Switching Sides

Last Saturday we woke up bright and early to meet my parents and ride up to Stillwater to visit Kelly and go to the OSU-Tech game. This game has long been a rivalry in my family and I've always taken the neutral stance. But this year (in honor of Mark) I decided to sport some orange and cheer for the Pokes. Or rather, Mark MADE me wear orange because he wouldn't let me buy the less-shocking white t-shirt. But I've got to tell you, once I put the shirt on, I morphed right into a natural OSU fan, cheering all the cheers and waving the wheat whenever we scored. My favorite part - the OOOOOOh, S, U! chant. With the help of Kelly, I even perfected my S pose! The game was hot, but very close and exciting. I'm proud to report a Cowboy victory and share that even Dad put on a happy face for the rest of the weekend. Better luck next year, Red Raiders! Go Pokes!

It was a quick trip to Stillwater, but it was still fun to see it as not only the college town where Kelly is spending her school years, but as the place where all Mark's college memories took place. We were back up in Oklahoma this weekend, in Tulsa for Mark's college friend's wedding. More on that later.. it was a great trip with some great times!

Welcome to Texas

My parents recently added a new addition to our family - a foreign exchange student from Venezuela named Isabel. She's the same age as my little sister, and will be living in Small Town, Texas for the next ten months. Her first weekend in town was at the end of August and we decided to take her out right. Give her a real taste of Texas. So it was high school football and dinner at this place:

That's about as native as it gets.

Poisoned by Pizza

This past weekend I had high hopes for three days of planned fun. It was the only weekend for the entire month of September that we didn’t have a wedding or wedding shower to attend. We were not going out of town, like we did last weekend and like we’re doing next weekend. We had sixty hours of pure no work/no travel bliss. We would watch the OSU game at Champs on Friday night with burgers and beer. Saturday we could lay out by the pool, go for a run, hit up the mall - anything! - before meeting our friends for Grapefest and a wine tasting that night. Sunday morning it would be church and a productive day of work, cleaning and maybe more pool time. It was all planned out.

Until Thursday night.

Mark called me around 6:00 from work, saying his car wouldn’t start. We ventured to Wal-Mart to get the battery replaced and while we were killing time looking at the goldfish and greeting cards, he keeps commenting that he doesn’t feel well. I think nothing of it; his stomach is always gurgling or churning until he can get in some quality bathroom time. We pay for the car and head back to my place and in the car he’s really starting to look bad. He’s taking deep breaths and little beads of sweat are forming at his forehead. I find a plastic grocery sack in the backseat and get it ready. We make it all the way to my garage and he’s still not looking too hot. We get in the elevator, it starts to ascend the two floors to my place and he motions to me for the sack. Bam. Food poisoning strikes. In the elevator. For the next twelve hours, Mark rotates between my couch and the bathroom floor. I finally left him for bed around 10:00, but he has to cross through my room on his way to the bathroom every twenty minutes, so I was awake every time he was. So at 2:30, after laying in bed for thirty minutes listening to him moan in the living room, I get up and try to offer some comfort. He must be hallucinating from fever at this point, because he grasps onto my hand like he’s dying and begs me to “please make the bad feelings stop.” My heart breaks. What can I do? Go to the 24-Hour Walgreens to get some Pepto, that’s what. So I did. At 3:00 am. I come back alive (thank goodness, nothing good can happen at 3 am!) and pour him out a dose. He lay on the couch and halfway sleeps for about an hour. I give him another dose (might as well, it can’t kill him!) and he sleeps pretty well. I sneak off the couch around 4:00, trying ever so carefully to not make the slightest movement that will wake him. I fall asleep in my bed and the next thing I know my alarm is going off at 6:00. It occurs to me that he has not gone into the bathroom in the past two hours, so I take a peek and he’s still sound asleep on the couch. I leave for work with him still on the couch, then call to check up on him around 10:00. He whispers into the phone for me to bring him some lunch, so me being the Super Girl Friend I am, spend my one hour lunch break speeding home, stopping to grab some chicken noodle soup and Gatorade at the 7-11, whip him up some lunch, scarf down a Lean Cuisine, then speed back to work. Whew.

When I come home from work at 4:00, he’s still passed out asleep on the couch. He stays this way until almost 7:00 when I finally convince him a shower could lift his spirits. So we stay at home and watch the OSU game (so long sweet burgers and beer!) and the outcome can’t be too good for his stomach (a real beating by Troy. Troy? Who’s Troy?! I don’t know!) but he’s looking a little chipper so I have high hopes for Grapefest on Saturday night.

We take it easy all day Saturday to not cause any rumblings in Mark’s now calmed-down stomach. We watch a lot of football and lay on the couch for hours on end. When it finally comes time to head out to Grapevine, I’m thinking everything’s going to be great and we will get our ninety minutes of as much wine as we can pour into our little sample glasses! Then it will be funnel cake and sausage on a stick and haunted houses and shopping in the little shops! But we no sooner arrive to the fair grounds than Mark starts commenting that he’s feeling funny. I point at the port-o-potties and promise to wait nearby. Nothing. We get through about an hour of wine samples when he opts to sit out on the bench and groan. I start to see my funnel cake slip away. He tries to tough it out and tag along with the group, but I can tell he’s miserable so we decide to leave and head home early. So much for sausage on a stick.

Sunday rolls along and we’re home free from the excessive trips to the bathroom. He even stomachs a Sonic burger and some tots, so I’m convinced he’s cured. He does tell me he hopes he’s as nice to me and I was to him whenever I get sick. I smiled and said “you just wait.” All this from some apparent bad pizza for lunch at work on Thursday. One bottle of PeptoMax and a can of Lysol later, we’re back in the kick of things!