(previous) part of our Tales of the WLBOTT series (next)
The Twins had settled into a comfortable, though temporary routine. With the new home in Odessa, their lives now had more free time, saving the four-day-a-week long commute back to Loving.
Their new home came to be known as Casa de los Sueños Torcidos (House of Crooked Dreams), or just Sueños, but it also ended up with dozens of nicknames as the situation warranted. During the extensive plumbing renovation: La Letrina del Diablo. When the possum returned with his entire family : La Mansión del Tlacuache. When they weren’t getting along: La Casa de la Gemela Loca (The House of the One Crazy Twin).
One evening, Lyra and Lochlan had returned home from their jobs, and were sitting around the table at Sueños. Lyra had prepared a culinary masterpiece:
Spam®, Mushroom, and Spam® Foie Gras: It was a 5-hour endeavor, pairing pan-roasted Spam® breast with a long-simmered Spam® bone and wing glaze, salt-cured confit Spam® legs, black garlic and balsamic purée, twice-coated crisp onion rings, and seared Spam® foie gras.
It was delicious.[1]
During dinner, the twins talked about the upcoming first round of the Wink High School football playoffs. Through some idiosyncrasy of the UIL playoff system, the undefeated Wink Wildcats (10–0) would face the Ralls Jackrabbits (3–7) in the first round of the playoffs, at a neutral site in Lamesa.
One of the most interesting things about Ralls, Texas, is its rectangular shape, and laid out north-south-east-west.
Ralls is a city in Crosby County, Texas, United States. It was named after John Robinson Ralls, who with the help of W.E. McLaughlin, laid out the townsite in July 1911. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 1,665, down from 1,944 at the 2010 census. Ralls is surrounded by productive farmlands that primarily produce cotton and grains, with lesser amounts of soybean, sunflower seed, and vegetables.
Wikipedia
[ed. note: we considered having Donna Bella-Donna cast a spell to mess with Ralls before the game, but that would be unsportsmanlike.]
Lochlan noted that the man who wrote “Lucille”, Hal Bynum, was from Ralls. He serenaded Lyra:
You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille
With four hungry children and a crop in the field
I've had some bad times, lived through some sad times
But this time your hurting won't heal
You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille
[1] Lochlan liked to have some fun with Lyra’s culinary experiments. He’d stumbled across a free image generator on the internet, and, although he enjoyed her cooking, he liked giving her the business.
While Lochlan was washing dishes and singing “Lucille”, Lyra was unusually quiet.
“Say it, Lyra.”
She hemmed and hawed a moment. “I’ve been checking our online accounts.”
Lochlan was flummoxed – “You know my password?”
“Yes, I know all your passwords, #!ChimiChanga4Ever. So when we sold our stock, it all went into money market accounts. Mine’s paying 3.54%, yours is 3.46%. I win.”
“Anyhow, our total sale was $42,864,938.33. We make $4,133.82 in interest a day. If you took the annual interest and converted it to our 40-hour work week, that’s about $725 an hour. For me, that’s a whole week’s work of driving the forklift, slinging sacks of cow manure, and laughing at Petrolina’s petunia puns.” Petrolina was her boss. The ¡Verde! ¡Verde! & ¡Verde! Petunia Potpourri Festival was coming up. Lochlan had heard all the puns. He was immediately sympathetic.
“Quit, Lyra, quit! But I love my job. I love my people. Plus I make $36 dollars an hour – I win there, by the way – can I stay?”
“Of course you can stay. We have a well full of water – we won’t worry about thirst. But first go change all your passwords.”
A few thoughtful moments later, Lochlan said, “You’ve got to get health insurance. No more of this bronze plan crap.”
Lyra said, “Thanks, brother.” Lyra knew that these annoying little mother hen comments from her brother were really his way of taking care of her. She didn’t need to be taken care of, in her mind it was Lochlan who needed the caring, but she saw it was part of Lochlan’s nurturing side when he said “Buckle up.” “Check your boots for scorpions.” “You’ve got spinach enchilada in your teeth.”
“Lots of free time, then. So what’s the plan, then?” asked Lochlan.
“Well, there’s the 24-hour Price Is Right channel.”
Lochlan gave her that look. The “that’s funny ha-ha, now get serious” look. You never want to discourage humor.
Here’s where Lyra and Lochlan were very different. Lochlan was easy-going. He liked people, he enjoyed hanging out and visiting. Lyra liked to dig into things. She could follow random Wikipedia rabbit holes for hours. She liked to plan. She liked things to come together. Lochlan was happy to follow the chaos.
“Well,” began Lyra, “let’s get Sueños in order. The roof. The ceiling. The plumbing. Washer and dryer. That weird smell. A little flower garden would be nice. But this is all leading up to Tier Three.”
When Lyra and Lochlan discovered that they had a lot of stupid money, they decided on a 3-tier plan. Tier One: a little blowout at Whole Foods and a celebration dinner. Tier Two: dumb stuff, a fantasy, to squander their money (they would come back to this over and over). Tier Three: the get-real phase – what did they really want to do with their money?
For the next few months, the twins fell into a comfortable domesticity. They began spending more time at Sueños, sometimes going several weeks in Odessa before returning to Loving. Lyra stayed busy coordinating the contractors, and experienced an unexpected moment of victory when one of the workers discovered the source of the smell (raccoon / rafters / impromptu mausoleum). She’d often have dinner ready for Lochlan when he finished a long shift at the nursing home. Her cooking improved.
Lyra was working her way through The Ultimate Spam® Cookbook.
But domesticity can have it’s trappings. As a favor, Lyra would wash Lochlan’s nursing uniforms but soon, without actually saying it, he expected her to do all his laundry. Other household tasks seemed to always fall on Lyra – running errands, grocery shopping, taking out the bins. On the other side, Lochlan would sometimes come back to Sueños after a long shift, totally exhausted, while Lyra, full of enthusiasm over the day’s repairs, would overwhelm Lochlan with her tales of the day. Lochlan had a hard time feigning interest, and it showed.
One night, over a delicious SPAM® Cordon Bleu Hawaii Kabobs Lyra had prepared, they had a rare argument.
The twins had a lot of practice at arguing. Their competitive nature and high spirits keep them at odds while growing up, but in their early teens they realized that they liked each other more than they hated each other, so they decided to set some rules. They spent most of a Saturday morning working out the “rules of engagement,” as they called it. Rosario, Leo’s mom was visiting, and was tired of the sniping. She sat the twins down and told them not to move from their chairs until the worked things out. After much discussion they decided:
- no cussing
- no bringing up every grievance since kindergarten
- no pushing, shoving, hitting, pinching, etc.
- no extended sulking or pouting. Five-minute cool down breaks were allowed
- no arguments between the hours of 9 p.m. and 9 a.m. (they had homework)
- they’d forgo all sweets, desserts, snacks, sodas, and pan dulce until the argument was mutually resolved. This tough love rule made the twins flexible and motivated a lot of reconciliation.
The twins realized that this would only work if they both stuck to the rules. There were some bumpy fits and starts, but after a while these rules became canon. On the night of the SPAM® Cordon Bleu Hawaii Kabobs argument, it was second nature.
The argument wasn’t novel or unique by any means. It was probably going on in millions of homes worldwide. Lyra felt taken advantage of. Lochlan felt unappreciated. Both thought they were doing the majority of the work in the household. Both were tired, workin’ man tired. Neither twin had noticed exactly when Lyra’s newfound freedom had become Lochlan’s newfound convenience.
Then there were tears and apologies. They began to understand each other a little better. They realized that their newfound wealth was creating a steady, almost imperceptible pressure on them.
Lochlan pledged to do his own laundry and help dig the flower bed. Lyra promised to make headway on her Tier 3 ideas, and to give Lochlan a 15-minute decompression time when he got in from work. Lochlan promised to stop singing “Lucille” (although he had to catch himself several times).
Since they respected their rules of engagement, they finished their argument and calmed down before Lyra brought out dessert: SPAM® Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Cookies.
Lochlan reached for a cookie.
“Are we officially reconciled?”
“I believe so.”
“Good. Because I’ve been smelling those things for twenty minutes, and I was about to concede everything.”
[ed. note: you can find the recipe that Lyra used on the Hormel web site.]