Ten Things from my weekend

1. Airports really need some type of ventilation system. Between the cooking smells from restaurants and the masses of humanity, there is a lot of funk happening.

2. Crazy drivers follow you wherever you go. Hello? Tailgating at 70 m.p.h. in the rain? Not necessarily the wisest thing to do.

3. I like my sister Donna and I'm so glad she's willing to take time to cart me all over the Metroplex to go shopping and visiting friends.

4. As much as I think I might like another cat, I don't have the energy/inclination to handle a kitten or the fur. Perhaps an old, hairless creature would be the way to go.

5. Shopping is always more fun with someone who has similar taste to you (because then you can make fun of the crazy things you find).

6. It is always nice to see all my friends who live in D/FW and it was wonderful to see all their babies and new houses.

7. Visiting D/FW makes me realize how few friends I have in New Mexico (that sounds a little pathetic--it's not that I don't have friends here but I spent 23 years there vs. 8 years here so it just follows that I'd have more friends and that I've known the TX people longer).

8. It's a little scary how competitive I can be at an auction (live or silent--doesn't matter; I must win at any cost).

9. It always surprises me how much bad stuff I can eat before I actually get a stomachache.

10. Upon arrival back in ABQ, it is wonderful to walk out of the gate area and see my husband's face smiling back at me.

Because before too long, it won't be that exciting to ride in Aunt Carrie's car

On Sunday, the oh-so-big 3-year-old Abigail asked to ride in my car on the way to breakfast. She "likes to ride in Aunt Carrie's silver car because it's fast." I drive a Subaru so it's not like I'm tooling around in a flashy sportscar. Plus I'm even more cautious when I have the kid in the car with me so I'm not sure where she got the "fast" part but I'll take it. It's fun to listen to her prattle on and on so I enjoy having her in the car with me. Here are bits of the conversation we had Sunday morning.

Upon falling off her bike before we left the house: I've got a booboo but I'm OK! No blood! I'm OK!

After I greeted her when I got into the car with a "Hello, Sunshine!": I'm not the sunshine. That's the sunshine (pointing out the window). I'm Abigail and I'm a girl and I'm down here.

As I was driving: Do you know where we're going? I don't think this is the way. Are you sure this is the right way? Where are we going? As long as it's not IHOP. I got sick the last time I went to IHOP.

The door lock: Oh, it's good to lock the doors so they don't open. (I locked the doors) Oh, wait, don't lock me in! We need to have the doors unlocked.

I also had a running commentary on the way home about whether or not the car in front of us was her parents' car (it was), if her dad was driving (he was), and that red lights mean stop and that her momma's car was old and that she liked the song on the radio even though she didn't know it and on and on and on.

A happy ending for an old story

Fight Matadors, for Tech
There is an old Mac Davis song entitled "Texas in my Rearview Mirror" and the chorus is that he thought happiness was Lubbock, Texas, in his rearview mirror--that he just wanted to grow up and get out of that dusty little town.

Funny, because for so long, it was just where I wanted to be.

Songs of love we'll sing to thee
We went to Lubbock this weekend for the Texas Tech Homecoming game. As we were driving there, it occurred to me that the first Tech football game I attended was 15 years ago. There was a boy from my hometown who was a sophomore at Tech--whenever he'd come home, we'd go out on dates, and this being the era before e-mail and cell phones, we wrote frequent letters and made occasional phone calls in the other times. This boy invited me, along with my family, to come to Lubbock for a football game. My parents agreed (much to my surprise and delight) and we chose a weekend in October when my sister Amy was running in a cross country meet in Lubbock.

Bear our banners, far and wide
He picked me up from the cross country meet and we spent the day together in Lubbock. I was all of 16 years old (but almost 17 so I thought I was so grown-up) and just thought it was the coolest thing to be on the Tech campus with a college boy. I'm sure I was hoping that no one would realize I was just a junior in high school and trying to play it so cool. He showed me all around campus--I had a rather eye-opening experience at his dorm--and at the game, I sat in the student section with him. I remember being amazed at the crowd and the band--just taking it all in. It was just where I wanted to be and I started imagining a future at Tech and with this boy.

Ever to be our pride
We went to a game the next year as well. It was the weekend before Thanksgiving and while I don't remember the opponent, I do remember that I have never been colder. It was a wet, cold, windy day and we spent most of the first half facing one endzone because then our backs were to the wind. (We, along with most of the faithful, left at halftime.) Since I was now an ever-so-adult 18, the boy took me out dancing and then we went to a real-live college party. I can still remember telling one of the friends that I while I might be in high school, I wasn't an idiot after he told me that it was OK to eat the fruit from the trash can punch.

And then the boy broke my heart. He told me that he'd met a girl and he wanted to make it more serious--that she might just be "the one." We'd always had a very curious open relationship--both of us dated other people but they had never been "serious." It was just crushing to hear that he thought this girl was someone worth ending whatever strange little thing we had going. Not even two weeks earlier, I'd sat with him as he cried after his father's funeral. I was ready for us to be "serious." I wanted to be the one. I was sending in college applications and Tech was at the top of my list. Because of him.

Fearless champions ever be
I cried the entire four hour trip home. I decided not to go to Tech the following fall. I decided to move on.

When he came home at Christmas, he admitted that he and "the one" had broken up. Seems she just wanted to get laid. And so did he. But that wasn't much to build a relationship on. We dated a bit again after that, but he'd really hurt me. I know now I was just a child when we started dating, despite however old I felt at 16, but I'd really believed that we would have a "grown-up" relationship when I went to college. That we could be more than whatever we were when we were apart. I admit I was scheming to marry this boy (but everyone else in town was having the same thoughts as well, including him).

That one football weekend changed everything that would finally bring me to this point in my life.

Stand on heights of victory
I chose to go to North Texas in the fall (well, my mother didn't give me much choice when I'd decided I'd changed my mind about Tech in May). I met another boy who I ended up dating for two years, although that mostly became a lesson in what I *didn't* want in a relationship. I did transfer to Tech at the start of my sophomore year and I saw the boy from time to time on campus (he'd "extended" his senior year by a semester). We became friends again. We even dated a bit the summer between my sophomore and junior year. But I just couldn't do it again. Too much time had passed. Too much had changed between us.

Strive for honor, evermore
But something very good did come out of that relationship--that boy introduced me to the one I married. He and Paul had been great friends as undergrads and he introduced us because he thought we'd be friends. Before he left for graduate school in Michigan, he tried to make Paul and I promise that we wouldn't date--neither of us would because we just couldn't imagine that happening.

I made Paul call him two months later when we started dating. He wasn't thrilled (OK, he was really, really angry with me but not Paul for whatever reason) but he wasn't surprised. He was in our wedding four years later. Sadly, he committed suicide a couple of years ago due to severe depression and a wife who didn't support his efforts to get the medical help he needed to deal with it. I often wonder what would have happened if that one weekend 14 years ago had gone differently. I wouldn't change my life now, except to have that boy still be a part of it.

But from time to time, I do wonder.

Long live the Matadors!
So, here I am some 15 years later in a completely different place (literally--Albuquerque? what's up with that?) than what I'd envisioned my future would hold. I'm not nearly as self-assured or as smart at that 16-almost 17!-year-old girl. But I am much happier with who I am and what my life holds. And I also know (at least, I'm learning) that no amount of planning can ever be as wonderful as just letting the future take us where it will.

Part of the happy ending--pictures from this weekend:


Abigail and Benjamin play with the new Little People toy we brought them. Abigail kept running into her room for "more peoples!" to put on the LP ferris wheel. Benjamin turned one on September 29.
Pregame (and probably the best part of the game)--the band takes the field.
We were right next to the tunnel, which meant we were surrounded by tons of little boys wanting to see the players and maybe, just maybe, get a high-five from them.
Band+ cheerleaders+Saddle Tramps+media+players+random other people = on field pregame madness
After spotting Missouri 21 points, Tech finally scores a touchdown just before the half.
Our friends Karen and Chris with their little girl, Kelly.
Amy and David with the new foam gun for Abigail, who has a collection of foam fingers (when you wear one, you have to say "Woohoo!")
Yep, Paul was still sick and probably shouldn't have been at the game but he insisted.
The band at halftime.
Kelly gets her guns up. We said it would be a shame if in 16 years, she says she's going to A&M.
The Masked Rider roaming the sidelines.
After halftime the team runs back on the field. Tech ended up losing to Missouri 38-21. Boo.

One more reason I love the guy

Paul has been sick since he got home from Washington, D.C. on Friday. Not wanting to catch whatever crud he managed to bring home, I chose to give him the bed and sleep downstairs. I slept on the couch Friday and Saturday night. The cat, loving that I was sleeping on the couch, spent much of both nights cruising all over me or lying on my feet or perpendicular to me, shoving me into the back of the couch. Needless to say, it wasn't very restful. Amazing how disruptful 12 lbs. of feline can be.

The past two nights, I've opted to sleep in the guest room since it actually has a bed in it. This is our "cat-free" room. We keep the door shut all the time so there is one mostly-hairless room for our guests with cat allergies. Having slept in the guest room previously, I knew exactly what the cat would do (and it was why I chose the couch over the weekend). For good hour to an hour and a half, Senor Jubjub positions himself outside the guest room door--meowing, pawing at the handle, pawing the door, meowing again and again and again. I think at one time he had his little nose pressed into the crack under the door to meow at me. He does eventually give up and goes elsewhere to sleep but it's a long time coming.

Last night, after both of us trying to ignore Jubjub for about 30 minutes, I heard Paul pad down the stairs to admonish the cat for being so noisy. He told the cat to "be quiet, get away from the door, she's trying to sleep." Initially, Jub didn't listen--stubborn little guy meowed a few more times just for good measure--but Paul did finally win the argument and the cat left for higher ground upstairs. And Paul got a hug and a very big smile from me.

And just because, a picture of the cat (where he isn't supposed to be) as taken by Paul:

But it was a very quiet protest

This article is from today's Albuquerque Journal.

Personally, I enjoy telling people I'm a librarian because I am definitely anything BUT the stereotypical librarian. I always get a double-take because I'm a young one at almost-32. But I think it's mostly because I'm really loud. In my opinion, librarians rank up with lawyers in terms of stereotyping. Not all lawyers are ambulance-chasing rats but if you've heard any lawyer jokes, you know it's a common perception. All librarians, according to the stereotype, are quiet, retiring, older women. There is good reason for that stereotype--many librarians are the quiet retiring older women who shush frequently. The librarian I replaced was that librarian. Visit any library inservice for my district or the annual conference--many versions of this librarian. No, we're not all that person but it is the librarian we all grew up knowing and loving. And fearing, in many cases.

The last time librarians raised this much of a (quiet) ruckus was over the Librarian Action Figure because it, too, perpetuated the stereotypical librarian (which is funny because it was based on an actual librarian).

TV Show's Makers Learn That Hell Hath No Fury Like a Librarian Stereotyped

By Polly Summar
Journal Northern Bureau
SANTA FE— Word came down from on high: "Get on over to the main library— the librarians are picketing!"
It seems that Lions Gate Entertainment was shooting a segment in the Santa Fe downtown library's Southwest Room for a new serial, "The Lost Room," that will appear on the Sci Fi Channel.
The librarians took exception to the actress playing their part; they thought she was too old and frumpy.
For the most part, the filming was a pleasant experience for the librarians. "We were thrilled to work with the Film Commission and the governor," said city library director Patricia Hodapp.
"But when we saw who they brought in to play the librarian," said Hodapp, "well, she's probably 80 years old, gray-haired and frail. That's not us."
In protest, Hodapp began handing out turquoise T-shirts to her staff— a project she had orchestrated in an hour and a half Tuesday over at Desert T's on San Mateo.
The shirts proclaimed: "Santa Fe Public Library ... Not Your Stereotypical Librarians."
These are not women who procrastinate. Not that anyone ever thought librarians did. When they got irritated, they took action. Or, in the interest of not spreading further stereotyping, at least their leader did.
So what did the maligned actress look like? Granted, she was probably older than the librarians, who range in age from 36 to 67.
But she was a typical older Santa Fe lady. You know the type— trim, athletic, active. In fact, one of the crew members said, "She lives here in Santa Fe— name's Lois Geary."
Geary got whisked out the side door of the Southwest Room into a waiting van before she could be interviewed. But how does one ask: "Um, the librarians here are upset because you're old and gray and perpetuate a stereotype. What do you think of that?"
An online search revealed that Geary has credits in films like "Silverado" and television work like PBS' American Playhouse, and she's played a number of roles at the New Mexico Repertory Company and the Santa Fe Theatre Company.
And under the list of "special skills"— billiards, table-tennis, running, comedy.
Not your typical little old lady.
Meanwhile, the serial stars Peter Krause from HBO's "Six Feet Under" and Julianna Margulies from "ER."
The plot of the series involves a motel key that will unlock any door in the world. But apparently, when you unlock that door, you enter the motel room the key originally belonged to, and all the objects in the motel room have special powers.
But you'll have to watch the show to find out why the Southwest Room was used.
And decide whether the actress librarian perpetuates a stereotype.