It’s A Good Thing That The City Never Sleeps Because At These Prices I Won’t, Either

20 June 2007 by

For the last week or so, I’ve been doing a little preliminary planning for the New York trip I mentioned a couple of weeks ago (also known as “Martie Takes Manhattan”), and I think we have settled on a date. Martie’s going, as is Sister, my sister-in-law Janie, my aunt C., and hopefully my cousin Paige.

Oh, and me. I’m going. Which is probably a good thing since I’m the one who has roped in all the other merry travelers.

It might offer you a little insight into the state of Martha’s excitement to know that last week she pulled all of her suitcases out of her closet to examine them and decide if any were worthy of a trip to New York. She’s very concerned that she’s going to exceed the airline’s 50 pound weight limit on luggage, and rather than incur unwanted surcharges, she has decided that she needs a bigger, lighter bag.

And so, if you work at a Belk’s or Dillard’s department store in Mississippi or Alabama, I would just like to say this: CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED. Martha is on a luggage mission, and you’d better know she means business. She has waited over seven decades to travel to the Big Apple, and she will not purchase anything other than luggage PERFECTION.

At the lowest possible price, of course. And preferably with a coupon. On senior citizens’ discount day.

Martha and I have begged my mama to come along for the New York ride, but she’s just not interested. She said that she would probably enjoy herself for about twenty minutes and then be ready to come home and clean for awhile. You know, just to relax from the hustle and bustle of her twenty-minute NYC adventure. I guess she’ll keep the home fires burning for all of us while we’re gone.

So here is my biggest trip-planning dilemma, and I’m hopeful that some of you travel-savvy internets will have some ideas to help me solve it. There is a certain section of NYC where Sister, Paige, Janie and I have enjoyed staying in the past because it is convenient and lovely and quiet and good. And there are many, many hotels in this particular area, so room availability isn’t so much an issue.

But as best I can tell, room rates are up about 100% (if not more) since the last time I planned a trip to New York (which, granted, was about four years ago). I don’t know if we’ll be staying two or three to a room – it depends on our final number, I guess – but obviously we want the best possible price per night that we can get. Based on the rates I’ve seen this past week, once we get to NYC and settle in at our hotel, I’ll have to sit right there for the duration of our trip because I won’t have any money to do anything besides pay for my share of the room.

And that does not really sound like very much fun to me.

We certainly don’t have to stay anywhere fancy, but we do want to stay somewhere nice. I want for Martha and C. to feel like they are getting extra-special treatment on their inaugural trips to the Big Apple, so I want to plan really well and get the most possible bang for our travel bucks.

So, if any of y’all have any tips for getting great rates on hotel rooms, I would love to know them. I have thought about using Hotwire to make reservations though I’m a little wary since I’ve never booked a hotel room that way before. I know that lots of hotels run promotional deals, but it seems like nothing coincides with our travel dates. I’ve even thought about contacting a hotel chain and explaining that it’s my 70-something MIL’s first trip to New York in the hopes that they’ll give us a cut on the room rate (and hello? TENS OF PEOPLE will be reading about our trip on my blog – IT’S LIKE FREE PUBLICITY!), but then I remembered that WHEN THEY FINISH NOT CARING, THEY WILL THINK I’M INSANE.

Any ideas, y’all?

Filed Under: Rambling

Some Dinners And Some Movies

19 June 2007 by

Alex apparently has decided to spend the rest of his childhood in Mississippi. Just a minute ago I answered the phone, and he was on the other end saying, “UM, MAMA? I want to stay here FIVE days. And Mama? I went to Martie’s house, and her house was crying.”

“Her house was CRYING?”

“Yes ma’am. It was raining outside, and her house started to CRY, Mama. It was crying in the room where we were playing.”

Martie has a leak in her roof, apparently. I imagine that she was none too happy since she had a new roof put on her house about four months ago.

And something tells me that a certain roof company will have a very dissatisfied – but lively – customer on their hands around 8 o’clock tomorrow morning.

Anyway, D. and I have been soaking up the silence for the last couple of days. I didn’t even turn on the television this morning, and it caught D. a little off-guard since I usually like to listen to my iPod and work on the computer with Food Network on in the background. While I sing.

But today, I just listened to the rain – a strange and unfamiliar sound right now in this part of the country.

Yesterday we decided to go to a matinee and then to throw all carbohydrate caution to the wind and stop somewhere for pizza. We went to see “Knocked Up” – which was hilarious if your idea of humor is to take one core expletive and modify it to fit all parts of speech (look! it’s an adjective! and here! it’s a noun! but here! it’s a verb! because apparently this is what qualifies as wit! and if we yell all the forms of the word in one scene, we’re even MORE witty!).

Even though there were some funny parts (Kristen Wiig, I adore you), we were disappointed. So we headed to Mellow Mushroom for pizza, and there we were not disappointed even a little bit. Delicious diet Coke, delicious pizza – totally relaxing.

In fact, we enjoyed ourselves so much that we decided to do the exact same thing this afternoon. We went to see “Ocean’s 13” – which is fun and enjoyable and way better than “Ocean’s 12” – and then we headed to another pizza place to see how it compared to last night’s pizza place, because we are nothing if not predictable and consistent (plus, prior to yesterday I hadn’t eaten pizza in almost three months. I was waaaaay past due).

Tonight’s restaurant specializes in Chicago-style pizza, and OH MY LANDS IT WAS TASTY. I was only able to eat one piece (IT’S A SUMMERTIME MIRACLE!), so that should give you a pretty good indication of how filling it was. After all, I not only love to eat, I am good at it – some might even say talented.

D. ate two pieces of pizza but barely lived to tell the tale.

And I do not believe we will have pizza for supper again for a very long time.

But D. does want to see another movie tomorrow. I think he’s just so excited that I’m actually going to the picture show as opposed to staying home to watch an episode of “House Hunters” for the sixth time, and he feels like he needs to strike while the proverbial movie-watching iron is hot.

So, do y’all have any suggestions? Just please don’t suggest that “Pirates of the Caribbean” thing, because I am telling you – with my strange issues regarding textures and spores and whatnot, one look at that octopus-type creature would send me straight to the restroom. I could throw up just thinking about it.

Which reminds me.

See this?

starfish.JPG

This is a starfish I saw at an aquarium in California a couple of weeks ago. And I promise you that I had to force myself to stand there and look at it. I thought that if I stared at it long enough, if I took a picture of it and studied it and watched it move across the tank, I would be able to conquer my squeamishness in regard to suction-y, spore-y things.

But it didn’t work at all.

Because even now, just looking at the picture of that HORRIFIC SEA-DWELLING CREATURE THAT IS GOING TO LATCH ON TO ONE OF MY APPENDAGES AND LEAVE MILLIONS OF UNIFORMLY-SIZED INDENTIONS ON SAID APPENDAGE makes my heart race and my knees feel weak and this is exactly why I can’t possibly see that “Pirates” movie.

I am SO normal, aren’t I?

Filed Under: Rambling

It’s Supreme All Right

17 June 2007 by

We’re at Mama and Daddy’s house today for Father’s Day lunch, and Mama made a squash casserole that is SO STINKIN’ TASTY that I just had to share the recipe.

In addition to the delicious squash casserole, we had fried chicken, butterbeans, green beans, creamed potato casserole, congealed salad, green salad and rolls.

And then we exploded.

But it was totally worth it.

Squash Supreme

2 cups yellow squash, cooked in chicken broth, drained and mashed
2 beaten eggs
3/4 cup mayonnaise
1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese
1 medium onion, chopped very fine
1/2 stick butter
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. black pepper
3 tablespoons Worcestershire
2 teaspoons hot sauce
1/2 cup crushed Ritz cracker crumbs

Combine all ingredients except cracker crumbs. Put in a buttered dish and top with cracker crumbs. Bake 25-30 minutes at 400.

Then go slap your mama. Because it’s that good.

Happy Father’s Day!

Filed Under: Rambling

I’d Love To Have A Title, But The Only Word That Comes To Mind Is “Baseball”

15 June 2007 by

My Bulldogs play North Carolina at 6:00 tonight in the College World Series, and while I’d like to pretend all is normal at our house right now, I cannot.

Short version: I’m a nervous wreck and worried about a let-down after last week’s games and blah blah I need to get a life blah blah.

Blah.

Alex and I have been humming the fight song all day long (we don’t sing the lyrics as they are somewhat inappropriate for a four year old), and I can’t even imagine how much our fellow Walmart patrons appreciated it when Alex screamed “GO STATE!” in the check-out line earlier this afternoon.

However, in my defense, since we live smack-dab in the middle of Alabama / Auburn country, I feel a certain sense of urgency about communicating our MSU heritage to Alex. I mean, if he hasn’t chosen the narrow Bulldog way by the time he hits kindergarten, he’s likely to get swayed by chants of “Roll Tide” and “War Eagle.”

And that will just never do.

So, as we approach our first game in the College World Series, I will now bore you with some random information as a somewhat pitiful attempt to channel my nervous energy and make the time go faster.

[NO. LIFE. AT. ALL.]

1. Last night we watched this season’s first episode of “Top Chef.” It seems like the talent level is much higher than last year’s, and I think my early favorite is Tre. He has a quiet confidence – and I love me some quiet confidence.

Also, if someone told me I had to make a meal using snake and eel? I’d just throw that meat in a deep fryer and call it a day. I’m blown away by the creativity of the chefs – especially under such tight time constraints.

2. The credits just came on for the CWS. And they made me teary-eyed. Would anyone care for some of my HORMONES? I’d be delighted to share.

3. I am fascinated by the iPhone. Have y’all seen the commercials?

4. Yesterday Alex had a friend over to play, and their four year-old conversations were CRACKING ME UP. At one point Alex’s buddy C. mentioned that he’d had some horrible dreams about a sharp-toothed green monster, and the whole story was punctuated by Alex interrupting to say, “OH, C.! BLESS YOUR HEART!”

Not that I have ANY idea where he’s heard that expression, of course.

(By the way, in about seven years Alex is going to read that anecdote and turn beet red from embarrassment. Then he will roll his eyes. And reward me with stony silence.)

Also, A. also responded to several of C.’s comments by saying, “That’s a swell idea,” and I got a little tickled because I was unaware that we were living in 1958.

5. Baseball is on. I’m going to have to clean now. I’m sure you understand.

Filed Under: Beloved Bulldogs, Rambling

His Love Language Is High Definition

10 June 2007 by

When D. and I married and set up house for the first time, we each brought different items to the proverbial decorative table.

For example, I brought a couch, a wingback chair, a baker’s rack, a queen-sized bed, and some cheap, shiny Queen Anne-style sidetables.

D. brought a double bed, a dresser, a kitchen table, and more electronic equipment than any man had a right to own – conveniently encased in a lovely black entertainment center with smoky glass doors.

By the way, I still contend that if I had never entered the picture, everything in D.’s house would a) be made of black laminate and b) have the ability to recline.

And he would love the fire out of every single bit of it.

So after we were married, I quickly learned that, for D., the primary decorating question is Where Will We Put The TV? – followed closely by Once We Place The TV, May I Please Put My Chair Directly In Front Of It? I of course wanted everything to be pretty, and having a black laminate entertainment center with smoky doors as the focal point of my living room was not exactly a dream come true for me.

Eventually, though, we worked out a compromise. Black Laminate Smoky Doors stayed – albeit in a remote corner of the room. D.’s chair was too far away from the television for his taste, but I assured him that it couldn’t be good for his eyes to sit two feet away from a 32 inch screen.

In our next house, D. took over a spare bedroom and set up every single bit of his audio / video extravagana. There were components and cables and gaming systems and speakers (OH MY!); the only drawback was that he had to put it all on the aformentioned (girly, sage green) baker’s rack – because by that point I had quite literally kicked Black Laminate Smoky Doors to the curb. The bottom door kept falling off, and when we moved from our first house I took the opportunity to leave it next to the driveway.

Really, it was nothing but an act of completely selfless charity on my part.

Really.

Eventually, we finished out an office for D. in our basement. He was able to put speakers IN THE WALLS and place his recliner (or, as I like to call it: The Cap’n’s Chair) approximately eighteen inches from the TV screen. It seemed, at long last, that his eight year home theatre quest was complete.

But then, of course, we moved.

I’ll spare y’all the audiovisual saga we’ve been through since we moved into this house last December, but it’s been unsettling for D., to say the very least. He had high hopes of setting up a movie / game room in his office here – only to realize that, with Alex’s bedroom across the hall, he wasn’t going to be able to crank ‘er up sound-wise like he could in his basement room.

He talked about moving his TV (it has a flat screen; apparently that is very important to gadget-minded men) in the living room to replace the older model that had taken up residence there, but he gave up on that idea when I asked one too many questions about the size and placement of the speakers.

Keep in mind that, when we married in the late 90’s, I still had a console TV with a channel dial and no remote control BECAUSE I AM JUST THAT TECHNOLOGICALLY SAVVY, so it’s hard for me to understand how important things like speakers are to him.

I mean, if not for D., I’d still be carrying around a bag phone.

Anyway, for the last six months, my husband has been wandering through an audiovisual desert, wondering when or if he would be delivered into a high definition, all-digital promised land with premium, high-quality sound.

Last night, I’m proud to say, he arrived.

We may have to set up a memorial stone, y’all.

And I will have it carved in the shape of a big ole flat-screen television.

Because here’s what happened.

He moved the flat-screen into the living room, along with all necessary components and speakers. We have a pretty big built-in space for that kind of stuff, so it actually isn’t the least bit unsightly for the one of us who likes for things to look pretty (that would be me).

And then – AND THEN – he called our cable company and asked to upgrade to their high definition package. Since we already have an HD DVR (they gave it to us several months ago after we had worn them down with our 521 service calls), the upgrade took about three minutes. And only costs about $4 a month.

And when my husband saw the high-definition picture for the first time, I’m pretty sure that he wept. Quietly, of course. Discreetly. In the most manly of ways.

For a full thirty minutes after HDTV became a part of our lives, I listened to D. talk about HDMI cables and 780p and 1020i and HD channels and the amount of memory it takes to record HD shows on our DVR. It was a veritable verbal buffet of acronyms and abbreviations, and I had no idea what most of it meant. But I smiled and I nodded – because I love him.

After all, when he’s happy, I’m happy.

And as long as Black Laminate Smoky Doors never enter our audiovisual set-up again, I think we’ll be just fine.

Filed Under: Family Fun, Rambling

Two Quick Things

9 June 2007 by

First:

Chilihead has a great meme coming up this Monday, June 11. You can check out the details here – I think it’ll be such a fun way to learn a little behind-the-scenes info about people’s blogs.

Second:

Our beloved MSU Bulldogs are headed to Omaha!

If I knew of any way to link to the sound of a cowbell ringing, I totally would.

GO DOGS!

Filed Under: Beloved Bulldogs, Rambling
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