State Fair of Texas

The State Fair of Texas has concluded for another year, and I couldn't be more relieved. One of my clients is The Women's Museum, located within Fair Park, and for the three and a half weeks that the fair rolls on they really go all out. All year long, I help plan the events for this time, and then fly to Dallas to help oversee them. It is exhausting, intensive, and stressful. However one of the highlights of the fair is the WIDE scope of people that traverse through. For three and a half weeks I can come face to face with some of the most bizarre, perplexing and flat out most ridiculous questions and comments one could ever be privy to. Here are some of my favorite examples:

"Where can I find the chicken-fried bacon?"

"Why don't you have an exhibit about Sarah Palin?"

"Do you know where on the fairgrounds the life-size butter sculpture of King Tutankhmon is?"

"Do you have to be a woman to come in here?"

"Why don't you allow women with strollers into your handicap-only elevator? Shouldn't you be supportive of mothers?"

and the best....

"Why isn't there more stuff about men in here?"

Oh State Fair of Texas, you certainly bring an expanse of people into your fold. Perhaps someday I can learn to be as patient and unjudgemental.

Half-way through a bottle of wine and a really good session pouting...

We had a long-distance relationship for almost two and a half years, and the last year of that was our first year of marriage.

He was in med school in Texas and I had my heart set on St. John's College in Santa Fe for grad school. Though I have never once regretted the decision, to say it was brutal doesn't begin to scratch the surface. We tried to see each other at least once a month, even if it was only for one night, but that was not always possible. However, we made it through, and I have often credited the strength of our relationship to that experience. Fast forward four years, and you find us done with grad school and medical school, living in Biloxi, MS while he plods through residency. You would imagine, or at least I have been told enough times, that the years apart should have prepared us. You would think that, over time, the long-distance thing would be a piece of cake. They didn't, and it isn't.

Today he left on a plane again. We got two days together after a four-week separation, and now we have 2 more weeks apart. He was in Ecuador on a humanitarian mission and I have been traveling for work as well. When he left last month to go help thousands of people who do not have easy access to medical care, I could not have been more proud, or more like a two-year old that just accidentally let go of her balloon.