I’ll fast forward to me getting on the plane.
Friday
After a 90 minute delay on the plane, where we just sat on the plane, the rest of the flight was very good. I love jetblue. They have TV-Radio at each seat so I watched ESPN the entire time. Sure beats listening to an MP3 player, wondering what time it is. How many more songs to go…
I met Lisa in the baggage area. Her 2 year old Devin, was fussing so we grabbed the luggage and headed to the car. Once she got him in the car, she opened the door for me and I turned towards her and pulled her towards me for a tight hug. It was very nice.
We chatted about the flight and some of the John-Kat drama. She had to focus a few times, she wasn’t trusting the GPS. We got to her house and we relaxed for a bit. I got out gifts I brought. A redsox t-jersey of Napoli, who use to be on the rangers, and there’s an inside joke that …isn’t appropriate about him. Lol. So that was for her. She loved it. I had bought Devin two shark waterguns, a RedSox shirt, a beach ball, and a drawstring bag that can be Devin’s pool bag. The bag I had checked was a bag of clothes her mom sent with me for Devin. It was John’s son’s clothes. So she had opened this huge bag (43lbs of clothes) and it had 37 shirts, 8 pants, some shorts, and two jackets. She had made me a frozen pizza for lunch and then it was play time!
Last time, her son Devin, who is diagnosed as speech delayed, didn’t want any part of me and didn’t want me to have any part of Lisa, he was jealous. This time, it was the exact opposite. He took my hand, and pulled me to the play room or to places he wanted me to go. We watched a lot of movies during my time here and as some of you know, those with little kids, like to watch the same movie, over and over and over again. We watched this DC Lego movie about 7 times. We went to the store to buy some grocery. She pulled the carriage and I pushed. Devin was home with his father, it made shopping a lot easier.
She had made a dish that I had requested but was already on her menu, she makes an awesome spicy spaghetti sauce… I’m sorry, gravy. She also had rolls.
Not sure what we did Friday night. I think just watched more kids movies.
SATURDAY
A week ago, I had sent my freshman college roommate an fb message, saying that I would be in the area if he wanted to get together. He told me to hit him up when I got here. I had sent him a message Late Friday night, he responded Saturday saying:
James: It is not far from me. Btw do you want to come to a indoor football game tonight and sit on the field in my box? I sponsor the team. You can bring your friends. 7pm in Allen about 25 minutes from her town.
Jonathan: sounds wicked awesome. we would love to go. It will be great to see you again. My friend's name is Lisa. Let me know when-where to meet you and if there is anything else I should know. THANKS AGAIN!
He gave me the address to the place and his number. I told him I would call him when I got there.
I was very excited to see my freshman roommate who I have not seen in 14 years. I can’t believe he has money to be able to sponsor an indoor professional football team. I couldn’t wait to hear what he does and to catch up on life a bit.
We had planned on hitting the pool before noon, so the sun wasn’t extremely hot. We headed down about 11. They have this kiddy pool next to the real pool. It’s hmm I think 1.5 ft deep. It also has a waterfall in the middle. It’s pretty cool. So we stayed there. There was a few other kids there and we had brought the beach ball and the water guns. Most of the time we played with the water guns with the other kids. Devin was more interested in noodle slices… someone took a pool noodle, and cut it up in inches, so you had a bunch of rings that floated. So what we would do is throw them and the kids would go get them. It was fun. We stayed for about an hour then we headed back for lunch.
LUNCH, she made us this buffalo chicken but she cut it up and put it in some type of Crockpot for 4 hrs. It came out like chopped spaghetti. I didn’t care for the texture. I ate it anyways. I enjoyed the fries and the buffalo sauce a lot.
We played for a bit and they took a nap. At some point Matt came home.
We got ready for the night. We were debating on if we should get dressed up or not. On one hand it was a football game but on the other hand, we were sitting in a luxury box. I decided we would get dressed up. I didn’t have any clothes so I wore another man’s clothes…lol. I wore a polo shirt of Matt’s and dress shorts with a belt to hold up my shorts lol.
She had wore this dress, with an opened back-shoulders. She was kinda iffy about it. I thought it was too much… or not enough depending on how you look at it lol. She wanted to stop at TJ Mac to look around. Maybe find a dress that was more suited for the occasion. We went in, she went through the dresses in her size. She did find one she liked. We went over to the bathing suits to check them out. I told her she should buy a bikini. She says she doesn’t have the body for it. I said sure you do. She goes, you are sweet, but no. She didn’t find any she liked. She tried the dress on in the dressing room, she liked it so she paid for the dress and we left. I was wondering how she would changed into the dress… Lisa being Lisa and having no shame… she changed in the car. Somehow she put the dress on and then had to wiggle out of the other dress and then since the first dress didn’t need a bra with it but the second one did, she had to put a bra on somehow under the dress. And …we were off to the game.
We got to the arena and Lisa couldn’t believe how small it looked from the outside. I called James and he said that he would be new the front entrance. We parked and walked around to the front. As we were walking towards the front door I hear “hey Jonathan” and Lisa said, you must be James. They introduced each other and James gave me a quick half-hug. I was in shock a little bit. I have not seen James in 14 years. His personality hasn’t changed. He said “this is crazy, it’s surreal” I agreed. There was a couple of other people outside with James who he introduced us to them. He leads us to the indoor field. And walks us down to his field box.
There is two high top tables, with 4 chairs around each of them. Lisa and I sit at one of the tables. James introduces us to our personal waitress. He says to us to order anything we want. He ordered a peanuts and popcorn for us already.
He had a bunch of clients and their families there. They were sitting in the general seat behind the box. He would rotate his clients down to his box and talk some business and some game talk with them.
He told us about his company and what he does. Pretty much, he’s a financial planner. He said that he made a “lucrative” amount of money quickly. He told us about his family. He said that he is blessed to have an awesome wife and has 3 children, two girls and a boy ages 5-4-3 years old.
I told him about what I’ve been up to. Lisa told him about her life.
Lisa would tell me about the dancers and the players, describing them to me. She was telling me how this one dancer “has the biggest ass for a good looking woman” and how this other dancer “has a small ass and smaller boobs.” I just mentally rolled my eyes. From time to time she would tell me what was happening in the game but I was pretty much just in awe that I was sitting here in James’ box.
The most “it’s a small world” story you will EVER hear…
They were talking army stuff as they were both in the army. Lisa told him what division she was in and he said oh I was in this division. She said she was in Iraq from June 2004 to March 2005. He said that he was there from March 2004 till December of 2004. Lisa said what base were you on? He said a base and she said that she was stationed at the same base at the same time. He said where specifically he was on the base and Lisa says “oh, you were one of them?” He says “yaaaah, I was one of them” She told him what she did. She throughout a random name. He said how do you know him? She said that she taught him all he knows about (something military). They through out more names and talked about them. It was amazing to me as I am sure it was to them.
James told me that one of the owners of the team is the NFL hall of famer, Tim Brown. He said that he would probably be here tonight. He can get a pic with me and I could put it on FB. He said that he is good friends with Tim Brown. They go golfing together. I was in awe. In the middle of the second quarter of the game, James texted Tim Brown to see if he was coming to the game. Tim responded, saying he was doing a taping for a TV show. He did introduce me to the other owner and I got a picture with him.
I had eventually got a hamburger. Lisa ordered a letis chicken wrap. When my burger came out, it had cheese on it. James over heard that I didn’t want cheese and looked at the burger and saw cheese on it. He had asked someone else who had just ordered if they ordered a cheese burger. The other person said yes so he got my burger and James said no problem, I’ll get you a another burger right away. He saw the waitress and explained the situation. The burger the other person just ordered, she made sure that would be a ham burger and it came out within 5 minutes with fries. It was very good. Lisa loved her Letis Chicken wrap. She also had 2 beers. I got a sprite. My sprite made a super-size McDonalds drink look small.
The Texas Revolutions lost 45-31, but it was fun.
James told us we could go on the field after the game and get pics if we wanted and maybe some autographs. We went onto the field and Lisa would go around to the players who stayed out, and asking if they would take a picture with my friend. (me) They all said yes. It was funny. It was like we were little kids. Walking around the field and walking up to the players asking for pics. We also took pics of me with dancers, one of them with really big boobs. Ms. Texas 2013 was there too, I got a pic with her. She was very nice. One of the pictures I got with a player, the guy was huge! Lisa said that his thigh was about the same as her waste. He was also 6 feet 9 inches. Lisa said I came up to his armpit.
She asked me if “want to take a picture with two big black guys?” I laughed and said sure. I was sandwiched between two 300 lbs. Then the tall player came over to us and handed us his gloves. He signed them and told us he had worn them the entire season. We thanked him.
I wanted a pic with James and I did and a pic with Lisa, and did that too.
We had thanked James and he gave me a hug and thanked me for coming. I thanked him for inviting us and told him we had a great time.
SUNDAY
I woke up early again for me, as I ended up doing the entire time I was down there. I walked out to the kitchen, and there is a direct line of site from the play room. Devin saw me and came running towards me. I heard his little feet running towards me so I kneeled down and he gave me a hug. I picked him up in my arms and put him back down and he ran back to his toys. I was smiling sooo big.
I took a shower and got ready for the game. It was a 2pm start and we wanted to get there really early. They were giving away hats. So we got there when gates opened. It was 98 and humid. It was gross. We went in, got our hats, walked around the “ranger’s hall of fame” a store-like room that had a lot of memorabilia and videos from over the years as well as the plaques of the players who have retired numbers. Lisa took a pic of me in front of Nolan Ryan’s plaque.
We went back out to the AC car till a bit before the game. I had bought an ice cream for a dollar. It was dollar ice cream day if you knew where to find them. Some people were buying the ice cream from the normal ice cream venders that cost like 4 dollars an ice cream. Lisa asked me if I would buy her a beer, she said she didn’t have cash on her. I said of course. He said to the guy behind the counter, “pimp is buying me a beer” I laughed and said ya, a pimp. I bought her another beer later on. I bought myself another ice cream later on too. They were good. We were allowed to bring in bottles, no cans though. So I was drinking a little bottle of Gatorade an inning. I was melting. OH, so our seats. Right. Our two seats combined cost less than a single beer. Lisa was so happy when she found $4 seats on line. They were in the 3rd deck near the right field foul pole. They were great seats. Especially for $4 and yes, one ball did come near us, about a section over. Lisa said she could see everything. Although they looked like ants. Lisa likes the environment of games. She likes telling me about the beautiful and …not so beautiful people and the silly people and the cute little kids. By the 2nd inning, I was starting to burn. Lisa saw a woman a few seats down from us spraying her young child with some sun block and asked her if she could have some. But the time Lisa got there, the woman had reached her hand out with it in her hand before Lisa could even get the question out. She sprayed my legs, arms and the back of my neck.
By the 4th inning, Lisa had changed into a tank top and soaked her t shirt In cold water to put on the back of my neck. The Rangers were losing big time, I was listening on a radio and was telling Lisa what was happening when something important happened. She would be screaming things like “We need a pitcher not a belly itcher” “we need a batter not a broken latter” and would try to start the “let’s go ranger’s” chant. And of course her favorite line she says to me “I got boob sweat” She had taken our “annual” mug shot at the game and posted it on face book, writing “sweating our parts off” lol silly woman.
By the 6th inning we went for cool cover and by the 8th inning, when the rangers were down 6-0, and we were both really hungry, we had left. I think the final score was 7-1 Blue Jays.
We went to Olive Garden. It was a trip to try to find the place even with the GPS or maybe because of the GPS. It was 10 minutes away but it ended up being 20 minutes away… or rather, it took us 20 minutes to get 10 minutes away. We got to the restaurant. Of course of the things I was thinking, the last time I was at an olive garden out of my state was on Nov 4, with Karen.
We took our time, we relaxed. We ordered drinks chatted, ordered food. Eat our salad and bread sticks. I had ordered tornalini with meat sauce. Hmm I like ground up hamburger type meat sauce. It was basically slices of steak on top of my pasta. I didn’t care for the steak. Lisa enjoyed it but I ended up eating it all. I was hungry. We also ordered a second bowl of salad which we finished. We couldn’t move after all that food and drinks. Our waiter was just ok. Lisa got a fish dish that she was pleasantly surprised that it was fresh and it was a big piece. Since she cooked for me and made her home my home and all that, I insisted on paying. So I paid for this day and didn’t argue the next night… but that’s later in the story. She thought it was great. Two nights in a row she didn’t pay.
It bothers me, when she constantly talks about money and she doesn’t go out almost ever and when they do it’s for pizza or on a very rare occasions, they’ll go for steak at a steak restaurant but mostly, they eat home. I’d say they eat home 28 of 30 days. She loves to cook and bake and plus it’s a pain to get the little one ready and for him to behave. I can totally understand and appreciate all that. I wish my parents would eat home more but we don’t. You do what you can and for her, she has everything she needs and her family is happy. She says she’s hoping to be completely out of debt by next year. That would be awesome.
Hmm so back to my story
Even though Lisa put that sun block on me, I still managed to get a nice red hot burn on my knees. Lisa kept putting stuff on them. The time Tuesday morning came around, they weren’t bad.
When we got back to the house, Matt was outside with Devin, cleaning off the ATV from when they went camping a few weeks ago and it was all muddy. They were doing other things in the garage too. We sat outside, enjoying the nice weather in the shade, or at least I was. Lisa took Devin for a ride around the neighborhood then let me drive it. I just drove it up the street and into their driveway. Lisa was verbally assisting me from the yard. She even took a pic of me driving as I was pulling in. Eh, it’s crazy Lisa being crazy Lisa. Letting a blind man drive an ATV.
Monday
For the first 3 days, Devin was all over me. On this day, he wanted nothing to do with me. We even played with play dough. Where I made a car, a snowman and a Zelda sword. Which I had Lisa take a pic of for me to send to Karen. Lisa was sending a lot of pics to my mom during my vacation. My mom asked who was having more fun? Lisa replied “ME” meaning her.
I was a bit sad that whenever I got close to him he would squirm away and if Lisa was there, he would try to either hide behind her if she was standing or if she was sitting-laying down, he would get up on her.
Hmm There was this rain storm that they said would hit at 4:10 PM and at 4:02 Lisa looked outside and saw half her yard was in bright sun and the other half in gray clouds… just as they predicted, at 4:09 the rain came and came in buckets. With the strong winds, it was blowing the rain sideways. It was pretty scary for a short time but Lisa said it was somewhat normal. They wouldn’t get rain for a month in a row and then get one of these. It was thundering a lot before the rain came. It was constant for almost an hour before the rain added to the thunder-lightning.
Lisa had made a nice steak dinner, which she and Matt took turns checking on the steaks. I like mine well done. I’m trying to teach them what that means but when she likes it red and he likes it pink, me liking it black and crispy, they couldn’t figure out how to get it that way. It was still good as she had it marinating in a sauce for an hr. She also made mash potatoes and corn and a salad. I was going to have Matt’s salad but they reminded me that we were going to go for ice cream later, so I held back.
We went to sonic. I wanted my normal strawberry slush. They couldn’t figure it out. It wasn’t on the menu. When Matt ordered, the guy was fumbling with trying to understand we wanted two hot fudge ice cream with caramel, a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a strawberry slush. When it came out, it was correct, including my strawberry slush. I let Matt Pay for me.
We went back to the house to eat it. We watched some hockey till Lisa asked if I could put on a movie for Devin. I said sure. I had my computer, I was checking on my notes-likes for my ATV pic. and we chatted some. Mostly about the awesome weekend. Matt was long gone into his Man Cave… as Lisa likes to call it, She said to me while cuddled up next to me with her head on my shoulder, “one more day would have been nice” I agreed with her.
When the movie was over, she put Devin to bed and we talked for a few more minutes before she went to sleep and I went to my room to start packing up, taking out my clothes for the following day, charging up my phone and then computer.
Tuesday
I was up about 7:30. I was on my computer till about 8 and then I got into the shower and finished packing up. Making sure I had everything. Matt’s mother came over with two of her other grand children to watch Devin so Lisa didn’t have to worry about him and me at the airport and having him freak out or anything. We chatted with Matt’s mother for a little bit and then I tried to give Devin a hug, he wanted no part of me. I was a bit sad because of that. I was sad in general that I was leaving. I didn’t want to go home.
Off to the airport we went. We made great time. Lisa helped me get my boarding pass and made sure everything was all set, I was handed off to a redcap, but not before Lisa gave me a huge hug, “I love you” were exchanged “thank you” and call me when you land”
I got on the plane and I was shipping up to Boston, as the song goes.
And that’s the story of my 2013 Texas trip.
THE END
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