Just back from Texas. Y'all. Wow, even in print that y'all is not convincing. If we were in New England, you would call me a poser. Pronounced "Poza". Long O. Anyways, nobody in Texas called me out as a Yankee Loser or marked my relatives' house with the sign of the Northern Devil (which, by the way is a crock of New England Baked Beans) so at least it was successful in that way.

Austin loved playing cars with PawPaw and watering all of Maw Maw's plants outside. He did however hate their very cute, fluffly small, well behaved dog named Angel. For the first two days Austin would not walk on the floor because, "Doggy bite. Doggy bite. Doggy bite." People, the doggy did not bite, my son has simply inheirited the Kelleher gene that makes him able to imagine the worst that could happen at any minute. In fact, it is so strong in my Little Choogler that I think we should station him near a place where natural disasters happen. By just standing there and imagining the worst real hard, I think he could predict a hurricane or earthquake. Wait. We live in an earthquake zone. Oh..well that works out then.

So, Austin played cars and watered plants and drank a lot of warm milk during the humid 90 degree days. He also spent a lot of time being freaked out by squirrels, little tiny cute lizzards, ceiling fans ("no sharks!") and your general category of bug. We have raised a city boy, I think.

As follows is a small list of things I noticed while in Texas. As a native Northerner and a ten year veterean of the Bay Area, please be advised that this is just how Texas looked through my New England baked bean-loving, California wine snobbing eyes. In short, I have no right to make a list. But I am going to stick my foot in my mouth anyway.

1. Texans spend an awful lot of time talking about how to get here from there.
2. Everyone involved in #1 seems to have their own set of maps.
3. The fact that many Texans live held captive in their homes by FIRE ANTS does not seem to bother them.
4. Don't mess with anyone in Band or my Niece Nicole will whip your ass with her trombone.
5. "Coulda shoulda woulda".
6. If you are a guy you have to nod at the other guy you are walking past/driving past/ sitting next to/trying to pick up.
7. I have no idea what you are supposed to do if you are a lady because every lady that looked at me was looking at me in horror so apparently I was just walking around doing things so wrongly that no amount of polite nodding was going to help. Is it my hair, y'all?