It seemed like a good plan.

I've had "convertible fever" for several months now. It started innocently enough when I became enchanted with a lovingly restored 1973 Mercedes convertible that Mr. Wonderful's brother had for sale. I'd pretty much gotten my mom into the idea of us buying it together and it living at her house so that we could share it. But then the impracticality of having (an even 50% share in) a two-seater while I've got a two year old sort of sank in, and we dropped it. But the idea of the convertible would not leave my brain. I constantly scoped out the ones I saw in traffic, trying to picture myself at the wheel. I started looking on Carmax and Autotrader.com, you know, just to see what was out there. Each beautiful spring day that passed, I would think, "Damn! Now THIS is convertible weather!!"

Finally, I'd had enough and started looking into renting a convertible for the weekend, just so I could get it out of my system. Memorial Day weekend was a bust. So was the weekend following. But then this past weekend, I got lucky. Orbitz.com hooked me up with the lowest cost convertible deal in town at Alamo out at the airport.

Mom had already planned on taking The Geej with her to Houston on Saturday to attend this big family shindig that I really wasn't that in to attending (more on that later). Plus, I needed to be at the house on Saturday to accept delivery of some furniture (more on that later too). So I booked the car, and soon after Mom and Geej headed toward Houston, I headed to the airport to get my car. I got to the rental counter, and the gal who was working there got on the phone to confirm my vehicle was there with the guy at the lot. I was fully expecting to get a PT Cruiser convertible because that's what they showed on their website and on the "Cars Available" sign at the counter. See, this was all part of my ultimate plan: I would rent something that I would never EVER buy--like a PT Cruiser--and I'd hate it so much that the convertible jones would be a thing of the past. Also, it was going to be hot as fuck this past weekend, so I figured I'd spend my whole time miserable and that would put yet another nail in my convertible coffin. But then this happened:
And this:
Oh. My. GOD!! I loved it!! I miss my Volkswagen, so being back in a VW felt like wearing a pair of comfy old shoes. And holy CRAP is this a cute car! It was like a Barbie car. Seriously, when they pointed me to this thing at the Alamo lot, I was like, "I am SO fucked." My plan was backfiring all over the place. I went and got Jaye, and we spent all Saturday afternoon riding around the picturesque hills of Austin, drinking our large Sonic iced teas, getting sunburned, and talking shit. It was paradise.

That evening, we went and picked up another friend of ours and drove up to the Arboretum to see a movie. Driving with the top down on a summer night is, seriously, better than therapy.

Meanwhile, in Houston, The Geej was also in paradise because she was getting to hang out with Dah and a real live human baby!! (He's the newest addition to our family; the first child of my cousin and his wife.)

The furniture I was having delivered? Geej's big girl bed:

Isn't that cute? It's a twin with a trundle. She knew it was coming, but when she walked in on Sunday afternoon and saw it (along with her room totally rearranged), she spazzed completely out. She was SO excited. It was hands down one of the cutest things I've ever seen. She kept making my mom come her bed over and over again. "Come yook, Dah! Yook at my bed!!" So awesome. Speaking of awesome, will you check out the girl in pigtails? It was the first time I fixed her hair like this, and I thought I was going to melt because she looked so damn precious.

Anyway, I hadn't told my mom what I was doing, so when she saw the bug in the garage, she wigged. "What did you DO?!" I let her think I'd traded my car in for about 2 minutes, then I told her the truth. I squeeeeeeeeeeezed Geej's carseat into the teeny backseat, and the three of us went for a spin. At first Geej was loving it. But when we got on MoPac and started going about 60mph, her love affair with the convertible ended, and by association, so did mine. "It's too windy! It's too hot! It's too noisy! I don't like this car! I want to go home!" was all I could hear from the backseat. So we turned around and started for home. The first red light we came to, I put up the car's top. It TOTALLY freaked her shit out. She was like, "Mommy! What IS that?!" I think I've got her convinced I'm magic.

We took the car back to the airport at the end of the day, and got into my dirty mom-mobile. Before we'd gone 1/2 a mile, Geej says, "Mommy, I like this car." Yeah, me too. But six months from now, I'm DEFINITELY going to have another convertible weekend. Damn, it was fun.