Remember me? I'm Your Wife...

What with all the ranting last week, I ran out of days to write about the glorious 27 hours I spent with my husband over Thanksgiving weekend.

That's 27 hours alone. No kids. No parents. No work. No deadlines. Just us. Overnight. For the first time in three years.

Crazy, crazy fun.

We left the kids at home with my parents on Friday morning at 9:30 and returned home the next day around noon. Picasso and Warhol at the Nasher in the morning. Pepper's for lunch. Afternoon nap at The Franklin. Dinner at Mediterranean Deli. Movie at The Varsity. The Franklin's special breakfast in bed. Brunch from Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen. Plus some lovely details in between that I won't write about because my parents and my in-laws read my blog (and it's not that kind of blog anyway).

Did I mention it had been three years?

Oh, and my favorite part about staying at The Franklin? The "do not disturb" button right beside the headboard -- you don't even have to get out of bed to hang the tag on your door.

Could it be more perfect?

Hark the Sound of Basketball (and Rugby) Season

I know for some of you out there, it's still football season (hi Dad!). But this Carolina girl has already moved on to basketball. The Tar Heels played (and won) their first game on Monday night -- okay, so it was only Florida International, but it still feels good to know the blue and white are back on the court.

In honor of the start of my favorite sports season, I'll share one of the first pieces I wrote for my magazine course while I was studying in Cardiff. We were assigned to cover the local reaction to the start of the Rugby World Cup, hosted in Cardiff that year. Given that I knew absolutely nothing about rugby, I had to take a different approach than traditional sports reporting.

In Chapel Hill, North Carolina, we celebrate March Madness, a month devoted to the great sport of college basketball. As college teams from across the United States compete for the NCAA title, Carolina fans flock to arenas and television sets, decorating their bodies, their homes, their cars, even their pets in support of the Tar Heels.

The enthusiasm reaches a fever pitch during the first weekend in April, when the last teams standing compete the The Final Four. If the Tar Heels have survived from the original field, every bar on Franklin Street, Chapel Hill's main street, welcomes a standing-room-only crowd of blue face paint and Carolina cheers.

In Cardiff, Wales, they celebrate the World Rugby Cup. And althought it's quite some distance across the proverbial pond, the enthusiasm of openting day, as Wales hosted Argentina, felt just like home for this Tar Heel alum.

On Friday, 1 October 1999, I was amazed to see the usually drab, grey Colum Road awash in a vibrant shade of red. Bright red rugby jerseys boasting the WRU [Welsh Rugby Union] logo had replaced the typical full-black European ensemble. Cabs flew Welsh flags from their antennae. Even the bank clerk at Barclay's sported a temporary face tattoo in support of her team. The trains passed by, filled to capacity with more red jerseys to spill into the city. Students wearing Welsh flags as sarongs cheered in the streets. And there were still six hours until kick-off.

By the time the opening ceremony began, every pub in the City Centre fortunate enough to possess even one television was bursting with rugby enthusiasts. The pub crowds joined with fans inside the newly built 72,500-seat Millennium Stadium singing anthems and folk songs, cheering for celebrities and waving their inflated daffodils and red-and-green scarves.

When Welsh performer Max Boyce took the stage, even the rowdy crowd at O'Neill's Pub hushed each other to hear the original verses in his song, then erupted with the familiar refrain in his obvious crowd-pleaser.

The volume of enthusiasm only increased when the players took the field. The crowd around me began chanting, "Wa-les! Wa-les!" But another hush came over the group at the sounds of the Welsh anthem, a patriotic tear trickling down the televised face of one of them team members.

Although it seemed impossible, the start of the game brought even louder and rowdier cheers, But as the game progressed, not all of the cheers were friendly. At the sight of an injured Argentinian player on the field, one pub fan shouted, "Let 'im die!"

As the WRU fought for their 23-18 win and their ninth-straight victory, the cans at O'Neill's never stopped their energetic support of "Henry's Army." And although I understood little of the game of rugby, I did understand the sense of pride felt by the crowds there and throughout the city of Cardiff.

The face painted and jester hats, the radio station ticket-giveaway contests and the closed-off city streets are all symbols of something that every Chapel Hill fan recognises: a true love and loyalty for a sporting team that serves to unite the community. Whether young or old, male or female, city professional or country worker, everyone who cheered for the WRU on Friday enjoyed equal status: victor.

First of Many

Marking milestones with Junius when he was a baby is what got me through that first year of craziness -- first smile, first food, first word, first steps and so on. In the early months, time seemed to move so slowly and I remember wondering if we would ever get to a point where he didn't need me every second of the day.

Now it seems like there's a milestone every week, and he's growing up so fast that there are days he doesn't need me at all. It's exciting and sad and amazing -- and although I know I'm not the first mom to feel this way, it's my first time and it sometimes makes me lose my breath.

Since his first camping trip at the end of the summer, Junius has tackled several more "firsts" that I want to document here:

• First time riding his bike to school... This actually made me cry a little bit as he was literally and metaphorically pedaling away from me. He was crazy proud of himself (and I was, too). It's about a mile from our house to his preschool, with several very big (up) hills. He needed a push now and then, but he made it the whole way. Now he rides to school (while I push Pippi in the stroller) at least three times a week.

• First football game... My cousin and brother-in-law will be proud to know that Junius's first time attending football game was at N.C. State's Carter-Finley Stadium. He had fun, but (as you can see from the photo) was a little sensitive about all the noise. Pippi, however, was not the least bit bothered -- she's definitely our party girl.

• First UNC football game... As a double Tar Heel, I couldn't let that NCSU game be the end of it, so we took the kids to their first UNC game in Kenan Stadium. Amazingly, the Heels won, but I think Junius's favorite part was watching the trombone players in the band.
  

• First movie in the theater... Watching Junius take in his first movie theater experience was almost as big a deal as watching him ride his bike to school. We couldn't have asked for a better set-up -- a limited release of Toy Story and Toy Story 2 (double-header with a 10-minute intermission) in 3-D. My husband took the afternoon off from work (shhh, don't tell), we left Pippi with a sitter, and went to the noon show. We were the only people in the theater. Literally. Popcorn, sippy cup and your choice of any seat in the house -- it just doesn't get any better than that.

Next week's milestone? As the ring-bearer in a wedding, Junius will sport his first tuxedo. Mommy will be bringing her camera -- and lots of tissues.

Pizza Nostalgia

Even though Thomas Wolfe, himself a Tar Heel, said you can't go home again, I always like to try anyway when it comes to Chapel Hill. I spent four years there as an undergrad, then returned five years later for graduate school.

Over the years, one restaurant retained my unfailing loyalty:
Pepper's Pizza.

A couple weeks ago I had a work-related meeting in Chapel Hill, so I took the opportunity to head to the Hill early and treat myself to lunch at Pepper's. It's been a few years since I had eaten there, and I knew that the restaurant had changed locations, moving up Franklin Street a few spaces from its original site (shown here). I was nervous, hopeful, a little skeptical -- but I needed to know if it was still My Pepper's.

As I enjoyed my lunch (my "usual": diet coke, side salad no peppers no onions with ranch dressing, and a slice with zucchini and feta) which was thank goodness exactly wonderfully like it had always been, I had to laugh about how much things have changed.

Of course, the space is new -- much brighter and less grunge than the old space, with four televisions mounted on the walls. The wait staff still looked college-town-quirky, but none of the employees had multi-colored hair, large tattoos or excessive piercings. And even the music was different -- instead of head-banging alternative noise, I actually heard "Walking on Sunshine" (although, to be fair, that is one of my all-time favorite songs -- seriously, click the link and thank me later for putting that feel-good tune in your head and a skip in your step).

But what had really changed? Me.

Instead of walking up to Franklin from class or the dorm with a group of friends, I drove to the parking garage and ate alone with a magazine (and enjoyed it! how else would I get to read The New Yorker in peace?). Instead of wearing jeans and a t-shirt with birks, I was in suit trousers, dressy top, pearls and heels -- professional attire for my meeting, of course. After lunch, when the waitress shooed me back to my table (apparently you don't pay at the counter in Fancy Pepper's), I handed her my AmEx card instead of a wad of change and bills out of the pocket on my backpack.

But the salad was still the right balance of lettuce, tomatoes and mozzarella with just the right amount of dressing. And the pizza still has that perfect-not-too-thick-not-too-thin crust with just enough sauce, thinly sliced veggies and salty feta cheese. And the diet coke, refilled at exactly the right moment, still comes with that delightful pebbly ice.

So I decided I'm okay with the changes at Pepper's because the food is what matters most. And I'm more than okay with the changes in me because it's a good life I've got here -- even if I did look a bit dorky at lunch.

Photo from UrbanSpoon.com.

Let's go... Tar Heels!

Like most parents, we've been working hard to raise our son right since the day he was born -- maybe even before then. We try to teach him about the big stuff, instruct him about the difference between right and wrong, help him to make good decisions, tell him about the importance of saving money and getting a good education. At our house, that means being brought up in the ways of Dean and Roy, of Hark the Sound and the Old Well, of Pepper's and Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen.

We are a Tar Heel family, with three Carolina degrees between us, and we want to be sure our children understand the significance. We also teach him about the Pirates (he's very good at saying "Argh" for his father's alma mater) and the Hokies (his grandfather's alma mater), but even his Daddy and his PopPop pull for the Tar Heels in most settings.

So it pains me greatly to share the following stories.

The first sign of failure occurred last Thanksgiving. Shortly after arriving at the grandparents' house, Junius was playing with the old Fisher-Price cash register (those old-school toys are still the best) when my sister-in-law asked him what he was going to do with all his money. He promptly responded, "I'm saving it for college" (so far, so good on the parenting). But when she asked him where he wanted to go to college, he quickly and clearly replied, "NC STATE!"

What?!

This is not what we've been teaching him. This is not what we talk about when we read I Want to Go to UNC. This is not why we bought him a Tar Heel National Championship onesie when I was six months pregnant. No no no, NO...

At first, I convinced myself it was a fluke, that he had the school names confused. Then I decided he must be spending too much time with our Wolfpack neighbors -- should have known those boys would be a bad influence. Now, it's happened enough times that I'm afraid he might actually mean it.

Okay, so I'm willing to cede a little ground to N.C. State. I actually like the Pack, as long as they're not playing the Heels (or the Hokies). We know some very nice, smart, successful people who went to school there. And if he decides he wants to be a graphic designer or an architect or an engineer, I'm all for sending Juni to NCSU.

But we draw the line at Dook. And we were pretty proud of ourselves for teaching him to say, "Boo Duke!" (although it sounds strangely like he's saying Bo Duke, as in the Hazzards, but I digress into my own childhood). There's even a Duke Street in our neighborhood and he says "Boo Duke!" every time we drive by. It was all going so well.

And then we went into Omega Sports over the weekend. Junius saw the Tar Heel display and said, "Look, Mommy -- it's Ramses!" (very nice, focused on our mascot). Then he ran to the Wolfpack display and announced, "It's N.C. State!" (Okay, fine). But then, as he walked past the Blue Devils paraphernalia, he said, "Yea! Go boo Duke!"

Argh. Back to school.