Day 1: Still Friendly

It's the end of our first day of travel and my friend Steve and I are in Kerrville, TX, staying in the same hotel I stayed in when I came east a little over four years ago. It's part of the German part of Texas, about a 6 hour drive from Houston. We took someone's advice and drove through Austin instead of San Antonio; not only did we save some time, we also saw a really cool, bustling college town and had lunch at a great little cafe.

While Steve and I have many differences of opinion and each tend to feel that our opinion is the right one, and while we do bicker a bit, we still enjoy each other's company. At least for a while.  :)  As of tonight, we are still friendly with one another. If I had some kind of gauge gadget, I'd put one up so you could watch it move around as the trip goes on!

We are currently trying to figure out how to see some of the places we've been exhorted to see and yet get home within a reasonable amount of time and without either driving for only u hours or for 10 (breaks not included). And there are a lot of in-between places that have no amenities or even small towns, so there is a lot of checking Google maps for towns and distances and our phone apps for places to stay.

I've gotten everything done except turn off my electricity. I really have to do that now. Last time I didn't and I got dinged quite a bit for electricity used by the next renters.  :(  So tomorrow, while I'm riding shotgun, I'll have to call the electric company and turn off my account.

We got started a day later than expected because I couldn't arrange a cleaner for the day after the movers came. It gave Steve and I the opportunity to see a couple of my friends and to do a lot of last-minute errands, and the next day we fit in quite a bit of stuff before collapsing.  And I found out that I was getting sunburned through the car windows, so I am now using Steve's SPF 50 sunscreen on my arms and the back of my neck, with my 25 SPF moisturizer on my face, neck and chest. I don't seem to have any sunburn today!

We've been eating a lot of desserts. Now we are going to be in a car all day for several more days. We plan to make some stops to see some scenic sites and take some pictures and walk around, but we cannot eat lots of sweets and drive the car and not expect to gain weight. And I really like the weight I've lost, thank you very much. Even if it is from stress! So today I had half of a huge salad before splitting a slice of tiramisu. (I was going to finish the salad tonight, but all I really wanted was a bit of yogurt. My bodily systems don't exactly travel well.)

It's late and I have to go to sleep, so I'm not going to take the time to upload the picture of the little cafe we ate at. I'll upload it tomorrow night, along with a picture of the gorgeous courtyard of our hotel that I will take tomorrow when it's light.

Stay with me. The day after tomorrow, we may visit White Sands, New Mexico and have some lovely pictures from there. And two days after that will be Joshua Tree National Park. So stay tuned and see what we truly end up doing!

Catching Up

Movement and power

It's been a while since I blogged, I know. I just haven't felt like blogging and haven't had much in mind other than moving. I even run out of things to say in therapy that aren't about moving. But my therapist, brilliant as she is, can tease knowledge and learning out of any aspect of my life.

For example, for several weeks, I went in to therapy feeling overwhelmed and stuck, not getting much done and not feeling as if I could get anything done. My therapist pointed out I was feeling like a victim of my feelings and my circumstance and feeling powerless. That I needed to remember I had other options for how to feel and what to do, that I indeed had power over my situation and myself. Then I started to accomplish a few things, and that started me feeling more powerful and like I could get even more done.

My friend Deb has taken on the task of "nudging" me daily to see what I plan to do and what I've done. I seldom do everything on my list, and I continue to take naps that disrupt my day and my flow of activity, but I am accomplishing things and Deb's nudging helps a great deal.

I had my organizer back to help me organize things for the move: pack a few things, sort a lot of things, and get rid of a lot of things to charity. That helped me so much that I can now see how my friend Sierra and I will be able to pack the whole place when she gets here this week to help me (yay!). And I still have things to take to donate; I don't want to take the time to try to sell them. At this point, I'll just wait until Sierra can help me.

Important Safety Tips

Apparently it's possible to get too much sun and too much heat down here in Houston-land. Who knew? Okay, I just forgot. I figured it out halfway thru my first summer here (after making myself ill several times), but last summer I was in much cooler climes and forgot I guess.

So today it hit triple digits and I went for a walk in my park. I was under the trees. I had 3/4 of a bottle of water.

Not enough. About 2/3 of the way thru my walk, I was feeling kind of ill and tired and like I didn't know if I could make it to the car but knew that I had no other options. And I felt silly. I'd drunk a lot of water — I could hear and feel it sloshing in my stomach as I walked. But it wasn't enough.

When I got into the car, my face was brilliantly red (about as red as my hair is currently) and I thought I had a world-class sunburn, despite my having sunscreen on and being under the trees. And no color on my non-sunscreened arms.

After about 10 minutes in a highly air-conditioned car, my face was almost back to normal and I was feeling a little better. A large iced tea helped. But I stayed queasy most of the evening, despite the tea and two or maybe three more bottles of water. Ugh.

My BFF chewed me out. So from now on: carry my sun hat in the car; carry a couple of extra bottles of water (I have a small cooler and can put blue ice in with the water); don't go for a walk in triple-digit weather.

Now that I've learned that lesson, I'm heading back to cooler climes for a couple of weeks. Of course. But I think I'll remember this time when I return. I really hate feeling that ill.

Can't find it in the classifieds

Wanted: Help. 

Help with bringing order to my apartment. Help with finding work. Help with paying bills. Help with not getting so consumed with anxiety over these things that I simply pop.

I have a couple of small projects coming up, but not with anyone who can afford to pay me full price. Yes, I do have a sliding fee scale. Extremely small businesses and individuals get a break, because they have very little spare cash. And that's who I seem to be working for right now. When I work.

The money I had left from before, plus the money my mom gave me, plus some of the other is shrinking much too quickly. It was a lot of money, but between me and the estate, it's going, going. 

Health insurance is just about prohibitively expensive for me. If you take even one medicine routinely, you can't get individual health insurance; you have to buy it from the High Risk Pool. Which is far more expensive in Houston that it was in Oregon. And I have a much higher deductible. I'm thinking of doubling the deductible so I can lower the monthly cost. The cost went up significantly when I turned 50. Lucky me.

My rent is not cheap, but it certainly is not the most expensive around here. If I want to go significantly cheaper, I'd have to move into a unit that is too small for my stuff, or even for an actual dining table, or I'd have to move to places that I don't really want to live.  And rent is going up at the end of my lease in a couple of months.

I have credit card debt, because I've been unemployed for a long time, except for bit and pieces, and I've had expenses. 

If Mom's house doesn't sell soon, or if I don't get some real income soon, or if I don't win the lottery soon, I'm going to be hurting big time.

I am one scared kitty right now.

The Texas Skye in Summer

I'm living in the land of summer. The land of sunshine and heat. The land of warmth in temperature and warmth in people.

The land of tropical storms and hurricanes and killing levels of heat and humidity.

I worry about summer here. I worry about August and September, which are supposed to be the killer months, the months that could send me running for the PNW without so much as packing my bags.

I mean, it's not like the temps will faze me. I've been happily roasting (in limited amounts) in 97-degree weather (heat index 101-103). I walk outside from the extremely cold newspaper office, where I have to wear a sweater, and toast myself until I feel warm. Then I walk back into the ice cube of work. And about half the time, I don't turn on my AC in the car, preferring to warm myself as I drive (once the 140-degree heat leaks out thru the open windows, of course).

People are amazed by my tolerance and joy in the heat. They know where I've been. And I've dealt with 100+ degree weather in Eastern Washington (a LONG time ago) and occasionally in Seattle or in the Willamette Valley. Last year May, it hit 103 for a freak weather day in Lincoln City.

But the humidity: I worry about tolerating 110 degrees with 98% humidity for 2 months. I worry about the fact that I have things in my apartment that I want to keep. I worry about the fact that I bought a really nice couch last weekend (to be delivered next week) and would need to move that sucker if I fled.

Then there are the storms; it is now officially storm season.

I worry that maybe I can tolerate neither the NW nor the South, but I cannot afford the northern California coastal or near-coastal areas. (Because that would be the ideal climate for me.) I've made a couple of friends here. I might be on the way to making one or two more: this is so quick for me! :) What if I feel the need to leave?

I worry about money: unemployment ran out and I'm now living on my savings, which represents all the money I have in the world. Well, that and the bit of money I make at The Tribune, which pays for my health insurance, plus a little more. Maybe dinners out.

I don't mind being alone so much anymore. A friend from back "home" asked me how I was when I was a child, what did I do when I was alone. And I remembered that I was mostly solitary as a child, too.

So what did I do? Solitary things, things that occupied me; I rarely felt lonely. I read books. I wrote, I drew, I painted. I rode my bike around and around the cul de sac when my mom wouldn't let me ride out of it. I skated around and around, too. I played with my "dangerous" things: Fun Flowers when I was a child, a toy that could burn you pretty good and that I never had adult supervision when using, never hurt myself with; and my chemistry set when I was a little older, ditto for supervision and never hurting myself (even when I broke a test tube). I climbed a tree and I made my own detective kit to pretend with.

I guess it's time to let myself free of expectations. And just enjoy me, enjoy my life and the sunshine and the heat.

And to create: I've started a creative crochet project (picked up a couple of books); I have a painting sketched out and the supplies ready; I am working on not one, not two, but THREE novel ideas; I have a blog (obviously), and I have a website that desperately needs Search Engine Optimization (SEO) so that potential clients can find me---my site doesn't come up in the first two or three DOZEN pages when you search on "Houston writer/editor" or "Houston freelance writer" or "Houston technical writer." That has to change. And I need to add some other things to my site.

All and all, there is no reason for my solitude to be difficult.

Only the summer heat, and the summer humidity.

Only the expectations and fears floating around in the Texas Skye.

Live from Houston

Yes, ladies and gents, I am living in Houston. Texas. Someplace I never imagined myself visiting much less living. And guess what? I love Texas. I love where I live: a NE suburb of Houston (it's surrounded by Houston, in a very weird set of zoning rules that pissed off the people of Kingwood, who were swallowed by the metropolis) named "Humble" (the H is silent, which is rather odd given where we are). North of me is Kingwood, a beautifully forested upscale suburb. Wrapping around us all is Lake Houston.

I live in Atascocita and spend time in Kingwood at East End Park, my heaven. Check out the park's web site. This is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. So many people here say, "Oh, but the northwest must be much more beautiful because it's so green," but perhaps I'm too used to that. It is beautiful. But now I am in a subtropical zone, with a subtropical forest on my doorstep. And it's stunning.

Everything is different in this forest. Winding trees. Vines. Trailers. Palmettos. Cypress trees with their feet in the water and these little stubs sticking up around them called "Cypress knees." The birds sound different. And instead of the ubiquitous crow, we have the ubiquitous grackle, which is exotic to me as much of the wildlife here is. I have so far seen only one alligator. Not in the park, but that will change come summer. And the place will supposedly be teeming with poisonous snakes: timber rattlers, regular rattlers, water moccasins, copperheads, and coral snakes. But only the rattlers and aggressive. Cheery, no?

I entered Texas at El Paso on the 3rd of December. I arrived in Houston the day it snowed for the first time in 20 years. December 12 or 13, I think. I have not yet had an experience that makes me regret coming here.

In Texas, people are very, very polite. I don't mind being "yes, ma'am"-ed; all adult women get that, not just us middle-aged ladies. And men get "yes, sir." The store staffs are polite, cheerful, and helpful: much more so than Nordstrom's! They are warm and friendly. I am stunned by how much I love it here. Even though I am still unemployed. But I'd have less chance of being unemployed up in the PNW. Here, the unemployment rate only rose above 5% last month!

I'm including some pics and I'll get back into my Flickr site, update it, and include a link hereabouts. Because I have quite a few to share, for those of you who have never been here.

I wish I had come here sooner.

December in Houston

Hello all

I arrived in Houston this afternoon. It is snowing.

Yeah, that's why I left Oregon.

I am where I am because it's near a AAA office and I wanted some in-person service. So they got me one of the few hotels in the area, and they sent me to a mechanic that is AAA-certified and that they know. The latter item is why I stopped here and went no further. I really didn't want to try to get further into Houston with car that is acting a bit squirrelly.

At least the hotel has coin-op laundry units; it's just too cold to use them tonight.

Oh, and my hotel has few channels available, so I cannot watch The Mummy Returns on the FX channel tonight. I think I'll just pull the covers over my head and go to bed.

I just wanted to share.

-Skye

Deeper in the Heart of Texas

As someone who has lived all her life on the West Coast, I have shared my friends’ and neighbors’ opinion of “anywhere but Texas.” That’s where none of us wanted to live. Why? Because it was full of cowboys, which we all knew were uneducated rednecks, right? Bigots. Treated their women badly.

How terrible. To think that, to carry that opinion for all these years without ever checking it out. My aunt and uncle and cousins moved here and lived here the rest of their lives, and unfortunately they exhibited the behaviors and mindsets that I considered were Texan or Southern: teen pregnancies, never finishing high school, not marrying the other parent of their children, their own kids repeating this pattern.… But several of my cousins in California did that, too.

My grandmother lived in Texas for quite a while; she worked for a contractor to NASA. It is obvious that educated people live in Texas. And just because one wears jeans and boots and a cowboy hat doesn’t make one uneducated or a bigot or a wife beater. I think that is a conceit of early urbanites, of people who lived very far removed from animals and farming and dirt. Perhaps began as a way to distance oneself from rural areas, from tradition, from dirt and animals and subsistence. But I find I rather like cowboy boots and cowboy hats…I think I’d like some to wear for myself! (I already wear jeans—Levi’s 501s to be exact.)

What about racism? When I worked for a year at the City of Seattle, I worked with a group of analysts regarding the solid waste and recycling programs that were being initiated in Seattle that year. In a group of about ten people, two were Asian and one was African American. The latter analyst, Mozelle, had grown up in Seattle, but when she was sixteen she convinced her parents to let her go live with family in the South. She said that the big difference she noticed between the two regions was that in the South, you at least saw bigotry—where it exists—in the open, unlike in Seattle. One thing I’m finding about the Southwest is that there is far greater social integration among ethnic groups than I have generally seen in the PNW.

Sexist? I don’t know yet. But certainly I see gender issues everywhere. And while the US talks up greater rights for women more vocally than other countries, other countries were laughing at us during this last presidential election because we were making such a big deal over a potential woman presidential candidate and woman vice presidential candidate: even in countries where young girls are still sold into marriage, there have been women in leadership roles, including women leading those countries. I don’t see gender issues as being strictly tied to geography. Nor to education levels: there are plenty of people with recessive ideas of gender roles and capabilities in all levels of economic, social, and economic levels.

So here I am, in a state I never thought I would go to, challenging lifelong prejudices and thoughtless opinions, and I’m liking it—all of it. Suppose I decide to stay here? What will my family think? What will my friends think? ;) What will I think?

Texas is Big, Fast, and Hot: Oh Baby!

You’ve heard the phrase “everything’s bigger in Texas,” right? Well, there are a lot of SUVs and pickups on the road; I find I am actually experiencing truck envy! At the Fort Davis national park the other day, there were seven cars other than mine: a pickup, a van, a jeep, and four SUVs. But I’ve also seen small imports too, even some with Texas license plates. So I guess it’s also legal to be small in Texas. And I have not seen excessive portion sizes in the food, for which I’m grateful. The meals I’ve had, here and in Las Cruces, which is just over the border in NM, have been reasonable. A bit more than I needed, but reasonable. But there is definitely a lot of land in Texas. And to cover all that land, you cannot just poke along.

In order to move quickly from one oasis to another, traffic moves quickly on Texas interstates, but so far not crazy-fast like they drive in California (I’ve heard that changes once you hit one of the cities). During today’s drive, I noticed that most people were simply driving the speed limit: 80 mph for autos and 70 for trucks and trailers. (It’s 65 at night for both—isn’t that intelligent? Why don’t more states have a lower speed limit after dark?) I have found that while my car shimmies a bit at 70 to 72 or so, it is smooth as cream at 80. And at 90, which I accidently hit a couple of times today. Oops. But the highway was so straight and long….

There is a lot of desert in Texas, which correlates to hot daytime temps for the most part. It did get pretty cold in Fort Davis yesterday when it was cloudy, which wasn’t so great for my cold; I stayed in during the afternoon and slept. The nights have been rather chilly; that may change as I get further into the state, or if I drive south. But mostly I have experienced sun and heat, my two prerequisites. And those warm, friendly people.

So far, Texas meets this girl’s needs!

Deep in the Heart of Texas

I’ve been in Texas for four days, I have had more beef than I usually have in two months, and I find myself inexplicably feeling rather Texan.

People I’ve met here—from the salesclerk in the Origins store in El Paso to the sweet 21-year-old waitress at the Hotel Limpia here in Fort Davis—have been warm, friendly, helpful. Happy to talk. Not in a rush. The food is great, but I now have to begin a serious exercise program because I feel I’m getting fatter by the moment.

Lunch the other day, at the Chuck Wagon in Fort Davis, was a BBQ beef sandwich (I tried a bit of all three sauces: sweet, original, and hot, all three of which I think were homemade and quite delicious), BBQ beans, fries, and coleslaw. And a mason jar full of sweet tea. Yeah, I’m going southern. I like it. But I may explode from food. Dinner was at Hotel Limpia: burgundy roast beef with gravy on the side, three buttermilk biscuits (with real butter, of course), green beans, corn, and cream cheese mashed potatoes. OMG! Excellent. And whew!

They do say to feed a cold, right? Because then I’m doing the right thing, because I am fighting a cold that just refuses to let go. And I’m sure as hell feeding it…. (Hmmm, maybe it’s “feed a fever….”) Maybe I need more jalapeños!

Did I mention friendly? Because this morning at breakfast, a Mr. Rueben Sanchez chatted me up and explained that I should move to Fort Davis. You see, he isn't married either.... I love Texas!