Golden Birthday

A week before Thanksgiving, I was awaken in the dark of the night by a muscle cramp in my right buttocks and thigh. Not like the swimmer’s toe cramp you can just pull out of. Serious stabbing pain that made sleeping scarce. This was not fun. I like fun.

What could have brought this on, you ask? Quite possibly my almost 18-year-old son asking me if he could invite “some” friends over for his golden birthday party that he was planning while I was sitting on the beach in Maui. He would be 18 on the 18th… GOLDEN! His plan was that I would be home to cook for the party, of course. Being the nice mom, I said, “Sure! Invite some friends over.”

Next, said 18-year-old texted me to let me know he made me an administrator on a facebook event for this party for which I was cooking. That didn’t phase me until I clicked on to see why the party needed an event page on facebook. HE HAD INVITED 150 FRIENDS … while I was sitting on the beach in Maui. “Some” does not equal 150 in my mind.

As friends would respond that they couldn’t come, I would go on and type in “Good!” My hope was to scare off the kids that don’t know me well.

It went down like this: Wednesday – arrive home early in the morning from 17 days in Maui. Thursday – shop like a crazy woman. Thursday night 3:27 a.m. – leg cramps. Friday – party with 150 invites.

Thankfully only 75 of the guests showed up. There was much laughter, ping-pong, loud music, gold light-up shoes, streamers, Mexican food, a DJ, chocolate cake, line dancing on the dead grass in the backyard and 58 water bottles were opened and sampled. (Now being used to water my plants.) I am pretty sure the front and rear doors of the house were open wide from 6:00 to 10:00 p.m.

The birthday boy with his cousin, Whitney. So much happy! The golden shoes for the golden birthday really need a picture of their own. Sadly, they were not switched to the on position for this photo.

Here you go. Not only do they light up… they strobe! BAM! Golden birthday success!

More on the massive cramp tomorrow. I promise.

The Colombian Twin

I’ve heard it been said that everyone has a twin some where in the world.  I’m starting to believe it’s true.  We met Rick’s Colombian twin in Cali… he lived across the street from the house we stayed in.  His name is Juan Carlos and even without communicating very well, he and Rick were up to mischief from the get go.  They both love soccer.  They both think they are good at soccer… but Juan Carlos has videos to prove his story. 

We taught Juan Carlos and his kids how to play Ticket to Ride one evening.  Juan Carlos “helped” Larisa by illegally putting her trains on the board when no one noticed.  Later he got the Spanish/English dictionary and thumbed through it for some time before he came out with the accusation against the other players, “They are deceitful.”  See?  Rick in another body!   Larisa was winning for quite a while and he said it was because of his help.  When she ended up losing, he said she didn’t listen to him. 

Both Rick and Juan Carlos love Mexican/Colombian food.  The foods are so similar… the only difference is that the Mexicans use tortillas and the Colombians use arepas.  Juan Carlos hooked us up with some sumptuous food more than once…. SOOOO something Rick would do!  He also invited us to go with he and his wife to the neighborhood fiesta.  He tried to teach Rick to Salsa dance….. later he gave Rick a Salsa dancing video.  I guess his teaching skills require students with promise.

We didn’t just gain a daughter in Colombia.  We gained life-long friends (and cohorts.)

Yo Quiero Taco Bell!

Seriously, Rick and I should have bought stock in Taco Bell back in the day.  We went there on Sunday… because it was FAST… it was on the way to the Olympic gold hockey game…. and it was the cheap price, of course.  I’m married to Mr. Wallet after all.  As we approached the little talking box, I already tallied the tacos, burritos with no onions and the cheesy fiesta potatoes for Rick to order, so I handed the list to him.  The ordering was painless.  The delivery was painful. 

Being wise to the ways of Taco Bell under-paid-I’m-sure employees, I ALWAYS know the number count of how many items we ordered.  This time was no different…. 17.  (We had an extra kid with us, ok!) The bags were handed over and whaddya know… I only counted 16 carefully wrapped bundles of pseudo Mexican goodness.  I recounted.  Nada.  So Rick asked, “What’s missing?”  At that point I acted all-knowing because frankly, I wasn’t going to get out my tally list and mark off each taco, onionless burrito and cheesy fiesta potato.  I replied, “A bean burrito is missing,” because as heartless as it may seem, I didn’t really care what was missing and I knew whoever was missing something would eat a bean burrito with no onions if he or she was truly hungry enough. Brutal, I know.

As the window technician was delivering the counting error to the cooks, I handed the “cheesy fiesta potatoes” to Larisa, who opened the lid to find beans and cheese.  WRONG AGAIN, AMIGO!  Rick handed it back to the drive-through wizard and asked for the potatoes. 

We eventually got 17 items.  I still don’t know if they were the 17 that we ordered…. and it was NOT fast food.  I’m sure the people in the car behind us started chewing their nails due to hunger pangs.

This whole Mexican food extravaganza reminded me a time in Portland, Oregon when Rick and I were in a large van with about 12 people.  Call us stupid, but we went to the drive through at Taco Bell.  We ordered one by one and when all was paid for and received, I think only about eight people actually received what they ordered.  But we all ate something with meat and cheese and tortillas, so it was all good.  I wondered why we even ordered individually.  We could have just said “Send out 24 items.  We’ll pay $25,”  and we would have saved the ordering time.

You think we would have caught on by now, but no!

The Buffalo Chip in Cave Creek, AZ

Well, ya never what might happen when it’s a girls night out in Phoenix.  Last time me and my peeps went out, we sat in a Mexican restaurant and talked for hours.  That’s it.  Just talked.  The girls were helping me with the end of my marriage book by feeding me real-life stories from their own marriages to get my memory working.  It’s been months since Donna, Missy, Patty and I have been out together…. until last night. 

Again, we ate Mexican as El Encanto (Uno, not Dos) and then Donna, the entertainment director of the bunch, took us to the Buffalo Chip for some bull riding festivities.  It was hilarious… I think we were the only four not drinking beer and still having a great time.  We sucked in the dust.  We sang at the top of our lungs, “I’ve got friends in low places.”  We cheered for the golden boy named Pretty Boy, even though he needed some anger management classes.  We shook the bugs out of our shirts and bras.  (Seems that we sat right under the light from where the bugs start their dive-bombs.)

They have a live video camera in the bull chute so we could watch the cowboys (and Indians) tighten their ropes and get ready to ride.  My personal favorite was a guy named Bubba who has a small hole in his Wranglers in an extremely precarious location.  Adding to this dilemma, he was on an ornery bull that kept squatting down in the shoot and Bubba had to do lots of kicking and pushing to get the bull up and ready to rock and roll.  Sad part was, the camera was perfectly positioned to document aforementioned Wrangler hole as it continued to expand.  The G-rated bull riding activity was quickly progressing through PG and PG-13 until my eyes were closed.

In the photo above, you’ll notice the announcer’s shack on the right.  Well, Mr Bo-Jangles was having a humdinger time announcing until all of a sudden his shack went black and his mic went silent.  We could hear him yelling “The plug!  The plug!”  Yes, his entire announcing shack’s electrical was run by an orange extension cord around the bull pen to a plug on a light pole.  Someone stepped on it twice while we were there.  So rinky-dinky, it made me laugh.

Anyway, a great time was had by all.  And the Indian was the current winner when we left after round two.  Round three didn’t start until 10:45 and we were officially done at 10:15.  Thanks, Girls!

The Refried Bean Brick

My husband, Rick, went to a hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant  last night with his brother.  (My mother would not patronize such an establishment.)  He enjoyed it so much that he took the boys and I there tonight.  I must admit, their rolled tacos with guacamole made me want to jump up and dance the Cha-Cha …. ooohhhh they’re mucho bueno.

My boys both ordered bean burritos which is their normal fare at any Mexican establishment…. Taco Bell, Chipotle, Filiburto’s, Rolberto’s, Edwardoberto’s, etc.  However, these monstrous mounds of beans wrapped in a warm flour tortilla oozed filling as fast as lava from Kilauea.  There were so many brown bloppy puddles, I was surprised the boys actually consumed any beans at all. 

With the tortilla inhaled, my youngest asked for a spoon.  Mexican fast food joints don’t have spoons.  So Keeve picked out a knife.  I figured it was safe enough to eat off of.  How much damage could be done with a 5 inch flimsy plastic knife?  Surprisingly, he started scraping the bean blobs into one gigantic bean mound on his burrito wrapper that was doubling as his plate, placemat and table cloth. Next thing I know, he has the mushy mess formed into a brick  and is carefully shaping the corners to neat right angles with the precision of a master sculptor. 

I glanced over at his brother’s waxy paper which was still dotted with 27 piles of varying sizes and there was apparently no desire to gather them together, to form them into a brick, or to gingerly make each corner 45 degrees.  How can two brothers be so different???? 

I call them my salt and pepper boys… when they were small one had black hair and the other almost white-blonde.  One is neat.  One is messy.  One writes thank you cards.  One has to be coerced to write thank you cards.  One does his chores at the break of dawn.  The other has to be reminded that work comes before play.  One is quiet.  One is loud.  One has long arms.  The other is barrel chested.  I wonder how many kids we would have to have before we had just one that was anything like the siblings?  We’re not sure, but we know it is a number higher than three.