Hot Hot Heat

I have been saving up because I wanted to give you a textured rundown of my recent journey to the homeland. I flew to Texas for the weekend to see the family and go to a cousin's wedding. I haven't been to Texas in the summer time in years and years. Here are some highlights:

-unbelievable hot Texas humidity (and amazing lightning storms). And the air conditioning there is so icy cold. People put a lot of ice in their gigantic tea glasses. With the weather, I was concerned about wearing a suit to the outdoor wedding. I ended up going through with it, though in my sister-in-law's flip-flops. The brown dress shoes I brought would have been my end. It was a very nice ceremony with a lot of love and a little Texas sass. I liked the part when the groom promised to defend my cousin "to the death."

-overheard a woman in the grocery lamenting about how her young son reacted when she told him about meeting Jesus in the afterlife. He was very disturbed about having angel wings and being able to fly. She reported on his hysterics about wanting to walk instead and being pretty worried about the whole heaven thing.

-ate tex mex at a restaurant near Six Flags over Texas where the frozen margarita machine was invented. The menu said it is now at the Smithsonian Institute.

-lunch at Neiman Marcus with my mother, just like we used to do when I was a teenager. They still give you a tiny mug of consomme at the beginning, serve the BEST most giant popovers with strawberry butter, and the midcentury modern furniture was the same. There is a Paloma Picasso statue by the bathroom. I touched a sweater that cost more than my car.

-my dad caught me up on the gossip from his church and the following words came out of his mouth: "The pastor relocated to someplace on the other side of Possum Kingdom." Yes, Virginia. There really is a place in Texas called Possum Kingdom.

-I also stayed at my dad's house which features more than one picture of him standing next to Troy Aikman holding a football.

-my brother took me to a pool party in Arlington which is where I would have wound up anyways if I had never left town. Nice burly tattooed men did cannonballs into the back yard swimming pool and got splashes all over the old weathered pine fencing that I so associate with my childhood. The grass was thick, coarse, and well trimmed. One of the women there told me about her horrifying experience in Oregon when a hippie person made her hike for four whole hours. We listened to Jane's Addiction and Blur and I was in a total time warp. My brother patiently explained that I was experiencing the metroplex at its very best. In a reverent tone he said, "This is the max."