Sunday, November 26, 2006

Home Sweet Home

Hope y'all had a great Thanksgiving. We spent the weekend in Texas, of all places. First in Dallas, then in Houston. Mr. Octopus has relatives in both places and his extended clan also flew in. Lots of food and kids. It was a great intergenerational gathering, with relatives ranging from 3 years old to 70+. The older I get, the more I like family get togethers. And thank goodness for the kids. They make the whole thing fun.

This was my first time spending any significant amount of time in Texas and they ain't kidding when they say Texas is flat. It was unsettling looking around and not seeing a hill in sight. All I saw were subdivision after subdivision. And the houses were all big; one stately McMansion after another. The houses were almost all new (or newish) and built with brick or stone, giving them a faux distinguished and weathered look.

We touched down in Burbank this afternoon. It was good to be back. I felt at home and at ease driving back to Eagle Rock with its old character homes, the mountains in the distance.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

OMG! Totally know what you mean. We went out to San Antonio last year to visit friends and everything is super-sized, houses, trucks, even the people.

Kind of scary-

chanchow said...

Yes, even the cars were big-- SUVs and trucks everywhere you turned! One of Mr. Octopus' relatives explained it this way-- 'the cost of living in Texas is low, so people can afford to buy big new cars and big new houses.'

Another thing about Texas is that even though there is so much empty space in the suburbs of Dallas and Houston, the houses were all close together. You'd think people would want bigger back yards. Houston reminded me of Orange County, with its wide freeways and dense tract housing.

JEM said...

Hahaha... Flatness.... I bet Indiana beats Texas in flatness.