Northern Friends, Meet the Live Oak

Texas is one weird state. The lack of winter I expected. But I didn’t expect this: fall happens in March in Texas. For real.

Nothing fell in October, but we spent the whole two weeks before Easter raking and bagging the leaves in our yard. Forty-five bags of them. The live oaks drop their leaves in the spring right before they bud new ones.

“Live oak,” by the way, doesn’t mean the opposite of a dead oak. It’s a particular type of oak tree, and they are some of the coolest trees ever. The trunks grow all haywire in fascinating swirls around the yard. Many of them have trunks growing completely to the side, almost perpendicular to the ground after a while – growing toward where they find the most sun, I assume.

And they are HUGE. They must have remarkable root systems to support so much weight all leaning to one side. I look at some of them and think I’d be afraid to hang anything on even the largest of their branches because surely any extra pounds would send that thing crashing to the ground. But no. They stand strong for years and years.

We have several of these amazing trees in our yard. And as I noted before, they dump all of their leaves just in time to celebrate the Resurrection. So weird.

They also dump their pollen right about now. If you’ve never experienced such, it’s a sight. Yellow dusty stuff that covers EVERYTHING and gets people’s allergies all cranked up. We got the pine pollen in New Jersey; here it’s the oak pollen. Craziness.

But it’s not just the yellow gunk. The “flowers” fall off as well, and if I hadn’t already swept one layer of them up once, by now they would be covering our courtyard area (patio, table, chairs, grill, fountain, plus all the actual ground) with nastiness a half inch thick. Good heavens.

See how it's all leaning to one side? Crazy!

They clog up the fountain. I can’t even clean out the fountain until they’re done, so it’s just turned off for now.

And of course, it's been raining. On the positive side, that washed away a lot of yellow nastiness. On the negative side, the dried-up flower nastiness has been too wet to blow away.

I know – I’m whining. The truth is, the trees are beautiful and worth the mess once a year. At least I think so right now. A few more years of this and I may lose some affection for them, however.

Good motivation for me to continue teaching high school students. I’m bound to have a few someday who would love to clean up my yard for “extra credit.” ;)

Fredericksburg and Shops

Last Saturday, our family drove the one-hour jaunt up to Fredericksburg, one of the many little towns around here that we keep hearing we need to visit. There happened to be a Food and Wine Festival going on -- we didn't even know until we got there, but we didn't participate in that anyway.

We took a peek in an old, old Catholic church right by where we parked (I love looking inside old churches). We spent an hour or so at the Pioneer Museum -- well-kept, but similar to other such museums we've been to. Then we walked up and down main street seeing the sights . . . which were mainly people and shops.

Lots of shops. What's the word for the kind of shops I'm talking about? Maybe it's "specialty shops". Cute little stores packed to the ceiling with cute little things. There was a dog specialty shop we stopped at to see a million and one unnecessary and costly dog accessories. There was a Christmas shop where we saw five million and one beautiful and excessive Christmas decorations. Seven blocks or so of such places, lining both sides of the street. Plus all the German biergartens and chocolate shops.

It was a cute little town. I kept thinking how twenty years ago, I would have just eaten this up. I loved "specialty shops." I could have spent all day long looking at the items in these stores. I probably wouldn't have bought much, but I would have wanted to -- or I would have come away with ideas for things I wanted to try to make myself for cheaper.

Because I used to be a crafter, or at least fancy myself as one. I still have a stash of craft supplies in storage left over from those days, just in case I need something again. I loved the idea of making some cute little item to beautify my house with my personal touches. I often said I'd rather decorate my home with something I made that is of slightly lower quality but would have meaning to me, than with something fabulous that I just plunked down some money for.

There's probably a remnant of that sentiment still in me somewhere. But not much. Somewhere along the way, I lost the urge to make little things. Even more so, I lost the urge to HAVE little things sitting around my house looking pretty. As my mother was known to say, "It's just more to dust."

So, walking through these stores made me examine myself and my new set of values. I'd like to think there's something somewhat . . . I don't know . . . philosophical about this change in me. I looked at the stuff in there for sale and thought how astonishing these seven blocks would be to someone from a third world country. Or even to someone from this country a hundred and fifty years ago. My daughter is reading a biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder, and looking through the Christmas store, I remembered the Christmases she described in her books -- getting one small toy item and a candy stick that they sucked a little bit every day for weeks to make it last. The Christmas feast that would hardly seem like a hearty meal for some of us. I don't remember her mentioning decorations at all.

Laura would have walked through this Christmas store with her jaw on her chest. The very idea that people could have as many Christmas decorations as they do and still walk through this place wanting even more.

When there are people not eating. When there are people dying of curable diseases. When there are children who can't read. I've just lost my appetite for more stuff in my life when there are so many uses for my money that could actually make an eternal difference in humanity.

But then again, maybe it's really only about not having more to dust.

What's In a Name? RESPECT

During a pleasant conversation over frozen yogurt yesterday with another newbie teacher at my school, I remarked casually how much I enjoy hearing "Yes, ma'am" from my students -- because I hear it a lot and it's new to me.

She smiled and said, "Oh, I expect that. It's a Texas thing." She has a student who just moved here from the north, and she has to keep reminding herself that the poor thing is not necessarily being rude when he answers her with a "Yeah" instead of a "Yes, ma'am."

"Ma'am" and "Sir" are the expected ways to address your elders in these parts, my friend tells me. Now I'm wondering if Texans find my daughters rude. (Although I doubt it.)

This discussion stirred up memories of similar conversations with friends in New Jersey about how our children were to address us, their friends' mothers. The standard among most of my friends was "Miss _____". As in, "Miss Sue" . . . "Miss Judy" . . . "Miss Marilyn." I had taught my daughters to call their friends' mothers "Mrs. So-and-So" right off the bat, because this is what I was used to. Some friends accepted that and got used to it. Others told my daughters to call them Miss Such-and-Such . . . which my girls rarely got the hang of.

"I figure, my kids hear me calling adults by their first names," my friends told me, "It'll just confuse them if they have to call them by a different name." Confuse them? Uh -- no. I grew up with this system in place and never got confused. The woman I called Mrs. Garnett my mother called Leona. Simple as that. In fact, it was very helpful; I learned people's full names.

But I willingly accepted whichever name these kids gave me, as long as they were spoken with respect. I never got offended at being called Miss Gwen. However, I did get offended when the "Miss" was left off.

There was one little girl living near us whom we had over for a couple playdates. When I first met that child on my front porch and she enthusiastically greeted me by my first name, I wondered what I was going to do with that. Since her mother didn't correct her, I decided to let it alone.

But as the playdate went on, I realized that this girl did not see me as an authority figure in her life; she saw me as her peer. When I told her to do something, she took that merely as a suggestion. She even asked me personal questions that I thought were ENTIRELY out of line for a six-year-old to be asking of an adult. (And this seemed to be typical of the other schoolmates my daughter had who called me by my first name.)

(On a side note: It wasn't surprising when her mother came to pick her up and had to say, "We need to go" twenty-three times before her daughter gave an inkling of response. Twenty-three times. Yes, I counted.)

By about the third playdate, my inward fuming got the best of me. I finally -- politely -- told the young lady that I preferred that she call me "Mrs". She looked at me as if to say, ohhhh, you're one of THOSE people . . . Whatever, kid.

The next time she called for a playdate, I answered the phone and she said (dripping with sarcasm and attitude), "Hi, Gw- . . . I mean . . . Missuzz Ka-" . . . and I immediately knew that I could not have this child in my home today or I might slap her cheeky little cheek. Fortunately, my daughter wasn't fond of her either. That friendship faded away quickly.

So, yes, I'm enjoying the "Yes, ma'ams" in my classroom. One of the many things I'm finding they get right in Texas.

Surprised in San Antonio

Our family has lived in San Antonio for a little over a year now. Last night, we were discussing some of the more interesting or surprising things we have discovered about our new hometown during that year:

- The need for layers -- in the summer. As incredibly and consistently hot as it gets here during the summer months (and lingering into the fall), if you are leaving home and going to be entering another building and spending any significant time in there, you need to take a wrap of some kind. Church, grocery store, restaurant, Target . . . it doesn't matter. They keep their indoor temperatures at refrigerator levels around here during July and August. Good heavens.

- Mediocre BBQ -- We have yet to find a BBQ place that knocks our socks off . . . or even one that just makes us really want to have BBQ for dinner tonight. They're not bad, just meh. Which is really a bummer when you're in Texas, for Pete's sake.

- The RiverWalk -- I expected it to be pretty. But seriously, every time I'm down there, I'm struck all over again by how truly lovely this stretch of land is in the middle of a major metropolitan area. SO pretty. And so well-kept by the city. It's enough to make me wish I lived downtown so I could just spend all my evenings wandering along the river path.

- The 90s are liveable -- It's not as humid in San Antonio as we expected; I guess we're far enough south and west in the state to miss the sweep of moist air that floats up from the gulf as far even as Kansas (where hubby and I grew up with hot, humid summers). And because it's relatively dry, the heat is relatively tolerable. If you're not exerting yourself too much, and if you're in the shade, and particularly if there's a breeze of any kind, you can be outside quite comfortably for any length of time. I enjoy sitting in our courtyard even in the middle of the day (well, I would if I wasn't a veritable feast for every biting insect in the county).

- Fireplaces still have value -- It actually does get cold enough in the winter to light a fireplace indoors. Once in a while.

- The taco vs. burrito thing -- This has been a controversy in my daughter's class all year. A certain taco chain in town has an item on their menu: beans and cheese wrapped in a tortilla. They call this a bean taco. And my daughter cannot bear this. That is a burrito. That is, in our experience, practically the definition of a burrito. And I've already written about the breakfast taco/burrito question. Yeesh.

- Spursmania -- Okay, admittedly, this may have only been a surprise to me because I don't follow NBA basketball. But good heavens, this place is Spurs-nutso. Especially when they are doing well at the end of the season, which they usually are. After watching some of the championship game they won this year, I understand the loyalty and excitement now; I may even get swept up in it myself pretty soon.

- Long ballots -- I think I already mentioned how I was surprised at the offices I had to vote for in the primary elections this year. Railroad commissioner? Seriously? That's an elected office? And one of the hot contests as well! And all sorts of other minor positions were on the ballot, too. I'm kind of bracing myself for the November ballot which I assume will be more thorough than the primary election ballot was.

- No basements -- Having grown up in tornado alley in Kansas, and having heard all my life about tornadoes ripping through cities in Texas (also part of tornado alley), this one threw me. Apparently, the ground is too rocky in San Antonio to dig deep enough for a basement. Nobody has them here. However, most of the houses we looked at (and the one we bought) have decent-sized "game rooms" on the upstairs floor. "Texas basements", they're called. Only they're of no use to you if a tornado comes.

- Texas pride -- Yes, we knew Texas was about being Texas. But sometimes it feels like Texas is ALL about being Texas. Lone stars everywhere, folks. If the state were to secede someday, it should surprise no one.

. . . And probably our biggest surprise . . .

- No cowboys -- Nor any southern accents. At best, I have one friend I can think of who has a bit of a drawl that she will exaggerate for effect on occasion. This is Texas, people! Where are the ten-gallon hats and big-hair ladies? Where is the country music and line dancing? Where are the cowboy boots? (Well, you do see some of those around.) Where are the "y'alls" and "ain'ts" and the "yee-haws"? I wasn't expecting to live in the midst of a hoedown, but come on, friends. We're in TEXAS!

Yes, but we're in San Antonio. Tamale country. More "holas" than "y'alls" around here. And that's fine. We like San Antonio. But I'm going to have to throw out a "y'all" once in a while.

On Elections and Why I Hate Them

As much as I believe in the system of representative democracy and appreciate that I live in a country where it is practiced pretty successfully, truth is, I hate elections. Mainly, I hate campaigns. There just HAS to be a better way to do this.

We have a run-off primary election here in Texas tomorrow. The first primary election was in February or something, and it caught me completely off guard. I knew absolutely nobody on the ballot; I didn't even know much about the offices I was voting for. (Railroad commissioner? Really? We vote for railroad commissioner? Turns out, I guess, that the railroad commissioner is in charge of the oil industry in Texas, so it's a very important job, but I still can't believe it's an elected office.)

And the fact that it was a primary complicated things. Frankly, when it's Republicans versus Democrats, I usually can assume that the Republican is going to be closer to where I stand on issues. (However, for some of the smaller local offices, I'm not sure where they stand on big issues is as important as their general competence -- and how the heck am I supposed to know about that?)

The problem comes with choosing a Republican candidate that I like, because again, the difference is not in where they stand on issues, usually. The difference is in experience: Do they know the ins and outs of the job? Have they done something like this before and succeeded? Do they have the requisite skills to get the job done? And the difference is in character: Are they one to keep their word? Are they one to not be swayed by the temptation to act in their own best interest rather than in the interests of their constituents? Are they one to do the right thing even if it's hard?

And just how the heck do you get to know these things about people?

I addressed this problem with some friends at lunch the other day. One said that she went to the library, picked up a sample ballot, and then looked each candidate up online to get info about them. Brilliant. I did the same. You know what I found out? All candidates say nothing but positive things about themselves. (Duh.) And all candidates' opponents say nothing but negative things about their opponents. (Duh.) And any source of information that should be objective about the candidates cannot be trusted to be objective. (Duh -- and sigh.)

My friend who made this suggestion said that she mainly looked on a candidate's website for values statements. Thing is, Texas Republicans know what values other Texas Republicans want in a candidate and will trumpet them whether they personally hold them or not.

Not only that, but I'm finding myself getting a bit turned off, actually, by the "values statements" that I think this friend is looking for. One of these candidates (I don't remember who) made a big deal of the fact that he championed the effort to get the phrase "under God" put in the Texas state pledge. Now, I personally appreciate the fact that this phrase is in the pledge, I suppose. But if I'm honest about it, that's not something I would have wanted my state representative to spend a lot of energy, time, and effort on. Surely, there were more important things going on that needed his attention. The fact that he lists this on his website as one of the accomplishments he's most proud of . . . well, it rubs me the wrong way. As if he's just pandering to the churchy folks who are scanning his site looking for "values statements".

For February's election, I emailed a new friend from my daughter's school who seemed to be really into this political stuff and who seemed to be one with whom I would agree on most issues. She graciously gave me a detailed list of her recommendations (and she knew many of these people personally, so I trusted her). I hate to bug her again. I wish I could figure out how to get the objective information I need on my own.

Because I really do want to do this right. It does matter.

New Life Growing From the Top of my Head

I realize it may seem a bit vain to spend an entire blog post talking about my hair, but hear me out.

Growing up, my hair was straight as a board, and I hated that. I had a long, thin face, and I thought my long, straight hair just accentuated that and made me look like a horse. So, I tried desperate maneuvers with a variety of curling irons and rollers to change the shape of my coif. All to no avail. By lunchtime, all my curls would disappear.

Then during my junior year, when I landed my big theatrical lead of my high school career (Ruby in “Dames at Sea”), the director asked me to perm my hair. Hallelujah! I loved this! I continued perming my hair for years – many years after the style was in any sense fashionable. It was an EASY style. I washed my hair, put a little mousse in it (maybe) and let it dry. Glory! With two little ones in tow, I hated the hassle of messing with my hair.

Then my friend Maria in Jersey offered to color my hair for me to save me the money I was spending at the hairdresser's. As she was finishing up, she said, “You wanna see what your hair would look like straight?” And she pulled out this remarkable little flattening iron and proceeded to make my hair straight and amazing-looking. I was so excited! I immediately bought myself one of those handy little tools and had her teach me how to do that with my hair.

That was my last perm. I let the kinks grow out and took to straightening my hair after every wash. And I did find it interesting that even when the perm had grown out, there was enough “wave” in my hair to require the flattening iron. But I didn't think much of it.

Until we went to Panama . . . and my hair took on a life of its own. I may as well have left my beloved little tool at home because my Panama hair defied it with vengeance. That hair was big and curly and flyaway and I'd have had more luck bottling the waves of the ocean than taming the locks on my head. I chalked that up to life in a different continent, one of the many things that would be new in my world if we decided to make that move. Everything was so different in Panama that my hair being curly seemed to just fit right in.

Imagine my surprise, however, when I found the same to be true in Texas. It's not quite as bad – I can force my hair almost straight right after a wash, but it's not worth the effort. The picture above is my own little head. My naturally curly head that still doesn't feel like it belongs to me. I paid good money for this look twenty years ago, and now it's given to me as a gift. No, it's not the climate -- the climate isn't THAT different here -- it's just my freaky hair.

I don't get it. I've heard of a woman's hair changing dramatically after pregnancy, or growing back differently after chemotherapy, but I've just been living life and suddenly my hair has decided to create a new life for itself.

As if it were inviting me to do the same. Weird.

WDGT - What Does Gwen Think?

Because I feel a tremendous responsibility to my readers -- many of whom, I know, hear of a current event or a piece of news and immediately find themselves wondering, "What Does Gwen Think about this?" -- let me give you a run-down of my opinions and feelings on a few items:

- Ritchie Incognito and the Miami Dolphins.  As far as what went down with Incognito and Jonathan Martin and whether Martin's departure was justified, who really knows. But I have been shocked by what this incident has revealed about the culture of football in our country. Former players and coaches keep being interviewed on the matter, and they all seem to say the same thing: yeah, Incognito got carried away, but this type of behavior is just what happens in the NFL.

So, we pay grown men OBSCENE salaries (players and administrative types) to play a game violent enough to require so much safety equipment covering their bodies as to completely hide their natural body shapes (and they still have horrible -- even life-threatening -- injuries).  We encourage this violent attitude to the extent that behavior and conversations which the rest of society would find extremely offensive and which might land them in jail are normal among these men. And we allow our boys to idolize and try to emulate these men. 

And we allow it all to happen for the sake of being entertained by the game. Are we really that much better than the Romans with their gladiators?

- Black Friday.  I've never shopped on Black Friday because I hate getting up early on a holiday, I hate big crowds, and I don't enjoy shopping in general. But it has gotten a bit ridiculous how early stores are opening. I'm not so upset about the employees having to work on a holiday -- there are thousands of people out there who have to work on holidays. But it just cheapens Thanksgiving Day to make it about shopping now. Nothing is meaningful anymore.

The thing is, the only reason those stores open so early is because they know somebody will show up to shop -- scads of somebodies, in fact. Kind of like how the politicians only use dirty tactics because they know they work. We get what we deserve.

This is related to the football item. The Marketplace is morally neutral, but it makes our societal moral weaknesses so apparent.

- Kennedy and Lincoln. Both on my mind lately. I've read Bill O'Reilly's books about them this year (yes, Killing Jesus is on my Christmas list). Excellent, excellent books -- whatever you think about O'Reilly. The Kennedy movie being on the National Geographic channel (and all the other discussion about the anniversary of his assassination) has led to talk with my daughter about marriage fidelity, communism and the cold war, presidential safety . . . good discussions. (The book is very frank about the president's affairs, but interesting to note, it also says that the Cuban missile crisis struck such fear in him about losing his family that the other women lost much of their appeal.)

The Lincoln book I read a while ago but has been fresh in my mind because my daughter is memorizing the Gettysburg address for school, and they are going to film the class reciting it at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery for a presentation at the Christmas program. Such an amazing speech.

- The Obamacare ads.  You know, the ones with the women excited to get birth control so they can hop into bed with the guy they just met. Seriously. I mean . . . ugh. It's just . . . it's so . . . I'm sorry.  I can't even find words to communicate my contempt and disgust for this.

- Texas weather. It got down to freezing here the other night, which is apparently extremely unusual for around here this early in the season. My daughter's math teacher had frost on her windshield in the morning and had to sit and think what to do about that. It really has been quite chilly, which is refreshing. My new Texan friends tell me that we have cold spurts like this once in a while, for a few days, all winter long, but then it warms up again. I'm curious to see how we like the winter weather in Texas.  Part of me thinks I'm going to miss having at least some snow. I'll just pray for a white Christmas so I get my snow fix when we're in Kansas for that.

- The President's speech yesterday. Refreshing to hear his more humble attitude. Unfortunately, I don't think this fix is going to fix a thing. And that's all I'm going to say about that.


There you go, friends. This is what I'm thinking these days. Go forth and think likewise. ;)

Mexican Breakfast Dishes for $400, Alex

An imaginary conversation with your standard Texan:

“What did you have for breakfast?”
“A breakfast taco.”
“Ah – I've had breakfast burritos, but breakfast tacos are new to me. What's in a breakfast taco?”
“Eggs, bacon, sausage, potatoes, cheese, salsa. That kind of thing.”
“Same stuff that's in a breakfast burrito, huh?”
“But it's a breakfast taco.”
“So, the tortilla is folded in half instead of wrapped around the filling.”
“No, a lot of times it's wrapped around it all.”
“Like a burrito.”
“Yep.”
“But it's a taco.”
“Yep. A breakfast taco.”
“Not a breakfast burrito.”
“Nope.”
“Why isn't it called a breakfast burrito?”
“Sweetie, you're in Texas now.”
 
The Lone Star State – where you can call a burrito a taco just 'cuz dat's whut it is, y'all. Sometimes, it seems that Texas is just all about being Texas. 
 

The Feast Within Me

It's always exciting to discover hidden treasures within you.  Delightful traits of which you were previously unaware and of which you can now boast.  Case in point: I apparently have delicious blood.  I am a veritable feast for the insect world of southern Texas.

Please observe the photo to the left.  This is a lovely picture of my lovely ankle on my left leg.  I don't know how well you can see, but there are at least a dozen red, itchy blotches in the few square inches covering that ankle.  And it is representative of the condition of both of my calves and ankles.  My thighs have been attacked as well, just not as rigorously.

My husband is not being eaten alive.  Neither is my youngest daughter.  (My oldest daughter refuses to spend much time outside because she suspects she would become a victim as well.)  I am the one the little buggers prefer, for who-knows-what reason.

I was warned early on by a local friend (who grew up in Iowa) about the ants.  She said if you're not careful where you stand outside, you could find fire ants crawling all over you biting you, leaving such marks. 

But I don't believe these are ant bites.  I don't know what they are. I have never seen the culprits that create them; I just notice a few hours after I've spent time outdoors that I have new itchy places on my legs that are driving me insane. The fact that they are all on my lower extremities lends some credibility to the ant theory, but wouldn't you think I would notice ants crawling all over my legs? No, it must be some other critter.

Some clandestine critter with a military strategy to strike under the cloak of invisibility and retreat quickly, waiting for an opportunity to strike again. I would have to admire their skilled maneuvering if I believed there was anything intelligent about it.

Another local friend has suggested Avon's Skin So Soft. I'm going to have to try it.  I'm going to have to try something. The heat and humidity will not yet allow me to cover my legs, and the itching is making me nuts.

In other news, my un-ending cough has locals suggesting I have allergies -- another common discovery to Texas newbies. I had allergies in Jersey. They disappeared in Iowa. I'd rather not have them back. But whatever -- they can be controlled by medication, usually. The bugs . . . I don't know how much control I can have over them.

But at least I can take pride in my tasty blood. Enjoy while you can, you pesky varmints. Your feast will end soon. Mua-ha-ha-ha.

How I Ended Up Crying in an Empty Church Parking Lot

I knew I needed to get a Texas driver's license. I figured there was no point until we had a permanent address to put on it. Not until I was signing papers to close on the house and the lady making a copy of my license said, “Do you know that your license has expired?” did I realize that I needed to get a move on.

Of course, right after the closing we had our hectic several days moving from apartment to house. I stopped by the DPS office soon after (because I couldn't get anyone there to answer the phone) and asked what all I would need to have with me to get this process done. Turned out, I needed to have my vehicle registered in Texas before getting a license. And turned out, I needed to have the vehicle inspected before I could get it registered.

And turned out, I needed to replace the tires and update the insurance before I could get it inspected. (They also said I needed a current and valid photo ID – I was about to panic about that Catch-22, but thank God, the inspection guy didn't say boo about my expired license.) While he was out of town the first week we were in the house, hubby worked on getting our insurance taken care of and finding the best price on tires. So, I got the tires replaced . . . got the inspection done . . . got the van registered . . . and finally, yesterday made it to the DPS office again with all my required paperwork in hand.

Or so I thought. After waiting to see an agent (a short wait, I'll admit) and waiting while she checked over everything and signed various items, she suddenly asked where my marriage license was. Uh . . . nobody told me I needed my marriage license. Turned out, I did. So, I drove home, got it, drove back, and waited to see an agent again.

Waited through the paperwork again. Did the computer touch-screen driver's exam (86.6%, thank you very much). Scheduled a road test for 2:20pm yesterday afternoon. (No, I did not know going in that I was going to need to take a road test – but whatever.) Then I went home for lunch and a short nap. (Did I mention that I am still lousy sick? Yeah . . . )

So, I drove my third trip of the day back to the DPS office for my road test . . . only to be informed by my tester (after he'd already started paperwork and looked over my brake lights and all) that he couldn't give me my test because I didn't have my Texas tags on the van yet. I showed him I had them in the car with me – I just got them yesterday! No go.

I tried to smile. I went in and scheduled another road test – the earliest opening was Thursday morning. Then I drove to the empty church parking lot next door to the DPS office, sat in my car, and cried for a while.

Now, I realize it is ridiculous that this should bring me to tears. I have friends in the hospital right now. I have friends with seriously ill children. Friends with teenagers on drugs. I have friends who have lost their jobs . . . friends whose marriages are on the rocks . . . even in light of the trials our own family has gone through for the past couple years, this is minimal.  I know all that.

But you know, maybe it's a woman thing. I just needed to cry. As I've said before, sometimes, for a woman, crying is like sweating. It's a release of tension. I just had to get it out. Then I pulled myself together, stopped for a pack of Twinkies (don't judge me) and went to pick up my daughter.

And yes, I drove with my expired Iowa license.  Lord help the cop who stops me -- he'll get an earful.

Driver's Ed. UGGHHH.

There are reasons why my 17-year-old daughter is only now taking drivers' ed, and reasons why we are doing the "classroom" part of that instruction online from home, but that's more than I want to go into right now.  For the purposes of the rant to follow, simply accept that it is so.

And I probably could have found a higher quality online program if I'd had the time, resources, and inclination to dig more.  I chose PTDE 101 (Parent Taught Driver's Education), the program created by the state of Texas, because it was a third or less of the price of the others on the approved list -- and because it was created by the state, so I felt secure it would meet the necessary requirements.

But this program.  UGGHHH.

We read.  We read pages and pages of information that is not only irrelevant to 90% of the people taking driver's ed, but information that is written like a lawyer's brief.  Then she takes a quiz -- with questions that are either ridiculously obvious or questions about minute details that are, again, irrelevant.  And for each section, she has a writing assignment where she finishes three sentences describing how she will use the information she just learned to be a safe driver, a courteous driver, and an environmentally friendly driver (note that there has yet to be anything in any of the information presented concerning environmentally friendly driving).

I mean, I'll be honest: I'm not a great driver.  But I'm an experienced driver and certainly an adequate driver.  More than that, I am an excellent reader.  I'm a former English teacher, for crying out loud, with a graduate degree.  If someone like me is having trouble understanding what the heck they are talking about when I read the lessons, then there's a real problem here.

If an opportunity came up, I would offer the state my services in re-writing their curriculum.  [On a personal note, many instances have come up lately -- as they have come up throughout the course of my adult years -- when I find myself looking at someone doing something and thinking, "Ugh . . . I could do better."  Almost always it's in a teaching and/or performing and/or administrating capacity.  I'm trying to decide if this is arrogance on my part -- something I should deal with -- or if it's an urge I should indulge, because such thoughts have often led me into some great experiences.  But I digress . . . ]

I think the problem here is the mistaken notion that teaching someone to drive should involve extensive "classroom" time.  It shouldn't.  Yes, there is a set of information to be communicated, but you learn to drive by driving, not by reading about how to drive.  Actually, I think the deal is, they want to give the impression that they are ensuring safer drivers by having extensive requirements for people to get their licenses . . . but it is a hassle for everyone involved to increase the in-car instruction time (the part that really makes a difference in the quality of one's driving), so they increase the in-classroom instruction time instead (and add a bunch of gobbledy-gook and extraneous information to beef it up and make it last longer). 

It's an illusion.  It's what government does.  Why we let them get away with it, I'll never know.

Updates . . .

And so we start our new life in San Antonio:

- It is HOT in San Antonio.

- We got here Saturday afternoon and have been moving our stuff into hubby's apartment.  It should be very interesting to have the four of us living together in a two-bedroom apartment for a while -- particularly with the girls sharing a room.  Our eldest has already informed us that she expects to punch one of us in the face before it's all over.  Something to look forward to.

- I am much more comfortable trying to navigate the traffic here in my own vehicle than I was driving my husband's on our previous visits.

- I went to the grocery store yesterday to buy food for us for the week.  Two observations:  one, I know it's always a bit disconcerting to shop in a new grocery store, but this HEB was huge and quite intimidating.  They even sell clothes there.  You know how Walmarts started adding groceries?  This was like a grocery store adding a Walmart.  I couldn't believe how long it took me to get the shopping done.

And two, it's amazing how much food you need to cover the basics for a family of four for a week.  You don't realize how much stuff you just assume is in stock in your well-stocked kitchen until it isn't in stock anymore.  Starting from scratch is costly.

- And it is really hot here in San Antonio.

- However, the mornings and evenings are rather pleasant.  I brought a couple folding chairs and hubby and I sat out on the balcony last night for a while.  Noisy traffic in front of our faces, but at least there is one big tree there blocking some of the view.  It reminded me for a bit of our first year of marriage when we lived in St. Louis, both of us finishing school -- young, poor, newlywed students.

- The youngest is going to Novice Speech Camp this week (and Novice Debate Camp next week).  She was supposed to go to a drama camp this week, but it was cancelled -- and she was very disappointed.  She's not so sure about this Speech camp because she doesn't like making speeches.  But I think she will like the interpretive speeches -- that's basically acting.  We'll see if she likes it (and debate) enough to join the team in the fall.  I kind of hope she does just because I always wished I had taken speech and debate.  Valuable skills to be learned there.

- The eldest is still in mourning, but at least in quiet mourning.  We've got to get back to our online driver's ed class so she can start taking the in-car lessons soon now that we're here.  I wish she wanted to drive as much as we want her to drive.  Now the youngest . . . she's itching to get in a car, but she will have to wait an extra year for her permit here in Texas.  And don't you know she's not happy about that.

- And folks, it is darn HOT in San Antonio!!  But then, it looks like it's pretty hot all over the Midwest these days.  Thankful for a pool in the apartment complex.

House-hunting this afternoon . . . gotta find a house . . .

San Antonio: First Impressions

The girls and I have spent the weekend in San Antonio with the hubby -- neighborhood browsing, school shopping, and generally sight-seeing.  Our first introduction to our new hometown. 

I'll admit, part of me was a bit wary of moving to a big city.  I've really enjoyed the size of Sioux City -- big enough to have just about anything you need there, small enough to not have to deal with bad traffic, gangs, etc.  And the traffic here was a big daunting when I first started driving around in it Friday morning. 

But I tell ya . . . San Antonio knows how to manage traffic.  All the streets are wide (a big difference with the other major urban area I've spent a lot of time in, South Jersey).  Hubby's office is right off of "loop 1604", a big highway that loops around the outskirts of town, so we've spent a lot of time around the north stretch of that highway.  A six-lane highway . . . with three-lane frontage roads.  I mean, this thing is huge.  But it is amazingly efficient to travel on.  Those wide frontage roads are the key: you have the right lane for turning in and out of businesses and such, the left lane for merging onto and off of the freeway, and the center lane for through traffic -- which, except for the stoplights at crossroads, can flow almost as smoothly and quickly as the freeway.  And the entrances and exits to the freeway are far enough from the crossroads that you have plenty of time to get into the lane you need to be in.  Really, it's pretty darn slick.

And my thought was, they had to have put this huge highway in long before the businesses popped up, because otherwise, adding the frontage roads would have required tearing down all the businesses and moving them.  And apparently they did build the highway first ("if you build it, they will come . . .").  Hubby says the highway is just as wide around the south end of town, where it kind of seems like a waste because it's not nearly as built up in the south.  Optimism.  Planning ahead rather than catching up.

My other initial observation:  San Antonio is very green.  Much greener than I expected.  I've always imagined Texas, particularly west Texas, as vast tracts of empty, dry land.  I mean, in my head, I knew they had ranches and stuff down here, so they must have enough green grass to support all their cattle. 

But San Antonio is beautiful.  Lot of lovely trees and rolling hills.  The mall we went to yesterday afternoon had an open courtyard throughout the center with trees and water fountains.  And the River Walk downtown . . . oh, my goodness!  Just gorgeous.  Not only green and natural, but with stone bridge built for walkways over the river. 

So, all in all, I'm flying out today with a good impression of our upcoming stomping grounds.  Now, if we could just find a home . . . and sell our home in Sioux City . . . anyone interested in a two-story on the south edge of Morningside?

Things I Will Miss . . .

Things I will miss when my husband leaves tomorrow to go work in San Antonio:

- Someone to keep the lawn mowed.

- Half of the clothes in the laundry basket.

- Someone to answer the stupid phone while we're in the basement doing school.

- Hearing the garage door open and knowing he's about to walk in the door.

- A tired body in a sweaty t-shirt returning from basketball with the guys and responding to my inquiry with, "Puh, I should just quit and never play again" . . . or "Yeah, I should just go pro now and get it over with."

- A reason to keep peanut butter in the pantry and Diet Cokes cold in the fridge.

- One more person relieving me of one more meal to cook each week.

- The random bad jokes . . . and the good ones.

- The warm body in bed beside me, and the hand reaching over to find mine when the alarm goes off in the morning and I'm still too groggy to talk.

- Someone to keep air in the van's back left tire that leaks.

- A loving voice telling me I'm beautiful all day long when I feel fat, slovenly, and crawl-under-a-rock worthless.

- Someone to do tag-team parenting with when my frustration and exhaustion reaches its limit.

- A pair of eyes whom I want to please motivating me to NOT quit school early for lunch because I'm sick of science . . . to NOT snack on a tub of ice cream . . . to get up and do some exercise instead of playing a few more rounds of Sudoku . . .

- The car parked on the right side of the garage that I have to maneuver around.

- Someone to figure out why __________ isn't working right.

- Seeing his wedding ring when I hold his hand.

- The alarm going off at 5:30 on Friday mornings reminding me that my husband cares enough about his walk with Christ to give up precious sleep and go meet with a couple guys at Hyvee for breakfast and accountability.

- An intimidating presence to scare the boyfriend into treating the daughter right.

- Praying together at night.

- Someone to watch the news with me.

- The hugs and kisses and snuggles, on demand, whenever I need or want them.


SIGH.  Only a couple months.  Thank God for emails, and texts, and Skype, and unlimited long-distance . . .

Texas-Bound

So, for those who didn't get the word via Facebook, hubby accepted a job offer last Friday!    We'll be moving to San Antonio soon.  Very happy about this job and very happy about the move . . . although a bit anxious about all the details involved.  Moving is a stressful thing, even when it's a good thing.

Because I know I have friends and readers who are also pray-ers, I'm going to be selfish and ask for a lot of prayers over the next few months.  Specifically, here's my list:

1) A new home.  An important decision in so many ways.  And there are some factors of that decision that we don't have much control over.  I would love for us to live in a neighborhood where we connect with the neighbors -- but we won't know if that will happen until we move in.

2) A new church.  Nothing at all against the wonderful churches we've been members of over the years, but personally, I'm kind of tired of the seeker-focused mega-church model.  I'm feeling hungry for something else.  I suspect, however, that we're going to find a lot of the mega-churches in San Antonio.  Everything's bigger in Texas, right?  But, church isn't all about me.  God will lead us where he wants us.  I just hope he leads us there quickly.

3)  New schools . . . ??  Lots of educational choices in San Antonio.  Homeschoolers abound, as do programs for homeschoolers.  The girls could almost do their entire high school career through co-op, plus all the extracurricular opportunities.  On the other hand, there are also a lot of private Christian schools to explore.  And we'll make a point to live in an area where the public schools are good, too, just in case.  More choices are good . . . they also make life more complicated.

4) New friends.  My biggest prayer right now.  It is so hard to make friends.  And we'll be moving in the summer -- a hot Texas summer when people don't leave their houses much.  I so want the girls to find people who get them, who understand them, who connect with them, who will help them grow.  I want that for hubby and me, too, but the girls . . . teenage girls need BFFs. 

Neither girl is happy about leaving Sioux City (particularly the eldest -- the boyfriend can't come with us).  But they do remember the move here: they were DEVASTATED to leave New Jersey four years ago, and yet, they survived -- and thrived.  Hopefully, that memory will sustain them.

I'm sad to leave friends here, too.  But I'm ready for a new adventure.  I'm also ready for sunshine.  Did you know it snowed last night here in Iowa?  Snowed??  On Easter?  Sigh!  So ready for spring . . .