Cars Out Front

Before she left to pick me up from the airport on Wednesday, Carrie’s fiancé told her he was having the workers come in that day to install the new glass for their shower. She was so excited and I got to see why last night as I lay in their big garden tub with bubbles up to my nose. It looks awesome.

With her fiancé out having dinner with his parents, we left the door to the bathroom open, and Carrie and I chatted about the next day’s schedule. Then I turned on the jets, closed my eyes and let the bubbles get higher, while she caught up on phone calls out in the kitchen

After we got Little Carrie to bed early last night, Big Carrie and I did our nails, watched CSI, and talked. At some point during the commercials around the half-hour mark in the show, I turned my head to the side to rest my eyes while I lay on the couch, and the next thing I knew, Carrie was waking me up to tell me to move upstairs. So I did.


Even after moving upstairs, I was up again at eleven and midnight. People have been coming in from out of town all night. And even though they didn’t wake me, I knew there were people milling about downstairs, which always makes me restless and wonder what kind of fun I’m missing.

Little Carrie crawled into bed with me this morning at six fifteen. We laid there for a minute while I tried to go back to sleep, her tiny body molded to mine. Then my eyes snapped open, “Does your mother know you’re up here?”

Her sleepy little voice came back, “No. I looked in her bed, but she wasn’t there.”

Taking a shower, I thought. “Let’s go down to your bed, and we’ll sleep there.” I can only imagine what Carrie would have thought coming out of the shower to find her daughter’s bed empty.

We curled up around each other in her little pink bed in her pink bedroom for a few minutes, but when I opened up one eye to peek at her, I found both of her blue eyes watching me. “Are you hungry?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

So we went out to the kitchen and I pulled out a pan and some eggs, cheese, bread, and butter. Once we got that out, I felt the coffee carafe. Warm. “I love your mother,” I told her and poured coffee in the big giant yellow cup that I’ve made mine while I’m visiting.

Little Carrie and I made a cheese omelet, the way my grandmother taught me – crepe-thin and with the egg cooked on both sides before you put in cheese. Then we shared a piece of toast with the raspberry, peach, and champagne preserves that I found in the refrigerator door.

Once we got the little one off to school, Carrie and I headed over to the tanning salon, bought cokes, and sat in the lounge with the clerk who’s folding towels while we waited for our turn in the stand-up. When it’s my turn, I covered my face with the towels they provide and did squats while I was standing in the metal closet to distract myself and make the eight minutes I spent giving myself wrinkles go by faster.

While I was waiting for Carrie to finish, I asked the clerk if I could take a picture of their Elvis wall. Yes, an entire wall devoted to the King.

Then Carrie and I stopped at this little dive that’s only open for breakfast and always has cars in the parking lot. That’s always a good gauge of how good a place is, isn’t it? Lots of cars parked out front.

Carrie and I got cheese biscuits to go and headed back to her place to get the car loaded up so we can head out to the plantation to set up for tomorrow…


As we’re driving home, I tell her, “I don’t want to go home.”

She takes her eyes off the road, looks at me, and says. “Then stay.”

And I know she means it, but we both know I can’t.

When we get back to her house, there are lots of cars out front.