TEAM me

Bicycle Built for Two - Tintype
Originally uploaded by photo_history

Doug and I have this thing that makes us laugh and it happened this morning. We imagined we were teamed up on that old game PASSWORD. I would be giving clues that I thought clearly indicated a word or concept and he would answer with something completely out of bounds, something that would make me think he was from another planet.

We first laughed and got hysterical about the concept of us as Le TEAM when Doug said one time that we'd never make it on a bicycle built for two. I would be all the time trying to wrest control from him although I wouldn't want to be the front rider. We said I'd be saying things like, "SLOW DOWN! You're going TOO FAST!" Doug would be sure we should go one way and I would know we should go another. The idea of that made us fall apart with the giggles.

Doug and I are a great team if we each do what we do best. But we aren't a real work-together kind of team. We are both really stubborn about how we want something done and we are complete opposites about how we approach even the simplest task. Doug is thorough, plans before he begins, is painstakingly methodical and does things in a certain order. I am quick, dive in without a plan, impulsive and impetuous and do things in no order at all - I may have to stop in the middle to preheat the oven, know what I mean? I hardly ever follow a recipe completely, to great acclaim at times and alternately resulting in disaster. It's why I can't bake. I start a crossword in the middle. I start things and tire of them and quit. Doug doesn't stop because it's dark out and he'll weed tomorrow - he stops when he gets to a logical stopping place. That is not me. If I don't want to do something anymore, I don't.

The way we are is good. Sometimes it's good to be a quitter like me (If something's not working for you, get out of it, move on). Sometimes it's good to have stick-to-itiveness. Sometimes it's advantageous to have a plan. Sometimes it's nice to go off the grid. But, after 15 years together, we know the couple we are. We couldn't go on Password and we would never make it on a bicycle built for two.

Don't forget your mother! Give her Jesus!

The Mother's Day Gift To Make Her Say Hallelujah
Originally uploaded by sudergal

I used to think Mother's Day was a nice thing to do. Now I realize what mothers really do, what they set aside, what they give up; and how much they love doing that. It's hard to explain how you give so much of yourself away and that you find you want to do it - it's hard to say that without sounding like some kind of martyr... or sounding like you think your Jesus.

I remember my first week of motherhood after Emery was born. I was so overwhelmed with love for him. And sadness for the loss of myself. I kept thinking, I will never be just me. I thought, I will never just do something I want to do or go somewhere I want to go without considering this child first. And that is a loss, particularly for someone in her 30s at the time who was accustomed to going and doing where and as she pleased.

Maybe all mothers don't feel that way, but I certainly do. I would walk through the hottest fire blah blah blah, as any mother would. I would lay down my life. And I do it in little ways each day. This is not to say I don't want to - it makes me aware though, the commitment you make before you have any idea what you're getting into.

There is a kind of vulnerability, too, that comes from loving a child so much and realizing how you could crumble into nothing if any hurt or ill came to that child. It was difficult for me, in the early days of parenting, to feel so raw and vulnerable. That is something I've adjusted to over the years. I used to have this insane vision each time I pulled into our driveway that I would run over one of my children. I think the true nightmare of worrying over your kids is that you might be the one to hurt them and cause them pain. I still have that vision but only now and then...

So don't forget your mother.

This flickr image reminds me of a time when my Poppa was alive but ailing in the hospital. Mother, Granny and Garland had been visiting him. It was around Christmastime, and they left the hospital to grab a bite to eat at a Whataburger across the street. The Whataburger was decorated for Christmas, but in a haphazard and half-ass way. There was a manger scene, but it was divided up and distributed over the entirety of the restaurant, as if they didn't have enough decorations so they decided to split the members of the scene up and have them take their places all over the restaurant. They made the entire restaurant the stable. But the thing that made Granny and Mother and Garland laugh, made them actually get hysterical (the way you do after death or suffering when you are so tired and sad) was where they had decided to put the baby Jesus... He was laying face up on the cash register - no manger, no straw.

TA$TE

My mother has always hated to go shopping. It was one of the anomalies I experienced as a child growing up in Texas -- my mother was not a typical Texas mother. Other people's mothers loved to shop, shopped on vacation even. My mother couldn't fathom shopping on vacation! Why, that's what you went on vacation to escape, mundanities such as shopping. She didn't like to shop (a bore, it made her feet hurt), didn't want me to be a cheerleader (it's silly, beneath you), begged me not to join a sorority (all that singing together and iced tea), and offered to give me the money she'd spend on my wedding if I'd elope (buy a house! are you sure you don't want the money?). My mother is a pragmatist.

So, when we went shopping we always got tickled about something in the dressing room and completely lost control of ourselves. Regardless of whether she enjoyed shopping or not, my mother, like my grandmother before her, would not buy cheap clothes. And never, NEVER, buy cheap shoes. My mother would rather go barefoot than wear cheap shoes, and she got that from my Granny. Granny never told me that I could learn a lot about a person by walking in his shoes, she said, "You can tell a lot about a person by the shoes they wear." I think she was wearing Ferragamo's when she died.

When we went shopping, it seemed that we'd look and look for something (we were always shopping for something specific; my mother didn't just shop for no reason, she hated it too much) and I'd invariably find one single thing I liked -- and it was always the most expensive thing in the store. My mother used to always say, "Well Paige, you've got good taste" or, "Paige, you sure have expensive taste" or finally, "you have your father's taste."

My father always said you couldn't buy taste - you either had it or you didn't, it was either bred into you or it wasn't. He grew up not rich, but his father had a college education and was a teacher and his mother loved the finer things, she adored china and silver with such a passion that I have full sets of china and crystal for any occasion. Dessert teas, ladies luncheon, you name it: I have a specific set of china for the occasion. Daddy used to point people out at our country club who were rich rich rich but whose taste was all in their mouths. Those were the people about whom he said, "Squirrel, money can't buy taste."

I have those same eyes now. I see these awful, gargantuan houses and I hear my father's voice in my head, 'money doesn't buy taste.' I hear my mother's voice in my head when I browse online at Nordstrom.com and finally see something I think is cute and it's always like $498 bucks. "Paige, you sure have expensive tastes." I'm not saying I spend that on a wear-to-work dress, I'm just saying, that's what I like.

La Bikina

My father loved mariachis. The first time Doug met my daddy we were in San Antonio. Daddy had it in his mind that we'd go to Paisano's but I was thinking La Margarita and if you knew my father you knew that he was pretty stubborn. So he agrees to go to La Margarita for 'a drink and let's see', he says. But once we get there, there is one of those incredible mariachi bands - one of those with like 20 guys - and the lead guy, the singer, he can really sing. Really. And, to top it off, there is an engagement party going on at the next 2 tables and they are paying these guys to play over and over again. So, it was a good night. My father sat back in his chair, across from Doug, and chewed his ubiquitous cigar and kept saying things like, "They don't make 'em like that anymore Squirrel" -- his pet name for me.

Fast forward to this past Christmas and my mother gives me this Luis Miguel CD, with La Bikina on it. Now La Bikina was my daddy's favorite mariachi song. He requested it if he felt like the mariachi singer could really sing it. And it's the song he requested that night at La Margarita when he started paying the mariachi band. We ended up closing La Margarita that night and my daddy and Doug became as thick as thieves. So, in preparation for Cinco de Mayo, and in honor of my father, I share with you, "La Bikina!"

Lichen a Challenge

Sysiphus
Originally uploaded by k4cay

People always say that they like a challenge. They often say it when they are interviewing for a job. They claim to work well under pressure, better in fact than without any pressure. They say they like deadlines. "I work well on a deadline." "I like a fast-paced environment," they'll say.

I have discovered that I do not like a challenge. I really don't. And I'll tell you what else, I think there are more people out there like me than you'd think. And, I bet other people like me SAY that they like a challenge, but they don't. They say it because they think they are supposed to like it.

But why would I want to do something the hard way if I could have it easier? Wouldn't I rather have the luxury of time? I am often lamenting to myself, as I hurry around my house trying to leave on time, that haste makes waste. I'll admonish myself for trying to yank on pantyhose only to ruin them with a run, or practicing some clever step saving that costs me extra time in the end (once I went through this whole elaborate routine to try to get out of washing my hair and I just had to go all the way back to step one and get in the damn shower)... I don't work better under pressure or deadline and I don't like a challenge. When I have the luxury of time and a pressure free mind I come up with a great comeback that I would give anything to have said to that boorish colleague who has been irritating me for months.

The next time I interview someone for a job (and that's going to be soon, I'm hiring) when they say that they like a challenge, as they invariably will, I'm going to say, "Really? Do you really? Because I don't..."