The Draft

This is the big week. This week is Jon’s company’s version of the draft, and he is a free agent. Today the big wigs at Jon’s company will meet in Seattle to discuss the futures of 400 + employees scheduled for a job change this spring. We could know our fate as early as today or by Wednesday night at the latest.

While I’ve been trying to prepare myself for all of the best and worst case scenarios, there is one location I haven’t really prepared myself for: staying in Houston. When the option got tossed around last week, I was caught a bit off guard. Since I’ve done the appropriate research on our other options, I thought I’d take a minute to reflect on some things I love about this sprawling city.

-Nearness to friends and family. My brother lives exactly 1 mile away and we are only about an hour from my parents Lake House in Montgomery. It’s about a 3 hour drive to Lafayette, 4 to B.R. and 5 to New Orleans.
-Renaissance Festival.
-World Class Shopping- Houston (ranks number one in the USA).
-Mega-International Airport with tons of direct flights.
-Great Museums for Art and Natural History.
-Mouth Watering food: just a few of my favorites are Barnaby’s, Brown Bag Deli, Broken Spoke, and if we’re feeling really fancy, Mark’s.
-Houston Restaurant Week which features great prices for 3 course meals at several of the best spots in town.
-Old Town Spring.
-The Historic Heights including events such as Heights Holiday Home Tour and Lights in the Heights. Other things I love about the Heights specifically: The Heights hike and bike trail, 19th street shopping, St. Arnold’s Pub Crawls.
-The Houston Rodeo.
-Nutcracker Market.
-Astros games (particularly vs. Cardinals).
-River Oaks Theater.
-Amazing groupon deals.
-Feeding the giraffes at the Houston Zoo.
-Memorial Park Aboretum.
-The Woodlands Mall and Pavilion.
-Great health care options which means never waiting more than 2 weeks for a Doctor’s appointment. It’d be a nice place to have a baby.
-Humidity. And for all you humidity haters out there- live in West Texas for a few years and you will never complain about humidity again. It's a blessing.
-Huge LSU fanbase.
-Dog-friendly bars.
-Our church, Ecclesia.
-Pinot’s Pallet art classes.

For this post I actually did a little research on Houston and discovered that the Waugh Street Bridge houses the 2nd largest Bat colony in urban Texas (1st place goes to Austin). This bridge is 3 miles from my house and I never knew that. I'm not sure if it's a negative or positive in the Houston column, but it's good to know regardless.

I also learned that Howard Hughes is buried in Glenwood Cemetery on the Washington Corridor. I’ve been to the Hughes Hanger bar on Washington Avenue but never realized there was a connection.

I could also easily list a lot of things I don’t love about Houston, but today I’m choosing to focus on the positive; the possibility. Stress will undoubtedly come later, but today is a day to celebrate a new chapter in Jonathan’s career, whether that be in Aberdeen or Angola, Texas or Thailand.

Today I wore my “kilt” to work, along with a silver ring from the Scottish Orkney Isles because in my heart, I’m slightly pulling for Scotland. But I’m also wearing my tanzanite earrings which were a souvenir from our trip to South Africa, just to remind myself that a piece of my heart lies there as well. I’ve always been symbolic like that.

The only thing I own from Thailand is an elephant print diaper bag and I didn’t think this was appropriate to bring with me to work today. And as for why I own an elephant print diaper bag from Thailand- I have my parents to thank for that. It was their most recent hint that they expect grandchildren in the near future. It has a bow, which is to let me know that the diaper bag is for a girl. Seriously.

No pressure.

Best Day Ever Hall of Fame

I mentioned earlier that Saturday was among one of my best days ever. Good enough to deserve it's own blog post. Well here it is. I woke up early to snag a 7 mile run before my morning facial. Then, it was off to the Houston Zoo. I’ve been waiting to go to the Zoo since we moved here a year ago, but our schedules or the weather just hadn’t cooperated until this weekend. It was such a great date. Seriously, is there anything more romantic than Elephant babies, Red Pandas, and Orangutans? I think not. When we first entered the Zoo we were faced with the impossible decision of what to see first. There were tons of signs with tempting little tidbits like ‘Big Cats’, ‘African Safari’, ‘Reptiles’, ‘Primates’ and of course ‘Hoofed Animals’(Because really, what is a Zoo without a ‘Hoofed Animals’ exhibit?). Jonathan instantly declared that he didn’t even really like Hoofed Animals so we skipped them and headed straight for the big cats. And that’s where we found Jonathan’s animal kingdom soul mate, conveniently also named Jonathan.

Jonathan the lion is described as “vocal, attention seeking, expert nap-taker”. Hmmm…

Actually, the resemblance is quite striking.

While the Big Cats slept, we made our way to the Primates. I am always astonished by the Chimpanzees and how human-like they are. Two of them were entertaining the kids by clapping their feet, beating on the glass, jumping up and down and LAUGHING. Their distinct personalities and individualism were amazing to watch. For instance, not all Chimpanzees are extroverts craving attention. In fact, Jonathan wasn’t the only one with a doppelganger at the Houston Zoo.

Nope, we spotted my twin as well, off in a corner, snuggled in a blanket, just trying to get some peace and quiet. I was seriously waiting for her to plop in a Gilmore Girls DVD and settle in for an afternoon nap.

But of course, the crowning moment of our Zoo experience was feeding the giraffes. Here I am, living the dream, feeding lettuce to Miles.

And if the day had ended there it would have been complete, but there was much more perfection to come. After feeding Miles, we also felt hungry and so went for lunch at Brown Bag Deli in Rice Village. I just love their tuna salad sandwiches, mostly for their buttery honey-wheat rolls. Yum! And since we were already in Rice Village, we might as well do some shopping right? After loading up on MAC cosmetics, we headed home for a power nap. Then it was off to Thairapy where I enjoyed a scalp massage and haircut. Pure bliss.

Since I got my hair did, I wanted to go out on the town. I threw on my new favorite purple dress and we headed to our favorite Belgian Restaurant, The Broken Spoke. And yes, I realize the fact that we have a favorite Belgian restaurant makes us total hipsters.

But really, is there anything better than Belgian cuisine? Don’t answer that. It’s a rhetorical question. There is NOTHING better than Belgian cuisine, trust me on this one. World’s best beer? Check. World’s best chocolate? Check. World’s Best Fries? Check, check, check. Broken Spoke gives the people what they want.

They have something like 20 Belgian beers on tap. One of them, Delirium, actually holds the title for World’s Best Beer. And it’s on tap! They have a chalkboard listing all their featured draft beers, and they even include a few American beers at the bottom for non-hipster folk. We overheard a patron ask the waitress what was good on tap and she replied “Well, they are all good. Except for those at the bottom.” Amen, sister. We took Jonathan’s family there once and his brother ordered a Budweiser. Had I known that ahead of time, I may have chosen not to marry into that family. Just kidding…sorta.

Here I am in my new purple dress with my new haircut, double fisting Belgian fries and the World’s Best Beer.

That, my friends, is what I call a good day.