Pierism #6

This picture doesn’t really need an explanation, except to say that when all else fails, then you’ve just got to get creative about stopping bugs from getting into your home.

Impressions of Texas on my way out of Texas

Going down a single-lane country highway at 70 miles per hour in the back of my dad’s VW Jetta, I’m listening to one end of phone conversation discussing oil rig issues that is delivered in thick Texan dialect and laced with field-specific jargon, making it almost unintelligible to my ears.  This lonely highway seems bleakly optimistic in the bright Texas sun.

The landscape looks scared, but that’s probably only because I know it should be – we are in Bastrop County on detour due to raging wildfires in the area (a serious problem all over South-central and Southwest U.S. right now).  This country highway is a fine substitute to Highway 71, which I’ve been on too many times throughout my adult life to really appreciate anymore.  Paige, Texas, looks asleep.  What little movement I see not on the highway looks like the product of a slow, lazy, figurative yawn.

I am in love with the landscape of central Texas.  I had no idea how much I’ve missed it.  Massive trees and briars and foliage everywhere, everywhere seem older these days.  The entire land aged while I was gone, not just my loved ones.  It’s always seemed old, with its dead fauna mixed in with its flora of every hue of green and brown.  But now the browns have also taken over the ground, which has been given up on by grass, even the sturdier, wilder kinds.  The greens are being invaded by grays, and the wide-spread effects of the worst drought ever to blight Texas make the landscape look like a middle-aged man’s salt-and-pepper beard that’s still somehow lying about it’s true age.  It looks like a decade of stress and life have wrecked havoc on this parched earth rather than only a year-long drought.

Age is such a silent killer in all ways, but drought is worse.  The volatile silence of the high-speed train of thirst and time that this landscape has somehow hitched onto is killing it in a very visible way.

Pierism #5

When you’ve got 7 children, you put something like this in your kitchen because it’s useful, not because it’s trendy.  And, as much as my siblings and I claim my parents are wacky, we all know the water fountain can be relied upon to provide cold water at any time of day, especially on those hot Texas summer afternoons when you just can’t fill up a glass with ice fast enough.

Prom dates

The following is a typical conversation between my brothers.

William:  ”When I go to prom, I’ll wear the same color tux as my date’s dress.”

Russell:  ”I don’t think Jenny [our sister] will be available that day.”

William:  ”Oh yeah?  Well MOM won’t be available for the day of your prom!”

Pierism #4

Door stop.  I guess it works as good as any.

Pierism #3

I just overheard this little gem, a comment said by my brother-in-law to my sister:

Your brothers are so weird.  One of them is shooting yellow jackets out of the pool, and the other is throwing a hatchet at a tree.

Yep, sounds about right.  Oh, and in case you’re jealous that we have a pool, especially if you’re a resident of Texas in this epic drought, feast your eyes on what our pool actually looks like:

Pierism #2

When I moved to China, my siblings craftily created a substitute version of me to hang around and be weird, just because they missed me hanging around and being weird (awww).  For some reason, they had a ridiculous life-size cardboard cutout of Arwen from The Lord of the Rings, so they pasted a picture of my face onto it.  They’ve kept her/me permanently in the corner of the living room to creepily bother anyone who hangs out in there, and they even pull the thing out to participate in family gatherings during holiday times.  Here’s a visual of this endearing, yet a little worrisome and creepy symbol of their love for me.

Pierism #1

I often tell my friends this anecdote about my father, who is simultaneously these three things:  man, child, and legend.

In the early 2000s, his midlife crisis car was a silver VW Beetle.  He’s 6’4″.

Evidently, it was the only practical car on the market with enough head room.  And, he untiringly explained to everyone who commented that he really could fit into that little beetle better than any car he’s ever been in.  And folks, he was actually right, because just as untiringly, he clambered his long limbs into that low, low car with the seat pushed all the way back.  Once he got in there, those legs and head had more wiggle room than they’d ever experienced.

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Yes, Sir!…er, I mean, Your Highness!

This just happened:

My mother hands me a sheet of paper and says, “Look, you’re descended from royalty.”

Evidently my father’s cousin has mapped my family’s genealogy back to King Richard I.  The at-least-40-generation list also includes William I “The Conqueror” (about whom I did a report in the 12th grade and am thus tickled to be related to since he was such a dastardly and ferocious warrior – although anyone who knows me understands that this is hardly surprising).

Because my mother once took up genealogy as a hobby, I have known since my childhood that I’m related to William Bradford, the governor of Plymouth Colony and leader of the Mayflower as well as some other people who have some important-ish things to do with the founding and subsequent history of the United States of America.  An over-zealous Latin and British Literature teacher in high school (the same one who assigned the aforementioned report) who, in his spare time, studied other people’s genealogy (for some reason) also once told me that I’m related to the royal family somehow, but I’d long since forgotten how.

However, my reason for writing is not to brag.  I think anyone with English heritage is somehow related to the Queen (of course, that 40-generation list includes some slight incest).  The reason I’m recording this occurance is my father’s response, which was as follows:

“Since this document proves that we’re related to royalty, I’d like you all to begin referring to me as Your Highness.”

Good try, Dad.