Entry #49

Entry #49

Saturday, March 17

4:20 p.m. We had folks from David’s work here this morning for brunch and yet here it is, nearly 5:00 p.m. and the day’s nearly over. Where’d the day go? Guess time flies when you’re in a carbo-loading coma. (I made way too much food, per usual.)

After inhaling brunch, I took our guests’ two-year-old outside to wade in the water (“Wade in the Water, Children...”—I refrained from singing). Aidan decided to swim, too, despite the fact that we have yet to heat the pool. He is indeed a warm-blooded mammal. The two-year-old was shivering like crazy but kept saying “No!” whenever we asked if he wanted to get out and warm up. His favorite game was walking around the perimeter of the whirlpool, trying to get the soccer ball after pushing it away with a butterfly catcher.

Aidan tried to politely gain the attention of the boy’s dad by saying, “Excuse me, sir?” The dad replied, “I don’t go by Sir. You can either call me Mike or Dude.” Mike, an avid surfer, grew up in Southern California. 

Because I didn’t need David’s work mates to bring anything, I told them just to bring their appetites. I had no idea they would arrive with a jug of Bloody Mary mix, olives, and bottle of Stolichnaya vodka.

My idea of a strong Saturday morning beverage is a large mug of Irish breakfast tea. So, while the other adults sat around chatting, sipping their morning cocktails, Aidan and I played with the kids. The parents didn't seem to mind me tending to their youngsters, despite the fact I was essentially a complete stranger.

7:45 p.m. Community Impact Newspaper is one of the few local publications we receive that’s not overly laden with cosmetic surgery ads. Sure, there are some, but it actually includes articles pertaining to the environment, local businesses, and of course, food. This month’s Dining section discussed the “competitive barbecue culture,” featuring Tommie Battles' Pit Master BBQ Café:

“In Texas, barbecue is more than a food. It is a culture, a way of life, often part of one’s family and history. It is also a cause for heated discussion. The argument of ‘Who makes the best barbecue’ is as old as barbecue itself...”

Isn’t it ironic, then, that the last name of the owner of the Pit Master BBQ is Battles? I kept reading about this Battle and the other Battle before it dawned on me that the owner isn’t arguing about how delicious his pulled pork is, he just happens to have an adversarial surname.

Sunday, March 18

11:00 a.m. I’ve learned my lesson re: using Sunday NYTimes bags to pick up after Izzie without checking for holes. I kept smelling something putrid, long after I asked David to dispose of the bag, since we were headed over to a neighbor’s house so Aidan could retrieve some wayward arrows that landed in their backyard.

I’d never met these folks before, but in retrospect, I’m glad they were staying a healthy distance away, because I could not figure out why I still smelled something vile in my general vicinity. Turns out it was me.

 I’d wiped my hand on the grass, but still couldn’t find the culprit. Turns out there was a hole in the bag, and it had oozed onto my shirt, my pants and even my sunglasses (which I was holding dangerously close to the bag). Not exactly the way to win over friends and neighbors.

4:00 p.m. Noah and I just got home after seeing 21 Jump Street. I couldn’t figure out why it was rated R instead of PG-13 until I saw it. Good thing I didn’t let Aidan accompany us...It wasn’t just the drugs, the raunchy language, the violence or even the multitude of sexual innuendos. Let’s just say there’s a part in the end that crosses a line of no return (the name John Bobbitt comes to mind).

Noah’s definitely on the borderline of seeing R-rated movies, but he’s almost 15 and has been waiting to see this flick, so I figured he was mature enough. Still debating about that in my “parental discretion” department, however. Could the filmmakers have done without the charred body and bullet to the penis? I’d say yes. Otherwise, it was a pretty funny movie.

The reason we saw a movie this afternoon was because one of Noah’s friends here flaked on him today, texting that he couldn’t get together because he wanted to stay home and watch Chuck Norris. I can't imagine he'd lie about something that lame, but still...that's a truly pathetic excuse for ditching a supposed friend.

On the way to the movie, I asked Noah about this kid. “I didn’t even like him when I met him. He doesn’t believe in global warming and he’s homophobic...” I was hoping that one lesson the kids could learn from living in the land of Southern evangelical Republicans was that you can meet good folks wherever you live, even if they’re wildly different from you. Noah's alleged friend isn’t helping support my theory.

After the movie, Noah turned his phone back on and received several texts from the other friend he was supposed to see. He ended up going to the mall after all. Noah asked if we could go there and meet up with him. “Where is he?” I asked. His friend texted, “the lovesac.” “Is that really the name of a place?” I asked incredulously. Turns out it is.

The parking lot was completely filled, despite the fact that there are spaces for literally thousands of vehicles. Seems everyone in The Woodlands and vicinity comes to The Mall on the weekends. Noah and I were instantly overwhelmed. The place was packed. I could tell Noah didn’t want to stay there any longer than I did, but he had to see what his friend wanted to do first.

I offered to have Noah’s friend just come over and hang out, but Noah said that they would just plan to see each other the following weekend. Turns out this kid had plans to see his (alleged) girlfriend later that afternoon, but she had to wait until her parents “got back from the bar.”

Monday, March 19

9:30 a.m. The kids, especially Aidan, were mighty bummed to be going back to school this morning, so I thought I’d whip up some fresh pancakes to lift their spirits. It didn’t really do the trick, but at least they ate a good breakfast.


Aidan really whipped himself into a froth last night, looking ahead to high school, then college, then beyond. “I only get a few weeks off when I’m not at school and if I want to get a good job, then I’ll have to go to school even after college.” Seems he really enjoyed his spring break and really didn't want to go back to school—for another ten+ years. That's a daunting prospect for anyone, especially a worried sixth grader.


There are only eight more weeks until summer vacation, but to kids, eight weeks might as well be three years...Times takes on a completely different dimension when you’re a kid.

11:00 a.m. Much as I enjoy reading the newspaper, we don’t get the Houston Chronicle delivered here. Instead, we just read the Sunday New York Times throughout the week and read other news online. This morning I sifted through the NYTimes Book Review section. The front page reviewed two books with the theme of “Strange Justice.” I veered first towards the one about Texas, of course. 


As of 1973, “it was...legal in Texas to have sex with a farm animal, but not with someone of the same gender.” Not until 2003 was this law overturned—less than ten years ago! (The court case is discussed in the book Flagrant Conduct.)

Coming from the San Francisco Bay Area, this sort of intolerance is shocking. The farm animal law, however, brings a whole new meaning to the phrases “cattle prodding” and “Ride ‘em cowboy!”

Tuesday, March 20

10:00 a.m. I called The Woodlands High School to inquire about registering for next year. Seems there will be at least 1050 kids on the ninth grade campus alone. There are more than 4000 kids in three grades in one of the two high schools—that’s more than where I went to college. At least Noah will get to attend a school with only ninth graders rather than the whole shebang at once. I feel overwhelmed just thinking about this.

2:30 p.m. David pointed out an awful moaning sound coming from between the walls. Seems some creature had gotten stuck there and was crying for help. At first the kids thought David’s office was haunted because the sound was like something out of a Scooby Doo episode: “Aaaaaaooooouuuuwwww!”

David went inside the attic spaces but didn’t find anything, and couldn’t get access between the wall where the sound was most concentrated. I went outside and couldn’t hear anything. When I stepped closer, the sound seemed to subside. What was in there?

Noah was up since 4 a.m., freaked out by the sound, and couldn’t get back to sleep. I was just afraid there was something dying in there. I didn’t know which was worse—having the sound continue or having it suddenly stop.

First thing this morning I called the property manager and said that there was a moaning noise coming from between the walls and that we needed someone to come take a look at it immediately. I didn’t want an animal to die in between the walls, let alone suffer in there.

The sound was loud and clear when a pest inspector named Brandon came over. He said that he’d never heard a sound quite like that before. After going into the attic spaces, he said that there were definite signs of animal activity, most likely a squirrel, so perhaps a baby squirrel was what was making that sound. “Maybe it’s crying out for it’s mother,” he said.

Brandon realized that there was no access whatsoever to anywhere near the space we were trying to reach. He did, however, discover that the front upstairs window leads to an enormous area that’s not only unused and empty, but also completely inaccessible. “You could open up a wall and have another enormous room,” he said.

Until today, I was unaware that the window above the entry of our rental house is, in fact, just a false front. While completely framed in and functional, it’s purely decorative; the area behind it is probably the size of half the downstairs. “I’ve never seen such a huge space without any access,” said Brandon. “And to think that a studio that size would rent for $2000 in San Francisco,” said David.

Since Brandon couldn’t get to the source of the sound, he said that all we could do was call a contractor and have him remove some of the outside bricks, or drill out a part of the dry wall and let the critter run out (though it might escape into our house, which would pose another challenge). I said I’d call the property manager and explain this.

After the inspector left, I had just dialed the property manager and was on hold when the doorbell rang again. It was Brandon. “I went around the side one more time just to take another look and think I might know what it is,” he said. “I turned off the water from the hose outside." Seems there was some pressure build-up from a faulty spigot. 


Brandon walked back inside to see if the moaning noise was still there. We both stood there waiting, listening. No more noise. Seems that awful sound was no more than water pressure coming from an outdoor hose.

“My bad,” David said, fessing up later that day. “I forgot to turn it off when we went to launch [our neighbor] Justin’s rocket yesterday.” After worrying for nearly 16 hours about a poor, suffering critter, we had to report that the culprit was a water hose. I'm sure the property manager now thinks we're a bunch of ding-a-lings. Still, I am relieved.