Yellow

So, I got this in an email from my mom: "I tried to 'educate' myself and looked up 'blog' in the dictionary.....not there" and " I didn't know what a 'blog' was......I've read one now, but, could you also clarify where they go, and what it means, etc". You're never too old to get good advice from your mom, right?

Well, for all you 70-year-old, internet savvy people out there who don't know what a blog is....it is a "web-log". I knew the gist of what blogs contained but learned the origins of the word from my husband after casually flinging "blog this, blog that" about in conversation with a friend.

She said, "What does blog mean?" and I responded with a blank stare. J answered for me. Saved me!

I just reread the quoted line of my mom's email---she asked me to clarify "where they go".That's hilarious, I must have missed that. I guess that depends on just how you feel about me or what I've written. For you mom, straight to the heart. I am using this venue of a WEB LOG as a sort of update on our comings and goings---as they are noteworthy, Bo and Avee's growth and anecdotes, and my own contemplations.

J started a blog, and you all probably thought I was joking about the peak oil stuff---I wasn't. Check it out if you'd like. http://peakoilmusings.blogspot.com/

So, are you wondering about my title? It's not my favorite color, it's not how I feel when J's out of town and I'm alone at night, it's not even my second favorite color.

J has been out of town for 6 days. As I was driving Bo to Chuck E. Cheese (just a side-note, until today I thought it was Chucky Cheese) this morning for a birthday party, and getting him all psyched up for it, he squealed when we pulled into the parking lot, "Will daddy be at the party?!" Even with the helicopter ride, tunnels to climb through, twisty-slide, unlimited ski-ball, pizza and soda, and the $15 roll of Smarties we "earned" with our tickets, I am certain, being with daddy instead would have been an even better morning for Bo.

Bo is doing so well with his absence, Avee not as well, and me the worst. I hesitate to admit stuff like that because I really should be better at this than I am, and second, I don't want to make J feel bad about doing what he does to bring home the jr bacon cheeseburgers. But it is what it is, I love being with J and love getting breaks from the kids almost as much.

When I was about 11 or 12 I used to tune in regularly to the Saturday night country music request lines on the radio. It was around that time that I got turned onto the song, "The Yellow Rose of Texas". My mom had taught it to us when we were younger (her version was definitely based on the traditional version, not the country one referring to "doing hard time"). I was probably just astounded when I heard it being sang with twang on the radio. What I didn't know was that I might have been the only listener within about 500 miles (we were about that far from Texas) that wanted to hear it more than once every six months.

One Sunday afternoon was an all request day and my younger brother and I spent the entire afternoon trying to call in to make our request. We got in and made our request and sat by the radio waiting anxiously. 15 minutes would pass and NOTHING. They'd play 3-4 songs and go to commercial. So we called in again. The man said he'd play it. 30 minutes passed, and still nothing.

We were very busy 11 and 12 year old children, we didn't have time to wait for every other request to be made. So we called in again. I remember very clearly, being certain that it wouldn't matter if we kept calling in---surely in the large listening area we were calling from, there were other people calling in to hear Yellow Rose of Texas. It never, ever occurred to me that might not be the case. And it certainly never occurred to me that I sounded 12!

So, when we called in the 3rd time, feeling incognito through the phone, the request-taker/DJ yelled, "You STOP calling me, I got it the first time, I'm not going to play it at all if you don't stop calling here!" We were stunned. How did he know it was us? I don't think he ever played the song---but it might not have mattered---I think we spent the rest of the afternoon trying to figure out how he knew it was us every time.

When I was in junior high I decided that yellow roses were my favorite flowers. I decided pretty early on, and made it a well-known fact among my circles of friends. I believed in covering my bases because if my oh-so-romantic, would-be boyfriend ever wanted to surprise me on the 3-week anniversary of the first time we ever stood in front of our lockers holding hands and were late for class, he'd just have to ask one of my friends and they could say without having to think, "She loves yellow roses". I also loved the roses my dad grew in our yard, particularly the yellows, touched with orange. And I read somewhere that yellow rose was the flower of friendship and I loved that idea.

When I was on my mission, I served with a senior couple that I absolutely adored. They had a daughter with my same name and they nicknamed me their "Yellow Nobody". I loved it. It was a tender nickname referring to me being an out-going "yellow" as described by the color code personality test. Yellows are fun-loving, out-going, crave attention, social, forgetful, obnoxious, and irresponsible. I'm only about half of those...

It was a loving nickname, but I would often think, "I'm not really a yellow though, I just seem like it." when I later took the test---I was equal parts yellow, blue, and white, and not ONE IOTA RED. Yep, that's me. A red-less redhead.

I believe those results. If I had red in me, I wouldn't have a huge pile of laundry sitting behind me in the hallway, having been there for two weeks, as I happily blog. I'd be going to bed on clean sheets. My kids would have been bathed before going to bed tonight. The presents I took to the two birthday parties today would have been taped with scotch tape and not shipping tape. I would have clipped the stems when I changed the water of the bouquet of flowers I have because the directions told me to. There are so many things I would be or would have done, if I just had the slightest bit of red in me.

Well, tonight as I was driving home from birthday party number two (Build-a-Bear with twelve 3-year-olds, aka Hell on a Saturday Night) and sitting in traffic (Because North Dallas has the most amazing shopping malls but not so amazing roads leading to them), "The Yellow Rose of Texas" came on the radio. My mind flooded with memories and I blared it. Yes, there were two children in the backseat, one bellowing along and the other yelling, "Softly mom, softly". I had the windows down and for a second I thought to be sheepish--blaring old country, shamelessly like that, but then I realized I'M IN TEXAS. This is they're language! I am among friends! This realization only escalated the emotions of the moment. I sang along at the top of my lungs for every Texan within a 10 car radius of Preston and 121 to hear, "She's the diamond of the desert, She's the golden flower of spring, She's the yellow rose of Texas, She can make a man a king!" Oh yeah, that was a more than beautiful end to a helatious two hours at the mall with two babies on a crowded Saturday night.