Entry #1

Saturday, August 20, 2011

I’m sitting surrounded by piles of things I should be putting away right now, seated on a kiddie chair at a kiddie table because David can’t find the screws to put my desk together yet...We’ve been in The Woodlands (please note: not Woodlands, but THE Woodlands), Texas for exactly four days now, and while I was going to start this journal on Monday when the kids go back to school, my mind is racing with all too many reminders that I’m not in Kansas anymore (or rather, Berkeley, California).

The first day here we got off the plane, opened the door to the outside, and couldn’t breathe. The air was so hot, it seemed deprived of oxygen. Noah said it felt like he was “stepping into a campfire.” Granted, the official record was reached the week prior to our arrival (110) and it was a mere 103, but we were used to spending our summers in the Bay Area, where Mark Twain famously wrote, “The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco.” A friend of ours donned his down jacket the night before bidding us farewell. Right now, I can’t think of wearing anything more than a t-shirt and shorts, and I never wear shorts. I’m just too hot to care.

A word about The Woodlands, “Texas’s most celebrated master community.” Here’s what the website’s home page states (if you suffer from nausea, please take some Pepto Bismol before reading the following): “Like an artist’s palette, The Woodlands offers a beautiful montage of living at its finest. Magnificent homes, winding nature trails, parks, shops and places of worship are carefully arranged in this lively and colorful panorama...It’s the intangibles like human services, religious diversity (huh?), community spirit, healthcare and lifelong learning that are the cornerstones of community building. Those have been the guiding principles of The Woodlands since its founding more than 36 years ago.” There is one wee synagogue here, and churches galore, though other places of worship are nary to be found. Then again, everything’s hidden by trees that line the roads, so who knows?

Folks who live in Houston (30 miles south of here) call The Woodlands “The Bubble.” I would describe this planned community (the second largest in the nation) as Stepford meets the Dukes of Hazzard, with a dose of Pleasantville thrown in. (Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood also comes to mind, but the architecture’s altogether different and it lacks the 1950s charm and train ride. And it’s way too hot to don a cardigan.) The houses, all built by large corporations, are pretty darn huge and lovely looking, though they’re mass-produced and carbon copies of one another inside. It couldn’t be more different from the uniquely gilded Victorians and Craftsmen bungalows of San Francisco and Berkeley.

The first place our realtor took us was to the “Homefinder Center,” where you can see an architectural rendering of the entire area. I was looking for the whereabouts of the bird calls I heard, when I found out they were just filtered sounds. Faux stone (cement), faux wood floors, faux marble (cast plastic) and yes, faux bird sounds. I have seen some real birds, though, so that’s heartening. Then again, I’ve also seen a rodent that looks more like a capybara than a rat.

Evidently, this rodent of unusual size is called a Nutria (sounds like a breakfast cereal). The guy who told me what this creature was said they normally have yellow or orange front teeth. Doesn’t that make them all the more appealing? Ergh.

11:40 a.m.: Trying to put towels away and get the kids’ bathroom set up. Took away the creepy black shag rug that was left here and the brown polyester shower curtain, only to have the curtain rod collapse and all the metal curtain holders plunk directly into the toilet. I then attempted to hang up a towel, but the rod completely collapsed. Beige paint was evidently painted over the holder. This place might be large, but well-built it is not.

Back to unpacking...

Dinner: Being in Texas, we thought we should embrace the culture and try a recommended Tex-Mex place. The restaurant everyone seemed to recommend is called Chuy’s (I thought it was spelled Chewy’s, which sounded dubious to me, especially if it specializes in meat dishes. The word “gristle” came to mind.). We arrived there and the place was hoppin’, so much so, that we needed to take one of those light-up/vibrating contraptions that lets you know when your party is called. David and the kids were starving and very glad to be able to help themselves to whoppin’ baskets of greasy tortilla chips and salsa, all housed in a bright green Cadillac convertible (the hood, that is).

The dish recommended by our server was “Elvis’ Green Chile Fried Chicken: A tender chicken breast breaded with Lay’s Potato Chips, deep-fried and smothered in green chile sauce and cheddar cheese, served with green chile rice and refried beans.” Might as well order an artery clogger with a heartburn chaser, eh?

We didn’t order this choice dish, but there were plenty of folks chowing down on their enormous platters and joining the “clean plate club.” I ordered the tortilla soup, described as a “light” dish, despite the globs o’ cheese that greeted me each time I lifted my spoon. Did taste good, though. Aidan wondered if he would be “obese” if he ate like this every day. “Um, yes,” was my answer. Each one of our entrées (including Noah’s 12” burrito) could’ve easily fed a small family.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

9:30 a.m. Leaned against the sink to wash my hands, and the sink moved towards me. What hospitality! Actually, the fact that the sink isn’t attached to the wall makes me concerned, as it’s located in the guest bath next to the kitchen—an oft-used spot. We may very well have an indoor waterfall soon.

I woke up to find sections of the New York Times drying all over our house. Evidently, the delivery person had thrown it in the gutter and it was soaked. I know this area is largely comprised of Republicans and Tea Partiers, but still...

10:45 a.m. Just finished taking Izzie for a walk. I don’t ever recall feeling my back get drenched so quickly, even when I went to boot camp for workouts. Along the way we met a nice woman, Mary Kay, and her poodle mix pup named Dolly. Classic.

A grocery store adventure: Our first foray to the grocery store made me think about a class I took in graduate school called “Cultural Issues in Counseling.” Our professor had us explore various foreign stores to learn more about the given culture. Her theory was brought to light at our local market (more like a superstore—Texas-style).

Our local grocery is called HEB. Locals call it by letters: H-E-B (as in “Here Everything’s Better.”). As a Jewish gal, I find comfort in simply calling it “Heb.” For those who aren’t familiar with this term, it’s a shortened version of “Hebrew,” a reference to a Jew. The fact that we’re now in the Bible Belt and the grocery store is called “HEB” is not an irony lost on me. I even found some Kosher items, though they were mixed up with Indian curries and Japanese rice noodles. Still...

First impressions of this store are as follows: HUGE. Stores around here make the CostCo in El Cerrito look like a five and dime. Noah and I decided to go row by row, simply because we didn’t have anything in the house and we didn’t know our way around. Noah asked if he could just wander around, but the place was simply too big—I didn’t trust I could find him.

Here are some things that caught our eye: A sign section topped with: “No Hunting or Trespassing.” A row devoted entirely to chips; another of soda. Rows of snack foods...dozens and dozens of salsas. The toy section was filled with rifles, guns, some bows and arrows and cowboy paraphernalia.

We overheard a gentleman ask a clerk about a label on a bakery loaf labeled “alternative bread.” Was it not bread? Was it something disguised as bread? Turns out it was just alternative to “white.” Oh.

By the time we reached the produce section (45 minutes later?), Noah was so exhausted from our shopping experience that he asked to go back to the van. Since it was hot outside, I was concerned about him, so I got in line and finished up. A gentleman with large green studs in his ears kindly beckoned me forth, so I didn’t have to wait, and a nice woman actually helped me unload my groceries.

I asked if they had any paper bags, since I’d forgotten my cloth ones and needed paper for recycling. The cashier asked his fellow cashier, and said, “Nope. Just plastic.” So I proceeded to watch the bagger put one or two items in a white plastic bag and load my cart, to the point where I nearly started to hyperventilate.

I’d just read an article about the fact that each American uses roughly 500 plastic bags each year, contributing to the billions of plastic bags that are clogging our landfills and essentially destroying the planet.

I started to tell the bagger that I didn’t need my cantaloupe in a bag, nor my laundry detergent, frozen pizza...I could tell by her looks that she thought I was completely bonkers. With more than $200 worth of groceries, I realized I couldn’t carry everything in my arms and had to just suck it up this once and watch my cart become a flurry of white plastic, something that’s actually now outlawed in San Francisco.

When I got to the car and turned it on, the temperature registered 177 degrees. Noah gets freaked out about global warming, and just stared at the thermometer slack-jawed. We tried turning on the air-conditioning, but only hot air came out. Luckily the house was only a few minutes away.

Upon arriving home, I put the groceries away as quickly as possible, tucked the enormous wad of plastic into a bigger bag, and gathered all my cloth bags into a pile. I vowed to take them wherever I go from now on.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Drove behind a car with the following sticker: “Texas Born. Texas Proud.”

The kids had their first experience in Houston, albeit not the most scenic nor upbeat one. We were supposedly going to “The Heights,” which, we’re told is a very nice, hip neighborhood, though where we ended up was hardly that. David was looking at a used car to purchase. The owner apparently used to hand-build Ralley cars and really knows his stuff. David has been driving what we call “the granny mobile,” a grayish-lavender 1996 Corolla, and needs something a wee bit spiffier to drive to work, since most of his fellow executives drive upscale vehicles. In Berkeley, he was used to taking his bike to BART or the “casual carpool.” The granny mobile was used only when it was raining, or to go to the BART and back.

I said I was going to go for a brief walk down the street while David talked to the seller (a nice man named Peter), but he warned me not to (“It’s not really safe for you to walk alone” he said), so I went in the car for a test drive with David, Peter and the boys. On our way back, I saw a dog lying all-too-still in the street meridian and asked if we could turn around to see if it was still breathing. David said he’d spotted it and it was very dead. The kids and I were pretty horrified, and Peter said that folks don’t generally treat their dogs well in Houston, adding that he’s had to call Animal Control on his neighbors several times.

Needless to say, the kids wanted to get the hell out of Houston and never come back after that experience, but I thought that returning immediately to “the Bubble” wouldn’t be such a good plan, so we went out to dinner. The first place we tried was closed, so we ventured out to another recommended spot, The Hobbit Hole, a place that’s as close to Berkeley as we’re bound to find, with brown rice, lots of veggies, and even Bragg’s Amino Acid as a condiment.

A gentleman from Louisiana asked the waitress to point out what was on his plate. He didn’t recognize the various veggies and such apparently, saying that “I’m just used to eating a piece of meat and don’t know what all this stuff is,” picking around like he was wading through a platter of grubs and bugs.

Menu items were named after Hobbit characters, ranging from “The Gandalf (avocado and mushrooms under melted cheese), Withy Windle (chicken salad...), to Fatty Lumpkin (tuna salad) and Bilbo the Magnificent (veggie). The kids got a kick out of this. A smoothie called Baggin’s Banana “just sounds wrong,” said Aidan. The food was good, and we had a few laughs before heading back to The Woodlands, so hopefully the kids will be more open to exploring Houston the next time we go. I’ll be sure to avoid the Dead Dog Zone (now called), with hopes that we can find some more aesthetically appealing neighborhoods.

What we’ve seen thus far of Houston (about a 30-45 minute drive from where we live, depending on the area) looks kind of like an unattractive east L.A. without the beaches...The people seem generally friendly, though, and there’s something very charming about everyone saying “Yes, ma’am and No, ma’am.”

School starts tomorrow.

Monday, August 22, 2011

The kids got up early and were ready to go. Good start.

All of us had butterflies in our stomachs, though.

David drew me a map to Aidan’s new school, but I of course got completely lost anyway, and our GPS (my newfound best friend) lost satellite reception (make that fair-weathered friend). About a mile away, we got stuck in hellish school traffic, making both Aidan and I rather anxious. Finally, I parked the car and walked Aidan into the building. The music from “Welcome Back Kotter” was booming from the loudspeakers, and the air-conditioning was set so low, the windows were foggy.

We found Aidan’s classroom, but the teacher wasn’t there. Very different atmosphere from Prospect Sierra...a world away, in fact. The campus is comprised of just fifth and sixth graders, about 1300 in all. Noah’s 7-8 grade campus has over 2000 kids, a far cry from their K-8 school, with about 250 kids total across two campuses.

On my way out, three people were singing another song and dancing. My glasses fogged up upon walking outside, since it was about 60 degrees inside and 100 outside.

I drove to Starbucks for a soy latte treat (no Peet’s here) and noticed one woman with zebra print leggings and a one-shouldered bronze top. Upon backing out, a woman polishing her nails was driving dangerously close to my already decrepit van.

In about an hour I’ll venture once again to the kids’ schools. With the unbelievable traffic, I think they’ll be taking the school bus beginning tomorrow. I will miss our car conversation and friendly comraderie of fellow parents at drop-off and pickup.