"Why worry? Each one of us is carrying an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on his back." - Dr. Peter Venkman, Ghostbusters

 

The Boy prepares his Protonic Accelerator for use against Louisiana. Stupid Louisiana.

So, I’m nearly better. I can see why people don’t want to navigate to a website where a guy complains about how much his leg hurts and how he wishes the damn kids would get off his lawn and how he wondered when the next episode of “Barnaby Jones¹” would be on.

My leg is pretty much better.

Recently, however, The Mrs. has been missing Fairbanks more a lot more than Britney Spears misses her kids, or Paris Hilton misses a long, hard, night feeding the homeless, or whatever she calls it nowadays.

Fall in Houston is essentially exactly like Summer in 99.85346% of the rest of the country. In Houston, there are exactly two weeks where I don’t have to mow the lawn. It’s called January 7 through January 21. I think that has something to do with Sputnik, or Apollo, or perhaps Al Gore’s Nobel Prize®. I’m pretty sure that if my leg had felt better that week that they would have been calling me instead of Al, since I have documented evidence (I wrote it myself) that Wilder By Far has prevented no fewer than seventeen world wars and thirty-six Genesis reunions. In happy news, I found out that I did end up right above Tony Blair’s nosehair. Okay, that feels better. I believe fully in Peace© through Tony Blair’s nosehair.

Back to Texas.

We’ve not been in Casa Wilder (South) for a year yet, but (most of us) have been in Houston for some large fraction of a year now.

It’s tough on us. Alaska is an outdoorsy, tough sort of place, yet full of life and rewarding. People were an outdoorsy, tough sort of people, yet accepting and accommodating. We miss that, since Houston is very much like a large conglomeration of strip malls approved by some faceless urban planning board with Darth Vader© as Chair Cyborg.

Part of the charm of strip malls is that they’re the cheapest construction made by man (outside of adobe) surrounded by an ocean of chewing-gum-covered asphalt with a hot gasoline smell, accessorized with empty Slushie© cups blowing in a languid breeze.

Where we live, each strip mall has stores made of brick (BRICK!) with mandatory tree planting chosen by some former high school cheerleader (Vice Planning Board Chair Person) who majored in Croatian Literature in college, before her knee blew out and she was forced to settle and marry the local orthodontist.

However, The Boy loves Texas. The U.S.S. Lexington is in Texas (Corpus Christi) and he indicated that he’d rather go visit it than go to Disneyland© or Disneyworld® even. The Boy is seven, and only wants to go see the Lexington because he’s sure that there are ghosts there. Me, I’m just happy that I don’t have to pony up to drink beers out of mouse-eared beer cans (horrors) or have to deal with Goofy™ turning down our bedspread and then getting into an awkward fight because he I thought he was giving The Mrs. the eye.

Saving the related legal fees alone makes living in Texas worth it.

Beyond all that, I know that our time in Texas is limited because The Mrs. has said that she wants to move someplace cold. Texas, my friends, ain’t it.

How long will we be here?

Somewhere longer than another year (probably) and somewhat less time than it takes a proton to decay (over 10×1035 years for the half life) and turn the universe into a heat-dead sea of subatomic particles where any coherent organization is possible.

Yeah. That gives me some wiggle room. Now, get off my lawn.

¹Barnaby Jones was a show we made fun of when I was a kid because only old people would watch it, sort of like when we would put “Kick Me” signs on the back of Moses in Aramaic, since Moses couldn’t read Aramaic. Barnaby Jones cannot read Aramaic. Indiana Jones® can. I’m thinking the neighborhood kids will make fun of me because Indiana Jones© is on.