Steven's Random Corner of Nothingness - Texas Edition!

Flying Roach of Death

We live in a beautiful apartment/townhouse in San Antonio. We are a 10-second walk from our pool. We are a 25-minute drive to work. There are ceiling fans galore in our home. It is nice and cool in our apartment all the time. It is a perfect situation while we await a new home a few miles down the road. We are super-duper excited.

Last evening, our perfect world shattered.

It all started after watching 10 Cloverfield Lane - a strange movie. Worth the 54 cents we paid to rent it through Redbox, but maybe not much more. Getting ready for bed, I decided to try to find a creepy book. I've been on a Stephen King kick lately (Joyland was a phenomenal book), so I went to our library eBook site and found that new book-soon-to-be-a-movie, Miss Perigrine's Home for Peculiar Children. A weird read to be sure.

I had the lights out and was resting by Jamie's huge pillow nest (she is now up to 6 pillows surrounding her pregnant body), when I felt something drop onto my leg. Weird, I thought. There is only the ceiling fan above my bed. Jamie was asleep. I sat up in the dark, and then the gentle pressure left my leg, only to be replaced quickly by light pressure on my chest. I flicked it away, yelled (probably screamed like a little girl), and turned the lights on.

I found this creature lurking then behind my lamp. I was trying to convince myself it was a grasshopper or something like that, but I'm quite sure now it was a cockroach. More convincing was the amount of times I had to smash it before it stopped moving. It took multiple snappings of a towel followed by several hits with the heel of a shoe.

I had plenty of cockroach encounters while living in New York city, but this one was the biggest I had seen.

Gross.

I guess everything is bigger in Texas.

Bring on the Baby

Baby Betsy is due at the beginning of September. Her due date is the 9th of that month. We have been worried and worried about this baby, especially given the way-too-big boy that my way-small-but-not-way-too-small wife delivered almost six years ago. We have been praying for our new doctors here to be open to early induction, like we did with Juliette, who was born one week early.

On Jamie's visit to the doctor's office, before she could even ask, upon review of Jamie's information the doctor recommended induction week early.

Prayers answered.

Betsy due September 2nd, unless she decides to come any earlier.

Things Charlie Says

A favorite of this week was when Charlie was walking around the house, pretending to talk on a battery-dead cell phone. He was having a fake conversation with who-knows-who, but during his conversation, he had this little poignant retort:

"Where am I going? Wherever life takes me, I guess..."

My son is very profound.

Stranger Things

I don't think I've had such fun watching a show since watching Lost with my then-girlfriend-now-wife and my best friends while in college. If you don't know, Stranger Things is a 8-episode miniseries on Netflex about a child's paranormal disappearance in an 80's suburban neighborhood. Nostalgia abounds.

It was oh-so-much fun! I don't want to say too much about it here. You need to see it. It's basically a mix between Freaks and Geeks and the X-Files. If you haven't seen either of those series, you need to as well.

Ticking Time Bomb

Juliette is potty training this week, and has taken to it perfectly. She is pretty much accident free, from a number one standpoint. As far as number two goes...

Well, day 2 was marked by a naptime where she awoke crying. This is strange for her, because she never cries at naptime. I knew immediately what was up. I ran upstairs and found my fears well founded. Her room looked like a murder scene - except blood was replaced by poo. Apparently pull-ups aren't meant to hold the normal amount of business.

Now, she hasn't gone for several days.

I fear what happens next...

Things I've Learned About Texas

People in Texas are very friendly, which is nice after being in NC, where people are also crazy nice.

We can still say y'all here without being weird.

There are pools everywhere. Which makes sense. It turns out Texas is pretty hot.

Texas is big. I think the I-10 mile marker was in the 860-mile range when we first entered Texas from Louisiana.

There is a lot of Dallas Cowboys fans here. Not cool.

There are a lot of trucks. I have a Honda Civic. I'll fit in just fine.

Speed limit on most freeways is 70 mph. And most people like to drive over that. Though friendly in person, many people here aren't so on the roads. (Not as bad as Louisiana, though. People were the most unfriendly drivers in that state).

There is a Sprout's here. This is one of my favorite stores ever. Best (and yet cheapest) produce ever. Other exciting restaurants include Kneaders and Smashburger.

I'm back to non-vinegar based barbecue. Though NC will forever have a place in my heart, Lexington-style BBQ will not. Here, I can eat BBQ ribs, BBQ pork, BBQ brisket, all with sweet-and-tangy BBQ sauce. I can have a barbecue with my barbecue and eat barbecue anything. In Texas, barbecue is a free word. 'Merica.

People have guns. I don't.

So much more to learn.