West Baden Resort Getaway

We were finally able to use our gift card that we received for Christmas from Trinity's parents this weekend at the West Baden Resort in French Lick. The weather was perfect and it was a fun evening to step back in time at this historic hotel.

T took in some booze disguised in a Nordstrom bag. They are closing their downtown store. The store I have visited at least once a week for the last 7 years. I'm so depressed. I can't even speak of it. Maybe this will force me to get an actual hobby beyond tea sipping and window shopping.

This was our guest room. We proclaimed this bed the most comfortable mattress ever. This discussion led to yet another enlightening declaration from Sweet T.

The conversation was this:

B: "This mattress is wonderful."

T: " Yes, but it is not a pillowtop."

B: "How in the world do you know that?"

T: "Bets, you know I worked at the Restonic Mattress Plant in New Albany back in the summer of 1995. I could carry a California King on my back alone without a second thought. Sometimes I would put my empty Lay's potato chip bags in random mattresses before they were sewn up after I ate lunch."

There you have it. Yet another story that proves my husband was a total rascal in his early days. What a goon.

We then decided to go on a bike ride. It was 90 degrees.

I love this photo. I had set up the timer on my camera on the side of his truck and was prepared to pose. Things went haywire and T lost control of his bike and it crashed into me and then I lost control of my bike. We are so coordinated. I laughed and thought of PeeWee and Dottie with their bikes.

I biked for approximately 22 minutes. That's minutes, not miles. I peddled back to the hotel on the bike path, leaving Trinity in my wake. He was concerned that I might crash. I almost did, but made it back safely. I then headed to the pool. He met me there. Before heading back to the room we decided to explore the grounds.

I am wearing my swim coverup and a pair of tennis shoes. I was missing my fanny pack. My fashion statement was impressive to the other guests, I'm sure.

This was the scene of my first musical number of the weekend. I treated T to a little Grecian Urns from The Music Man.

One Grecian urn.

Two Grecian urns....

We ate our dinner at the bar and then retired to the front porch for some evening drinking and rocking. The porch was so beautiful and historic. We imagined it was 1905 and decided that names like Trinity and Betsy weren't appropriate for that time.

I'd like you to meet my husband, Claude Fairchild of New York.

Allow myself to introduce myself. Bernadette Fairchild, if you please.

Trinity wanted to be Vanderbilts, but I told him they were real people and didn't fit into our little pretend game. He would have to be Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, and I would be forced to call him Corny for the remainder of the evening. Henceforth he was fine with Claude.

Claude's fancy flip flops came with a bottle opener. He was able to open my Woodchuck. We never broke character during this little "modern" trick.

The front porch is where I belted out my 2nd musical number of the trip. Claude heard the entire rendition of Burl Ives' "On the Front Porch" from the Disney movie, Summer Magic, one of my childhood favorites. Who doesn't love Burl Ives? I decided to refrain from trying to find a caterpillar and sing "Ugly Bug Ball" in an impromptu fashion. No, one Ives classic was enough for the evening.

Until departure day brought a rip roarin' version of "The Surrey with the Fringe on Top, " from Oklahoma.

Chicks and ducks and geese better scurry...

Glee has assured me that my habit of spontaneously bursting into Broadway song is completely normal. The problem is that I can't really sing on key. I make up for that though, with spunk!

Tiny iPhone photos by the pool!

I sent this photo to both my mother and sister this morning, while enjoying a margarita by the pool at 10 a.m.

I got identical responses from those two clowns. "Bets, are you naked?"

Yes, mother/sister fools, I'm naked. By the pool at a family resort. Geesh! Ever heard of a strapless bikini?

xoxo to Pat and Eddie!

School's Out for Summer!!!!

School ended for the 2010-2011 year today. I walked out of school having completed 10 years of teaching. How is that possible? Time flies with a job you love. Trinity took me to my old standby favorite, Bonefish Grill for dinner to celebrate. I seized the opportunity to practice my new iPhone skills. I'm late to jump on the Instagram bandwagon, but it wasn't available on my old flip phone.

Wowza! Sequins and rhinestone earrings at 5:30 p.m. on a Wednesday?

You betcha!

I adore those $5 Raspberry Vodka Collins cocktails. A bargain for your wallet and taste buds.

It was also $5 Bang Bang Shrimp night. It seems that Bonefish knew that today was a big day for me. Or they do that every Wednesday. Either way, I proclaim Bang Bang shrimp to be a superfood.

I couldn't resist a Princess K photo op.

I also got a fun package via UPS this afternoon. I had been stalking these crushed glitter sandals from J.Crew for like a month but never pulled the trigger to buy them. Alas, they sold out and were listed as "No longer available." Scarcity makes my heart race. They had to be mine. I decided I might be able to make do with some sort of substitute, so I typed in "glitter shoes" on Shopstyle.com and voila! I found my true loves. Net-a-Porter.com apparently sells J.Crew too, and they had them. I ordered them immediately. Then I learned that you have to be there for delivery to sign for them. What?

Apparently this website sells lots of frou frou fancy dancy designer duds. Signing must be some sort of liability thingy. Those are official legal terms. I'm learning from law school brother Robby. I can see why this might make sense for a $5,000 dress, but my little sandals didn't seem to need a signature. Whatevs...they got here a smidge before 5 and I was here. I greeted the UPS man with a friendly, "Thank God you haven't driven into a vortex. This weather is crazy!" He agreed.

Phew. I'm getting wordy. Still there?

I tore open that box with the vigor of the dad from A Christmas Story.

Crushed glitter love.

Am I a foot model?

No.

But I should be.

Are there size 10 giantess foot models?

I would like to apply.

I got another shock to the system regarding my legs. Remember the terrible knees/boots saga? Well let's just say these sandals strap around my ankles and they have 5 holes. I barely was able to get into the 2nd one. I have fat ankles too. Geez.

I also need a new mirror.

This one is so 1972.

I left the tags on while I tried them on. They kinda look like those ankle tracking devices. I swear I'm not on house arrest. Although I might as well be as much as I leave the house in the summer.

Another view. I also love this rug.

I must find something to occupy my time now.

T says I should work at Starbucks to support my nasty habit.

I say that job looks way too difficult.

I took some pics of some of the sweet children I am privileged to love every day-

I will miss their precious faces.

88 Years of Fun!

Trinity, Robby and I met my parents yesterday to pack up all of dear Uncle Maurice's belongings. He is now permanently in his assisted living center, and so it was time move his things from the apartment next to the church where he was a priest for the past 16 years and put everything in storage. He served as cruise director the entire time. He sat at the foot of the steps and shouted up questions and requests to his five little worker bees upstairs. He is 88 years old and his mind is still razor sharp. He knew where everything was. We were quickly delighted by some of the quirky things we found and packed.

One of my first fab finds was his black biretta. Priests wear black ones, bishops wear violet and cardinals wear crimson. He explained all of this to me before I helped him put it on his head. He happily wore it for most of the afternoon.

Precious

We also found many framed pieces from various popes. I believe this one was from Pope Pius from when Uncle Maurice was ordained in 1949.

T located this fish statue which he realized was actually Jim Beam liquor from 1974. It was still sealed. How awesome is that?

Robby was thrilled with the record collection, including the record player that we later found.

Baileys! This one is a shout out for my two Bailey swiggin' ladies, Kate and Court.

We also found more liquor to take home. Look at those old paper seals. I remember those from when I was a child. I've never had Crown Royal before, but now I have my very own bottle.

Commemorative 7Up bottles from the 70s.

A large bottle of holy water from a monastery in France. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this.

Matchbooks from all of his travels. Hawaii, China and Mexico were just a few places we located amongst the mass of restaurants and hotel boxes. So kitschy and cool. We also found tons of old sports equipment including this Notre Dame football and these tennis balls. We packed up golf clubs, badminton racquets and tons of Notre Dame goodies.

Rob took home the coolest wool Notre Dame stadium blanket that has to be at least 40 years old. It was pristine. I didn't fight him. Touching wool is not among my pleasantries in life.

The major award close up. This was T's happiest find of the day. I'm so glad that we were able to do this while Uncle Maurice was still here to tell us all of the stories behind things. He remembers all of it.

iPhone!!!!!

I am so excited today. My father, also known as iBob, called me this morning and told me I could go pick up my new white iPhone as my 32nd birthday gift. My entire family has had iPhones for like 4 years now, but I have resisted. They were too expensive and I didn't want to pay more for my data plan. I was perfectly content to text message folks by pushing the number 1 key 3 times to make it a letter C. I was fine with it.

Do you know who hasn't been fine with my Zack Morris cell phone? Everyone else. Mostly my family (my dad) and even some pals giggle upon seeing my lack of smart phone capabilities. I loved my dumb phone, but the peer pressure was starting to make me crack. Did I want to spend like $300 on that phone? No, that money was earmarked for more medallion shoes. I was forced to improvise.

I am way smarter than Steve Jobs. He was dumb enough to put an ad for a true to size white iPhone on the back of a People magazine. Now any elementary school teacher has scissors and scotch tape.

Voila!

To the untrained Apple eye, I now have an iPhone.

but a closer look reveals its true identity as a jank Verizon free phone with plan.

The gig is completely up when I must answer the phone.

I no longer have to fool others. I will have the real thing very shortly!

RIP "Macho Man" Randy Savage

I have a little known fact to share on this lovely spring day. My brother, sister and I were were once obsessed with World Wrestling Federation wrestling in the mid to late 80s. This doesn't really come to mind on most days, but today I learned that one of my favorites of WWF fame died today, as a result of a heart attack while driving. This is really quite sad. It also brought back a lot of hilarious memories for me.

I had lots of favorites. To name a few:

Hulk Hogan

Ted Debiose "The Million Dollar Man"

Jimmy "Mouth of the South" Hart

The Ultimate Warrior

I could go on and on. There was one name that stood out from the rest.

The Lovely Miss Elizabeth.

To say I was OBSESSED with the lovely Miss Elizabeth would be an understatement.

Those rhinestones. That feathered hair. The love triangle that existed between Elizabeth, Hulk and Macho Man. I recognized that sexual tension even as an 8 year old. It was crazy. She was unstoppable.

According to the never wrong, always accurate source of Wikipedia, Miss Elizabeth died of a drug overdose back in 2003. Boo hiss.

Before the three of us were carted off to our basketball games at the local Y, we would rise and eat our sugar filled cereal while watching WWF on Saturday mornings. We literally ate up the drama. I scoff at the drama and hair pulling on all of The Real Housewives shows. That stuff is so passe. Miss Elizabeth could really pull some hair if she was forced to.

As I might have mentioned before, our parents weren't too interested in patrolling our TV choices. In fact, Dad even indulged us in a lot of Pay Per View WWF events. You couldn't get SummerSlam '88 without paying a premium.

My dad was great. Not only did he pack the three of us up and take us to our town's event center for a traveling performance of WWF, he also drove to like 10 different grocery stores and convenience stores until he located these-

He purchased enough for all of our friends. He then paid again for Wrestlemania. We were maniacs. It was trashy. We loved it. Luckily, my parents influenced us positively in other ways so none of us ended up living in a van down by the river.

Fun at the Track

T and I were able to go to the track today after school to see the cars practicing. I have been to the race twice, but I had never been to a practice before. We went for T's work and the suite was nice and we had some yummy vittles to eat. We also got passes to go down to the pit area.

I was very proud of mine and wanted to make sure everyone saw it.

The view from our area

We got so close to the action!

I saw lots of tiny men with great hair. They were small! I mean, like Keebler Elf small. I resisted the urge to scream out,

"Shouldn't you be in your tree making cookies?"

They wouldn't have heard me anyway.

Trinity was there to keep me safe. My gangly self was almost hit a couple of times by little golf cart like mobiles carrying equipment and big stacks of tires. I couldn't hear them coming! I was wearing my plugs.

Standing with arms akimbo always makes me smile!

Stretching after running laps is important.

I think I want to be a race car wife. The travel, the big sunglasses, the skinny body. I'm in.

Frustrated...

With the same precious kitty that I just raved about with love. She's getting old, persnickety and lazy. I think she's reading this book.

I apologize if this offends you. I try to abstain from cursing, but I couldn't resist this. I found this website, bluntcards.com and I have been laughing like crazy. The humor is of my snarky variety-