Friday

Now don't get me wrong.

I don't expect sympathy for my own stupidity. Y'all should appreciate my willingness to share. If I can stop one other dumb mistake in the world, all my humiliation will be worth it.

Well, continuing from my previous post...

Thankfully, I didn't get the full scale case of the stomach flu! I only got the er, lower part of it, and I attribute staving off the stomach part to stopping off and buying a large bag of peppermints at the quicky mart on my way to Nashville and devouring as many as possible as fast as possible. I'm getting pretty good at plowing right through an illness I tell ya.

So we get to our hotel, and of course there is the excitement of seeing who is at the pageant and who is not and getting everything in and registering. But it's hard to be excited when you are exhausted, sick...

...and worried.

First, I didn't tell MY parents about going. Now, I have been living married with children for almost 20 years, but they still suffer the delusion that I'm 17 and going on my first date every time I get in a car. And I am understanding about it, but had they known I drove to Nashville just me & Giz (following another lady and her family for safety's sake) I would have received the lecture from HELL prior to going, a rant about being stupid, risking mine and my child's life, where are we going can we have all the information plus a sled report on the family we are following, what if something happens who will come save me and if they don't have the information they won't be able to look for me & Giz etc etc etc. Now it never occurs to them that I have a husband at home to give information to and a cell phone and a gps and I'm travelling with other people. I think they like to pretend my husband doesn't exist and I have think they WANT something to happen to me so they can fell vindicated.

Besides, a lecture/rant would have been a real pain in the ass, wouldn't have changed my mind, and taken up a bunch of time I just didn't have to spare. Plus, it really bites when my Dad is RIGHT.

Anyway. Now that we have established my IQ level (again.)

You know that icky feeling you had when you were a kid and you were in trouble with your parents? I had just that on top of everything else. Even my husband was like "what on earth do I do??" if my parents should call - it kinda reminded me of when I was in college and my roommates would lie to my Mom about my whereabouts when I was down the street at a party and she would call every fifteen minutes asking as to my location. Granted, I don't blame my Mother for worrying, but it's not really a worry where they care THAT much about ME, it's more like... they hate to worry about me but they do because it's the right thing to do so if they end up having to worry about me then they get mad at me because I'm responsible for stressing them out about worrying about me. In the end it's all about THEM. Don't make me repeat that. I know they LOVE me, but I'm not altogether sure they LIKE me. But that's another series unto itself.

And if you want further explanations, I'm sure there's a shrink somewhere with a textbook just covering that subject alone.

So now. I'm sick. I'm tired. I'm spending a lot of money knowing Gizmo is probably not going to win anything (and not because Giz isn't pretty or a good model but I'll get to it later.) I'm hiding from my neurotic over-controlling parents 386 miles away from home. And I keep trying to rationalize that I'm having fun. Oh, and Giz? She's about the happiest kid on the planet no matter where she is. (sometimes I think I need to rename her on the blog to DeeDee - as in DeeDee from Dexter's laboratory 'cause that's so HER sometimes.)

Well, check in was pretty uneventful at the hotel except for an entirely ungraceful unloading of our luggage from the car (no bellman, no carts, and it's just me and a 5 year old trying to lug everything in and up to the room making 5 trips by ourselves.) But now on to pageant registration.....

And in the middle of all this mess I'm taking work calls post production launching of a project I'm responsible for at work.

....to be continued