Le Weekend Away

Lee and I are at the lovely and luxurious le hotel, L'auberge du Lac in scenic Lake Charles, Louisiana. A friend's wedding is the occasion, though it could be a court summons and if it required leaving the state without our children we would be there. We aren't "casino people", but apparently a large proportion of east Texas is. As we walked down the corridor to the elevator to our room, we passed a bunch of shops with fake French names, like L'Sundries, Le Cafe, etc. I'm not sure who they think they are fooling, but we've taken to talking with the article "le" in front of everything we say. The other observation that we made was the people who were in le lobby, Le Cafe and le hallway didn't look like they should be spending their most recent paycheck in le casino. These are the same people who take their babies to the 10pm showing of R-rated movies. I might have missed that chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics Guide to the First Five Years of Life, but I can't remember reading about the best place to park your stroller in the casino lobby so as to avoid second hand smoke. Lee and I went to le pool today and floated on le lazy river. The room is fairly nice and even though the website didn't give you a non-smoking option, I think they built an entire new wing of rooms to accomodate fussy people like me.

I have become less prepared and neurotic in regards to traveling the older I become. When we left Houston, I didn't have the name of the church or the location of the reception. About 2 weeks ago, when we had our friends over for dinner I commented that I thought the wedding was going to be at the casino. After recoiling in horror she corrected my misconception and told me the wedding was to be in a proper church and the reception at another location. She reassured me that even though I had lost my invitation, when Lee and I arrived at the hotel, we would have a welcome bag with directions to the church and reception. The hotel ran out of them before we checked-in. All we knew was they were getting married in a Catholic church in Lake Charles, LA. No one at the Le Hotel could help us. Since there are only about 5 Catholic churches in town, we thought we might be able to drive around and find it. We decided that they weren't getting married at the Charismatic Catholic Center on 8th Ave which was situated between liquor stores and the barber shop. Neither were they having the ceremony at the church on Mill St where there was a pack of stray dogs and a man carrying a 40oz in a paper bag responding to his own internal stimuli. At yet another church we met a nice group from south Louisiana all dressed in Hawaian shirts. "No baby, we're having our rehearsal here, but if you go right on Enterprise and cross over Prien Lake, there's a real nice Catholic church there." I guess we didn't fit their demographic and they were sending us to the 'burbs. After an hour and a half of the sights and smells tour of Lake Charles, Louisiana, we were about to call it a loss and head back to Le Hotel. Lucky for us, a friend happened to answer his page from his answering service (those people are nosy and I'm sure they think that the good doctor is having an affair after I told them the call was in regard to a personal matter. I was too humiliated to explain that I was lost and unprepared and was asking them to page the man who wasn't even on call simply for directions. When they asked why I was calling him if it wasn't related to a patient, responding with "it's a personal matter" sounded like the better option). His wife unearthed her invitation and called us with the Mapquest directions. The best part of the whole night was the fact that neither one of us cared that we were driving in circles for the better half of the evening. Sure, it would have been nice to have actually seen my friends wedding, but I guess it's a pretty good that we both had fun doing nothing (though slightly sad that this counts as fun for us).

Another thing that we like to do just to keep the love alive is try to find new and unique ways to irritate each other. I recommend downloading embarrasing ringtones. It takes my husband about a day and a half to figure out how to change it back to something he likes, but in the meantime, it's great fun to know that everytime he answers his cell phone, he gets to hear "Dancing Queen" by Abba. Hands down, he is the most irritating person in the relationship. Some days he will go the whole day talking to me with the letters "sk" added to the last word of every phrase or sentence. Then sometimes he will just quietly repeat the suffix, "-sk" several times. Our relationship is based on love and maturity.

Ecclesiastes 11:4

"If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done."