Right – got your attention with my unashamed ‘click-bait’ headline!!!
So I lied.
Well – a little bit. There was Rock ‘n Roll – and the drugs – if you count my boring regular prescription for very minor health complaint.
But sadly, no sex – what do you take me for? My husband was away…
So this week I went to see Fleetwood Mac for the second time in less than 2 years. The first time was in Glasgow shortly after the Hydro opened and it was amazing. We had seats in the fourth row and could almost touch Lindsay Buckingham – and a lot of women would very much like to touch him – even at 65 (there’s the sex!) The day we saw them in Glasgow was Lindsay’s 64th birthday. He still plays like he absolutely loves it and his passion and skill are apparent for all to revel in.
This time I was accompanied by Erna in place of Maurice and we had seats relatively near the back of the Toyota Centre ‘floor’. So not such great seats but Christine McVie has returned and I was determined I would see the entire team in action. It lived up to expectation. They all really seem like they are having a great time – well, apart from John McVie who is the ‘quiet one’. This was their 60th gig of this tour. It was wonderful to hear some of the old classics they had to skip before because Chris McVie was not there to add her unique rendition. I last saw Christine McVie when she was with Chicken Shack…umpty tum years ago. We had sneaked into the gig in the Music Hall using old tickets from one of my mother’s coffee mornings! In the days when tickets were only printed bright green and in one shape and size, I have to assume. She is an amazing 71 years old!! Good grief.
I feel very fortunate to have lived in this era when fantastic rock music has developed and been played. I happened to watch Led Zeppelin in the O2 on TV this week – that’s one gig I really really wish I’d been to but alas did not have that opportunity. Will they play again? Many oldies but goodies are coming to Houston in the coming months including the Who and Bob Dylan. Got tickets for the Who but not Dylan – yet…
We do like our live music and this month have a fair few gigs lined up. It is Rodeo time in Houston! And there are excellent, mainly country, acts playing at the venue. We also go to see Joshua Radin next Friday evening so I’ll report back on that.
Being as I was out on the town on Tuesday night, I decided I needed some hair treatment prior so managed to get an appointment with a salon nearby.
My first hair-doo in Houston.
And hairdressers are most definitely the same the world over. Non-stop chit chat. My ‘Texas approved cosmetician’ was Tina, originally from Vietnam. Very slim and pretty with immaculately coiffured long hair with a touch of colour and curls, she was of indeterminate age – but probably somewhere in the 50s though really looked in her 40s. She’s been here for many years – however still has a very strong Vietnamese accent. Now, a Vietnamese accent speaking in a sort of Texan drawl is very tricky for a born and bred Aberdonian to comprehend. I found myself nodding and smiling appreciatively in a random fashion, hoping that the reaction was the correct response to the previous paraphrase. I did learn an awful lot about Tina in a very short period of time. She had been married to a Vietnamese gentleman who sadly died. Or perhaps not so sadly as she proclaimed Vietnamese men to be ‘bad men’ ‘ not nice at all’. Apparently ‘they are ok at first but after 2 years they are horrible’. So sweeping aside her sweeping generalisations – I enquired if she had married again? Oh yes. She replied that she had married ‘ah choo’. I was a bit puzzled till I realised she meant she had married ‘a jew’. Oh ok, I thought. A jew – and also kind of wondered what his jewishness had to do with it – but I imagine for a Vietnamese middle-aged hairdresser this was worth mentioning to me. He had been a customer for 10 years and then they got together and have been married for 2 years. There was a great deal more to the tale than this – but I could not accurately reflect the intimate detail in this space.
My hair was cut ‘n coloured for a very reasonable price by US standards and looks fine so I imagine I’ll see more of Tina and hear more rich stories of her life in the US and her scattered family in Hong Kong, Paris and Houston.
The rest of my home alone activity has been pretty normal. The only other thing to note is I have booked my driving test for 31 March. We (Debbie, my instructor and I) went out to the DPS – Department of Public Safety (which seemed like it was many miles away) to register and it was a painless enough. The only shock to the system was leaving the house at 7.30 and navigating rush hour traffic. Debbie drove there, thankfully. However, she did have her mobile phone in hand the entire journey and sent numerous texts pertaining to the appointment at the DPS as well as other texts to her husband while driving. And I mean while driving, not when we were stopped in traffic. It is just endemic here – everyone has their phone to hand while driving – it is truly horrific.
Ok, now to the 10 things I have done in Houston that I have not done before:
- Driven on a US highway and also on a toll road: completely terrifying at first but slowly gaining confidence. I even drove to and from the aforementioned Fleetwood Mac gig on the highway with the encouragement of Erna who is very confident at driving over here.
- Had my hair cut by a Vietnamese Texas approved cosmetician – as already described.
- Built a ‘breakfast nook’ for the kitchen: that was a whole Saturday activity for Maurice and I. Flat pack furniture is ‘such fun’.
- Hung pictures with ‘invisible strips’: am trying not to make too many holes in the walls of the rented house so these velcro type strips are really useful though not sure I fully trust them. Time will tell.
- Set a burglar alarm every time I leave the house: not sure we are really in a vulnerable place being as we are ‘gated’ but better safe than sorry. That and our insurance demands it.
- Gone on ‘date nights’ on a Thursday: awww I hear you say. This is only when Maurice is off on the Friday.
- Signed up for Netflix in my own right instead of pirating Becky’s account: and so I can watch House of Cards and other great TV and films. There is a difference here with what’s on offer – it depends where you access from what you can see.
- Watched Game of Thrones: still watching through my fingers as my stomach can’t take all the gore.
- Registered for a US social security number: and also applied for authorisation to work legally here.
- Sunbathed, at home, in January….
However with regard to number 10 – the weather is so unpredictable as reported before. We are once again colder than Aberdeen but sunny.
Here’s hoping it brightens up for the girls’ visit next week.
Yee Ha for now and I’ll keep y’all posted on the Rodeo!
Whole Other Country 