what I did in texas

05/14/2011

If someone can help me put up some pics from my trip, let me know
(OD, I really appreciate you wanting to help, but you have a lot on your plate and I understand.)


Saturday

Lisa met me at the airport and she gave me this huge hug and baby Devin, who’s almost 8 months old gave me a hug and a feel of my goatee. Lol We sat for a while while Lisa feeds Devin. She asks about my flight and we talk about the old days and who we keep in contact with and what they’re doing. She asks about my family and I relay each of their story. When Devin is good to go, we head out to her car and she forgot where she had parked it. She was so worried about being on time that she didn’t look around. Eventually she found it and we loaded up and headed to her house.

She told me about her house and how it’s a one floor house. I quickly learn that she is a touchy-feely lady. Whenever she empathizes a point she taps my leg or arm. (I don’t mind. I like the attention lol) She tells me more about this Matt guy she lives with and who is the daddy of her baby. He seems to be a nice guy.

We get to her house and she shows me around and to my room. Since everything is on one floor, the house seems that much more ginormous. It’s a 3 bed 2 bath with a nice size living room, a nice size kitchen, and a dining room which currently has their workout stuff in. Matt also has an office… I mean, a man cave.

Lisa was telling me about her new neighbors who are from south of Boston. There is a little girl and “one on the way” The little girl had came over that morning to give Lisa something? But it was 20 mins before she had to pick me up so Lisa told her that she is going to pick up a friend at the airport from Boston. Lisa went into details to me about the family.

Eventually Matt gets home and I’m introduced to him. There is NO DOUBT where he’s from with that southern accent. I actually couldn’t understand everything he said when he was telling Lisa about his day. He then explains the time line we have for the afternoon. They were taking me to go shoot guns on his friend’s property. I learn later, his friend owns 150 acres of land. That’s like… my entire neighborhood and then some lol but they have 10 cows and some other animals roaming around. So we get to the friend’s house. I am introduced to Matt’s friend and his wife and their 3 year old. (I learn later, the wife was wearing just a bikini, and even Lisa’s eyes were bugging out because of both her openness and her beauty) Introductions aside, we get in our separate cars and drive down their property a bit to where the targets are set up. Matt was telling me that I am going to do better than some of the army people he has trained because a lot of them rely on their eyes and the eyes can deceive.

Matt started by bringing me to where I would be shooting from. He explained that most battles are fought within a 7 yard distance. He walked me up to the target which was not much more than a thick cardboard nailed onto a 2by4 of a stick, sticking out from the ground. We walked back to where I will be shoot from and gives me the commands and how to have my body positioned. So we went through that. He then said to put my hands out. He placed a 22 caliber in my hand. He told me that when he is done with me, I will be able to load and fire this gun, and a few others all on my own. He told me to run a finger across the gun and everything I touched, he would name. He taught me about the safety key and how that works and… all that jazz. Lol. We went over the safety lock for about 5 minutes. Where it was, how to push it, and what it does internally. He had me practice holding the fun, using my thumb to unlock it and to put my finger back on the grip.
He takes the gun from me and places a bullet in my hand. It was bigger than I thought and had a little different shape than I imagined. He then handed me the magazine. That’s the bottom part of the gun where the bullets go in. He asked me to load it myself. “I am sure you can figure it out. You are a pretty smart guy.” And I did. He then handed me the barrow part of the gun and I put it together.

So now I am standing, with a loaded gun in my hand.
*.*.* flash back… one of the most memorable episodes of 90210, when Scott shows Brandon a gun his father has in his office and slow motion, you see Scott twirling the gun on a finger and the big “bang!” and Scott shoots himself dead. *.*.*.*

I am standing properly, with the gun pointing at the ground at about a 45 degree angle from me. He shouts out the first command which I have to bring my hands back to my chest with the gun pointing straight in front of me. He gives me the next command which means to put my arms out in front of my body and then he gave me the command to “FIRE” and that, I did. It felt… strange.

(I don’t want this to be a 25 page entry. It will be long enough so I’ll just say that he had me load with 2 bullets next and fire that off. Then we progressed to the next gun. The 9mm. He went through all the same steps as the 22 caliber and had me fire that one off. He showed me the 45 mm, but I didn’t get to fire it. The baby was getting tired.)

We thanked the friends and got back into his truck where they told me how good of a job I did. I hit the target 6 of 9 times including one in the head. (the target was of a person)

On the radio in the truck Matt had ESPN radio on and the Redsox twins game was on. The red sox eventually won. There was also 2 no hitters they were following but only Justin Verlander got a no hitter. It was his second one of his career.

For dinner Lisa made a homemade meat sauce and pasta with some sweet biscuits. It was very yummy.
I watched the Celtics win game 3 over Miami with Matt and Lisa alternating from the game and the baby.

Cigarette break
Lisa is a smoker but she doesn’t smoke in the house or in the car. So when the games were all over and she was heading out for her last cigarette break of the night, I joined her for some second hand smoke mmm. We shared stories about sex, drugs and she told me some army stories about when she served 6 months in Iraq. Scary shit.
Then we retired to our bedrooms.

Sunday
Mother’s day gifts: when I woke up I heard Lisa in the kitchen. Once I got up, I took the mommy day gifts which I brought. I asked her mom if she wanted me to bring anything so she wouldn’t have to mail it, so I had her gift too for Lisa. I got her a red sox shirt and a card and I got the baby a Wally the Green Monster, t-shirt. She loved them. She thought the Wally shirt was sooo cute. (Wally the Green Monster is the red sox mascot) Her mom gave her a redsox t shirt as well and money to get her nails done. “how did my mom know I needed to get them done?”

Lisa asked me what I wanted for breakfast. She ended up making vanilla flavored pancakes. They were good. I asked her why she was making them “It’s mother’s day. Shouldn’t Matt do that for you?” she said she enjoys cooking.

Matt’s family came over to pick up and babysit Devin so we could go to the game. There was a few of them that came over. I guess it was Matt’s niece and nephew and their baby and a few more people. They were talkative and nice. Except with their southern accents, I had a bit of a hard time understanding some of them. Lol

Baseball game TX vs NY

I got tickets to see the Yankees. If I can’t cheer for the Red Sox, the next best thing is to root against the Yankees. I had worried because I got really cheap seats. Although they were the cheapest seats in the house, they weren’t too too bad. They could see. We had hit traffic along the way with Lisa being a backseat driver, Matt was distracted and missed our turn so we didn’t get to the stadium till the bottom of the first. It was 92 and humid and climbing. Just like us, we kept climbing the stairs till finally we could go no more. We were on the 3rd deck in the last row, against the fence. Which, I was now very happy we had these seats because we were not in the sun at all. Right behind us was 6 flag’s Dallas.

Lisa and I were wearing Red Sox shirts. It was great. We got about 6 people who said to us “You guys are at the wrong game” “The Redsox don’t play here till August” and the guy who was passing Lisa the beers down the line gave Lisa a dirty look… He was wearing a Yankee’s shirt.

The Rangers took an early lead on CC but the Yankees hit their way to tie and eventually go ahead. Derek Jeter broke a homerun drought with hitting home runs in back to back at bats. There was a lot of Yankee fans. The Rangers went on to win by a lot.

There was a family sitting in front of us. Lisa was pounding down the beers. She is a fun drunk though. She was offering candy to the kids in front of us. “do you want some candy? You have to ask your dad first. The box is not opened yet” Then because it was mother’s day, they were giving out ranger’s hats with pink beads. Lisa was mad that I didn’t get one. I was trying to tell her that it was ok but she was having none of that. A kid a few seats over gave us his hat. Lisa gave the kid 5 bucks even though the father tried to not accept it.

Lisa said she saw a butterfly. She said “I love butterflies. They are so beautiful” I reached under her and squeezed her right ass cheek. And said “I know” she laughed and said “that’s the right cheek” She has a butterfly tattoo on her right ass cheek.

I didn’t hear how the conversation began but I quickly learned what it was about.
Lisa said that she wants to get boob implants. She said that she has size (whatever she said) and she wants it to be (whatever she said) She took my hand and put on her right boob. And said “this is how big I am” (I didn’t take advantage, no squeezing lol but I didn’t mind it) and then pulled my hand back and said this would be size … She said that it would fit her body better. Drunk or not, she would have done that anyways lol.

She keep chanting “Yankees stink” and “Let’s go whatever your name is!” and “we need a pitcher, not a belly itcher” it was fun.

They had a few fun things in between different innings. One of the innings they have a little kid try to run from the outfield wall to 2nd base, try to pull the base up and then run back to the wall in 35 seconds. If he does that, he gets to keep the base. If not, he wins something anyways. On this day they kid didn’t do it. In between another inning, everyone sings that song which has the lyrics “deep in the heart of Texas” in it. Then in the 8th inning on Sundays only, they have 5 sheets with a digit on each and the fans try to put them in the correct order to match that of the attendance.

They also have some other cool things for kids. Under the bleachers there is a place for kids to take batting practice and to see how fast they can throw. It’s pretty cool.

I wanted a picture of Nolan Ryan’s retired 34 number. Matt didn’t know where the retired numbers were. We walked around looking for anything that had Ryan’s name but we couldn’t find anything. The suites all had names but none of them were named after my Hero and the owner. Oh well.

After the game Matt went to go pick up the baby and Lisa and I went out for stakes to a local stake place. I got stake with onion rings and a salad. They bring out corn bread with jalapenos in them. I loved them. I told Lisa about my work situation and my lack of a girl situation with talking about past relationships. As far as my work issue, she said it made her mad. I also told her about my coworker who got killed and how I am not sure if this is what I want to do anymore. She asked what I would want to do I told her I don’t know. People have told me I should publish my poetry. She agreed and said that I should label them as my memoirs. She asked about my girl situation. she asked me what I was looking for. She asked me if I cared if the person had a disability. “I know how hard it is for me to be living with a disability, I couldn’t imagine how difficult it would be to live with someone who also has one.” … “but if the perfect woman came and she had a disability, I’m sure we’d make it work.” Just as I explained over and over, I described my perfect woman. I admitted “and someone who has a personality like you” She agreed would be helpful. She understood how-why it is so hard for me to find someone and how I basically have to rely on dating sites as I have no other means of finding anyone.

We went home and Lisa played with the baby for a little bit. I was watching the espn Sunday night game of the week. I didn’t have dessert at the restaurant because she said she had vanilla bean ice-cream at the house. So I had that and listened to the rest of the game before I went to bed.

Monday

I wanted to go somewhere that was “historical” during the day. After not coming up with anything, Matt said to Lisa late Sunday night to take me to the Dallas Cowboy stadium for a tour.: It was pretty cool. We chose to do the self guided tour and we walked onto the field. We went into the locker room and the cheerleader’s locker room. We went into the press conference room and the player’s Bud Light Bar and lounge area. Some of the pictures Lisa took of me is standing on the NFL logo, next to where it says the #50 for the 50 yard line, I stood on the Dallas Cowboy’s star in the middle of the field. In the Locker room I took a picture in front of tony Romo’s locker, took a picture in front of a redhead’s cheerleader’s locker, bud Light bar. Press room with me at the podium. We went into the pro shop and Lisa took a picture of me wearing a “ten gallon” Dallas Cowboy hat.

We went to Pluckers, a wing joint. It was the same restaurant, dif location I went to last year in Austin when my sister went for the Woman’s football super bowl. I had a sampler of buffalo, sweet and spicy, hallelujah and it came with waffle fries. I don’t recall what we talked about. I remember the very nice waitress asked us if we were from Boston. (I had my red sox shirt on) She then talked about the Celtics game and how even the people in the kitchen kept coming out to check on the score. I’m not sure if Lisa cared for the wings. I think the miled was a little too much for her. However, I loved my wings. Not only did I get 3 different flavors, they came out well-done, just how I like them.

We went home to relax for an hour. And Matt was home a few minutes later from work. He told Lisa (and me) about his day and they talked about the baby a bit. I went into my room to relax for a little bit before the game.

Rangers game vs Oak A’s
I had bought these really cool seats. They are “all you can eat”. We got to the park about half hour early. Lisa got a beer and we walked around a bit. She saw a statue and a guy said it was Tom (someone) the guy who brought the rangers from Washington. Lisa said “too bad it’s not Nolan Ryan” the guy said “he’s over there” The statue was of MR. Ryan tipping his cap. The statue was about 7 ft tall or so. I stood next to it and Lisa said the sun is glaring in behind it so we’ll come back later. We ended up coming back after the game and I got to take a picture with a statue of my hero. I was like a little boy. I was so excited. Good thing it wasn’t him in person. I would have passed out. Lol

We went up to our seats and the place was empty! There was a pole obstructing Lisa’s view so we moved over a few. She asked me what I wanted to eat. I told her I would go with her. It was like a little cafeteria. You walk around and get what you want and bring it to the cash register. I had got a pretzel and a drink. However, pretzel wasn’t one of the free things. She paid for it and everything else was free. I wanted salted but I only like it sprinkled on. This was like they put butter on and dipped the pretzel in a tub of salt. It was so salty that I couldn’t even finish it. Lisa kept going up. She would go for a smoke than go and get more food. She did this 3 times, the last time she took 2 boxes of peanuts to take home because she was addicted to them. The hotdog was just ok. I think if it didn’t have all that stuff on it, I would not have eaten it. Lisa remembered that I like jalapenos. So she put some on my dog. Yum. We also had popcorn that was boxed popcorn. She tried the chicken that she said tasted like bbq rubber. So pretty much the only thing we approved was the peanuts. Can’t screw that up much. I told her that my Jewness was rubbing off on her. For taking home the peanuts. She said that I already paid for them. I guess she was right. I do have to say we definitely got our money’s worth. We had 2 hotdogs, chicken, 4 boxes of peanuts and 2 boxes of popcorn. I had 2 sodas and all that was “free” with our seats. It was great.

I guess there was a game too. Oakland beat Texas. I must be bad luck for the Rangers. Lisa kept herself entertained by calling out things to the players. It was funny. Lisa really is a great person to go to the game with. I had the head phones on one ear and she was talking to me in the other so even when the game was boring, she made it interesting. On the way out of the stadium I got a shot glass. I now have a hobby of collecting shot glasses at the stadiums I’ve been to. I don’t have many as I really just started.

We drove home and Lisa was telling me another few of her Iraq stories. She really has no fear. She orchestrated a grilled steak feast for the people in her group and she put her life on the line to give these 68 men and women soldiers an hour of normalcy. She said it was one of the most satisfying moments of her life.

Another story she told me was that she was in a clinic and they had just amputeed a man’s leg. Well two of the fellow soldiers were there with her. They asked her if she wanted a can of Coke to drink. She said that she had not had anything besides water and powdered Gatorade for a few months and so she said she felt like a little kid in a candy store. They pointed at the cooler and she opened it up and… there was the guy’s leg. They two guys were on the floor laughing and she was p-o’ed. I told her that I would have been sick.

We got back to her place and Matt was still up. He was in his man cave playing games on his computer. I somehow got to talking about how I have arthritis and I have had it my entire life and it was one of a few causes of my blindness. She said she developed it in her right wrist in 2004. So sometimes when she is washing dishes, her wrist will lock up and it is very painful for her. (she even took my hands to show me) Lisa told Matt about what I had told her earlier. (not to tell the story twice, I left it for here)Lisa was talking about in the car at some point that day, how expensive it will be when they come up for a few days in September because it will be labor day week end and all the hotels jack their prices up and she didn’t want to stay at her mother’s house. I told her that my parents have a condo on the beach that they don’t use much and would be happy to let you stay. Then later to both of them, I told them that there is a train station two blocks down. Lisa was excited by this because everything they want to do is in Boston anyways so they could save even more money by not having to rent a car.(I asked my parents when I got home. They individually said “of course she can” I think I saved them about $600)
Lisa was going to bed. I figured I would go too. I thanked Matt for letting me come and stay and I shook his hand. He said that I am welcomed anytime.

As I think about it, except for staying at my twin’s house, I feel more relaxed with Matt and Lisa in their house than anywhere else I’ve stayed and that is saying a lot with all the traveling I’ve done in my life.

Tuesday
Issues getting to and at the airport: there was a lot of unexpected traffic. At one point we were stopped on a main highway for a solid 2 minutes. We got to the airport and Lisa was going to have me do the side curb check in because she would have to park the car and get the baby out with a carriage etc. I had no problem with that. Except that there was a really long line. We got in line for a few minutes and Lisa said “I’m going to see if there is a disability line. You stay right here” so I did. She came back and said “I asked them if there was any handicap line and the guy just said no. you have to wait in line.” So Lisa had been parked on the side so she took the baby and left me there so she could find a parking spot. She came back freaking out. Said the baby was being a fuss and there is no parking spots available. I don’t know what to do” (at this point, there was about 35 minutes before my flight took off.) we walked up to a different window and explained the situation. I think Lisa was on the edge of breaking down. Between her car being on the side of the curb. My flight being x minutes from taking off and the guy not wanting to help me. The lady said that she would get someone to help. I rubbed Lisa’s back as we were waiting for a response and she was hot through her shirt and not because of the weather either. ( although that couldn’t help) so finally someone was there to assist me. I gave Devin a hug. Gave Lisa a huge hug. Thanked her, told her I loved her. (and as I said it, I fought back a tear)

Long flight: We had a layover in STL and I was sitting in one chair with no radio or anything for 5 hrs. it was long and boring.

Home again: my father picked me up and I went to my room and started to unpack and when my mom came back from where ever she was, I went up stairs and told them all about the trip…. Except for the gun part which I told my mom later but I didn’t want my father to know. She told my father sometime tonight (wed night) They both thought it was cool.

THE END