Headed out to the Great State of Texas for a weekend of fun with a collection of message board friends. Arrived 6 am Saturday morning, picked up at the airport by TQ. Interestingly enough, she had a cup of Starbucks in her hand and complained it tasted burnt! HA! We headed straight for the grocery store to pick up coffee beans and half & half. Tried to buy wine, but it was too early. Strange rules those Texans have. Headed to TQ's, had large quantities of coffee and we were ready to face a nice, sunshiny Texan day.
TQ drove me all around Houston, showing me all of the important sights: Slick Willies (their motto is "We're your
family pool hall"
), the Enron building, gas at $1.97 (now THAT'S something we don't have in California!), and beautiful old neighborhoods with gorgeous brick houses - also not many of those in CA. She also pointed out several adult novelty stores, but we only had so much time for shopping.
We headed downtown for the Bayou City Art Festival, where all manner of things were passed off as art - and there was some actual art. We saw some beautiful photographs of Belize and spent not quite enough time talking to the very cute photographer/artist. Found a booth with a wide variety of leather goods, so I was required to add to my collection. (lovey, wish you could have seen this stuff!
) Stopped by the Starbucks booth for a free sample of maple latte something and agreed is was worth exactly what we paid for it.
Left as the place was starting to get crowded and our parking meter was nearing expiration and headed to another artsy part of town for a very yummy lunch! Called Hiz Honor and made tentative plans for Sunday brunch. Bit more sight seeing and home for a wee little nap.
Drove out to meet Gay & David and Windjammer. Were hosted by the Yorks on their new yacht, which we firmly believe should be christened the Love Shack!! Hosts with the Most that they are, Gay had a large quantity of margaritas mixed, an ice chest full of cold beer and lots of tastey snacks. David is an excellent Captain and we got the grand tour of the bay, drank some margaritas and beer, tooled around the lake, drank some margaritas and beer, looked at some beautiful houses, drank some margaritas and beer ... well, you get it. Oh yeah, at some point we also ate some snacks.
As night fell the weather got a bit nippy so we headed to the York mansion. Got the grand tour, fought off the attack parrot, walked down their pier and saw one of their other yachts, viewed the pool by starlight and then gathered in the kitchen to prepare a few more beverages.
Windjammer was kind enough to bring the DVD of her jump from last year's Boogie in Belize, so we all gathered in the living room where we devoted a not insubstantial amount of time to searching for the answer to that age-old question: How many Texans
does it take to hook up a DVD player?!? Eventually David grew exasperated taking direction from so many females, and the so many females were exhausted from laughing so hard, so we abandoned the DVD hook-up efforts and moved upstairs to where there was a working DVD player. Well, at least it was a working DVD player before David got ahold of the remote! :rolleyes: We did finally get to see Windjammer's skydive and it was so good we watched it two times, or was it three? However many times it was, it was precisely the right amount of times to confirm to me the fact that I made the right decision in electing to be the official wallet holder at next year's event!
At some point, and it was at some point in the morning hours, TQ and I made our way back to Houston. I just want to note for the record that I left the kitchen very clean! TQ is such a gracious hostess that she stopped drinking considerably before I did so that she'd be ready to drive. After a few hours of sleep and many cups of coffee we were ready for another day of revelry. We called Hiz Honor, but his anti-social calendar must have been overbooked again, because we were not able to meet up for brunch. We lazed around and then headed to Coyote Café, a southwestern restaurant, where I had an absolutely wonderful steak-stuffed chile relleno. They also had the best mix of tortilla and veggie chips - YUM!!! It was pouring rain for most of the day, which made for a perfect lazy Sunday afternoon. Took TQ's beautiful daughter (like mother, like daughter
) to Barnes & Noble and picked out plenty of books. Headed home, lazed away the afternoon with lots of good conversation and some more napping, and I am now the proud owner of an original TQ's daughter piece of artwork. It hangs in a place of honor on my refrigerator right this very minute!!
All good things must come to an end, so packed up and headed for the airport. Easy flight home and another weekend of fun memories. Next trip: Napa!! TQ, start clearing that calendar, girl!
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