The Blizzard of '93

     Way back in 1993 the media wasn't yet tagging everything as the next apocalypse, but if they had been I'm sure all the news stations and printed newspapers(1) would have been heralding the snow storm that hit Knoxville that March as "SNOWPOCALYPSE 1993!". A friend reminded me on Facebook this morning that it's been twenty years ago today that it started snowing (thanks, Tonya!) and from what I remember it didn't stop for what seemed like forever.  Joel and I were both seniors at UT that spring.  My roommate, Susannah, and I lived at 1824 Scarlett Oak Place in the Country Oaks Apartment complex and Joel lived at Sutter's Mill, a rival apartment complex a few miles away. The two of us (Joel and I) were still just friends that March - not even close to dating, really - but we were spending a lot of our free time together.  We talked on our land line phones several times a day and left messages tucked under the windshield wipers of each others cars in between classes (2). As for the snow storm, I really was trapped in my apartment (with heat and television and a VCR and running water but "trapped" all the same).  Things became dire though when I realized I was going to  run out of Diet Mountain Dew before the snow melted (I think I drank one every hour on the hour at that point in my life).  When I called Joel and informed him of my impending doom, he said something like "No problem, I'll be right over. I have a Subaru and I can drive in the snow."  I'm sure I scoffed at him and said, "I don't care what kind of car you have, you can't drive in this weather!  The roads are treacherous and impassable.  You will never make it here."   Several hours later there was a knock on my door and I'm sure it's no surprise that when I opened it, there stood Joel with a grocery bag full of my much needed Diet Mountain Dews. He also brought all the fixins to make cajun rice and sausage and I'm guessing he had a six pack of beer in there too.  While he cooked our dinner, he told a harrowing tale of slipping and sliding his way to Food City then helping other stranded drivers out of ditches and finally parking at the bottom of my apartment complex and walking up the hill in the blinding snow to save me from eminent caffeine withdrawal (and starvation). He really was a good friend. 

SNOWPOCALYPSE!  WITH ICECICLES!!

     At some point the snow must have melted enough that Susannah and I could make it out of town because by the end of that Spring Break week we were approximately 1100 miles south of Knoxville in Key West, Florida.  Why we drove 1100 miles to go to the beach is beyond me now, but at the time it sounded like a good idea.  Despite the rather touristy look of the photos I'm including here, we had a lot of good old fashioned spring break kind of fun on that trip.  (All photos of the actual fun are, for the time being, safely hidden away where my children won't find them (3) and (4). )

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(1)  How strange it now seems that way way back in 1993 most of us still got our news from the actual printed newspaper and not from the internet because the internet had just been invented  and not all of us were tech savvy enough to have those dial up modem thingies (5) and so the morning paper was like a daily surprise of  "gee whiz, I wonder what happened while I was sleeping last night?".  

(2)  Notes left on windshields, this is how we communicated before texting and emailing were invented.  Most of the notes said things like "Meet me at O'Charley's after class." None of them said "I'm going to be in the library studying." 

(3)  All these years later, what I clearly remember about this trip (other than the many many many hours we spent riding in the car and the above-mentioned "fun") is driving through south Florida at daybreak and seeing mile after mile of devastation left behind by Hurricane Andrew.

(4) Please keep in mind that we were good Catholic girls (and I can say that without a hint of irony or innuendo) so our "fun" was less "MTV Girls Gone Wild" and more "What time does karaoke start?" 

(5)  Joel had a computer and a modem.  He was the first person I knew who had this new-fangled technology.  

Overalls

I've got five pockets in my overalls

      When Owen was about 18 months old he had this pair of Osh-Kosh overalls that he wore all the time.  Thinking that he was a kid who loved overalls, I went out and bought him two more pairs -  one blue and one red and both corduroy. I tried and tried to get him to wear them, but he only loved this one pair.   I loved these overalls too.  They looked so adorable on his little self.

   Last Saturday, Owen attended the Grande Ball for the Cotillion class he participated in this year. He did not wear overalls.  He reluctantly agreed to wear a tux. Once he arrived at the ball and confirmed that his buddies were dressed in a similar fashion he decided that maybe the tux wasn't so bad after all - which is pretty high praise from him where all things "cotillion" are concerned.

Not overalls, but there are pockets.

Cheers!

After the ball was over, all the moms and sons went to Chili's for dinner.  We tried to go to Ruby Tuesday's, but they were too crowded with early bird diners to seat us and to Ruby Tuesday's I just have to say - look at what you missed out on.  These guys were the best looking diners in the restaurant that night.  The boys sat in their own booth and toasted whatever it is that eleven and twelve year old boys toast with their mugs and bottles of apple juice and root beer and lemonade.  It was a good night.  On Sunday, Owen and I spent some time together packing his bags so that we could wake up not so bright but very early Monday morning and drop him off at the bus that would take him on his first extended trip away from home. He gave me a hug before we left the house (he didn't want to have to deal with all that messy emotional stuff in the school parking lot ) so the drop-off at school was just that.  He got out of the car, walked to the bus, stowed his bags underneath,  and told us he'd see us on Friday.   

     On the way to work, Joel said that after all of the events of the weekend it kind of felt like we were sending Owen off to college.  I told him to hush because I didn't want to think about it. And I don't want to think about it. It's been 10 years since he spent his days walking around in Osh-Kosh overalls, but we're only 6 years away from sending him off to college (knock on wood).

     Back to the overalls, I'm nostalgic about his sweet little eighteen month old self this morning because things with him are stormy at present - good, but stormy. He needs us, he doesn't need us. He's happy to see us, we embarrass him by our mere presence. He wants more freedom, but not necessarily more responsibility. He doesn't know everything (yet), but he's beginning to believe that we don't know much of anything. They're called "growing pains" for a reason, I guess. To that end - "Lord, grant me the serenity to accept my (moody) child for who he is today; the courage to hold my ground as his parent even when he hates me for it; and the wisdom to pick my battles with him judiciously no matter how effectively he's pushing my buttons." It's my new "Serenity Now!" prayer for the tween years. I'm buckling up too, because I'm pretty sure we're in for a bumpy ride.