Very little time to do the blog this week so you’ll be pleased to know it is short!
I have been struck by how those that sell us ‘stuff’ over here can package and market so effectively – the stores are just full of those-things-we never-thought-we-needed-and-now-want.
The latest of these was a little package I picked up and showed to Maurice when we were shopping in our local Randall’s – very like Waitrose and actually Safeway.
The little package contained 4 gorgeously tiny little plastic containers with different coloured lids. So handy. So cute. But the look on Maurice’s face said it all – what on earth do you need those for?
He didn’t get it did he? It’s not about what you need over here – it’s about what you want.
I wanted those cute little plastic containers that would really not be used – too tiny for leftovers, and too unnecessary for knick knacks – which otherwise come in the containers they were actually sold in.
Maurice would rather wash out an old coffee tin for his guitar gadgets – ‘this will be handy’ he says.
Said tin is accumulating rust and still in the kitchen, nowhere near guitars.
Anyone who has ever flown courtesy of a US airline will be familiar with Sky Mall. The glossy brochure you get in your seat pocket is packed full of highly unnecessary but nevertheless desirable gizmos, gadgets and bonkers accessories – many for your pets. Obviously there is cat clothing, but also folding stairs for your dog to use to get up on the sofa or your bed. And also any number of variations on the garden gnome theme as well as glow-in-the-dark toilet seats.
Comfortable TV listening headband…
This is clearly a society with too much wealth to spend on absolute rubbish. But you get addicted to wanting this garbage. It pulls you in until before you know it, you really, really NEED this stuff.
The masters of spin are the ad men. I have spoken before about the advertisements on TV here – interrupting your viewing enjoyment at every turn. Sometimes you do actually enjoy the ad – well, only if Matthew McConaughey is in it. And now I want a Lincoln.
Oh, before I forget, did I mention I passed my Texas Driving test?
This road ‘test’ is all of 10 minutes long. I wondered if I was actually going to do a left turn – and I think I only did 2. It is therefore much more understandable why the general standard of driving over here is so dire. You can drive on a probationer licence without any ‘L’ plates denoting your apprentice status. You can phone, text, drink, eat your dinner (many do) and generally move around lanes in whatever haphazard way takes your fancy. You honk your horn at will when someone takes more than a nano second at a junction. You don’t ever ever bother to let someone in to the line of traffic in front of you if you can help it. And don’t look at anyone lest they take a road rage hairy canary and reach for their gun.
Anyway, back to consumerism.
Glow in the dark toilet seat
We need to ‘buy’ medical services and have done a search for doctors and Maurice recently also visited the dentist.
The dentist appointment here is a very different affair from at home. The dentist himself appears to be ‘working on’ a number of patients at once in conveyor belt fashion, so you may get left for long periods in your chair, in a slightly downward tilted position with implements and instruments hanging out of your mouth while you endeavour to keep your mouth open.
Maurice’s experience was not pleasant and has not ended. Oh and it’s not cheap. $2900 apparently for his root canal treatment – all paid by the insurance company.
Mad Men started its final run here last night. It gives a great insight into the rise and rise of the consumer society and is wonderfully evocative of the early 70s, when I was last living in the US…
Ok that’s all folks. The ducklings are in Hermann Park and I have to go and visit them.
Won’t have much time for TV and musings in the next 3 weeks – visits from family and then a trip to Europe and home beckon so I’ll ‘see’ you in May when I imagine the weather will be ramping up a few degrees.
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 slideshow requires JavaScript.
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.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
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!
At last we have moved out of our temporary ‘Shining’ apartment and moved into a lovely town house in the Texas Medical Centre area. Houston House Although we have moved, our possessions have not quite made it. Rather annoyingly we have had to go out and buy some basics to keep us going and so have been introduced to some of the more interesting retail experiences of the USA.
First of all there is Rooms-To-Go. This does exactly what it says on the tin – and sells you complete room settings – to go. No waiting for 6 weeks (usually 8) for a new sofa – ‘pick a date and we’ll deliver’. Initially we were just going to get a cheap sofa. Well, half an hour of browsing later and we’d furnished the home.
We still have a lot to come from the UK so we didn’t go completely mad.
Honest.
Leaving card from work…
The next on the list for essentials was Ikea. Just like Ikea back home. Unfortunately. But cheaper and with all we could possibly need So we piled high the trolley with linen and crockery and cutlery and 2 carefully chosen pans. All my pans are coming over from the UK so didn’t want to go over the top. One medium one and one smaller one for rice or pasta.
After queuing for what seemed like hours but was probably 10 minutes, everything was checked through except for – one of the pans. I had apparently chosen a display pan which couldn’t be ‘rung through’. What?
So I have one very small pan. No we were not going back in to brave the 5 mile walk to the pan section.
We managed to buy a couple of beds from the second hand goods website that Chevron helpfully provides to employees. The slight snag was that we had to pick these up ourselves. Now, the new car is a bit of a tardis – but being a ‘reasonably priced car’ in the sensible saloon category, it was not going to take a bed. Or even a mattress. So Maurice hired a van from U-Haul.
Sunday (Superbowl Sunday!) was our moving date so we hired a van to collect at 10.00. It was important that we had something to sleep on.
On our way to collect it, we were traveling along the freeway minding our own business in our reasonably priced car. Being Sunday, it was pretty quiet. When suddenly at a most awkward point on the road, where 5 or 6 lanes split to become two separate freeways, we saw a police car with its rear end sticking out into the nearside lane, our lane, with blue lights flashing having pulled over a car sitting in front of it.
We had to brake really hard and put the hazards on too, when suddenly from behind us careered a large pick up truck which screeched all the way around us and ended up swinging right around to face us. Meaning we had to come to a full stop – on the freeway. Bits were flying off cars all around us and somehow we, and our car, were unscathed.
In homage to the Superbowl.
Rolling down the window we asked the cop if he needed us as witnesses and he flagged us over to the hard shoulder. Basically his car sticking out had caused a chain reaction behind us. Looked like two pick up trucks had tried to take avoiding action, were going too fast or were distracted (drivers are always on the phone or texting) and collided. One was scraped down one side and the other lost bits and was left facing the opposite way.
We hadn’t really much more to add so the cop let us go – we were running late now to collect our van – and were very shaken by what we had just seen. No one looked hurt thankfully, but the girl in the truck that swung around probably had whiplash or at very least was left traumatised. What possessed the cop to stop his car where he did is beyond me.
A pick up truck is becoming ever more appealing as the second car.
At U-Haul we inspected our vehicle. Maurice thought it was not going to be big enough. So back to the office and we were provided with a truly enormous truck – more like a lorry – in the UK not sure we would be legally allowed to drive it. Maurice managed pretty well really.
Satnav took us to the locations to collect the beds and we also had another trip to Rooms-To-Go. We had bought a floor bargain which had to be collected in person. Unfortunately Satnav didn’t know about road works which narrowed lanes and took us on journeys through residential areas with our enormous cargo vehicle. A few tree branches were victims. Thankfully it was only vegetation that suffered.
The beds are great – practically brand new – and so at least we had something to sleep on for our first night in the house.
We went back out to get the next essential – a guitar amplifier….(sighs).
Right across the road from the Guitar Centre is Walmart.
We went to Walmart. This is Asda on steroids. But the only resemblance to Asda is some of the clothing – as the George label was in evidence.
This was a serious mega-mega store. Whole communities could exist in the aisles here, and do. Children were riding bikes, teenagers were playing video games, babies were probably born here. How they close the store – I do not know. Perhaps they don’t. How could you ever be really sure it is empty? Not easy.
This place sells everything. Not cars, but that’s about it, although, tyres and other car bits – yes.
This place was jawdroppingly massive and cheap. We had intended to buy phones for the house. But ended up with all our electrical appliances including a hoover and also an ironing board. I wish I had taken a picture of Maurice pushing the trolley.
By the way, mushrooms are quite expensive relatively speaking over here and there’s not much choice. Strange. The only explanation I got from my lovely driving instructor Debbie is that it’s maybe a taste thing, that and the way they are grown…hmmm.
I am very lucky to have a lovely, patient driving instructor. I’m getting better but still get sweaty palms on the freeway. And the near miss doesn’t help. Debbie brought me some home made jam and fresh farm eggs – which were delicious. She was given an Emu’s egg last weekend and it arrived at her home by post, wrapped in a disposable nappy. Taking over an hour to blow out the contents, she then made a frittata that fed 9 people with one egg. ‘Goodness, all the way from Australia?’ I asked. ‘No, Arizona’ was the unlikely reply.
Fresh produce in general is wonderful over here. Salads and vegetables are fresh and flavourful, crunchy and very tasty. I am still finding my way with choice – there are so many great stores – as with most things it would appear- you do get great quality at a reasonable price.
Mind you – a gallon of gas/petrol – $1.85. A gallon of milk $3.85.
In advance of our move we had to deal with another 2 priorities – tv and internet.
Xfinity is sort of like Sky. So we went to the Xfinity store to sign up for our service. The very helpful assistant explained everything clearly and outlined the monthly cost. But the service is very different from Sky. Firstly you don’t sign up for any specific period of time – it is just month to month and can be cancelled any time. You get presented with all the equipment you need in the store, in a nice recyclable red bag. You leave the store with a router, a tv cable box, coax and hdmi cables and an extra gizmo for a second tv. And you don’t pay a penny up front. That’s right, nothing. We will get a bill in arrears, monthly. But basically we were handed over a whole pile of equipment for nothing. No security. No credit card swipe. Amazing.
Transformed
However, needless to say, connecting all of this up did not go quite as smoothly as expected, but they are sooooo helpful on the phone. Switching off and on again is their main technical assistance – eventually we were hooked up.
And Xfinity has apps. An app to turn your phone into a remote, an app to watch on demand tv, an app for your account, an app for everything. Hours of endless fun for me. We have HBO on demand so I’ll be catching up with Game of Thrones at last!
So much dross tv though. I never knew there were so many types of catheter. And Vein Clinics of America. Seriously, I am rather worried about my demographic profile. Clearly I am watching tv with many very ill people, judging by my ads.
BTW we supported the Seahawks – and they lost.
Ok have rambled on enough for this week. Here’s hoping our main shipment arrives this weekend, and I have more than one pan to cook with.
Images courtesy of Martin Parker. No I haven’t had a transformation or surgical help…yet.
29.705573-95.391734
Tales of a not-so-young ex pat on an adventure in Texas
Whole Other Country 
You must be logged in to post a comment.