Vacation/Sickness Blogging, Pt.1

Sorry for my long absence from the blog, the result of nearly a week of post-vacation horror of sickness from which I’ve finally emerged. I’d wanted to write about the family trip right after I got back. Circumstances dictated that I could not think, so now it’s a week later and I’m going to do it anyway. The sickness comes later in the trip, and I’ll talk about that tomorrow. Friday and Saturday are about Anna Mae Wong and the city of Houston, truly diametric opposites in all forms of being.

I’d set myself up for a lot of stress for the weekend but was a little surprised to find everything still amiable after my first full day with the folks. On our way south, we stopped in West, the little Czech town halfway between Dallas and Austin that sells kolache and klobasnek 24/7 to basically a line around the counter year round. Mom fell in love with Texas-themed cowboy hats and “Don’t mess with Texas” t-shirts while Dad fell in love with sausage and cheese baked into bread. While we got the food, we skipped the trinkets, but I was told in no uncertain terms that we’d be back on the way up for sure. I couldn’t wait.

Austin’s always a fun town to hang around in, so we had a good time driving around while Mom ooh-ed the capital area and the skyline and Dad complained about the general size and population of the place. We stopped at some cafe and had bison burgers with blue cheese. While we were unable to convince Mom of the quality taste, lean content, and environmental responsibility of eating bison, we all enjoyed our meals. The entertainment for the evening sounded good to me, but could have been dicey. We had two DVDs of old experimental films, though just how they were experimental varied greatly. It does take some patience in mixed company to watch a bunch of silent films, but it worked out well. Some early Edison films are always fun and there was a great, if drastically overlong, film about turning dogs into sausage and back again. It’s always kind of funny watching old films with animals. Since there was no regulation and seemingly less-than-adequate training, you’d see a lot of guys getting bit and knocked around, though the animals sometimes get beat up pretty good, too, so I guess it’s not all that funny. Still, this film was like a SNL sketch circa 1990, where they’d have a good idea and tell the joke over again for fifteen minutes instead of once. The main attraction was The Toll of the Sea, a 1922 film starring the beautiful Anna May Wong in what is acknowledged to be the first true Technicolor film. While the story is basically Madam Butterfly, and not a great version at that, it is always welcome to see Wong and it was very interesting to see realistic color instead of hand tinting in a silent film.

The next morning was spent driving to Houston, the worst kind of prison of a town I’ve ever been in. With no zoning laws, everything is a mass of industrial swill. The only major city I’d less like to live is Phoenix, but we’re splitting hairs here. Getting to the hotel was an easy challenge, but one that cause a lot of friction, given that we thought that Dad’s new GPS toy was silly and unnecessary. After getting there the old fashioned way, looking at street names, we checked in. It was a decent place (read: no hypos lodged into the walls like my last hotel stay), where Mom stayed in the humidity near the pool while the remaining three went to Enron Park to see the Astros play the Phillies in my first ever National League game and only my fourth ever ballpark. Minute Maid is an appropriate name for the field at this point. It looks like it was designed by Denny’s Corp, with it’s pastel hues, over-gimmicked between inning “games,“ corporate logos at every turn, and that stupid train. While the look of the place made me sick, I really enjoyed the game. I don’t get out to see the Rangers as often as I’d like, I’ve been only twice this year, but I love going out there. The fans, at least the ones who stay until the end of the game, really care about their team, but the crowd overall is as listless as you can get. In Houston, the place was full, which I’ve never seen in Arlington, and the crowd cheered even when the announcers hadn’t told them to. This part of Texas will always be Cowboys Land, and no other team will ever matter, so what can I expect. Still, it was a revelation at a ballpark to see fans rooting for their team and getting into what turned out to be a phenomenal finish in the game.

After the game, we walked back to the hotel through an absolutely barren downtown, proving again how lame Houston is. I’m sure there are parts where people go, but they weren’t downtown. To cap the night, I watched Knocked Up, which was on HBO. “You know that old saying, ‘Don’t drink and drive’? Well, don’t drink and bone!”

Tomorrow, alligators and poison….