HOUSTON Day 1

The SMC friend of mine from the old board who started the new one (see the “Why are women so catty?” post from 4/2) lives in Houston with her beautiful brood of 5. She has triplets AND a set of twins. Her twins were born about 6 months after mine, and her son looks a lot like Lm—we call them their “other twin.” Jenn lost her mom in Feb, and I thought about visiting at some point. I tried to get a business trip out for June but they are sending me back to Cali.

This weekend the weather was again brutal here. Snow was predicted. I couldn’t take it anymore. Instead of waiting until the fall for the bad weather here again, I decided on Thursday night, hell, why not go down there now? First I called a friend of mine to go down with me, then I called Jenn and asked what she was doing this weekend. Then I asked my mom if she could watch Lk, as he would not be a good traveler and would have a miserable time. Finally, when it all looked like it would actually happen, I called my boss and told him I’d be out Fri and Monday.

Next morning we were off, just like that! It was 33 out the morning we left and 70 near Houston. I say near Houston because we had a little problem once we hit Dallas. That is, we drove 3 hours out of our way. (Don’t trust Mapquest.)

I called Jenn at 10:45pm and she goes, “So, are y’all in my driveway?”

“No, we decided to take a little side trip to Arkansas.”

She thought I was joking.

Sadly, I was not. So instead of getting to Jenn’s that night, we stopped at a hotel south of Dallas in Ennis, the Comfort Suites. Poor Lm was really crying at this point. He was an angel the entire trip. He’d fallen asleep around 9:30 in the car and I crawled in the back and held his head at a comfortable angle for two hours because his car seat does not allow for a comfy sleeping position and his head flopped to the front so he couldn’t sleep well otherwise.

At midnight we found a Comfort Suites and pulled over. They ran K’s credit card and I unpacked the entire car and loaded it on a hotel cart—which was A LOT of stuff, as Lm had his pack and play to sleep, a foam mattress, etc. I took Lm out, rolled the cart in…and the woman rudely tells me she can’t check us in, that she isn’t able to run the magnetic strip machine to get us cards. She said she wasn't used to being there alone to check people in. We asked if she would open our room with the master key so I could put Lm to sleep and she said “I can’t do that.” (She then said she refunded K’s credit card, but it’s now Tue and this morning I’m told there is a charge!)

I became unhinged at that point, Lm screaming in my ear and the cart full of stuff falling all over the lobby floor. I was actually shaking and felt some sort of panic attack coming on. She wouldn’t even tell us where another hotel was!

We found another one further along I-45 where the personnel was MUCH more competent and friendly, and stayed there, but Lm was inconsolable and I had to try to present the illusion that everything was alright, and I sang to him and soothed him off to sleep. Then I took 3 sleeping pills to fall asleep myself.

(End of Day 1…to continue with Day 2 and pictures later…don’t worry, it DOES get better!)