (Not that I would’ve listened…why did I think I knew EVERYTHING at age 21?)  This is what I’ve come up with:  You’re going to change.  She’s going to change.  Your marriage is going to change.  Don’t fight it…go with it. 

It’s not earth-shattering, but somehow I managed to live in complete denial of this fact for years.  Once I embraced who we are today, and quit trying to make us who we were 14 years ago, life got a little simpler.

 So what advice do you have?  I’d love to hear it.

Buying a car

I need a new car.  My Expolodah is old and ragged and unreliable at best.  It’s time.  But I am absolutely UNINTERESTED in buying a new car.  It’s just not something that really gets me excited.  I’ve test-driven two different models:  the Ford Edge (we are a Ford family) and the Honda CRV (a MAJOR act of treason).  The Edge is slightly more luxurious and a little bit bigger.  The CRV gets much better gas mileage and is theoretically more reliable in the long run.  What to do????

Security

A few weeks ago, my husband and I visited the Statue of Liberty.  He has never been, and I haven’t been since I was 18 (a few years ago…) While the Lady looks great, I was most taken by the level of security that surrounds her. 

In order to board the ferry to get to the Statue, we went through “airport security”.  You know, take off all your coats, hats, gloves, belts, watches, etc. and walk through the metal detector.  Now since I have my friend The Pacemaker, I don’t get to walk through a metal detector.  I get the pat down.  Every time.  I’ve done it so many times it doesn’t bother me at all (although sometimes you get the aggressive lady who really wants to make sure you’re not packin’ in your crotch!!) It always makes me laugh me when I tell the first security guy I have a pacemaker and he stutters and says, “You??  Um, o-okay.” And I enjoy watching the looks on strangers faces who stare, and I know they’re thinking “She doesn’t look like a terrorist, but they must’ve found SOMETHING or they wouldn’t be doing that!”Anyway, we get through that, get re-bundled because it’s about 30 degrees outside, and get on the boat. 

 Once we get over to the Statue we find that in order to enter the museum and go to the observation deck (about 5 stories up) we’ll need to go through another security line.  So we wait for about 40 minutes in a covered tent (not heated, but at least not bone-cold).  The security area is in another closed tent, and you cannot see what they’re doing.  Once you finally go through the door you realize that’s it’s another “airport security” line, but this one has a bonus:  The Puffer.  If you haven’t experienced The Puffer, it’s a little closet that you stand in while air blows on your to make sure you don’t have any explosive residue on your clothes.  It’s easy, but it takes a minute to decide that you’re clean and there’s this moment when you’re standing there thinking “what if they mistake those muffin crumbs for something worse?” So we get through The Puffer, and then it’s the pat down all over again. 

Finally, after about 1 1/2 hours, we get to enter the Statue of Liberty.As we stood in line, I watched parents trying to explain to their kids what was going on…what we were waiting for.  I am struck by the fact that Abigail will grow up knowing nothing different than long security lines everywhere you go.  Taking off your shoes at the airport…walking through metal detectors…even standing in The Puffer.  This is her world.  And it makes me very, very sad. 

So we climb 197 stairs to get to the deck, and we look back at lower Manhattan which is decidedly bare without the Towers, and we contemplate liberty.  And I realize that little by little, there’s less and less of it.  And that in order to keep it, I have to give mine away, in a pat down and a puffer.

Hello world!

I’ve gone back and forth on this blogging thing, and for whatever reason, today is the day I took the leap.  So there you go.