Whitewood Lanes

I have to say one of the biggest selling points of Abilene has to be Whitewood Lanes. Yes it's smokey, trashy and dirty, but man it's a great place. First of all, bowling there is super cheap, especially when you have your own shoes (please refrain from jealousy). It's $2 a game on Friday and Saturday nights and $1.25 for a shoe rental. Then they play this game where you can win coupons, so I ended up getting $1 off my game...ok now that I say that it doesn't sound that impressive, but the people I was with got more I just was sucking it up at bowling tonight.

The only downside is that I reek of smoke, my hands feel eternally dirty and my eyes feel like they're going to just fall out.

I missed Brent's birthday party today...this is my first birthday party to miss. Does this make me a bad aunt? If I miss one this early in the game does that mean I'm doomed to blow them off more easily in the future? I hope not. I have to say it was a little heart wrenching to have my nephew ask me if I was coming to his birthday party and when I said no say "but you can come if you want to." That's when the tears started on my end of the phone. Ok it was only one tear, but I still gave one. I did have probably the longest conversation I've ever had with Brent today. The boy would not stop talking. I even asked him to give the phone to Shelley and he passive aggressively didn't. He just kept talking. At one point Shelley, Wes and Livvy were all in the same room with him and apparently staring at him and he said "excuse me, would you all please stop, I am trying to talk to Aunt Mel!" and then he said to me "oh my word they are wearing me out...I don't have a word." Seriously where does the kid come up with this stuff??? I promise to make every effort to make it to his party next year.