Week One - and this doesn't even cover it all!

Remember when I said that I was going to post daily updates about Janet’s visit? Yeah. Me too. That was before Janet’s visit. Now that she’s here, I’ve been a touch busy. Between teaching, finishing the senior issue of the Anvil, picking two new publication staffs and editors, planning two end of year banquets and several trips, and trying to show Janet 15 year’s worth of life in the US in three weeks, I haven’t quite found the time. So this might be the longest blog post yet.

   Janet has adapted to Houston like she’s been here 12 times before. After the mani/pedi, we went to Creamistry, and she ate her weight in chocolate ice cream. We went to Marshall’s and Target and got school clothes and school supplies. She’s declared Target her favorite store. Duh. We then headed to the Galleria, where she looked up in awe at the multiple levels and down in amazement at the ice skating rink. We didn’t have time to skate but are going to try to go back. She walked through Sephora, asking why lipstick costs $34. Excellent question, Janet! We then headed to the Water Wall. Even though she sees natural waterfalls taller than the Water Wall, she was fascinated. This was also the first opportunity she’d had to see skyscrapers, and she rolled down the car window and craned her neck to see the tops of them. 

    On the way home, we saw a homeless woman sitting in the median. Janet asked me what she was doing and why she had a “sign with words.” I explained it to her as best I could. She got very quiet, and I saw tears well up in her eyes. Later that night, she asked me if I had a gun and said that she’d heard that everyone in Texas has one. She explained that she’s never seen a gun. We discussed how both good people and bad people can have guns and she seemed satisfied with my answers. Two major social issues down in the first 24 hours of her arrival. Only about 173 to go.

   Dinner on Sunday night – her first dinner – was barbecue. Obviously. We pretty much ordered everything on the menu. I almost fell down when he rang it up and told me the total and so did Janet! I didn’t care – I wanted her to taste it all. We had PLENTY! We ate barbecue for days, which was fine with her. She loved it! While we were waiting for the order, I offered her a dill pickle slice, not even thinking that she probably hasn’t experience the sour/tart flavor of pickles. She has been willing to try anything and everything I’ve offered her, but she was NOT HAPPY with me at all. Not a fan whatsoever. I also ordered some mac-n-cheese, certain she would love it. I was wrong. Fijians don’t eat much cheese, if any, so that’s eliminated so many things that I was excited about feeding her. She didn’t even like Goldfish crackers. Heartbreaking!

   After dinner, I introduced Janet to Alexa. As in Amazon Alexa. Let me just say, I think Janet now likes Alexa better than me. She talks to her pretty regularly now, attempting full conversations. It’s actually been great because she asks her what time it is in Fiji and what the weather there is like. I also showed her my Ring doorbell camera and my “clap on-clap off” bedside lamp. She was amazed by both! The back-up camera on my car prompted another big “what is that?!” When she saw it, she looked at the camera, then looked all around, looked back at the camera, then back behind her and quickly figured it out. Janet is extremely intelligent and intuitive and seems to “get things” much more quickly than most.

   We headed to bed around 10:00, but understandably, Janet’s body clock was off, so she – and I – were up until about 2:30. I was thrilled about my 6:45 alarm, as was she. I offered to let her sleep in, but she was excited about school and jumped up pretty quickly. We made it to school, introduced Janet to the office staff and the principals and waited for my yearbook students to arrive. They came in and greeted her and began asking her lots of questions and offering to show her around. She took to them right away (as she does everyone) and pretty quickly was asking to work on a computer. She stayed in my room all day on Monday and couldn’t wait to leave so we could go home and swim. We went BACK to Target to get a bathing suit and as we left, I spotted a Dollar Tree. I took her in and explained that EVERYTHING in the store was one dollar each. I gave her 10 dollars and told her she had 20 minutes. Four minutes later, she was finished. She picked one thing for herself and nine things for other people back home, including a paper fan for her grandmother. So sweet.

      We got home and she had her new bathing suit on faster than I could get upstairs. I warned her that the water was going to be cold, but she assured me it would be okay. I had my doubts, but she proved me wrong. She jumped right in and said the water was warmer than the rock pool water where she normally swims. She swam for about an hour and then we got ready for dinner. Her first restaurant meal ever was spaghetti at Carrabbas. She loved the noodles and sauce but didn’t love the meatballs. She ate all of it though and asked if she could have more noodles! After dinner, I took her to Whole Foods and let her pick out some fruit and snacks. She tasted grapes for the first time and has eaten them every day since.

   When we got home, she asked to use my laptop to watch videos. Apparently, Taylor Swift’s appeal to teenage girls is universal. I told her she needed to close the laptop when the clock said 10:30 and I went to bed. I had every intention of checking on her at 10:30. Rookie mistake. At 12:40, I heard that she was up using the bathroom, but in my haze, I didn’t get up to check on her. The next morning, I went to wake her up and all the lights were on, the laptop still open and on. She was a little slower to get up, but still jumped up pretty quickly.

    We had decided that on Tuesday, she would start attending classes. I took her to a World Geography class with my friend Mary Reed. Mary took her in immediately, as I knew she would, and asked her if she could “teach the class” about Fiji soon. Janet sat in the front row for class and then a sweet girl from the class walked her back to my room for lunch. Ashlie Simon, our former photography teacher who had been on the trip to Fiji with us in 2015, came to see Janet and let her meet Ashlie’s one-year-old son. After lunch, I encouraged her to write about her trip in the journal my mom bought for her, but she wasn’t having it. She tried to get started but kept erasing and starting over, despite my attempts to give her a list of ideas to write about. We still haven’t managed to get anything written in the journal. I also took her to meet my good friends Leslie, Krisi and Holly. She has met SO many new people and does a great job of introducing herself and trying to remember names. In Holly's Engineering classroom, we showed her the 3D printer, which really impressed her, and Holly let her pick a color and print a letter. 

   We finished out the day and then went home to get ready for the Astros game that night. The drive from my school to my house is less than 15 minutes. Janet slept all the way home. I tried to get her to take a nap when we got home, but she took a hot bath instead. She’s been cold about 90% of the time she’s been here and loves taking hot baths and showers.

   I was being honored at the game that night as a finalist for my school district’s teacher of the year and got to go on the field. I tried to explain to Janet who the Astros were and what the World Series was and why I was getting to go on the field. I think she understood it for the most part, but she was still pretty overwhelmed by downtown and the stadium and the crowds. She had her first hot dog (she liked the hot dog, not the mustard) and loved Orbit and the train at the top of the stadium wall. I had several friends in different places around the stadium, so we walked A LOT to see everyone, getting lost a few times trying to find different sections. She was NOT happy with me for making her walk so much, and was understandably exhausted, so we headed home in the sixth inning.

   We went right to bed when we got home, exhausted. Rookie mistake number two – I forgot my laptop was still in Janet’s room. I went to wake her the next morning and saw her school spiral sitting open next to the laptop. She had been taking notes the night before on Fiji – history, population, names of the islands, etc. I woke her up and asked her what she’d been doing and how late she’d stayed up. She said he was preparing the lesson on Fiji for Ms. Reed’s class. I explained that she had plenty of time to get her lesson ready. Poor thing – she thought she was going to need to “teach the class” that day.

    When we got to school, some of my yearbook students got Janet Shipley’s donuts. Sprinkles on the donut got a thumbs down…chocolate glazed got two thumbs up. She’s had several since. She went back to Ms. Reed’s class that day and has been every day since. She’s still working on her lesson and will present it her last week here. She has also now been to an English class and a PE class and has had lunch with different students every day. She walks to and from classes by herself and is very confident in talking to students and teachers, for the most part. I’ve been most impressed.

    On Wednesday night, we met a longtime friend of mine, Gary, at Escalante’s for Mexican food. I was excited to introduce her to a Texas tradition, but…she wasn’t a fan. She liked the fajita beef and the tortillas, but that was about it. She loved the chocolate ice cream after dinner, though, so all was fine. When we got home, she asked me if she could make some “plain white rice,” and of course I said yes. She did a great job – way better than my rice! We actually got to bed at a decent hour that night and both felt better the next day.

   After school on Thursday, I needed to work for a while with my newspaper staff, so three of my yearbook students took Janet to Sky High, an indoor trampoline park. Earlier in the day, my editor in chief, Maddie, showed her a video of Sky High. That resulted in Janet asking me about every 20 minutes for the rest of the day how much longer until she was going with Sarah to Sky High. Needless to say, she loved it. They took her to eat Southwell’s afterward (burger – meat, bread and tomato only and fries and a chocolate shake), and then we went to watch the MHS softball playoff game. My good friend, Melissa, has a daughter, Blake, who plays for the team, so we went to watch her last game of the year. Janet also met and played with Melissa's nieces. We got home by 8:30, packed for our trip to Dallas and were both asleep by 10:00. Finally, by night four I learned – I took the laptop and the remote out of her room, so she was forced to sleep.

   On Friday, we arrived to a decorated classroom. My sweet yearbook students had decorated for my birthday. We had donuts and Chic-fil-A and Janet went to PE, English and Geography. We headed to Dallas so Janet could meet my family, but of course we stopped at Buc-ees, which was a big hit. Soooo many things to see and so many “what is this?-es.” It was fun to see her face when we walked in, and I laughed when she said “why are there so many bathrooms?” Welcome to Texas, Janet! As we were leaving, she spotted a Shipley’s and she asked if we could stop. I mean, how could I say no to that?

   We arrived in Dallas and Janet met my mom and step-dad and my brother, Chris. Janet spotted the pool and was in the water in less than 15 minutes. After swimming, she sat in a hot tub for the first time, which got a big thumbs up. We ate hamburgers and hot dogs and later, my brother and sister-in-law, Steve and Mimi, arrived. Steve is the Grand Prairie Chief of Police and was in uniform. Janet was amazed. She asked about his uniform and his gun quite a bit, and Steve and Mimi talked to her a lot about her life in Fiji and being Catholic (as they are, too). We played a dice game called Tenzi’s and “gambled” with Jelly Bellies. Steve asked Janet to promise that she wouldn’t go home and tell her mom that we taught her about guns and gambling. She loved meeting them and the feeling was mutual from them.

    After they left, we “celebrated Christmas” with my brother, Chris. He lives in Canada and was supposed to be here at Christmas, but couldn’t make it at the last minute. We just kept all his presents wrapped and had Christmas in April with him. I think Janet was a bit confused – they don’t exchange gifts at Christmas and definitely don’t celebrate it in April! The confusion was forgotten pretty quickly when my mom and step-dad gave Janet a necklace with a pendant of Texas (just like one my mom wears) and then, the coup de gras, a laptop! (one my mom no longer uses…). Janet was beside herself and jumped up and thanked and hugged my mom repeatedly.

    On Saturday morning, we got up and headed out to see my brother, Dale, and my nephew, Dusty, at Dale’s ranch in North Texas. My niece, Stephanie, and her boyfriend, Rob, joined us. Before we left, Stephanie gave Janet a bag full of school supplies and treats from Target, which Janet loved, of course. We headed out and before we got to the ranch, we stopped for lunch at a small cafe in St. Joe's. Next door was a nearly 200-year old saloon turned museum that has all kinds of artifacts and pictures from the cattle drive days of the 1800s. Janet saw the original saloon cash register, old liquor bottles, blacksmith equipment, saddles, chaps and cowboy hats. She seemed to know way more about some of it than I expected her to, but also asked plenty of questions. On the way to Dale’s, we tried to explain to Janet that Dale has hunted all over the world and has an extensive collection of taxidermy. We were afraid it would upset Janet. When we got there, she looked up in amazement at Dale’s beautiful house and all the taxidermy. When she met Dale, she said, “I think I’ve seen you before in a movie. Spiderman.” We all died laughing because she was referring to Willem DaFoe, who Dale favors. He told her he was on a break from acting these days but she could still tell all her friends she met the Green Goblin.

    We went outside and let Janet meet the cows, explore the ranch, and DRIVE THE GOLF CART! Chris says she "over-steered," but all in all, she did pretty well. She is now convinced that she should be perfectly fine driving my car.  We played pool and darts and she tried out the treadmill, then watched Sweet Home Alabama under a blanket in a recliner with her feet in the electric massager. At about 6:30, we peeled her out of the recliner so we could go to dinner. We went to a really cool outdoor pizza place near Dale’s. Janet was cold the entire time – still not used to our climate – but she enjoyed seeing the outdoor pizza oven and the pizza. She slept in the car all the way home and then proceeded to stay up most of the night (unbeknownst to me) watching Netfilx. Teenagers really are the same all over the world.

   Sunday morning, I went in to wake Janet up and she was watching High School Musical. She got up, sat in the hot tub for a while, took a shower and was served my mom’s famous shaped pancakes and bacon. She also asked for rice and milk. My mom whipped up some rice and then gave her SOYMILK! YUCK! Janet agreed with my assessment of the soy milk. She asked to try coffee, so I let her have a little with plenty of cream and sugar. She liked it. Obviously.

 We left Garland to head back to Houston but stopped for some barbecue with my long-time friend Donnie. Donnie is the funniest male I know (I designate "male" because my best friend, Jamie, is the funniest female I know and I feel sure if she reads this, she's going to be offended if I say Donnie is the funniest person I know!). Janet agreed with me about Donnie - the three of us laughed through lunch, and then Janet and I headed to Houston, wishing we could've spent longer with Donnie. I told her that I was not going to let her sleep the whole way because I knew she wouldn't go to sleep tonight.   She didn’t seem too happy about that. Anyone want to place a wager on which one of us won that battle?
   We got home, unpacked, ate some more barbecue, played some games and then negotiated on how much time she was going to get to watch movies on the laptop. I THINK she's asleep right now...I can say for certain she's not watching movies because I am typing this on my laptop, and I took her new laptop AND the remote from her room. Finally cracking down! She - and I - are going to need plenty of sleep tonight. We have a reallllly big week ahead. I'll try to do better about blogging this week. No promises! What I can promise...there will be even more to write about. We're heading to the Big Apple on Wednesday!

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