All posts by Peggy1963

Mixing Business and Pleasure

May 10, 2017Life Its Own SelfPeggy1963

I had to be in Lake Charles for business on Monday and Tuesday of this week, so we decided to mix business and pleasure and come over for the weekend, too. We got here Friday evening in time for dinner. It was perfect gambling weather: too cool to stay outside for very long and too wet to get in the pool. We had a great dinner and then Peggy played slots while I watched sports in the VIP lounge.

Saturday was also cool and wet, but Sunday dawned clear and warmer. It was the kind of day that makes you glad everyone else is checking out of the hotel. We had a leisurely breakfast and then wandered down to the pool for several hours. The pool is never very crowded on Sunday, so it was perfect.

My company does two things every spring that make us very popular. We deliver dividend checks to our customers and we host crawfish boils for our distribution force. I was in southwest Louisiana on Monday delivering checks and then we hosted our Lake Charles crawfish boil on Tuesday night. Delivering the checks is one of the best parts of my job because it shows our customers how much we appreciate them. The crawfish boils are always a huge success, especially when the weather cooperates.

With business out of the way we got down to the real fun.

On Tuesday night one of the restaurants at the casino has karaoke. The singers are actually up on the stage where the live bands play in the Jack Daniels Bar and Grill. Several of my employees had planned work in Lake Charles on Wednesday, and I coerced many of them to come to karaoke. Because I am a man of my word there are no pictures or videos to be shared, but everyone had a great time. Several of them are pretty good singers. None of them could understand why the host kept calling on me to sing with him.

Peggy and I have been here more than a few times on Tuesday, and David likes to have me sing songs with him whenever we are there. I didn’t share this tidbit with my employees. Let’s face it, they don’t need to know the extent of my wife’s gambling…

We are heading back to Baton Rouge in the morning. Since we aren’t getting to travel for Mother’s Day this year, this trip served as proxy for our annual time away. Sometimes it is OK to mix business and pleasure.

As long as you mix them in the right amounts.

Good Folks

May 2, 2017Life Its Own SelfPeggy1963

I don’t talk about work a lot. I have a great job with a great company, but I don’t think people are particularly interested in hearing details about what someone else does at work. Every once in a while I make an exception.

We have a group of clients that serve as an advisory council for our company. The members of the council are hand-selected based on the company each represents and the amount of business they have with our company. It is a very efficient way to get feedback, both negative and positive, that helps us run our company more effectively.

Once a year we take this group somewhere for a meeting, and we invite the spouses. Before I came to the company employee spouses were not included. I, however, understand what an amazing asset my wife is in these settings, so as soon as I got here I pushed for spouses to be included. It is especially important on a trip like this when the clients bring their spouses.

These are some good folks. I have always been very careful about understanding the difference between work relationships and friendships, but these folks make you cross the line into friendship. It works to everyone’s advantage, and it makes trips like these a lot of fun.

We meet until noon each day and then we plan an event for everyone during the afternoon and evening. While we are meeting, Peggy usually plans something active for the spouses to do (she is a personal trainer, you know). Not everyone participates, but everyone is invited.

Today we went riding in the desert on ATVs and then went to a ranch for dinner. The ranch has an “Old West” town set up, and we shot pistols and threw axes before dinner. It was a great active day and everyone seemed to have a wonderful time.

In the Old West. Peggy shot her first pistol, I won the axe-throwing contest.

Tomorrow is our last day out here. I’m ready to get home, but we have really had fun.

And riding the desert in an ATV is an excellent exfoliator.

Blast From the Past

May 1, 2017Life Its Own SelfPeggy1963

I was sitting here this morning, minding my own business, when a blast from my past shows up on my timeline. I wasn’t ready for it. Here is a memory from thirty-five years ago today:

The picture brought back all sorts of memories.

By this time we had been together for almost two years, so there was none of the ridiculousness of trying to impress a prom date with how much you can spend. Her mother, a wonderful seamstress, made her dress. My tux rental was all of thirty-five bucks (yes, those are my cowboy boots; they were the only black “dress shoes” I owned). I made and served dinner to her — salad, ribeyes, potatoes au gratin, broccoli, and cherry pie and ice cream — at my parents’ house, then we changed and went to the event at the Union Station, an event center that used to be the train depot in Dallas. We danced and hung out with friends, then we went to the obligatory after-party. Obviously, it was a pretty good evening if I recall all of the details.

When I look at her today I think she is even more attractive than she was then, and that is saying something as you can tell from the picture: she’s just gorgeous. I almost cannot believe that thirty-five years have passed since that night. We have our thirty-second wedding anniversary this summer, so I know it really is, but it just doesn’t seem that long ago. Now, when I look at myself in the picture I realize how long ago it really was!

A lot of life has transpired since that picture was taken, but the best part is that we have done all that life together. Very few people get to share all their memories from high school with someone who was there to enjoy it, but we have that luxury. I was at all the big events of the year with her, so they are our common memories. Her memory is just a little bit better than mine, though.

I wasn’t expecting to think about this today. We are actually in Scottsdale, Arizona on a business trip, but it certainly brightened up my morning! I’ll have to show her what popped up when we get together for lunch today.

I think I’ll let them fix the meal this time…

Family Time

April 30, 2017FamilyPeggy1963

My cousin — first cousin once removed, in case you are Southern — got married this weekend in the small town my family comes from. It was exciting to see everyone and just to spend some family time.

It’s about an hour from our house to get to Amite City. My mother is buried there, so we make the trip a couple of times a year. See some family, stop in Independence on the way home and pick up some Italian sausage. If you like traditional Italian sausage, the Piggly Wiggly in Independence is important to know. Just a public service announcement.

The young lady getting married is my cousin Jerry’s daughter, and he and I are only four months apart in age. We have always been very close, and he and his wife Michelle have been together as long as Peggy and I, so we all know each other very well and love to see each other when we can.

I was surprised to see that the wedding was at the golf course where I learned to play as a small child. I did not know they had a facility for weddings, but the wedding was held outdoors (always an iffy proposition in Louisiana). All I can say is April 29 came through with a gorgeous day for an outdoor wedding. Jessica was beautiful and the party was a lot of fun.

My son and his wife joined us for the wedding. Since we always lived in Texas when he was growing up he has not spent nearly as much time with this part of the family as I did when I was growing up. It was fun to see him enjoying the family time as much as Peggy and I were. Our kids all like each other and seem to enjoy spending time together.

Every time we get together we always wonder why we don’t do it more often. I think that is the eternal lament — we spend so much time doing the things we have to do that we sometimes forget to do the things we want to do.

It was a wonderful day and I hope the rest of Jessica’s and Kris’ days together live up to the beginning!

Family photo — after two hours in the wind…

Quick Getaway

April 20, 2017WTH?!Peggy1963

Peggy and I ran over to Lake Charles for a quick getaway. With the lead-up to Easter we haven’t been able to go anywhere for several weeks, so I decided to take Friday off this week and we drove to L’Auberge for the weekend.

I like arriving on Thursday because the weekend crowd is not yet here. The casino is busy but not packed, and the restaurants are crowded but there is not usually a wait. More importantly, the pool is not full of drunk people. Yet.

April would normally be a little early for significant pool time, but the pool is heated. The temperature outside is not too hot this time of year, so April and May are two of our favorite times to visit.

If you are a people watcher it doesn’t get much better than this. Today was a perfect example. Peggy and I are out in the pool, having a conversation and minding our own business. There is a group of four women near us having a good time and several drinks. After a while, one of them comes over to us and says, pointing at me, “You might be from here. But you (pointing at Peggy) ain’t from here.” I laughed and told her we lived in Baton Rouge. She then asked Peggy where she is from. When Peggy told her Dallas, several “I knew its” were voiced.

Peggy was offended that we have lived in Louisiana for the past three years and she is not considered “from here”. I told her to consider the source — did she really want to seem to be from the same place as the lady asking the question? It was actually a compliment. Peggy hasn’t quite accepted my logic just yet.

We’ll get breakfast in the morning and then head back to Baton Rouge. This place is great when you just need to get away and relax a little.

And have I mentioned that it’s free?

Poolside. She does look too good to be from here…

Good Old Friends

April 15, 2017Life Its Own SelfPeggy1963

I have a group of friends that I grew up with. Altogether there are ten of us who lived in the same small town in south Louisiana as kids. Some were there from birth, the rest of us moved in at different times.

What makes this group special is that we still get together every couple of years as a group. We are in the midst of planning the get-together for this summer in North Carolina (NC-17), so it was ironic that this picture popped up on my timeline this morning to remind me of our get-together five years ago.

The gang in New Orleans in 2012. I’m taking the picture…

They’ve held up pretty well for old dudes. When we went to New Orleans on this trip five years ago, half of the group had already turned fifty and the other half of the group was still forty-nine. This led to constant competitions between the two groups to prove the 49-year-olds were hardier than the old guys. It turned what is normally foolishness anyway up a few notches. Well, that and the fact that the wives were not along on this trip to keep us in line.

I have realized over time that the fact that we still get together and that our wives are all friends is really a special thing that doesn’t happen all the time. We rarely get all ten of us together but it happened in 2012 and it is looking like it will happen again this year. We all went to the same high school but we went to six different colleges (and seven different professional/graduate schools). We live in seven different states from California to North Carolina and Florida. I’m just saying it’s pretty special.

Several of our kids are married, and there’s even a grandfather in the group (soon to be two grandfathers). We all have obligations and responsibilities that could serve as excuses not to get together, but we always seem to find a way to make it happen.

I am really looking forward to the trip this summer, and so is Peggy. Looking back today was fun, too.

Eating Memphis

March 17, 2017ObservationsPeggy1963

The Spring Break 2017 Memphis Tour is over. We had a blast with the Doctors.

We went to Sun Studios and pretended to be Elvis (actually, I pretended to be Johnny Cash). We went to the Rock and Soul Museum on Beale Street. We even did two Escape Rooms (it was raining). Why two? Because we didn’t escape from the first one. I walked in Memphis with my ankle brace ten feet off of Beale. We even went to Mud Island. We did everything but Graceland.

But mostly we ate. It’s a good thing we were walking everywhere because the food in Memphis is not to be missed. And I don’t think we missed any of it.

We did the Rendezvous. We ate at the Majestic Grille, a restaurant made from a 100-year-old theater that showed black-and-white movies while we ate. We ate at a place called Flight that served both its food and its wine in flights. We met my college roommate and his wife at McEwen’s, an outstanding restaurant downtown. We ate lunch at the Blues City Café. I’m telling you, we ate.

But the favorite place we ate was Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken. If you haven’t been there you need to go. As you can tell, it’s pretty impressive to behold.

Don’t judge a book by its cover, especially when fried chicken is involved…

We went at six o’clock on a Tuesday evening because we had been warned it can get pretty crowded. We had to wait about twenty minutes to get a table, then we feasted on the best fried chicken I have ever eaten (and, frankly, I have eaten a lot of fried chicken). Peggy swears that at one point she saw my brother-in-law’s eyes roll back into his head. We dined to a genteel sufficiency and left before seven. When we left the line to get a table was out the door and wrapped halfway around the block. On a Tuesday. In a rain storm. I can tell you for those people waiting in the rain, it was worth it!

I have not eaten fried chicken since we returned home from the trip. I do not want to sully the memory of the greatness of Gus’s.

It may not have been the last meal we had in Memphis, and it certainly was not the fanciest meal we had in Memphis. It was, however, the meal we had in Memphis. God bless Gus…

The Doctors

March 12, 2017FamilyPeggy1963

The title does not refer to the soap opera that ran for my entire childhood, or one of the many other television shows of the same name.

I’m talking about my sister and her husband. She’s a Ph.D. English professor and he is a psychiatrist. Peggy and I refer to them as the doctors.

My sister and her husband met as freshmen in college, and Peggy and I began dating in high school. So, the four of us have known each other as couples since 1980. We love to do things together, and once their youngest son went to college we began inviting them to travel with us. In recent years inviting has turned to harassing…

They finally agreed to travel this year. My sister wanted to do it over her Spring Break, so we told them to pick a place. We knew that the psychiatrist had a conference the following week in Atlanta, so we were fully prepared for the choice to be Charleston, Savannah, or any of several other cool coastal locales. When the suggestion came back to go to Cleveland, we had to be careful. We did not want to go to Cleveland, but neither did we want to scare off the baby deer making its first foray into traveling with us. I suggested that perhaps Cleveland was a better choice in October rather than in winter. When the next option came back as Memphis, we jumped at it!

Memphis is cool and reasonably close — notwithstanding our eleven hour journey to get here. Lots of stuff to do and decent weather in March. Blues and barbecue. Thank you, thank you very much.

Today will be our first day to venture out since arriving late last night. I’m really looking forward to walking without the boot I’ve been wearing for several weeks (I brought it just in case). Let’s get this show on the road!

Traveling like Papa Ike

March 11, 2017FamilyPeggy1963

I am writing tonight from Memphis.

We left Baton Rouge this morning and drove to Vicksburg, Mississippi, to meet my sister and her husband. Then we began the trip to Memphis.

Now, if the point of the trip was to get to Memphis, we would have taken the interstate and arrived in Memphis at about 4:00 in the afternoon. Not the point.

My grandmother died when I was very young, so my grandfather was a fairly young widower. When he would go on trips I would travel with him to keep him company. I would bring my ukulele or guitar and we would sing in the car as we traveled. And we would stop at anything that looked interesting. Or if we got hungry. Or if I had to go to the bathroom. Or because it had been an hour since we last stopped.

It took forever to get anywhere, but we always had a blast. My father used to refer to this as “traveling like Ike.”

Today we reveled in traveling like Ike. We drove the “Blues Trail” up highway 61. We left at noon and stopped an hour north of Vicksburg to eat lunch at the Onward Store. We saw the (alleged) birthplace of Muddy Waters. We saw the Ground Zero Blues Club and went to the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksville, MS. We even stopped again for dinner at the “famous” Como Steakhouse in Como, MS (it really is famous and it really is good!).

We finally rolled into Memphis about 11:00. In the snow.

It was the perfect end to a perfect day of traveling like Ike.

Lunch at the Onward Store. I had a BLT made with fried green tomatoes. Mississippi motto — if it ain’t fried, it ain’t food!

The Delta Blues Museum. Definitely worth a stop in Clarksville.

TGIF

February 25, 2017ObservationsPeggy1963

I love Fridays.

I know I am not alone in this sentiment, but I really love Fridays. Ever since my son went off to college in 2007, Friday has been my standing date night with Peggy. Since the first seven years of Friday occurred when we were living in Texas, those Fridays pretty consistently involved two things, chips and salsa and margaritas.

Now, I know what the non-Texans in the audience are thinking. “That’s three things,” they will say. And the Texans will laugh. Chips and salsa are not two things in Texas, they are one thing, joined in the holiest of matrimony. Perhaps you can have one without the other, but why?

Friday means Mexican food, a frozen margarita (no salt — sorry), and conversation that lasts as long as we want it to. And typically then we go sit on the back porch around the firepit and hang out as long as we want to. Because it’s Friday and we can.

This has been our utopia for the past ten years. Even when we are traveling we try to find a Mexican place that will have the essentials and not screw it up too bad. When we went to Santorini for our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, we found the one place on the island that served Mexican food and made frozen margaritas. It was called Senor Zorba’s, and the name alone would have made us forgive them for any shortcomings. But seriously, if you’re drinking a frozen margarita on a Greek island what possible shortcomings could there be?!

Tonight was no different. The Mexican food in Baton Rouge is not too bad, and the margaritas are excellent. The weather is cool and perfect on the back porch and the firepit looks beautiful.

If this is life at 54 I have no complaints whatsoever. If this is still my life at 74 I will count myself as the luckiest man ever.

Long live Friday!

The Half Centurian

Everything Changes After 50