Entry #8

Entry #8

Sunday, September 11

It’s been ten years since terrorism struck U.S. soil, and our country hasn’t been the same since. I met someone at the get-together last Friday night whose best friend’s husband died that day in one of the towers. Very sad indeed.

At Sunday school today, the teachers had a memorial service for the victims of 9/11 and showed footage of the buildings getting hit and exploding. Aidan said “it was stressful to watch.” I was shocked that the education director deemed it age appropriate for third graders, but apparently it’s already been approved by the CISD (Conroe Independent School District). I'm glad that the kids honored and prayed for those affected by 9/11. I just wish they could be spared the violent imagery.

Perhaps children around here are less sensitive to violence than we are (or shall I say, I am), considering the pervasive culture of hunting and firearms. Aidan told me that his classmates really like to hunt and shoot. One of them described a video game where a person goes hunting, gets his arm blown off, which thwacks into another person and kills him. “But it’s okay [for me to play],” the kid said, “It’s only a cartoon.” So glad Aidan didn't think this was cool.

I am really living outside my comfort zone. 

8:00 p.m. We had our family friend, Josephine, over for dinner. At 85 years old, she has a lot to tell and quite a bit of wisdom to impart. I learned more about her tonight than I ever knew as a kid—she grew up in Arkansas on a 400-acre farm and left after her first husband “got his letters wrong.”  I didn’t know what this meant until I learned that he was seeing another woman. Still don’t quite understand the slang, but I get her drift.

Josephine remembers my dad from when he was just a kid, and his siblings, too. She remembers my younger sister “always being lost in a book,” and the fact that my brother would never clean his room. Some things never change. 

The kids really enjoyed her company and her stories. Aidan was excited to show her the pool and how he can dive, do a flip and swim the length of the pool underwater. Josephine was more concerned about Aidan cracking his skull on the bricks than anything, but she was a fine audience nonetheless. 

After a few hours, we took Josephine home and she showed us her new apartment. The walls are covered with countless photographs of relatives, some of her and her husband when they first met, which was about 60 years ago. I realized that while she came over to our house growing up, we never once went to hers.

Monday, September 12

My social life seems to focus on “golden girls” these days—yesterday with Josephine, last week with the white-haired ladies at the dog park, and this morning with Betty (who’s about my mom’s age) for breakfast. Betty has been our guardian angel since we first visited The Woodlands last April. She’s the wife of a work associate of David’s and is also a realtor. She initially met with us to look at homes for sale, and took us to a variety of schools, neighborhoods, and shopping centers to give us a sense of the area. Even after we decided to lease a home, she spent three days with us to secure one we’d really like. She’s “good people,” as they say in these parts.

12:30 p.m.: I just found out that the rabbi at The Woodlands’ synagogue is not only a relative (a cousin of some sort), but also someone my mother babysat as a kid. Just too bizarre. Guess we really are a small tribe.

I found this out in a rather roundabout way. My interchange with the rabbi came about after submitting a brief email expressing my concern about showing terrorism footage to little kids (i.e., I was miffed).

Via email, the rabbi responded that this footage was approved by the public schools here and that they deemed it age-appropriate, which made me have second thoughts about this rabbi and the temple altogether. My mom said, “What did you say his name was?” I said, “Jan Brahms,” to which she responded, “I used to baby sit for a cousin named Jan Brahms. See if he used to live in Cleveland and if his parents are named Malcolm and Eve.”

Well, it turns out it is, the kid my mom babysat and the rabbi of Beth Shalom’s congregation are one and the same. Had I not called my mom to kvetch about my dubious interchange with this man, I would’ve never found this out. So much for first impressions...

4:00 p.m. After picking up the kids after school, I told them that our new rabbi is actually a cousin and that Grandma Helen had babysat for him. “But he’s an old man!” said Aidan. I think he’s probably balding, which is what makes him look older. My mom still has naturally blond hair (mostly) and looks really young for her 70 years. Still, the thought of babysitting for an old man was pretty funny.

While driving around, Noah and I thought we would rename some of the precious street names. Scented Path became Smelly Path, Frosted Pond was changed to Frosted Flakes, and our street, Ivory Moon devolved into White Butt Place. That’s one way to entertain oneself while driving around this town.

After going to the giant HEB grocery store, Noah said, “This place looks like a movie set.” Everything around The Woodlands does look eerily staged somehow.

We walked in a different entrance this time and found the healthier fare (produce section, etc.) rather than the No Hunting/Trespassing signs and gun toys, so our impression was much better this time around. Still, the place is ginormous.

A woman with a glass eye approached us, asking for book donations. We tried to back up and politely depart, but she walked with us and kept talking.

I felt bad that all the while I tried to look at her real eye, but kept veering toward her fake one, and wondered how she lost it. Noah admitted that he was a little scared that one of her eyes wasn’t moving. We both felt very thankful for having two working eyeballs.

Tuesday, September 13

9:30 a.m. I thought it would be a good idea to give Izzie some exercise by taking her to the dog park. Little did I know she would become not just dirty, but completely encrusted with a combination of grayish sand, wet mud, grass, bark bits and who knows what else. After the longest bath I’ve ever given her, she now looks much cleaner, but her neck is still a pinkish tinge from her red fabric collar. Her fur reminds me of what happens when a white shirt gets washed with a red sock.

Wednesday, September 14

Last night Noah went to his first YMCA basketball practice. It’s pretty much the opposite of Cut the Nets—laid back, few kids, nice coach...and Noah’s by far the tallest and best player on the team. Aidan’s practice the night before was fun, but he thought playing with 10 and 11-year-olds (even though he’s 11 himself) wasn’t challenging. Then again, he’s used to playing with his 6’2” brother (Aidan claims he’s 5’3”).

Since there are some siblings on the team, I asked if I could put Aidan on Noah’s team, and I think it should work out well. For me, the family chauffeur, that means we can actually be home on Monday evenings—hurray!

It was very refreshing to see one mother there with hair dyed like a skunk (black with a white streak across the top), tons of tattoos, head-to-toe tight black clothing, and neon pink tennis shoes. In Berkeley (or even Austin),  I wouldn’t think twice about her look, but here it really stands out. She has four kids, two little ones with white-blond hair, bright blue eyes and big smiles. Adorable. I can’t imagine injecting their beautiful milky skin with ink ever, ever. I’m sure their mom was that way once, too.

Another parent I met is from Nigeria and has two girls on the team. He described everything here as “beautiful” and loves to golf. He said his wife really wants to go back to Dubai, where they lived for nine years prior to their move here. I can’t even imagine what Dubai is like, though it seems like an even more extreme, opulent oasis than this oil company town.

9:00 a.m. Took Izzie for a walk near the kids’ school and worked on her heeling, then let her run around the soccer field. The grass was freshly cut, but not raked, and after chasing a hawk, Izzie decided she wanted to roll in it. So now I have a green dog, at least until the color wears off. So much for yesterday’s scrubbing.

On the way home, I noticed a raccoon lying rigor mortis on its back along the side of the road and realized that I’ve seen more flattened fauna in Texas than I have anywhere else—countless raccoons, squirrels, a coyote, an armadillo, and, yes, a cat and dog, too. I’m the type of person who can’t even watch a movie if I know an animal is going to die in it, so seeing all this in real life is very unnerving. Guess I won’t be making any hunter friends anytime soon.

Noah surmised that the reason for all these dead animals is because the people who planned The Woodlands didn’t leave enough actual woods for them. There are strips of trees everywhere—the appearance of woods, just enough to block the view of homes and shopping areas from the street. If I were an animal, it would be easy to think I was strolling safely through nature until BOOM! I'm knocked out cold on The Woodlands Parkway. Not exactly a bedtime story for Frances (who was a badger, in case you're curious. I just looked it up).