Tag Archives: home

My last full day in Texas feels, as usual, bittersweet.  I have so enjoyed my quick visit.

We drove from Houston

to Fort Worth

to Austin

and back to Houston, touring TCU

and the University of Texas,

and getting some good visits with family along the way.  A few bluebonnets

peeked out early for me, and the red buds, mountain laurel, and azaleas

have been in full splendor. The grass is bright green, which is much prettier than the green and yellow pollen and tree gunk now covering every other surface outside my door.  I definitely will not miss cleaning out  my pool several times a day for the next month!

We ate Mexican (not enough), Chinese, Schlotzsky’s, and hamburgers.  We drank cold beer, margaritas, and raspberry tea.  I haven’t cooked a meal since I have been here, but in my defense, I didn’t have a stove or oven until yesterday morning when Sears (finally) arrived and exchanged my dead one for a live model.  Has anyone figured out how to keep those glass-topped ranges looking nice?  I am stuck with electric here at the townhouse and I hate how the tops always get so stained and dull.  Almost makes me not want to use the new one…..

I got my fill of highway driving under the big Texas sky, wide open spaces, and Diet Dr. Pepper.  I actually giggled out loud when a grocery store employee in the produce section at Randall’s greeted me on my first day back, as  I wandered around the mountains of vegetables in a jet-lagged daze.  We Texans are so darned friendly!

All in all it was refreshing to understand what was being said in the world around me, although some of it did fill me with shock and dismay.  Perhaps I should be grateful that the French candidates on TV are merely background noise in my living room.

I am typing this in Nike shorts and an Austin City Limits T-shirt, which is great except that if I go outside I am immediately ravaged by mosquitoes and humidity.  Paris on Monday is supposed to be a rainy 45, and I’m not convinced that will be  much more uncomfortable than today in Houston.

So tomorrow I wedge myself back in a seat on Continental (or is it United?) for the long trek back to Charles de Gaulle. ( Hint: when you come to see me, fly Air France from Houston- not Continental. You will thank me.)  Guests will be not far behind, so soon I will be forced to quit wandering aimlessly around neighborhoods and museums and actually cook some meals and be hospitable.  Yikes.

Over and out from Texas.  Stay tuned for Paris, y’all.

Luxuries are never so comfortable as are the familiar, ordinary things of home.

Eucharista Ward, Match For Mary Bennet, 2009