It ain't Hill Country, but a trip to Houston still calls for some Pat Green or Robert Earl Keen on the ipod.
As the countdown to starting school begins, I have managed to sneak in a few trips on the calendar including visiting Rachel a few weekends ago. I love me some Texas but I am really Austin-biased. So needless to say, Houston challenged my high esteem just a bit ;)
No really, all jokes aside, I love visiting anywhere new - especially if it means seeing good friends and living in their world for a few days. Rachel lives in a beautiful apartment complex with a ZEN POOL (!!!) in the middle of it that we took full advantage of during the days I was there. I definitely went at the right time of year because any later than April/May would have been death heat for this temperate-loving Northern Californian.
Serendipitously, I came on a weekend Rachel and her friends were signed up for a) a champagne brunch and Royal Wedding viewing party at a cute local restaurant and b) the "Crawl for Cancer" bar crawl. There were teams of about 10-12 people who all got assigned different colored shirts. Some teams just wore the shirts, others went "80s", and our team was a VERY creative "where's waldo?" theme. I'll say no more.
It goes without saying that Texans can and do eat like no other. Anyone who visits Texas would be remiss not to make SURE to get some good TexMex and BBQ and we managed to squeeze in both despite burning zero calories the entire time since Houstonians drive EVERY. WHERE. TexMex after the bar crawl was unreal - queso and all, David McWilliams - but Goode's Co. BBQ took the stinkin' cake. You basically chose whatever meat you want (brisket, duh) and it comes with two "vegetable" sides. Apparently Texas understands how to eat, but doesn't grasp what a vegetable is because my side options were - no joke - jambalaya, two kinds of baked beans, potato salad, or macaroni salad. Am I missing something?
Rachel lives directly across the street from Joel Osteen's church, so once we figured out he was actually scheduled to speak that Sunday, it was a no-brainer that we were going. I would be lying if I said my hands weren't flailing around in the air to the awesome music and shouting some hallelujahs and amens and God is good all the times'. And Joel and his wife Victoria most certainly were in the Lord's house that Sunday... prosperity, positivity, encouragement message and all. I'll keep my impressions about it all off the written word on this one, but Jen said it best when I was telling her about it: "I mean, I'm not saying there's anything WRONG with being a televangelist or anything... but that doesn't make it not WEIRD." Amen, hallelujah.
Great weekend with Rach and getting to know Holly. Rachel knows southern hospitality... so now I just need to get her to personally sail that ship right into the San Francisco Bay.
2 comments:
All off the written record? What the...this is a blog, right? Let it loose, Carrie!
Ok, ok twist my arm...
Wide, not deep. Self-elevating. No major doctrinal issues but extremely minimal biblical reference. I wonder if it's a less given/less required mentality. Pastor Osteen himself wasn't as bat-sh*t crazy as I expected and I even think he is probably as Polyanna in his real life as he is behind the pulpit. Still, it's really bizarre that so many people are seemingly just fine with staying on such a shallow message week... after week... after week.
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