Snow Daze

Students pray for snow days; teachers view them as a mixed blessing. A day off today means one less holiday, later in the spring - a day I might need more, in terms of mental health, than I do this one. It is a difficult task for school districts to decide which days should be snow days. Keep in mind that someone - a director of transportation, a member of the school board - is out looking at road conditions at 4 am, as well as watching weather reports, and trying to figure out what the roads will be like in 4 hours or 10 hours. Can the buses run ? Will parents be going to work today ? Is it safe for people to be driving on these roads ? Will there be mass absenteeism, as people just decide to ignore attendance laws and stay home ?
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Today my school, as well as many others around us, called a snow day. The weather reports were predicting ice storms and mass chaos all day long. One never knows if they will be predictive of the actual weather, or not ......Right now it is drizzling some in front of my house and that is about it. Above is a photo of a day that was not called off as a snow day ... it started off like any other spring day : cloudy, rainy, cold but not freezing. By noon the snow started falling - remarkably rare for north Texas any time of year, much less March. By 1 pm the snow was accumulating, and parents starting coming up to the school and taking their kids out. School was closed by 1:30 but the roads were so bad by that point, my normal 5 min commute took me 45 min ( it's all of 2 miles). Not sure what the official snowfall was that day , but it's clear from this photo of my backyard, it was 6-8 inches at my house. You just can never tell how the weather is going to go.
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Right now I'm still in my jammies, blogging. The kids are arguing over whose turn it is on the video game, and I've about had it. I think I'll go run some errands I didn't get to this weekend.....then I am going to come home and cook up a big pot of something tasty to eat.

Do You Bite Your Thumb at Me, Sir ?

GFT never really understood young men, especially not the "group think" of many young men hanging around together. Growing up, GFT agonized over the young men she knew, and like any normal teen aged girl, spent most of her time contemplating those young men, what they thought, what they wanted, and worrying about what to wear to attract their attention. In my experience, when teenage girls hang out together, they mostly want to talk about the teenage boys they know : Does he like me ? Does he like you ? Why do you think he likes me ? What makes you think he might like me ? Does this purse look cute ? Do these jeans make my butt look fat ? Has he called ? When will he call ? What does it mean that he hasn't called ? What did it mean when he.....Oh, the agonies of dating......It all revolves around me, me, me, and of course, him.
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Now that I am a mother of sons, and am surrounded not only by my sons but many of their friends on a near continual basis, my perspective has changed so drastically. I grew up in a home with only one sister, so all of this is relatively new territory for me. Teenage girls spend so much time, energy, money and stomach lining worrying about the boys they know and what they think. The boys, I have learned, (at least up to the age my sons are - early teens) rarely think about the girls at all. For years now I have driven my sons home from school, around town, to birthday parties, out to eat, to pick up or drop off a friend who needed a ride. Many days, I am the "mom taxi " for the neighborhood - actually traded in my minivan for a little compact car just so I could cut down the number of kids I had to drive home each day, from 8 or 9 to only 3 or 4. ( I don't mind driving a kid home, in the abstract, but it was getting out of control - and using up a lot of gas and time.) Other moms do this, too, and on the days I have to stay late at work for a meeting, I am forever grateful that someone took my kid home. But most days, because I get out mid-afternoon, I am the one doing the chauffeuring.
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A curious thing happens when you are the mom-chauffeur to a gaggle of boys (or girls). Keep quiet, keep your hands on the steering wheel, stare straight ahead ( it is especially important not to make eye contact - they must totally forget you are there for this to work) , and listen. Eventually you will find that sooner or later, you disappear. They completely forget that the car is being driven by an adult - that you are there at all. The kids will start talking and if you listen, you will learn the most amazing things. All about their day at school (that no "How was your day ?" will ever illicit from them, consciously.) Which teacher did what, who farted in gym class, who likes whom, what the coach said or did, who got in trouble for drinking in the local park last Saturday, how "far" various friends have "gone" ( if you know what I mean), whose dad got laid off, whose parents are getting divorced, who cheated on the math test. It is truly amazing the stuff I have learned this way, over the years. One of the things I have learned, from listening to these kids, is that the thought of girls rarely entered the picture. Of course, all that is changing, and No # 1 Son is driving himself more and more these days, so I will soon be losing my "mom taxi connection" in terms of knowing what was going on in the neighborhood.
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When the hubster and I bought our home, we chose it because of its kid-friendly layout and pleasant, entertaining-friendly design. It is a large rambling house, famous locally for having a fire pole that connects the upstairs toy room (toys, video games, Foosball) to the downstairs game room (pool table, free weights, squat rack). The kid's bedrooms are huge, and currently have bunk beds and sleeper sofas in each that can easily sleep 4 friends per child before anyone has to sleep on the floor. Due to the hubster's tv addiction, we have a tv set in nearly every room and all are connected to cable and video gaming systems that run the spectrum. It is no surprise that not a weekend passes without several of my children's friends either spending the night or living with us on a semi-permanent basis. Sure, they are eating me out of house and home, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I grew up in a home that was completely unwelcoming to guests, whether child or adult. My parents never entertained - not even birthday parties. In only had two, in all those years - 4th grade and 10th grade. That was it. My mom always said it was "too much trouble" to entertain, no matter how informally, and my sister and I almost never were allowed to have anyone over, not even one friend for a sleepover. Mom was always worried about the house being clean enough, or presentable enough - in reality, her issue was that she was just too introverted and didn't want the bother and noise. As a consequence, my sister and I each spent all our free time at our various friends' homes, and were never around. We grew up involved in other families, instead of our own. I vowed I would never be that kind of mom. While I may grumble when my son and his friends play their electric guitars and drum set at midnight, I'd much rather they do it at my house where I can keep an eye on them, than somewhere else where I have not idea what they are up to.
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As a consequence, I get to observe teen aged boys in all their pimply, greasy-haired, saggy jeans down to their mid-thigh, arm-pit farting glory. They say things like : I read that if you hold your breath long enough, you'll explode...The Count of Monte Cristo is the BEST BOOK EVER ... They argue which drummer, from whatever rock band is the band du jour, is the greatest...Did you know that in India people have to kill themselves if someone in their family dies ? (Many of their ideas are partially true, or based on something they once heard, but partially remembered, such as this notion of Hindu burial practices which is only about 3% correct.) ...I once heard that some guy, he ate a hamburger, and it contained a fetus all ground up in it... Which quarterback or team is the greatest of all time... I hit him because he said something stupid... Who liked syphilis first ?...I'm faster/greater/smarter than you are... What if you turned into a rain cloud ? ...What if an object was not made up of its components, but instead was made up of 1000's of tiny little versions of itself ? Listening to my children and their friends banter ridiculously with each other brought to mind the interactions in "Romeo and Juliet" between Romeo and his friends Tybalt, Mercutio, and the other guys just hanging around 15th century Verona. Not much has changed in all these years. Before I had kids of my own, I never understood those scenes, what the guys were doing or saying, the power plays that were happening between them. I never understood the insults that aren't insults at all, and the little phrases that on the surface, seem like they have no meaning, but to those involved, have deadly portent. It's a common thing for real life experiences to give added insight to situations in ways you hadn't thought of before. I just never thought my children would help me understand Shakespeare.

Winter Road Trips # 1a Goliad

La Presidio la Baha in Golida - otherwise known as "the fort"

GFT has been making road trips nearly since she learned to drive ....somewhere in high school, at the tender age of 17, I started driving off to visit older friends who were already in college in Austin (UT) or Houston (at Rice) . I had two good friends who drove away to New Orleans for a week by themselves at about the same age. We were all barely old enough to vote, but back in the day, old enough to buy liquor. Sometimes I wonder at what our parents were thinking, or IF they were thinking at all. Most parents, including myself, would not let their teen aged children nowadays journey far without chaperones or supervision of any kind. I continued this tradition of independent road trips throughout my college years, schlepping various boyfriends, willing or not, to see the State Fair of Texas, Neiman-Marcus Fortnights, Texas beaches, partying on 6th street in Austin, various museum exhibits around the state, or touring the River Walk in San Antonio.
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Texans, I think, generally love to drive - with a state this size, and public transportation consisting pretty much only of Southwest Airlines until recent years - we've had very little choice in the matter. I know folks who routinely drive across the state to another city to visit the doctor of their choice, or shop, or get their hair done, whatever. When I have moved cross-country (which I done, several times), I have often chosen to drive at least a portion of that journey, just to see and experience the land and the people who live there. My little brood continues to drive east to the beaches of North Carolina each summer, mostly b/c we kinda have fun eating and visiting our favorite spots along the way.
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No collection of road trip anecdotes would be complete without a mention of perhaps one of my favorite road trips of all time. Clever observers will have noted that this latest batch of short pieces are numbered out of order. That is because this road trip to Goliad, which was actually undertaken several years ago, remains the quintessential road trip in my family's collective memory, and thus is forever honored with the number "one".
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Folks who know GFT know that her own natural biological family is small and dysfunctional. It has been a survival strategy of GFT from her earliest days to "adopt" other families she comes into contact with via the road of life, and make them her own. GFT does this not out of cunning but due to a genuine need to find additional folk to love on and be connected to. One of the many families she has adopted over the years belongs to that of childhood friend Vincent the Spell-Checker. In the earliest days, GFT's contact with this family involved little more than dining out together for Tex-Mex, or having Vincent's mother drive GFT and Vincent around in her yellow station wagon, known affectionately by all as "the banana", before the two of them were old enough to drive. In recent years, the bond has grown closer as Vincent's family was instrumental in helping GFT survive her disastrous divorce from husband # 1 and several other rough patches in the road. At this point in life, GFT dotes, absolutely dotes, on this family and enjoys spending time with them whenever she can. So it was with great joy that she accepted an invitation to visit them in their hometown of Goliad, Tx, a few winters back, and bring the junior rug rats. Thus began one of the all time great road trips of GFT's life.

Goliad Mission Espiritu Santo, otherwise known as "the mission"

Vincent the Spell-Checker's family hails from Goliad, Tx, in much the same way that the Kennedys claim Hyannis Port as their family compound - with the exception, of course, that Vincent's family has lived in their old hometown for several hundred years longer. (GFT feels affinity, as her own family on her mother's side has lived in Sulphur Springs for pert near just about as long, maybe longer.) Goliad is one of the oldest most historic towns in Texas , and was where one of the major battles of the Texas War of Independence was fought. A tiny hamlet nowadays, Goliad boasts a few dozen streets, several beautiful historic buildings, some truly magnificent ancient oak trees, a small grocery store which also sells deer blinds, and several decent Tex-Mex eateries. Tourists come from far and wide to visit the mission and the presido ( a fort), located just across the road from each other. These old historic buildings were built by the Spanish, as part of their colonization of the region they called Tejas, and were what the rebels were stealing, or defending ( depending on your point of view) during the battle that waged there in 1836.

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GFT took off in her little car one fine winter weekend, kids in tow, and tore down the highway as fast as she could to visit Vincent and his kin in Goliad. The trip, which normally takes Vincent's mother 9 hours or more, was completed in just 5 and 1/2 hours by GFT. Once there, Vincent took GFT and her kids, who are only some of the many godchildren he claims, around to meet all his relatives and see all the sites. The hard work of being a tourist was broken at intervals by restive visits to local eateries.

The Number 5 Combination - GFT's favorite Tex-Mex meal

Goliad County Courthouse

A fun stop on the tour of missions and forts was the old country courthouse. Texas is famous for its country courthouses, and many Texans "collect" visits to various ones, often comparing and discussing their relative merits or weaknesses. The one in Goliad is a fine example, and is surrounded by a ring of ancient oak trees which are delightful to climb on, walk under, and generally contemplate. (Remember, trees are relatively rare in this state- most of them, other than mesquites, have been planted by the folk who live here. Thus, when we come across them, we revel in them. Never ever take them for granted.)

Winter Road Trips # 1b Goliad

The grounds of the Goliad courthouse host numerous bric-a-brac, including a cannon which has a little commemorative plaque that states this cannon was officially operated by Colonel Fannin, who was one of the heroes of the Texas Revolution and the commanding officer at Goliad. Above, Vincent plays with his godsons and the cannon......it is a joy, now, to see them being so unselfconsciously silly, as nowadays they eschew most photos generally, and if you can catch them and force them to pose (via threats and bribes), it is generally with scowls on their faces.

Boys flying out of cannons ! They are clearly qualified to get jobs at the circus now.

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In between all the historic sites and Tex-Mex dinners, we took a little tour of one of the extended family member's ranch. It was a lovely sunny late winter day, and we rode the rugged terrain in the back of a pick-up truck.

Along the way we met some cows, which No#2 son began naming and turning into pets. Sadly, these cows went to make hamburgers, a few months after our visit. An extended years-long draught has plagued south Texas recently, making it difficult to grow enough grass to feed livestock, thus forcing ranchers to purchase hay to feed their cattle - an expensive proposition.

One of the most vivid "Texas-ish" moments for me was when one of Vincent's great-aunties took us all to see her personal oil well, located on the ranch. Yes, you heard me right, her own personal oil well. This is Texas, after all. As we stood there, looking at it, the auntie said to me , "You know, sometimes I come out here at night, and look at it, when it's all lit up. It looks just like a Christmas tree to me. A big ole fat Christmas tree that is just pumping money right out of the ground. " Her eyes twinkled a little, as she said it.

Winter Road Trips # 3 Wichita Falls

The famous falls of Wichita Falls
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Wichita Falls is a medium sized town in far north Texas, near the Oklahoma border. It 's located approximately halfway between the DFW metroplex and Amarillo, (which lies in the panhandle region), pretty much in the middle of no where. W.F. was settled eons ago by plains Indians, who came to this spot for the waterfalls located there - an anomaly in the middle of the prairie. Later, ranchers and oilmen and other sorts made it a regional collection point for some banks, stores, a hospital, and a couple of restaurants all of which have names that sound like "Cattleman's All-You-Can-Eat Steak Ranch House". Growing up in Dallas, as I did, the chief thing any little child knows about the place is that it is always either the hottest spot, or the coldest spot, on the weatherman's map on tv.
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I took a little road trip to Wichita Falls the other day, bringing my mother along with me, to see some artwork at a gallery there. A friend of mine, Bonnie Siebert, is a painter of local renown who shows in galleries from Sante Fe to the Hill Country, and she had an exhibit of her work in Wichita Falls. With nothing better to do - hubster comfortably ensconced in front of the tv for days now watching old "House" reruns, I'd had about all I could take and decided to get a little breath of fresh air on another winter road trip.
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We headed north on I-35 towards Gainesville, planning to turn left (west) at Gainesville on HW82 and drive trough Muenster, et al, towards Wichita Falls. Hubster dutifully mapped this entire trip for me on his GPS and kept telling me to head west to Krum and Decater, then take HW287 which cuts along the diagonal to Wichita Falls and is the most direct route. Mom and I ignored him, and pointedly left the GPS at home. Even after all these years, hubster does not "get it" that sometimes the journey is just as important as the destination. Mom wanted to check out the old outlet mall in Gainesville ( now largely gutted and dead, since the new improved outlet mall opened in Allen a few years back) and some bakeries in Muenster ( famous for it's Oktoberfest and numerous German restaurants, beer breweries, butcher shops, delis, bakeries, etc.) The shorter route only offers a strange inexplicable camel farm as it's only sight worth seeing, and that just didn't provide enough shopping opportunities for us.


One of Bonnie Siebert's paintings

But I digress from the main reason for this trip. The Kemp Center in Wichita Falls is a multi-purpose building (was originally the town library, so the docent informed me) that is now used for art exhibits, classes, symphony concerts, weddings, and other things. It is a beautiful old classical style building with Palladian windows, nice natural lighting, a grand staircase. It also has a lovely sculpture garden outside (we chose a beautiful warm sunny mild day to do this) and a great little gift shop inside.

The Kemp Center in Wichita Falls

Bonnie's artwork is truly lovely, and well worth the trip. Someday I hope to be able to save up enough to buy one of her paintings. She has a remarkable way with color, brushwork and composition, and her paintings can best be described as Grandma Moses meets Toulouse Lautrec. They are so cheerful and lively you just feel like dancing after you see them - kind of like Bonnie herself. My mom was so excited - we discussed them all the way home, comparing them to various Impressionist artists whose work we had recently seen at the Kimball in Ft Worth when it hosted its recent Impressionist exhibit from the Art Institute of Chicago .
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https://www.kimbellart.org/Exhibitions/Past-Exhibitions.aspx?year=2008

After we saw the exhibit, my mom and I looked around Wichita Falls for a suitable place to eat lunch. The kindly docent at the Kemp Center gift shop (lovely stuff - we had to support the arts and buy some souvenirs, don't you know) recommended some chain restaurants along the highway, but we just weren't in the mood for that sort of thing. Spoiled by living in Denton, we hoped to find a little tearoom or "ladies who lunch" sort of spot in downtown W.F. We drove all over, our tummies growling piteously, (it is, after all, a long journey to W.F. - from pretty much anywhere), but all we could find were the aforementioned steak houses - not really in the mood for that, either. Mom announced that she was going to wait till we drove back through Muenster, a good hour away. I muttered under my breath and started driving. Several towns on the near deserted highway later, I needed to pull over to get gas, and decided I could wait no longer - we ate chicken sandwiches at Sonic. Not charming, but at least you know what you are getting. By the time we rolled back through Muenster, it was late in the day. We did pop into a bakery and purchase goodies - I bought hubster his all time fave, a cream cheese sour cherry strudel. It was about 2 feet long and could easily be used to kill a man: if he broke in to the house, I'd sneak up on him and whack him with the giant, baseball-bat sized dense heavy strudel, on the head. Hubster, who announces every year about this time that he is embarking on his famous "death diet" ( more on that topic, later) , saw the strudel and muttered that he was going to wait just a few more days to start the diet. I checked later that night, and he'd eaten half that strudel, about a foot of it, in just a few hours. Good thing I didn't take the route he suggested, past the camel farm , or there would have been no cream cheese sour cherry strudel for hubster. Perhaps I would have brought a camel home, instead. Try cooking that up and see how tasty it is.
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That's really the end of this anecdote. While searching for photos of Wichita Falls on google, I came across this old ad. I include it here just because I like kitsch - it reminds me of my childhood, when my parents drove to Colorado and New Mexico each summer pulling a trailer behind their monster SUV. We always stopped in Wichita Falls or Amarillo along the way to spend the night - it took us several days to get to our destination. My dad drove s-l-o-w-l-y down the interstate, pulling the trailer. (Nowadays I can make it to Albuquerque or Colorado Springs in one day. Lord knows how slow that man was driving.) This ad brought back all those memories......and I think some incarnation of this hotel is still there.