Mike and I zipped down to College Station Tuesday night (for the night) because when you have conflicting schedules and the best Nana on the planet, you squeeze in your Valentine's night away wherever you can even if "wherever you can" happens to be a Tuesday night that is not Valentine's Day at all. Why College Station, you ask? (After some of you ask "College Station is an actual place? I thought Julia Roberts was just making it up in My Best Friend's Wedding!") Well, the romantic version is this: it's where our Valentine's (pizza and beer) tradition started, six years ago. The realistic version is this: it's about all we could afford and it's on my 2010 to-do list.
We went to school in College Station, so it's not quite as if anyone has to twist our arms to return because we really, really loved it there and really, really love going back there and, most importantly, really, really miss the food there. Funny, we racked up a ridiculous bill at our romantic dinner this past Friday night and yet the pizza that brought us back to College Station (and the wings and the sandwiches and the potatoes and even the alcohol), all under $20 a pop, made our mouth water even more.
It was a pretty low-key day and night away, but if you are a parent, the very best hyphenated pairing someone can use to describe a day and night away is low-key, am I right? We ate lunch, we took a long nap, we saw a movie, we drove around, we had dinner, we shared a pitcher of beer and we watched TV until we both passed out (before midnight). It's a very small town, that college town of ours, and it's also a very conservative small town, where many buildings and street signs have the Bush name attached to them and where cowboy boots and hats and belt buckles are common and where the official school greeting is "howdy!" and where you wouldn't think I'd fit in at all if you know me well, but every time I drive out of that town, my throat closes a bit and my chest tightens and I look at Mike, misty-eyed, and say, "I don't want to leave." Isn't that just what home is? Not always a makes-perfect-sense fit, but where you belong all the same.
The other reason I love it there so much: the alcohol flows as cheaply as water (that pitcher of ours was $6!) and no one bats an eye if you're wearing a dirty old t-shirt to the dusty old bar.
*****
I'm back tomorrow with lots of links and updates (like what I'm giving up over the next month because I'm apparently a CRAZY PERSON) and maybe a picture of my kid, the one who acted like I was a complete stranger when I returned today. WHO ARE YOU, GIVE ME MY NANA BACK!?