Spatula & Lakie

I spent last weekend in the upper reaches of Texas with the Townsends. The city of Plano is closer to Oklahoma and Arkansas than it is to Houston. It was their annual pre-Christmas gathering with friends, and it was the first one I've been able to attend. Going to school in Chicago and the shear distance from my end of the state once I got back to Texas have been my excuse and I'm sticking to them.

We had a big dinner gathering with tons of food. It was my first chance to have some deep fried turkey, and I absolutely liked it. The meat is much more moist than the traditional oven technique, and I had no problem having it for seconds the next day. There was also a good heaping amount of brisket. Not a place for vegetarians indeed.

And then there was the chiminea. When you present Todd and me with the chance to start a fire its hard for us to say no. On that brisk night we decided to do just that, start an outside fire in his newly bought chiminea. We had a good time keeping it going and stoking the fire. If it was up to us, we could have been there all night tending to the flames, but he had only trimmed his trees so much earlier in the day. Our fire wood ran low after 4 hours. The only thing we were missing were smores ingredients and some hotdogs.

Todd & Sarah have been my good friends dating back to our college days at Texas A&M. In fact its almost been 10 years with the Spatula & Lakie. Back when I called her by her maiden name of Lakie, and I still do to this day. "Spatula", well that's a nickname I've given him with a story really best left unwritten.

It all started out in a little student chapter of an organization called Habitat for Humanity. Seems much longer than 10 years to me, but at the same time it sure has flown by. Unlike most of the married couples I know, I was good friends with both of them equally before they were even married. We spent much of our free time as college juniors in the service of Habitat trying to give a helping hand to low-income families, and along the way our friendship started.

From road trips to Arkansas to go hiking or to the horse tracks, or to the casinos of Tunisia. We just messed around as college kids are required to do. I'll leave out all the playful stories of the parties and trips to the bars. It can be quite incriminating, and somehow it was always funnier for them than for me.

And then there was that year before optometry school. The year I was "lost" concerning my future. Rejected by the schools I had applied to and basically in professional limbo with a little Biomedical Science degree. And for all the negatives, it was all my friends that kept my mind off the depressing facts of my future. Such is the luxury of youth, for consequences can seem farther away than they are.

That year Todd & I roomed in a duplex, and I worked full-time at the Eye Care Center as a tech. I'm not sure if I had gone home to live with my parents after graduating from Texas A&M that I would be the optometrist I am today. It was definitely more fun than I should have had with my uncertain future as it was.

Todd and I even squeezed in a long road trip that year. It was our trip to celebrate our graduation, and it was a good one. We started in Houston, where I grew up, with a detour to Arkansas, where he grew up. We had an unexpected pit stop in Santa Fe to have a tune-up with the car, and then traveled to some barren part of Arizona. We explored a part of Arizona I didn't even knew existed, one not covered by desert or rocks. And then we went where everyone has been, the Grand Canyon. Next, I made my first foray to Utah and fell in love with that state. And of course there is always the obligatory stop in Las Vegas. I've always loved the sheer audacity that is Vegas. An its even more striking if you spend a week with nature. Prior to that trip I never thought I could survive on a trip interacting with only one other person. But it turned out to be a really great time.

And here I am still friends with Spatula & Lakie.