Bigger or Better: Life outside of Texas

Disclaimer: no ill will is intended in any of these posts. I love Texas, and I recognize the humor in the Texas ego Driving around town, I can tell there is a definite theme to companies' names and mottoes. I suppose I could enter the advertising business now: basic parts of a company name should be a) your field, and  b) something involving Texas.  So, Texas Dental. Lone Star College. Texas Health Insurance. Lone Star Steakhouse. Texas Instruments (you know, the people that make all those calculators for calculus classes. I used to wonder if other states had their own calculator companies. apparently not). Texas Roadhouse. You get the idea. Or, say you are a chain and can't rename your business to suit Texan pride. No worries! Just come up with some products or greeting signs particular to the state. Throw the words "y'all," or "Texas-sized"  around. Use the Texas shape on posters. Display the Texan flag; even better, display it with the Americ...

I was talking to somebody the other day about living in Texas, and she mentioned that the things that freaked her out the most in mvoing here were the bugs: huge flying cockroaches, mosquitoes, snakes (yes, I know that's not a bug, but then, 'bug' isn't exactly a scientific classification), wasps, bees, hornets, etc. I realized that she has a point. Take a gander: This lovely thing was in our tree. I have never seen a hive so big in a residential setting, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised: it's Texas. :) Lizard-like things have a real talent for coming indoors out of the heat. Earlier this summer I caught an anole so I could stick it back outside, but it didn't like that plan, and bit me. Double reason to kick it out. The gecko (i think it's a gecko, anyway) above got in last week, and when I tried to catch him, I crushed his tail with a cup. On accident. I felt really bad. Especially because it was a baby, and because it died. This thin...

Texas is, um, big, which makes driving long and (usually) expensive. But I got a nice surprise today. I was driving from Corpus Christi to Houston and stopped to fill up and just happened to pick a pump that had $20 pre-paid gas in it already. It totally made my day.

Every once in a while I have an infatuation with something cute. Usually that cute thing is something small. For example, on road trips across the state, I love stopping at the gas stations to see the miniature ketchup bottles, cracker packages, shampoo bottles, and other such things that seem so ordinary to other people. My latest "cute" thing is a USB drive. Isn't it adorable?  I think it's the big fat head that gets me. When I need to actually use the drive (instead of stare at it), I decapitate the head and plug it in: It's like a wall mount, but smaller Who would not want to see that head staring back? It is so cute I could put it in my pocket. Actually, I do...

To me, RIFA sounds like a soccer club. but it's not. For one thing, soccer isn't very big in Texas; football is THE sport as far as most Texans are concerned, so a soccer club isn't very likely. For another, as wikipedia informed me, RIFA stands for 'red imported fire ant' (somebody stayed up into the wee hours of the morning coming up with that name). Not supposed to be indigenous to the United States. They snuck their way in through Mobile, Alabama from a South American ship in the 1930s. And now they terrorize the southwest. I bring this up because a week and a half ago, I was pulling some weeds (which surprisingly still grow in a drought) and hit a jackpot of an anthill. I only noticed after two bit me on the thumb. It hurts, it itches, and apparently I'm mildly allergic because I still have the marks on my hand. But our weed situation is a bit out of control so I went in again yesterday, this time with gloves on. -----------------------------------------...