STEEPLECHASE, BABY!

Today has been a busy day. I went shopping, came home and cleaned the house. Then I sorted, washed, folded and PUT AWAY (step 4 always eludes me for some reason) three loads of laundry.

What has lit the proverbial fire under my butt?

STEEPLECHASE, BABY!!

It's this Saturday in Nashville. Hubby, Miss Priss and I are headed out tomorrow morning. We're meeting my mother-in-law at our usual half-way point to reluctantly hand off our precious darling to her grandmama for the weekend.

Bwahahaha! Did you see that? I couldn't even say it with a straight face! Whew! Tears.rolling.down.my.face. Sniff!

Seriously...the scene would be more accurately described as Hubby and I barely slowing the car down long enough to hand off our kid to grandmama and then hitting the pavement like two bats who have recently been paroled from hell.

It's not that we don't love being parents...we do, but Steeplechase is a sacred tradition that we have vowed to carry over from our DINKS days. It's the one weekend out of the year we look forward to the most. It's a chance to get together with old friends, wear cute clothes and sit in a field and drink mint juleps and ice picks all day. Honestly, I can't think of anything better, can you?

Earlier, I thought maybe I was a little more excited than your average Steeplechase goer, but then we got this e-mail from one of Hubby's friends. Skippy wrote a couple of poems dedicated to Steeplechase. Here they are...

Haiku
Steeplechase, girls, horses, cold beer
My favorite day
Port-O-Potty smells.

Elementary Poem
Roses are Red, Violets are Blue.
That guy is wearing ass-less chaps, how about you?

Unfortunately, the one about the ass-less chaps was based on a true story. Believe me, it was unfortunate for ALL of us. It wasn't a very nice ass.

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What is Steeplechase?

For a few years now, Hubby and I have gotten together with some other couples and rented a tent at the annual Steeplechase horse races in Nashville...all of Hubby's friends from high school and college who live out of town, usually come in for the annual pilgrimage.

It's a big deal, especially for the girls. It's like tailgating, only everyone dresses a lot better. A new dress is simply a MUST and you HAVE to wear a matching hat. For the boys, it's just another excuse to drink and gamble, but again, they're dressed better.

At the beginning of the day, everyone looks as though they stepped out of Town & Country Magazine...strutting haughtily by in their best finery. By the end of the day, those same people stagger back to their cars looking like drunk, sunburned war refugees. The once beautiful hats are crumbled and all askew and some of the dresses are torn and muddy thanks to an ill-advised run down a makeshift mudslide.

And EVERYONE smells faintly of Port-o-Potty from many repeated trips to the only bathroom facilities available on the green.