One Mississippi, two Mississippi, and please no more Mississippi

Well.

I didn’t write anything yesterday because it was Columbus Day and Caroline had a school holiday. In case you’re wondering about the significance of Columbus Day, I believe Les Miles explains it best in the clip below.

It’s not like St. Paddy’s day.

So let’s start with the good news. The Aggies don’t have to play another team from Mississippi the rest of the season.

But here’s the bad news. We have to play Alabama in Tuscaloosa this Saturday.

You can rest assured that I have read all manner of theories and opinions as to what is going on with the Aggie football team right now and I really don’t have anything to add that’s of any interest. As much as I believe Coach Sumlin probably wants me to weigh in, I’m going to just say that my love of Texas A&M goes much deeper than our football program and I’m choosing to focus on that.

Anyway, the important thing is Gulley and I were there together and had a great time in spite of the outcome of the game.

When I dropped Caroline off at school on Friday morning, I was so ready to get out of town that I had to remind myself to say, “Goodbye! I love you! I’ll miss you!” as opposed to “See you later, sucker! Mama’s out of here!”

We couldn’t leave until Gulley got off work at 3:00 and she texted me at noon that the day was dragging by. I had the same exact thought. There are just times you are ready to get on the road with your best friend and this weekend was one of them. Junior High is about to kill us both and we needed a break, not to mention we haven’t had an uninterrupted conversation since August 20.

And so I was parked in front of her house ready to go at 3:30. She jumped in the car and we proceeded to talk non-stop for the next four hours as we drove to College Station. That’s right. I said FOUR HOURS. This is significantly longer than it usually takes but we were in traffic for over an hour just to get to San Marcos because there had been a big wreck on I-35 that had completely shut down all three lanes and everyone was being diverted to the access road. Normally, this would drive me crazy but I didn’t even care because we had so many topics to cover. What kind of topics, you ask? I don’t even know. We started with our eyebrows and went down the list from there.

When we arrived at Honey and Big’s house there was a ton of food waiting for us and it took us about five minutes to change into our pajamas and gather around the kitchen table. Apparently this is what happens when you’re forty-three. Who cares about going to the Chicken or Midnight Yell Practice? Give me my pajamas by 7:30 and some chicken salad with Fritos. What more could a girl want for a complete Friday night?

Then we all sat down in the living room and solved a myriad of problems and speculated on the Aggie football team (it turns out we were all wildly optimistic) until I finally looked over at Gulley to have her confirm a point I was trying to make only to discover she had fallen sound asleep sitting straight up in a chair. This is what wrangling three-year-olds for a living will do to you. Although in all fairness, this is what she’s done since I’ve known her. She can fall asleep mid-conversation like no one I have ever seen. I choose to not take it personally.

We all went to bed, slept in the next morning, and then watched Gameday and drank coffee and, I’ll just confess, stayed in our pajamas until 2:30. In our defense, it was pouring down rain and we had nowhere to be until the game kicked off at 8:00 p.m. Around 3:00 Gulley and I realized it was significantly cooler than what we had planned for and made a quick trip to Target to look for some type of sweater or jacket to wear over the maroon shirts we’d packed for a forecast that had predicted temps in the 90’s. And we lamented over the inaccurate forecast that had caused us both to leave all manner of maroon sweaters and jackets in our closets at home in San Antonio.

Finally it was time to head out to tailgate and mentally prepare for the game. We absolutely succeeded on the tailgate front, but all the preparations in the world couldn’t have prepared us for that game.

(We smiled for the camera, but the girl’s face behind us speaks volumes about what was going on down on the field.)

Here’s the thing. The new Kyle Field is amazing, the crowd was as loud at kickoff as I’ve ever heard it, the turf looked perfect, the weather could not have been better, and the Aggie band was at its finest. The only thing lacking was the actual football team. I could give you all my theories and thoughts but I’m assuming if you care that much then you’ve already spent time on various forums and message boards and have your own opinions, plus I bet Ann Voskamp will post all about it tomorrow.

We got home around 1 a.m. and fell into bed, then woke up Sunday morning hoping it had all been a bad dream but thankful that Big had picked up breakfast tacos for all of us to ease the sting of the loss. You’d be amazed what an egg, bean and bacon taco can do for your mental state. And then Gulley and I began to deal with the reality that our weekend away had come to an end. That’s always the worst part of looking forward to something on your calendar for so long, the realization that it’s all over.

Around 3:00 we finally made ourselves pack up our stuff and get in the car to head home. And as soon as we saw our people, we were excited to be back to our real life.

At least until we remembered we both had to go to the grocery store.