Friday, August 6, 2010

Hell Freezes Over

It's not just the name of an Eagles album...it's what happened sometime between yesterday and about an hour ago. I can now, (THANK YOU DIETIES) get into my classroom to get it ready for the schoolyear. I am not going tonight, much to Sanford's dismay. I will wait until tomorrow or Sunday, although I have to take my niece and daughter both shopping...what the hell....I swear nothing ever happens in the right order.

So, we went and saw my favorite comedienne, Kathy Griffin last night in Austin. I drove. I drive a very large SUV, Sanford drives a much small vehicle. And yet, it must be me who drives and it must be my car. Why? Isn't it obvious? I lived there for almost 10 years almost 16 years ago. Come ON! Keep up! You KNOW nothing has changed in that city since I lived there. Despite the continual construction all over the place, it's all the same. Wait. Except the building where the show was. That wasn't there when I lived there. It was like a huge rodeo coliseum on the banks of the river and as I recall we had to register for classes there in the heat of the late summer and we all thought we'd die of heat stroke. Now it's a fancy pants "performing arts center". I should know this, but I didn't. Here is how it went: We get into car. We start driving. I get to the interstate which is like I don't know, about 30 miles from us...and it was like drugs..as soon as I hit the interstate, I got horribly sleepy. I was shaking my head like a horse does just to wake myself up. Next to me, over in the co-pilot seat, was Sanford...blissfully unaware of my predicament...whistling tunelessly to some nonsene Ice cream truck music in his head. So, I turn on the radio. Loud. We weren't talking anyhow...if you take your eyes off those maniacs on I-35, you're dead. So, I have the radio on trying to wake myself up, and he reaches over and turns it down. You know what that is right there? That is like throwing a gauntlet down. When you turn on the radio in a vehicle and then the other person without a word reaches over and somehow fiddles with it...that is a challenge. So. I reach over and crank it back up. I can see out of the corner of my eye that Sanford was getting annoyed. He kept blowing his nose and clearing his throat REALLY loudly. He was making some gross sounds with his mouth, so I turned it up LOUDER. He hollers, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING????" and I said, "WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU." hehe. He got all flustered and went to reach for the knob to the radio and I slapped his hand. GASP! Yes, I physically slapped his hand. Much like I did my children when they were little. No, no! Don't touch! So, he is looking at me with unadulterated indignance and I decide to take pity on his sad little insane heart. I reach over and turned it down enough so that I could say, "I AM FALLING ASLEEP HERE! WHY ARE YOU BEING A DICK?" and he actually laughed. He laughed. I call him a "dick" and he laughed. Assclown. So, I yell again, "Hey, Dickhead! I'm starving and I'm falling asleep..." and he calmly says, "Why don't you exit and we'll get something and you can wake up?" Whatever. So, we exit and I pulled into a McDonald's which is why my stomach is like Mount Vesuvius today. A few minutes later, we're back on the road and he is happily chomping on a cheeseburger or something. I said, "I want you to watch very carefully how I skillfully guide this large vehicle to the PERFORMING ARTS CENTER. He munched, "mmm..k....chomp chomp, smack smack." I reached into the bag and hand his ass a damned napkin. A few minutes later, we enter Austin proper, and I said, Okay, turn on the stupid assed GPS. So it's on, and it tells us what I already knew...exit at 8th street, turn right on 6th, turn left on Capitol, turn right on Riverside, turn into the stupid assed parking garage. Boom. We're there. Done and done. To get home, reverse the order of operations. I drove home, too. We live in a DIFFERENT CITY than Austin. It's several cities away. Our daughter will be living in Austin in two weeks for school, and he STILL acts like it is a foreign place like Mombasa or something. Do we need to exchange our currency? Do we have the right voltage converters? Do you speak the language, because I don't! Oh my god! What will we do!
We do what we did on our trips overseas. I speak the language to the natives, he follows and grumbles. I make sure we get where we need to go (I can get you anywhere in Paris or London on the Tube or Metro in record time and with the fewest possible changes of trains...try me...unless there are bomb threats like there always seemed to be in London, then all bets are off. Who knows what train you'll take? Somehow, you'll end up where you want to be...)
Hey, that reminds me..you know what we need more of around here? Buskers. Yeah. Buskers. You heard me. I like a good Busker. I will give one my spare change even. Even if they aren't in the designated Busker circles painted on the ground of the London Tube system. I will STILL give them some money. In Paris, it might take a little more, like say....an impromptu puppet show on the train..(which totally happened to us, and I'm not lying.) We have a huge deficit in the Busker department here. On the good side, I've never watched hydraulic doors slam shut in my face as two of my three children plaster themselves against said doors and you can see their panic stricken faces and their mouths are in a huge O as they scream because guess what? They got on the train and we got joslted and now we are separated from two of our children in a very large city in Europe where my children don't speak the language (this was in Paris.) We got them at the next stop. They waited. Smart kids.

Oh well, that is enough random crap for now.

2 comments:

Michelle said...

OMG about your kids being separated from you on the train!!!! Really smart kids - and also smart of you to know to look for them at the next station!
About buskers - yes - i totally agree. i think it is ridiculous that in London they restricts buskers to the point that buskers don't want to perform there any more. Have you been to NYC? the way buskers are regulated there is so much better. I learned about it from the blog of a NYC busker who plays the musical saw in the subway and reports on what happens: www.sawlady.com/blog

Jacksmom said...

I know, right? It was horrible when I saw their faces whiz off to the right at the speed of light. Thankfully, it was the oldest child who has tons of common sense, and she was with the youngest child, who has none. He would have ridden around all day crying on the Paris Metro, and people would have just thought he was like a mime or something.
I will check out the NYC busker's blog! Thanks!