Tailgating fun

I should have written this earlier in the week as I can’t remember what we did yesterday let alone last weekend, however at least I do have my photos to remind me :)

We took John, our neighbour who had been left home alone by the family, to go and see Pink Floyd at the Miller Outdoor Theatre. It wasn’t really The Pink Floyd but a group playing their ‘Dark side of the moon’ album. It was great as it free and you bring a rug with your picnic, that Stuart kindly put together, including drinks, and just sit and listen. It was really busy, well much more so than when I went to watch a Shakespeare play last year! We got our spot on the hill and enjoyed the performance and Karen and Dave joined us on our rug. It was pretty good however since I am not very familiar with Pink Floyd I couldn’t really tell you how similar they were to the real thing. In one song the lady vocalist had to sing a long loud note for about 5 minutes and she was really good – I was impressed! It was all over by about 9:30pm so we then went off to the Gingerman to allow Andy his weekly beers, he was also at the concert but we didn’t find him in the crowds. Stuart was over the moon when Karen produced his bag of goodies from the UK – 2 large jars of marmite! Poor Karen’s parent had been used as drug mulls, but that was not Stuart's only import of marmite over the weekend as he also used Emily P!

I finally managed to extract John and Stuart from the bar near midnight - a late night since I was not running until 7am!!

The morning run was mean to be part of another larger group however when we turned up there was no one there! I have only discovered today that none of us had looked at the date and the run was actually on the Sunday morning not the Saturday. That being said we ran the 6 mile route we were going to be doing. Dorte joined us as well but with Amy away were still only a small group of four :)

After a relatively quick turnaround we were back out to go tailgating! Tailgating is an American tradition, if that is the right word. You basically go to a game (in this case American football) early, park up and drop the ‘tailgate’ of your truck and from there you have a BBQ, fryer or anything you can bring really. Some peoples tailgate parties are bigger and better than others. Since Cecelia and Eric and friends are veteran tailgaters ours was pretty cool. They pick a good location in the car park so we had enough room to put out chairs, the grill and the fryer. Eric’s truck was then used as the table for all the food, and let me tell you by the end there was still a lot of food. Cooking started at about 11:30am and the game was not until at least 2:30pm. Everybody brings something to cook and since it was the first time we have had a fryer to cook with, Stuart decided to treat everyone to batter deep fried haggis balls! So he used one of our tins of haggis from the other week, rolled them into balls and covered them in a batter mix. It was as simple as that. They were then lowered into the fryer and in about 5 minutes were done. Also done on the fryer included a whole chicken, which was really good, mozzarella sticks, corn dogs and about anything you can stick in a fryer and cook. The BBQ/grill was seriously underutilised it had to be said. The funny thing is the owner of the fryer is a Dutchman! After we had our fill and more of food we walked across to the football stadium. It was Rice University versus the University of Houston. The stadium was huge but apparently it was built for an event about 20 years ago and since then it has never been filled to capacity. So much so that inside they actually cover the seats behind the goal posts with a large tarpaulin with the Rice Owls logo as they do not require those seats. It was actually really hot by this point in the day, having started off the morning running in long sleeves; it was now in the 30’s with relatively low humidity. We all sat on the bleachers in the sun and watched the game. Even with someone explaining the rules I could not quite get it. There was lots of starting and stopping and each 15 minute quarter took at least 30-45 minutes. The teams each have about 60 players making up the team so they had heaps of substitutes on the side-lines. In the breaks there were the cheerleaders dancing around and standing on each other’s shoulders.

You can see how much I enjoyed it!

Cecelia said lets go after about an hour and a half and I was out of there like a flash! It was an experience and I wanted to go to a game, however, I have done it and next time I will stay in the car park tailgating!! Rugby and even football (soccer) are better in my books.

Sunday morning was also pretty chilly (or maybe that was because of the sunburn from the previous day tailgating), and once again I had to wear long sleeves to go cycling with the boys. I should say I now class chilly as 18 degC or less!! John and I raced off to leaving Bill and Stuart chatting in the back. A while ago Stuart bought Bill a kid’s bike bell, actually a girls bike bell that is light blue with a pink flower. He loves it and all you hear on our ride now is him ting-a-ling along!

In the afternoon we had a visit from the Patton family that were out visiting friends in Houston for a couple of weeks. It was lovely to see them all. We had a BBQ while they went swimming. I say they went swimming as the pool is far too cold of us Houstonians! I think they all had fun and I know the boys also enjoyed playing darts – although the fence behind the board also got a bit of a battering! Once they found the cowboy hats in the house they wanted to become Texan cowboys!!

Culture in Houston

On Thursday we managed to catch a free showing of ‘Wise Fool New Mexico’ in Discovery Green. It was five women doing a mixture of a show on stilts followed by them using slings to move around their metal frame set up on the grass. Unfortunately my photos don’t really do it justice but it was certainly worth going to even though it only lasted 30 minutes – a bit of culture for a Thursday evening – it certainly beats watch a re-run of Law SUV or NCIS!! Actually to be honest we were home early enough to catch one showing of Law SUV!

My course at work ran all week and so the week seemed to fly by also in the knowledge that my emails were piling up – next week’s fun!

I finally managed to motivate myself in going for a run on Friday evening after work – I am not sure but I don’t seem to make myself go easily anymore, I have got too used to going with others! I thought about just going for a quick three mile jaunt, however, I went a little too far out and it ended up five miles. The problem was, I was heading out for a girls night out and time was short. I rushed home, had a shower, and rushed out again, leaving poor Stuart to fend for himself :) It was a girl’s night out arranged through the HGS (Houston Geological Society). It was a bunch of female geologists, including Laura and me. We were first having a self-defence lesson at a martial arts club near the Galleria, followed by drinks at a wine bar next door – perfect! The martial arts place taught Ti Quan Do and the instructure made us all put on gloves and we practiced shuffling with our feet before getting to box and knee some hell out of a punch bag. That was then followed by the part in self-defence. So the first training was assuming you were astride your assailant a.k.a. the punch mat, and first you strike them three times in their nose with the bottom of your palm (inexperienced boxers would just break fingers and hands if you tried to do a conventional punch), then using your elbow for a final blow to the face. For the finale, ‘break the coconut’ – that is grab the assailant by the ears and bash their head on the floor three times before getting up and running. We then practiced, with our partners, getting an assailant that is on top of you and strangling you, off us and immobilised. You first pull their thumbs away from your throat, wrapping your legs around their waist (so they can’t escape) and twist up and over them. Once you are on top it is back to nose and head bashing! There was also one in here for essentially breaking an arm or at least immobilising your attacker again if you were pinned to the ground (that is what is happening to mee in the photo!). Last but not least, getting away for someone trying to strangle you against a wall – this is simple yet hopefully effective and involves a bit of a twist followed by an elbow in the nose (again!). So now trained and dangerous we went off to the wine bar, Winetopia.

The wine bar is newly opened and looks pretty nice inside. The bar manager (possibly owner) is not the usual looking wine specialist but he did have some knowledge about his wines. Apparently they buy end boxes of wine from all over the world. The idea is you go and choose what you want off the shelves because there is no menu. Obviously he can also recommend wines for you but it was more fun trying to choose what to have. We ended up with a nice Argentinian white (torrontes), and had it accompanied with some humus and cheese - it slipped down perfectly. However, I would say the humus was not as good as it should have been so you have been warned! Before we knew it, it was 11:30pm. My husband was waiting up for me when I arrived home, greeting me with, ‘and what time do you call this?!’ He was still miffed about getting take home at 9:30pm last Friday night!! I just said I didn’t need to get up for running so therefore I could have a late night :)

For the first time in I don’t know how long there was no alarm set, except for the internal clock that woke us at 6am and then at 8am! We had decided to check out the Bayou City Arts Festival in Downtown. After taking some time to find a parking space (because we were being cheap and did not want to pay for it – but in the end we had too) we wandered the streets for about three hours looking at all the stands with paintings, sculptures, jewellery etc. There was some nice art and some of it very expensive. My favourite piece was a wax painting – unusual in itself, with 99 birds sitting on a wire. The thing weighed 50 lbs and cost a mere $4400!!! We had some disappointing ice cream as our lunch (it said it was a creamery and I would have expected better) before heading off to see Laura.

Laura is turning the big three zero on Monday so to celebrate (quietly) we went to try out one of her locals – Bohemeos Café. We had read about it in the Houston Press for its excellent fish tacos. It is hidden behind a strip mall and it quite quirky inside. Outside they have a large patio/grass area. We had beers followed by humus (again! – but much better this time) and tacos. Stuart and I tried both a fish and shrimp ones. Laura opted for a vegetarian taco. They were all very tasty and served with small thin whole grain tortillas rather than the traditional corn ones. I would highly recommend it. Later on there was a band playing, that were ok to listen to from outside, but inside they were way too loud. I must be showing my age :) Unfortunately for Stuart I was running Sunday morning so like clockwork we left at 9:30pm so I could get to bed before the 4:45am alarm clock!

This morning Amy, Cecelia and I headed off for the Space City 10 miler down in Clear Lake, not too far from Nasa. It was the easiest trip down, with no traffic until we reached the race car park. There were 1000 runners at the starting line. It was very pretty running as there was lots of open space – fields and woods – and as the sun rose there was an early morning fog that was shaping the trees. It was also quite good at obscuring the long straights on the route as we all ran in the fog with the police protecting us from the cars. We were all done in less than two hours and after a banana and breakfast taco we were ready to drive back home! As we arrived home we met Bill and Stuart coming back from their cycle. While I had a shower, Stuart got a quick bite to eat before he head off for another cycle but this time with John, who was relieved from babysitting!

We managed to get to the British Isle shop in Rice this afternoon to go and buy a case of haggis and some HP sauce in preparation for a St Andrews day party – invites to follow! I also bought an ugly pumpkin to put at the front door!

Happy 10/10/10 :)

Persimmon Picking

Last weekend went by far too quickly. On Friday we went to the Gingerman to meet up with Rene who was back in town from Calgary, before heading off to the Alabama Ice House. The regular was there as he is every time – comfortably occupying a table! To Stuart’s great pleasure he had tamales for his dinner - $7 for 10 of them. I am not keen on them – they don’t taste of much to me except being a bit stodgy, so I had a chicken taco from the taco truck for $1.50! (Fortunately I didn’t get deli belly!).

Poor Stuart got dragged home at 9:30pm on a Friday night – as he kept telling me! But once again I had to be running at 5:30am so I was keen for some shut eye! Amy and I met up with our fellow runners towards the Galleria and we started our 15 mile mammoth session. It is certainly the furthest I have ever run in my life but I survived and only one slightly bald toe on one foot.

Next Bill and Marah came over to pick Laura, Stuart and me up to go persimmon picking up near Tomball at Matt Family Orchard. The orchard was about 1 hours’ drive away. They grow more than persimmons, but we were all there for them, us and lots of Chinese. We got a couple of shopping baskets, cutters and a pole for reaching the high ones. We walked the rows looking for the ripe persimmons that turned more like a tomato as they ripened. The really ripe ones were either eaten by Bill or the bugs had already got them! Eventually we had enough to keep us well satisfied on persimmons for some time, and they just cost about $20 for the total amount picked. I then had to decide what to do with the fruit – well persimmon liqueur seemed like the way to go. It will be ready in time for New Year and I will let you know how it tastes! Maybe it will be a new feature on the shelves at Demijohn?!

I should say the weather has suddenly cooled down and it is now beautiful clear blue skies and about 20-25 degC during the day. I am feeling it being a little cool but it is just relative from the change - 20 degC drop in temperature in just a weekend.

Laura then took Stuart and me off to the Little Bitty Burger barn – her favourite burger place! It was quite good and what was even nicer was sitting outside at lunchtime and not sweating! I don’t think we needed so much for lunch as we went off to some other friends for dinner and got extremely well fed.

I let Stuart go off biking with the boys on Sunday so I could have a little extra sleep. But I couldn’t lie in too long because I agreed to cook kedgeree (and make mackerel pate) using the mackerel Stuart smoked the day before. The kedgeree, and the pate, was a hit with all our American guests!

This weekend featured eating a lot, as you can probably tell, and to top it off it was wine dinner this month (Monday night) so I was dreading weight watchers weigh in! Since I have paid for it there is no way to avoid going – so I stood tentatively on the scales to find out I managed another 2 lbs! That makes 10 lbs down and my clothes are already fitting better, but I still want to keep going until they all fit better!

Downtown chick

This week is mostly featuring Downtown. It seems strange because I ended up downtown Houston three times this week so I now know my way in and a little around, well as long as I don’t try anything new! On Monday I agreed to judge posters as the AAPG student Expo that was held at a huge convention centre downtown. Some of the posters and students presenting them were very good. I got a free dinner out of it and handed in my judging forms - I don’t know which student won in the end I will have to find out!

On Thursday night we went to Discovery Green to sit on the lawn and watch a Texan band called the Texas Tornados from San Antonio. It was really pleasant weather - autumn must be coming! And we set up our chairs with Cecelia, Eric and Laura. The beer queue was enormous so poor Stuart was sent off to stand in it. The band was ok and for a free night out it was certainly worth the effort, but next time we will be more organised and take a picnic for our tea!

Another feature of the week was the Harvest Moon. Having read great things about what we were going to see we planned to head to the George Bush reservoir for open space and a good view of both the sun setting and the moon rising. "Sept. 22, 2010: For the first time in almost 20 years, northern autumn is beginning on the night of a full Moon. The coincidence sets the stage for a "Super Harvest Moon" and a must-see sky show to mark the change of seasons. The action begins at sunset on Sept 22nd, the last day of northern summer. As the sun sinks in the west, bringing the season to a close, the full Harvest Moon will rise in the east, heralding the start of fall. The two sources of light will mix together to create a kind of 360-degree, summer-autumn twilight glow that is only seen on rare occasions." Well it wasn’t as clear as one would have liked but the Harvest Moon is when the sun and the moon come up and down at the same time and so the moon gets really bright and because it comes very close to the earth should also appear very big. The clouds were just in the wrong place for us so we saw a nice enough sunset with the sun highlighting the storm clouds in the sky, but only saw the moon when it rose above the band of clouds. It didn’t seem any bigger to us and pretty unimpressive as you see by my little white dot on the photo! So I don’t know what all the fuss was about but apparently that was the thing for once every 20 years!! The next day going to work however, had a spectacular sunrise over downtown. Apologies for the quality of the picture that was through the office window, but I hope you can see how nice it was! (Better than our Harvest moon experience!).

On Saturday I was up early for our usual run and then I was meeting Laura downtown (see there again) for yoga on the lawn at Discovery Green. Yes we were outside between the skyscrapers with everyone watching us. It was fun for the experience but I didn’t think the yoga was anything to rave about. I like my classes at the gym better. Laura had a lady in front of her that was wearing way too short shorts and it was most unpleasant during downward facing dog!

I found a new way Mum and Dad should decorate the golf buggy - just look at this one that was busy moving stuff around!

I have finally got rid of the fluff monster, aka my cheap Ikea white shag pile rug. I was fed up of chasing the white dust bunnies around the house with our terrible vacuum cleaner. In its place Stuart and I went and found a cow! It even has its branding number - how cool. It is very soft and currently smells a bit animal like but it says that should go away in a couple of days! I hope the cockroaches don’t get attracted to it!

The final excitement for the week, well more for Stuart, we went to see Rush playing live in the Woodland Pavilion. The place was packed with all the seats and grass area covered in people, apparently it holds up to 17,000. Since Stuart was on the fan emailing list he bought tickets early on and got seats towards the front. We were off to the side a bit but they weren’t too bad. They had some issues with sound when it started off but they eventually got that sorted - however that did not deter the many fans from shouting and jumping around. We got home at midnight with our ears buzzing! My third Rush concert down :)