...who is awesome. He grew up in a small town in Tennessee and while his roots are still in the small town, his heart travels the world. Specifically, Nashville and Savannah. In between Boston or New York or a lovely excursion to England....
So we're talking this morning. The Inmates just spent the weekend on the road...two hours to a morning soccer game in Bham. An afternoon soccer game in Bham. Another two hours on the road to a hotel in Montgomery and then four hours of soccer Sunday afternoon. Home at nine o'clock on a school night.
Lesson learned? We forgot a pillow and blanket this trip. Makes it hard to sleep when The Mama insists on keeping the air blowing full force on Max AC. We took two small coolers, instead of one small and one larger which makes it really hard to explain why the kid playing soccer in 100 degree heat doesn't have a cooler. MY BEER!!!!! What am I supposed to do with the beer? (Not really, that's a JOKE! before someone calls DHR.)
(It was only 98 ;-)
So ANYWAY. When we got home at nine o'clock last night, I started lists. Car lists. Food/hydration lists. Clothing lists. Lists that the people who are participating in these events can check off and handle themselves. I'm tired of refereeing over who-forgot-what. Just check and go. It's a list.
And then this morning? Talking to my bad ass friend?
He has lists. He even offered to send me one of his lists. You know what for? Was he sharing car-packing tips? Was BadAss sending me USTA accredited food lists? Did he have a list of how many sets of soccer socks you need over a four-game/two day weekend?
No. He's sending me a list for a long weekend in Savannah. It has restaurants, bakeries and cafes. It has galleries and shops and favorite artists at said-galleries and shops. It has best tours and best walks and best historical houses and events. It has pictures of the warehouse he converted into a loft.
Nowhere in his lists are drugstores that carry Imodium for kids with stomach viruses. There's no mention of emergency clinics for pulled hamstrings or broken wrists and for SURE no shops that carry shin guards and the cleats we forgot.
I'm thinking? We're gonna swap spots for a while. I'm going to hand him the keys to a vehicle filled with an assortment of kids...some mine, some not, all laughing and spilling stuff. Half of them missing necessary sports equipment, none of them with homework done and ALL of them hungry.
In return, I'm going to take his neat, luxurious SUV and head to Savannah. I'll have breakfast curbside, sitting at a bistro in a little round-back metal chair at a tiny table. I'll stroll around, with his credit cards, and shop brightly colored art. I'll laugh at witty, funny people who can create things out of their minds. For lunch, I'll drink an entire bottle of wine, with meat and cheese and good bread and then I'll go take a nap. On clean sheets with no cookie crumbs or cat hair. When I wake up, I'll shower and walk the streets under the trees with the breeze blowing. No snot or peanut butter on the shoulder of my shirt. I'll stop somewhere...ANYWHERE...and order interesting things off the menu and not have to referee a fight over who gets which color. I'll drink another bottle of wine and taste complicated things someone else cooked...and that someone else is going to clean up. I'll keep strolling and find a cool bar and drink good bourbon and, if I'm lucky like happened once in Atlanta, Mitch Wood and His Rocket 88's will be playing and the saxophone guy will dance down the bar while blowing his horn.
I'll stumble back to the loft and take two ibuprofen and wonder where the needy kid and the needy cat are, every time I roll over. I'll get up in the morning and go buy that picture of those people at the market and then....I'll take that clean SUV back before I spill something and I'll come home and wonder why the HELL I haven't put up the new garage door and I'll open the front door to be greeted by the smell of sweaty tennis clothes and stinky soccer shoes and wet dog and mildewing towels.
And then I'll go sit in my side yard, look at the weedy flower beds and the rusty grill and the lopsided chicken coop, and yell at the NEXT DAMN KID who kicks a ball in my direction.
The next morning, I'll go check BadAss out of the facility he ended up in.
I'm nice that way ;-)
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