"Keep your gas tanks filled...

....it's hurricane season."

This is the digital sign I read last night coming home from running. Yay. I didn't realize that there was such a thing as hurricane season.

I met most of Kevin's schoolmates the other night and I have to admit that they all seemed like really nice, quality people...despite the stories that he has shared with me. (I'm kind of kidding. Kind of.) They all, however, had the same question for me time and time again. "How do you like Houston?" In an effort to not offend someone who hasn't ventured out of the state and might possibly view this mountainless, over populated, angry city as home, I simply reply something generic like, "It's fine." or "It's nice." or the ever useful, "It's different than what I'm used to." Usually that one tells people that you don't really like it here, but you are a nice person in trying to be polite about it. I could have said things like, "It's a real crap-hole. Have you seen green mountains before and ridden a bike on endless roads where drivers aren't threatening your life at every turn?" but I refrained.

So my daughter was talking to my dad, who is riding his bike across the United States this summer, and he told her where he was staying that night. She in turn wants to tell him where we are. I tell her, "Purgatory, Texas." She repeats, "Purgatory, Texas papa!" and then ensued a conversation where he asked if it was purgatory or some place hotter....such as hell...for those of you who didn't get it. She of course didn't and that was the goal.

So back to the beginning. Tonight on my way home from our very fun venture to the children's museum, the digital sign on the freeway reads, "Keep your gas tanks filled, hurricane forming in the gulf." Fabulous.

Flooding, winds, electricity loss, crowed streets, crime, looting, debauchery of every kind here we come. I told Kevin the other night that it makes me think of sodom and gomorrah. When I leave here I definitely won't take the chance of looking back to become a pillar of salt. I'll leave here and shake the dust from my shoes. No offense to the people who actually enjoy it here. I know there are some, I'm just not used to it is all. As I always tell my husband, I would live anywhere if it meant I was with him...even the gates of hell....and perhaps he is trying out that theory.



Did anybody else not know that there is "hurricane season?" I mean, I've seen it on TV, but they actually make a whole season about it? Depressing.