I duped Ray into traveling across the state with me for my annual trek to the family timeshare in Gatlinburg. The first day was a complete tear-filled wash (seriously, I thought we were going to die) but when we finally made it to East Tennessee, things got better and more vacation-y. The fella had never been to that neck of the woods before, and while I declined to immerse him in the Black Bear Jamboree…
More than three decades and my dad still calls my mom his “green-eyed beauty.” Cheers, you crazy kids.
I had a bit of a meltdown yesterday right before Thanksgiving dinner. Everything had been going more or less okay; I got up and on the road to the parents’ as early as I could, since my mom had texted me the day before, telling me to hightail it early since I’d be trying to outrun bad weather. I was flying solo, as Ray had to work that afternoon. That sucked, but you gotta do…
Saturday afternoon my aunt Vicki and her crew — boyfriend Paul and friend Ralph — rolled into town for the UT-Memphis football game, an affair we had been planning for months. We had a few hours to kill and found ourselves at India Palace, heaping piles of deliciousness onto stark white buffet plates. Why is it that I can never remember to wait and get a big plate from the middle, and instead, always end…
I have been laid low a few times in my life. Luckily (or perhaps sadly, depending on your perspective and how much you like to see me suffer), not too terribly many times. Nonetheless, this weekend I found myself on my floor in a heap, a demon of despair escaping from my lungs in great heaves. It was not pretty and it was not cathartic. It just felt like death. The death of all the…
The oldest nephew is a sophomore in high school (eeeep!) and is a band kid, just like his dear ol’ auntie. He plays the tenors, and gets to do the intro to the cool new cadence. I always wanted to play percussion but I lack the ability to wail on objects with any sense of rhythm. I find it deliciously bitchin’ that both my brother and my nephew have drum-related talent. Friday night the fella…
This is the one family heirloom that my sister and I might actually eventually fight over. We have always called it “the umbrella chair,” but I think it’s actually called a canopy chair. This chair always kept a prominent spot in my mother’s mother’s house (trailer) while I was growing up. Snagging a spot in this chair during family gatherings was always a tough job, as everyone always wanted to sit in it. Its red…
For once I actually had July 4 off work. That only happens every few years, so I decided to make the most of it and head to Saltillo to take part in the annual grilled-meat-and-pyrotechnics-a-thon. A fun twist this year is that I somehow convinced the manfriend that he should get in on that shit and come with me. So we took off as early as we could coax ourselves to Sunday (think…
I woke up early Sunday and hit the road damn near at the time I was aiming for — a feat for me — so I could make it to the parents’ around noon, as my dad had to leave for work at 1:30. We wanted to squeeze in some Father’s Day time in that small window, and we eked it out with great aplomb, I have to say. There was crying. The good kind.…
Night one: After the hospital’s 10 p.m. lockdown Thursday, My brother and I took to the halls in search of distraction. I was mostly looking for a wifi signal. We discovered a cafeteria gearing up for its nightly output, and I fed myself forkfuls of chocolate chess pie and gulps of coffee as he watched crap TV in the dining room. We continued the sugar dump in the vending area, with him knocking…
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