Chili Cookoff at Traders Village

So yes folks, let me tell you about my very first and definitely not last annual Chili Cookoff at Traders Village here in Houston last month. I don't know what my thing is about chili and BBQ, honestly, I can only contribute my total interest in these two things to having lived in the south for the past five years and having eaten some very interesting grub. What else could it be? So I was totally psyched to hear there was going to be a cookoff around here. Months in advance I marked it on my calendar (and the next one, at the annual Houston Rodeo which lasts 3 weeks, is on my list too!).

I don't know what I was expecting, but whatever it was, it wasn't what I found. So it was a super cold and windy afternoon, I'd say it was in the 50s which I am totally embarassed to say I now find to be quite chilly. Perfect weather for chili. We went to Traders Village which is this huge outdoor market with lots of cheap crap for sale. We walked around thinking that the cookoff would be obvious or that at least we'd smell it somewhere. No, of course not. And even a guy that works there was like "Uh, I don't know 'bout no chili cookoff. They don't tell me nuthin' 'round here". Uh.... OK. ?? Don't you work here, dude? But whatever. We wandered around until we found these two huge tents filled with people cooking chili.

We eventually noticed a tent that was selling bowls. Six bowls for $5 plus a spoon and a little ticket. What you do is take your bowls around and when you see some chili you'd like to try, you give the cooks your bowl and they fill it up. You do this until you're full and then you give your ticket to the team whose chili you like the best. At the end of the day, the team with the most tickets wins the contest. Easy. There were like 150 teams competing I was like well shit, I'm never going to be able to eat all of those, but for sure I'll be able to eat like at least 12 or 18 bowls of this stuff. Then she gave us our bowls. These were no baby bowls, they were decent sized and I knew then that I'd only be trying six. We go in.

And stand in silence, shocked. Ummmm... yeah, like, I totally forgot about the redneck/hillbilly factor. How could I have forgotten? I mean, we're talking chili and not caviar, right? Obviously I wasn't expecting to run in to people from Food Network or whatever, but... well, I don't know. Let's just say that there were lots of teams in which the number of teeth were small, the cowboy hats big, and the spurs visible. Big guys, you know what I mean? Women with high hair. Lots of make-up. And signs saying things like "Proud to be a Redneck". And honest to God, someone had brought an outhouse and decorated it and like just had it sitting around next to their station. We asked a man for our first bowl of chili and I tried not to stare at his mouth. The chili was decent. Then we were corraled to another team who were giving away blue coolies (why did we get those can coolies?!) and their chili was awesome. But a little too hot, especially taking into consideration this mouth sensitivity issue I have right now. Their other kind, however, was awesome. Then, we tried a chili that was very weird, I don't even get it and I still don't. It had like chunks of things in it that were very un-chili-like to me but that he said formed the basis of the traditional Texan chili. It was okay. But then we had the nastiest, grossest chili ever. And when I say ever, I mean MY GOD THIS SHIT WAS NASTY AND I HOPE TO NEVER EVER EAT ANYTHING LIKE IT IN MY LIFE. It was like ground meat and peanut butter. We were totally led to them by all the trophies they had at their stand--I should have looked closer, they must have been like T-ball trophies or something, because they couldn't have been for winning chili contests. Nasty. I'm sick just thinking about it. We trashed that stuff immediately and repented of having used a precious bowl. Let's move on....

So yes, Carlos and I didn't agree on our favorite chilis but we voted and had a great time. We stared at the Texans and tried to keep our jaws from dropping. When we left, Carlos said, "You know, your chili isn't so bad. Maybe we should enter the contest next year." Ha! And who knows, maybe before we leave I'll have entered a chili contest.

Hoosier in a Hurricane

Ooooooooooooooooooohh yeah. Uh, right. So that post I wrote a little more than a week ago about not being worried about Ike and the minimal chance that he would hit Houston? Scratch that. And let me tell you what it was like to get through my first hurricane.

Thursday, Sept. 10. Ike was confirmed to hit near us but we still weren't 100% sure it would hit Galveston. We were ordered to stay put but to get our water, food, gas, and all that jazz ready. I went to the Kroger mid-afternoon and wow, it left me speechless and honestly, if I wasn't afraid before, I was definitely afraid after. There was no bread. I had to buy hamburger buns. No tuna or canned meat of any type. No water. Little to no produce. Can you imagine? I bought a couple 2-liters of ginger ale, a bottle of wine, some more canned ravioli and spaghetti O's, a can of pineapple. We had to go back later to get crackers and toilet paper, but those we got at the fancy grocery store across the street from us who, by the way, even at 6pm, were totally stocked with everything and the people there were like ooh, la-di-da, and no panic. We filled the car up with gas and that took awhile;; the gas stations were wild. The one across the street wasn't even open anymore because they were out of gas. Out of gas??!! I never even imagined. The whole grocery store and gas station thing really signaled a crisis to me, so I frantically spent the night packing a bag in case we had to leave, looking around and figuring out what were things I couldn't live without (funny how if you'd asked me a month ago I would have named a number of things but in the face of the hurricane my list was much much smaller), and generally freaking out about the possibility of mass destruction. The image (thanks to my neighbor) of laying in the bathtub with a mattress over my head while the roof was blown off didn't help. It took multiple phone calls from generous friends and family to get me settled down. I was cool again.

Friday, Sept. 11, afternoon. Ike was definitely coming to hit us and we were going to be screwed. I tried to play it cool. We filled up every possible container with water, filled the bathtub with water, put all of our valuable things in closets in case the windows were blown out, and Carlos cooked up a nice chicken dinner in preparation for the eventual loss of electricity.

Friday, Sept. 11, evening. Talked to my mom once an hour and checked online to see what was happening with Ike. Played games on Facebook. We went out from time to time to watch the sky and man, let me tell you what, that was something else. Seeing clouds swirling around is kind of freaky. So anyway, the plan was to keep calling my mom every hour until it just wasn't possible or a good idea. It kept me sane, plus she was able to tell me what they were saying on the news since we don't have a TV.

Friday, Sept. 11, night-Friday, Sept. 12, 9am. This is when shit hit the fan. Around midnight I holed up in the bathroom which is I believe around about the time we lost power. I think I maybe called my mom one more time. I brought with me a blanket to lay on the floor, a couple of pillows, the cats, the cat box, cat food, a gallon of water, my purse, a flashlight, a deck of cards, and the radio. And let me tell you how big our bathroom is. The floor space runs the length of a regular-sized bathtub and the width, oh, I'd say two feet. So what is that, a 5' x 2' space. I had visions of Carlos and I playing games and listening to the radio by candlelight as the hurricane passed over us. He had no such intention of complying. So I made Carlos get in with me and the cats and he sat on the toilet and sulked because it was too hot and crowded. But I was like, shit dude, there's a fucking HURRICANE outside and the radio says we're supposed to stay in a safe place without windows and this is the only place and so who cares if it sucks or not, we should stay here. So the wind whipped and the palm trees bent, transformers exploded and lit up the sky and the rooms in the house a scary orange, shit hit the side of the house and landed on the roof, and it was bad news. We listened to the radio talk us through it and then after maybe an hour Carlos got crabby and left. This caused a minor argument because I didn't think he should be in a room with windows, but whatever. He went to sleep. So I was alone until 9 a.m. when the storm finally abated, scared shitless, exhausted, praying, and listening to the radio. I have to say, that radio really got me through. Not like they were talking about anything great, it was just the announcers talking about Ike's progress, where the eye was, how much longer it was going to be bad, and taking calls from people whose phones worked and seeing how they were faring. When it all passed, I crashed.

Saturday, Sept. 12- Monday, Sept. 14: We listened to the radio a lot until we realized that our particular radio eats batteries. We have to get one of those crank radios. Our battery-less flashlight kicked ass, and I think a crank radio would have been super sweet. The damage around our place wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. There was no real flooding or windows out or cars smashed or trees in houses, but there were tons of trees down, branches everywhere, stoplights down or hanging dangerously, stoplight poles hanging over, telephone poles barely standing, and total silence. People were out walking around checking out the damage, getting together outside and chatting with neighbors, sharing grills and cooking up all of the meat that was thawing, and really, here in my neighborhood, people were really taking care of each other. One guy hooked some sort of something up to his truck and so he had electricity until the gas ran out. He and his buddies played poker every night, ran a fan, and watched football. I spent a lot of time reading a New Orleans mystery, talking to my new neighbor, and generally chilling out. Despite the destruction, I really must say that I was enjoying myself, all things considered. I feel bad saying that because so many people suffered and are still suffering. The weather cooled down, and for an entire week we were able to sleep peacefully. I think it was the first time since we moved here that it wasn't too hot to snuggle together in bed.

Tuesday, Sept. 15-: Back to work, believe it or not. Carlos had to go back to Rice and UH opened up as well. Unbelievable. The other school that I teach at, the University of St. Thomas, shut down for the week and actually is still closed. I think they'll open up again on Tuesday. But anyway, imagine having to go back to work without electricity in your house, with the city being destroyed, the campus littered with debris, stop lights out, people waiting hours for gas, no grocery stores open, nothing. It was very inhumane if you ask me. Sure, for me it was just a pain in the ass to go back because we didn't have electricity or Internet. But for other people, it was just cruel. Those who had trees fall through their roofs, those without electricity AND water, people without food, whatever, it just shouldn't have happened. I mean, when grocery stores are letting people in 5 at a time and the line wraps around the building, I don't think we should be working. We spent the days at work/school and then came home and did what we had to do while it was still light out. In the evenings, we read by candlelight and ate cold, canned food. It was disgusting, the canned food part. Twice I took a cold bath, but really it wasn't a bath. It was more like kneeling down in water and trying to take a PTA bath (that's a Pits-Tits-Ass bath, in case you didn't know) with the least amount of water possible. But we talked more, played with the cats more, went to bed earlier, and woke up feeling good.

Saturday, Sept. 20: A week had gone by, and that day we went to the university so that I could use the computer and get some work done. When we came home, we had electricity. Everyone was jubilant. I was happy too, but would be lying if I said I didn't shed a small tear knowing that we'd be back to the same old: working and studying all day, coming home and working and studying all night, sitting in front of the stupid computer with the fan on high, listening to music, not talking to our neighbors, not talking much to each other, going to bed late, getting up tired, less pleasure-reading, and stressing more. Admittedly though, the hot bath was nice.

Lessons learned: Of all that freakin' tuna we have, we only ate one can. So while tuna is a good idea for your hurricane supply, it sure isn't appetizing without mayonnaise. And cold spaghetti O's are okay but the meatballs taste like shit. We didn't eat one single can of vegetables. And who would have thought that the hurricane would screw up your door locks so much that in order to get your key to turn you have to WD-40 them? Lastly, next time we need to have more booze on hand. Much more booze.

Picture of Ike courtesy of Boston Globe. Click for more pictures.

Hurricane Alley

Hurricane Ike. That's who this is, or was, very recently. Headed our way.
So yeah, let's talk about hurricanes. I don't know why it took me so long to write this.

We first had a hurricane scare about a month ago with someone whose name I can't even remember because there have been so many since then. We went out and did our first bit of "hurricane shopping" which consisted of 2 gallons of water, some canned tuna (there was a run on tuna, hardly any cans left!), canned peas, and canned green beans. Oh yeah, and some cereal bars. I just couldn't think of anything else to get. Our Fiesta was out of batteries so we didn't get those. We hunkered down and prepared for the worst even though the predictions were for the storm to maybe turn into a Category 1 right before hitting land but probably not. At that point I had no real idea what "Category 1" meant, but if the word "Category" was in it then I knew it would be more than the worst storm I'd ever seen. I was secretly excited to see what was going to happen. Guess what happened? Nothing. All the schools were closed, businesses were closed, everything, and yet for weather all we had was a light rain. I mean, for cryin' out loud, we went swimming that night!

Enter Hurricane Gustav. And of course Gustav came the weekend Nora was visiting so that sucked. While at the flea market her sister in L.A. called to say that the L.A. fire department was on it's way down here to help out with the predicted possible hurricane and then her dad called maybe a half hour later. I was freaked out to say the least. All of the Houstonians around us were just kind of like either not aware or not caring, I wasn't sure which. So we went out and did our second bit of hurricane shopping and this time we got more stuff. We were shopping for 3 people and we were more scared. We got more water. We got more tuna (another run on the tuna!), canned ravioli, some canned soup we hope will be tolerable cold, Pop-Tarts, a couple gallons of juice, chick peas, canned corn, peanut butter, and a cat of soft cat food. We got another flashlight, batteries, and Nora considered the entertainment aspect and bought 2 bottles of wine and a couple of magazines. (BTW--there are hurricane parties in which people all get together and party). We were prepared. But much more scared than we were the first time around. Nothing happened. Gustav took out a part of Louisiana (what an unfortunate state!) but Nora's flight wasn't canceled, school wasn't canceled, I can't even recall if it rained.

Now Ike's on his way. And this time it looks like Texas is going to get hit although the chances of it hitting Houston are slight. But we might get the "dirty side" of the storm. What in the world is that? One of my students told me and I looked up a definition just in case you're interested so here it is: "The "dirty" side of a hurricane is the eastern side of the storm. Here, winds from the south, full of moisture, wrap into the storm causing heavy rain, storm surge, and tornadoes. The western side of the storm is referred to as the "clean" side. Following the counterclockwise rotation around a hurricane, the western side receives winds from the north, which pulls dry air into the storm and doesn't allow heavy rain or thunderstorms to develop." Interesting. Am I worried this time? Not really.

Since Gustav so many people have told me not to worry about it that I'm just taking their advice. They're the Houstonians after all. I'm just the Hoosier. Ask me about tornadoes and I can tell you something, ask me about hurricanes and well, you get a blog entry like this. Anyway, they've all said that you just get your food and water, fill up your gas tank, find out where the flood zones are, and then wait. You only evacuate if they tell you to. So that's what we're doing. If something happens, I'll update.


Quote from My Victoria Online
Photo from Telegraph.co.uk

Ugh... and the stench!!

As we speak I'm trying not to gag. I was sitting here playing this nice game of Scrabble with my mom when all the sudden I thought, good God, what is that AWFUL stench?!! I asked Carlos and yes, he smelled it too. We rushed to the back window of the house, it got worse as we got closer and closer to the window. We stood there and were perplexed. How disgusting!! It wasn't the fan, there was nothing the matter with the plugs, nothing. It smelled like a medicinal skunky smell, if you can imagine that which really, I hope you can't. We came back and sat down. I admitted to Carlos that such a weird smell coming into our house all of the sudden kind of worried me so he went out the front door (I was thinking, chemical warfare? is it really the end?!) and immediately came back in. "Yep, it's from outside. Come out here." It was even worse; we immediately closed tight all 2 of our windows which was really a shame since it's hardly ever cool enough to keep them open. Then Carlos immediately googled something like "disgusting smell in Houston after it rains" and he found someone describing it as a kind of gross armpit smell. This has never happened before, but can you believe that? Then Carlos said, "I was wondering! I had been smelling my armpits thinking I was really disgusting!"

picture from unclestinky

Rice Squirrels

So I guess I thought Carlos was on crack when, about a month ago, we went to Rice and he mentioned that the squirrels seemed on the fat side (see picture). I said no, I thought they looked pretty regular, like the ones in Indiana, and that the ones in GA and NC had just been emaciated and suffering from the drought (i.e. the squirrel that was licking the condensation off our office window last summer in Durham because it never rained). But ANYWAY, so yeah, guess what happened today.

We go to Rice and are walking along and we see this squirrel. And so I make that squirrel noise that you make when you're imitating a squirrel and you know how it goes, you make the noise and the squirrel either runs or stares at you. But never, ever, EVER does it happen that the squirrel runs up to you and sits at your feet. And then stands up on it's hind legs and look at you. Yes my friends, that is what happened to the Savage Molina's today. And the story keeps going. So this squirrel comes up to us and is totally waiting for us to give it food or something, I don't know, and when it realizes we have none and are just standing there frozen and marveling at the fact that we can see it's little teeny, tiny, hairy little toes, it kind of walks away but really not more than a foot or two away. We make the noise, it comes back, and I am just freaking out, like totally. But then I feel really bad because we have no food and I was such a jerk to have called it over but who in the world would have thought it'd come over? So then we tried to keep walking but it followed us and then ran up a tree but just near us and watched. My heart was breaking when all of the sudden something happened that explained it all. A couple of guys in a university truck drove by slowly and threw the squirrel a biscuit. Ah ha! This must be a special squirrel because it was obvious that the guys had the biscuit all ready to go to throw to this little fella. We kept walking...

And not 100 feet away, what did we see? Another fat squirrel. Eating a biscuit.

We ate lunch and then walked to Carlos's new department. On the way, you know what we saw. Another squirrel. This one was further away and so when I made the squirrel noise he didn't come to us but he DID stand up on his hand legs and check us out and stared us down the whole way, waiting for the biscuit I suppose.

Update: Fiesta

1. On Sundays at noon, there is a mariachi band and chicken on the grill on the parking lot... We gotta get up early one of these days;
2. Our Fiesta is unsafe once it's dark. Maybe that explains the police we saw in the parking lot the other day, or that car with the doors suspiciously left open...or that were opened? boh.
3. People eat the fruit, as in, standing there eating a plum while looking at the plums. Then leaving.
3. Have you ever tried a lychee nut? It's small, reddish, and looks kind of spiky. It is weird, sweet, and kind of like eating an eye-ball.
4. I bought a piece of cactus. It's called nopal. I don't know what I'm going to do with it. Suggestions are welcome.

pic by Nikas Culinaria

Update: Houston voted #1 city to live in by Kiplinger's magazine. Number 2? Raleigh, NC.

Fue una fiesta en Fiesta!

Here in Houston we're not that far from the Mexican border; oh, I think it takes about 5 hours to get there. So obviously, this city has a lot of Mexicans. And Salvadorians and Guatemalans and Costa Ricans and so on. I mean, just the other day I heard a statistic on NPR that there are now more Latinos in Houston than any other group of people!

So anyway, in our effort to live as cheaply as possible, we decided to try Fiesta. I'd heard that it was the best place to get groceries, costing even less than than Kroger. What an experience! Our closest Fiesta is about 3.5 miles away. Of all the places that we go regularly, this might be one of the furthest away from our house. It's in the Bellaire area of town and wow, was it wild! The parking lot itself was an experience. Cars, Hispanics, and kids everywhere, and outside were guys selling Mexican corn (corn on the cob w/ mayonnaise and Parmigiano cheese on it). It was hot as hell, we were parked miles away, the parking lot was dirty, and there was just something surreal about the whole place. I felt like I'd entered Mexico.

And I had. Inside the Fiesta was a Mexican heaven. It was unlike any grocery store I've ever seen in the States. The Fiesta is sort of like a Wal-Mart in that it has food, clothes, and things like that. But it's absolutely chaotic. Aisles are blocked, people are giving you samples at every corner, groups of 3 or 4 Hispanic men all gathered around one grocery cart, large families, women in tight clothing with large, gold earrings, the whole she-bang. As soon as you get inside there is a store within the Fiesta that sells cowboy boots, all of them colors other than what you might expect, or at least, what I would expect, such as light blue and light green. Then there's the huge lotto station. And the full Taqueria inside in case you want to sit down and get a bite to eat. And let me tell you about the cheese section... the humongous vat of sour cream alone was enough to make me want to just drool. There was fresh queso all over the place. And let's not forget about the meat section. In addition to the regular cuts, there was mondongo which is actually cow's intestines. Carlos loves this kind of thing. We didn't buy any. There were also jars of pig's ears and wow, the chicharones were pig-sized. Literally. Like you know where these pork rinds originated when you looked at them. So la di da, we were shopping away and having a good ole time. We found tunas which are a fruit and I'm not so crazy about tunas but they're okay. We found just the right papaya for Carlos, we found cactus which I'm excited about figuring out how to use, there were of course chiles of all types, oh, and quince, which I'm going to try tonight. We also found my favorite Peruvian purple corn drink, chicha morada, which honestly is one of the best drinks ever, and Carlos found his beloved Inca Cola. Granted, there were a few things we didn't find like my contact solution and shiitake mushrooms. But I guess a store can't be everything to everyone. So instead of regularly shopping at Kroger and going to the Whole Foods to get what Kroger didn't have, now we'll go to Fiesta and then go to the Kroger to get what the Fiesta didn't have. Oh wait, and I didn't mention the prices which was the whole reason for even going in the first place, right? Cheaper than Kroger. I was won over. And I can't wait to go next time and spend some quality time with the dulces.

Later Carlos said that I was the only white person in there. I didn't even notice. Being in the Fiesta almost made me feel like I was on vacation in another country and that upon leaving I would take a cab over to my swank hotel on the beach and relax with some chicha and fresh fruit.

The Bat Colony at Waugh Bridge

So on Sunday night we went out to see the Waugh Bridge Bat Colony in downtown Houston. Who would have ever thought there were 250,000 Mexican free-tailed bats living under this bridge? By passing by you'd never know it... that is, unless you had your window down and could smell all of that terrible bat guana. Eek! So the story goes that this particular bridge was built with a type of expansion joint that is just the right size for these bats to live in, and that's why they're there and not under any other bridges. We went there at 8pm, about 20 minutes before official sunset. There are a couple different places you can watch the bats from, and we were able to stand at the observation deck and wait. For awhile not much happened. You could see a few bats flying underneath the bridge, but nothing else. Then slowly you start to notice that more and more are dropping down and that they're whirling around and creating a vortex. And then, by some signal unknown to me, they all start shooting out horizontally and flying down Buffalo Bayou (see first post to see what Houstonians refer to as a "bayou") and into the nearby trees and brush looking for their dinner. We were actually expecting something more spectacular of the kind where all at once thousands of bats would fly up into the air creating almost a black sheet and that it would all be over in a matter of minutes. Instead, they flew out sideways and even after 10 minutes were still flying out! We took numerous pictures, none of which turned out since it was so dark. It was cool, and believe it or not, I also read a post by a guy who said that he'd been picking up the Waugh bats on his weather radar. Ha!

While there, we heard about the bat colony in Austin, TX which boasts 1.5 MILLION bats! Now that is something we're definitely going to have to go and check out.

Photo by sirtrentalot

Yes, it's come to this...

It's so hot that my cat is sleeping in the sink. Where in the world will he go in August?

The Quinceanera Party

The Quinceanera party, or a Fiesta Rosa, is one that I never gave much thought to, I think that I had heard about it before somewhere.... the party that a Hispanic girl has when she turns 15. Well, since I've been in Houston, every Saturday I see at least one girl dressed up in her Quinceanera dress getting professionally photographed near a beautiful fountain or park setting with the limo waiting nearby. I'm fascinated. I did research. I talked to my husband.

So, the Quinceanera is a type of coming-of-age party that really doesn't compare in my mind to the Sweet 16, at least not the Sweet 16 of today. As you can see from the dress on my right, this is serious. It is like a wedding. Traditionally there is a religious ceremony first. You have las damas, or what I would call the equivalent to the bridesmaides, who all have formal dresses on. You can also have men in your entourage. You have a magnificent cake, a humongous party, a mariachi band, dancing, oh and you also might be wearing a tiara, throwing a bouquet to a group of boys in order to see who will be the lucky man to have the first dance with the lovely Quinceanera. I found that there is also a tradition of the father changing his daughter's show from a low-heeled one to a high-heeled one, signifying her transformation from girlhood to womanhood. Everyone goes to the Quinceanera party, people you invite, people that the people you invited decided to invite, those peoples' friends, everyone. It is supposed to be the party of a lifetime.

I asked Carlos about his sister's Quinceanera party and he couldn't really remember it, probably because she was kind of busy being pregnant I guess. But we talked about what we would do if we had a girl some day.... Quinceanera? Sweet 16? Both? Neither? I suppose it depends on how close the girl would feel to her Peruvian heritage, what her friends were doing, all that. But one thing is for sure--if she gets a Quinceanera party then she'll have to take out loans for her college education. And we'll have to be thinking of the Quinceanera party when we choose godparents since the godparents foot a portion of the bill. Or maybe we could just have a boy. At any rate, I hope to find out more about this party and hopefully even get invited to one!

Houston: It's Worth It

So, I'm sitting around looking for things to do to help me get to know my new city and I run across this website called "Houston It's Worth It". And YOU HAVE TO LOOK AT THIS WEBSITE just to see the list of atrocities. I mean, along the left hand side are what I initially thought were links, things like "The Flying Cockroaches", "The Potholes", "The Flooding", "The Refineries" and I thought to myself, Good God, here is the site for me! ALL OF THESE THINGS ARE THINGS I WANT TO READ ABOUT! Only to find that it's a promo for a new book that's out. And I've already seen this book at Brazos when we visited in March, it was cool, but shoot, it's a photo album with quotes. Not quite the education I was hoping for. But anyway, so I browsed the website and found things that Houstonians had to say about their city. Here are my favorites:

• "It's like living in a big city in a third world country;"
• "Houston has so much to offer: diversity, culture, shopping and nice people....plus, you never have to buy a winter coat; "
• "...because you can drive for 45 mins and still be in Houston;"
• "because of the numerous topless bars that help spread unreported economic wealth, from the well-off to the well-endowed;"
• "Big city perks, with small town hospitality. Where else can you go to a baseball game on Thursday, Miller Outdoor Theater on Friday, the Opera on Satuday, and Church on Sunday, and never have to drive more than 30 minutes? At each venue you recieve the same laid-back but comfortable service, regardless of your attire;"
• "I think Houston is worth it despite the smog, and that fact that you can't see the stars, because a city is not it's buildings or it's stadiums, a city is the people in it. And the people of Houston make it a friendly environment where everyone is included. But despite this if you have asthma you shouldn't live their cuz it's unhealthy;"
• "We've got two Chinatowns!!!;"
• "Twilight in the summertime, when all the toads are peeping and night herons flying, and everyone and their dog goes for a walk;"
• "Because Houston took in 100,000 homeless people from New Orleans after Katrina. In a matter of days. This one event revealed a lot about Houston: its compassion, its welcome to strangers, its gumption, its can-do attitude (dead or even scorned in other big cities), its ability to make big projects work, its risk-taking mentality, its optimism to believe the best will ensue, its knowledge that if a bet goes bad, Houston will recover, because it has before... And then when they got here, those folks from New Orleans discovered the rest: the jobs, the low cost of living, and on and on;"
• "The people here are really warm (as warm as the climate) and friendly. The humidity is great for our skin. The beach is pretty close. Austin in pretty close. Mexico is pretty close. Did I mention that the humidity is good for our skin?;"
• "Because other people come here like I did and wonder why, of all places, they ended up in Houston...and then they stay forever. And so, we all become Houstonians...and friends."

Texan BBQ at Goode's

Just the other day I was at the Half-Price Bookstore, maybe the closest thing I'm going to find to a cool bookstore in my neighborhood, and I bought a great book about the best cheap eats in Houston. My first pick? BBQ! Luckily, we live less than a mile away from this place, Goode's BBQ, which is supposed to be one of the best places in town. We both ordered the special, the Beef Brisket w/ sauce, mine on a homemade jalapeno-cheddar bun and Carlos's on the regular bun, plus a side of Jambalaya. Verdict? Yummy, tender, juicy. But you know what? I'm sold on Carolina BBQ. I can't believe it, I thought the pork and vinegar combo was so gross at first, but it just kept growing on me so now that I've gone back to the beef BBQ I'm just not the biggest fan. The jamabalaya was alright, but next time I'm going for the Austin Baked Beans which have apples (!!) in them. Who'd have thought to add those?? Anyway, we'll definitely go back to Goode's. Sitting outside a metal barn on the side of a busy road at a picnic table with 20 fans blowing and a good view of the humongous metal armadillo, who can beat that? And for $15, I'd call that a deal any day.

Primeras observaciones

So as I'm finishing what is the night of my second week in Houston, let me note down what has drawn my attention.

1. Feeder roads. WTF are these?? Yes, these are roads that run right alongside the highway and go exactly where the highway goes, but AREN'T the highway. These roads have hard-to-remember names such as "SW Fwy" or "Northbound feeder road" or just "the feeder road". At some point I may find these roads to be genius, but right now I declare them entirely confusing, utterly scary, and completely unnecessary.

2. Grocery store conveyor belts. Um.... where are they? What kind of grocery store doesn't have a conveyor belt for you to load your stuff up on? And don't let me forget to mention that at the Kroger near my house they don't even have a grocery cart corral outside. We've looked and looked to no avail, rather, the Houstonians prefer to leave them between their cars, subsequently blocking parking spaces. I will say that in the Houstonians favor, they have been extremely courteous to me and gracefully dodging out of the way at the grocery store as I cruise around on the little motorized cart with my crutches falling out all over the place.

3. No dancing at concert. Who has ever been to a concert where the people weren't all up dancing? My being on crutches and all, I fully expected to not be able to see the Cure concert from my seat because I would be surrounded by people standing and dancing. Nope. I was able to see the entire thing which was great but caused me to wonder about these people. Was it the crowd? Are we Cure fans just too old? Was I in the loser section?

4. Bayous. I thought I knew what a bayou was until I moved to Houston, so I had to look it up on Wikipedia to make sure.

A bayou (pronounced [ˈbaɪ oʊ] or [ˈbaɪ uː]) is a small, slow-moving stream or creek, or a lake or pool (bayou lake) that lies in an abandoned channel of a stream. Bayous are usually located in relatively flat, low-lying areas, for example, in the Mississippi River delta region of the southern United States. A bayou is frequently a slackwater anabranch or minor braid of a braided channel, that is moving with less velocity than the mainstem. Many bayous are the home of crawfish, certain species of shrimp, other shellfish, and catfish.

Now, look at these pictures and tell me which one you think is home to crawfish?

Picture of bayou provided by Wikipedia:













Houston bayou:














What can I say? I mean, I guess that technically this is a bayou, but...

5. Roaches. I don't know what I expected, I knew they were here and I knew they were big and all over the place. Did I expect to see roaches around the outside of my apartment? I guess so, but not this many. Did I expect them to be as long as my pointer finger? No. Did I expect them to have wings and fly? Never. No way, never ever.

6. So far, nice. The people have been more than courteous and I hope that I can continue to say this as the years go by. The doctors working on my foot have been a Godsend, the people we meet when out running around are all enthusiastic about the city and have lots of suggestions for things to do and are eager to help. Shoot, while a nurse was drawing my blood she told me that if I gave her my phone number that she'd give me a call later that night and let me know where the free concerts were! Now, that I think is nice.