Weekends at Casa del Verde

Our friends from Lafayette, Chad & Jamie and 2 of their kids, came for a visit this weekend. We always have fun with them and enjoy them being here. It's not always easy staying in someone else's house and you often feel like you'd be more comfortable in a hotel. But they seem to feel comfortable here and they're no trouble at all for us so it works out.

Just so you can get a feel for the tone of the weekend, here are some memorable quotes:

"Hold on Mom, I gotta finish killing the princess."

"Eat a good breakfast so we're not tempted by the meat on a stick."

"We have a rogue ear plug baby, better check your butt crack."

"Is that a spatula in your pants or are you just happy to see me?"

"M & Ms are supposed to melt in your mouth, not in your crotch."

"Is that a stick of bamboo or are you just happy to see me?"

We get along so well because they're just as inappropriate as we are. 

We spent half of Saturday walking around Traders Village in 100 degree heat. That's my excuse for our inexcusable behavior at the Sausage On A Stick stand. This is the highlight of the Traders Village experience for Jayson, who never met a sausage on a stick that he didn't love.

Chad was a little doubtful at first, maybe because his conscience was telling him not to follow his friend down a path that could lead him to behavior he might later regret.

Chad's facial expression went from bad...

...to worse.

Obviously Jiminy Cricket had the day off because not only did Chad follow his friend down the forbidden path of the sausage on a stick, but he took his wife with him. The whole incident was like a modern reenactment of the Garden of Eden with Jamie playing the role of Adam who took the sausage from Eve (Chad) because he had been deceived by the serpent. That would make my husband the serpent. Oh well, it's not the first time!

Check out Chad's expression now.

As if the Thibodeaux children hadn't been scarred enough already, they then had to witness a set of exposed plastic butt cheeks wearing some kind of funky peek-a-boo butt lift panties. I had to pose next to the mannequin legs just to show that women don't need artificial enhancements to look beautiful and shapely in their baggy overall shorts they got at Goodwill. In fact, I was looking so stylish that a woman stopped me on the street just to compliment me on my sense of style. See?? I can still turn the heads of drunk flea market lesbians without the butt lift panties.

With my freak magnet still pulling 4 G's I managed to attract the attention of not only drunk flea market lesbians but the proprietors of one of the booths. We'll call them Bob and Sue. I was just casually looking through all their goodies, not even taking a particular interest in anything when I made a huge mistake. That's right. I accidentally made eye contact with Bob just as I was leaving his booth. I had to chew my own leg off to get away but not before I had the whole story of Bob's cancer and how he wouldn't have made it without Sue and how this was their first weekend at Traders Village but they have an eBay shop that I can visit any time. And since they live in Magnolia and I'm in Cypress, if I see anything I want in their eBay shop I should send them an email instead of bidding and they'll remove it from the auction. I won't have to pay full postage, maybe just a couple of dollars and they will meet me at the Wal Mart in Tomball with my goodies because they're not about taking advantage of people, they just try to make an honest living.

Seriously, they were nice people and I shouldn't make fun of them but I had just unwillingly invested 20 minutes of my life into their life story and all I could think about was how I hoped they made enough money at the market to buy a second set of false teeth since they were obviously sharing one set and it appeared that Sue got them at meal time.

I know, that's unbelievably awful of me but it was hot and I was cranky.

After we had sweated down to half our body weight, we went to James Coney Island to bulk up before the next stop on our journey. Jayson and Chad were particularly excited about getting to spend the rest of the afternoon at Sam Moon! They didn't complain nearly as much as we thought they would, maybe because it was nice and air conditioned in there.

If you've never been to a Sam Moon you really should go. They have the mother lode of cheap jewelry and accessories for women. They have about a million purses of all styles and price ranges as well as luggage, tote bags, belts, scarves, hats and gift items. They even have hair, which I was surprised Chad didn't buy.

This Sam Moon has some really cute clothes and shoes too but they're a little pricey. They had some adorable boho looking lace shirts for $25-$30 each and the sandals I liked were $54! Pretty much everything in the store is probably made by 6 year olds in Chinese sweatshops so there's really no reason for anything to cost over $10. And most of it doesn't. You can get some cute crystal chandelier earrings for $5.

In their section of gift items and travel supplies Jamie spotted this travel urinal for women. Of course we were fascinated by it and even had to Google it for more information when we got home. They advertise that you can use it standing, sitting or lying down and it is leak proof and reusable. We agreed that this product is so stupid it definitely had to be made by man who has no clue how we work.

When I got up Sunday morning I came downstairs to find that the coffee was already made and Chad & Jamie were unloading the dishwasher. Obviously, this made me happy :) Not just because they saved me from having to do it but because they're comfortable enough here to root around in the kitchen to find what they need. I like a house guest who is comfortable enough to open the fridge and say, "I'm hungry, whaddya got?" Cuz then I say, "sandwich stuff, make it yourself." And we all get along great!

Actually we might be getting a little too comfortable with each other. I am a compulsive labeler and will stick a label on just about everything in my house. I do this because sometimes my family, bless their hearts, is stupid. It irritates me to have to constantly tell them where to find something or where to put it away so I solve this problem by clearly labeling everything so that they can do it themselves. I figure that way everybody wins. And nobody dies.

After seeing my kitchen drawers labeled "coupons" and "receipts" and my bread box labeled "bread", Chad said he expected to see my furniture labeled "chair", "table", etc. Then he picked up my bottle of olive oil (which pretty much everyone calls EVOO now, right?) and asked what it was. He was acting like he was all confused because the bottle didn't have a label on it. Smart ass. I immediately fixed it by attaching a clearly marked label:

We went to Chinatown to explore the Hong Kong City Mall. As if getting around in Houston wasn't difficult enough, this is what the street signs in the Chinatown area look like:

There's plenty of Asian architecture in Chinatown and everyone drives the way people in China drive: badly. As soon as we stepped inside the mall Jayson and I were both instantly transported back to the trip to China we took in 1998. We were the only white people there, we were taller than everyone else and the whole place smelled like feet. Aaahhh memories. Jamie and I felt like we blended fairly well despite our fair complexions since we were both carrying our new Sam Moon purses. We bought them from an Asian lady in an Asian store so that makes us practically Asian. 

Hong Kong City Mall parking lot.

My new Sam Moon purse.

The Hong Kong Supermarket is at the center of the mall and seems to be "the" place to be on a Sunday afternoon in Chinatown. After browsing through a few of the aisles we could see why. You can buy a gallon can of olive oil for $15 and the salmon heads were on special for $1.99/pound. The fish area of the market was particularly pungent and filled with all kinds of fresh and frozen fish, crabs, snails, stingray, shrimp, and other unidentifiable delicacies.

The grocery shopping carts are lined up inside the mall so that you can push your cart around the mall and into the different stores, not just the grocery store. That was weird. People would come out of the grocery store with bags of noodles and huge spiny fruits, then they'd push their grocery cart over to the shoe store then into the bubble tea shop. If you do buy a bubble tea at the mall I recommend you go to the shop right across from the supermarket and get the coconut flavored one. I had a sip of Jamie's and it was delish, even though I like mine without the snot balls at the bottom. All the teas are made with fresh fruit and there's a little Asian girl in the back beating on a sugar cane to use for the sweetener. That's just good stuff.

Grocery carts in the mall.

A masked Thibodeaux.

Jayson bought a BB handgun because that's what almost 50 year old men do. The kids got toys, Jamie got jewelry, I got origami paper, Chad got a stick of bamboo. Jamie also bought 2 money trees that I also feel very invested in for some reason. Maybe because we had to Google them to find out what they were. They basically look like marijuana with a braided trunk. Hers are small right now so we expect they'll only produce small bills for a while. Maybe by this time next year they'll be dropping 100s. If the money trees die...well we just don't want to think about what that means.

A money tree with braided trunk.

Jayson eating a "cupcake".

We had a great weekend but by the end of it the kids were completely exhausted from all the fun, so much so that they fell asleep in the middle of Phineas and Ferb. Aren't they cute??