It's a long story

First, L'Shana Tovah Tikateyvu, Happy New Year 5767.

I was invited to Houston to spend Rosh Hashanah with my parents freinds, Norman & Sheila. My parents met N&S when mom was pregnant with me, and S was pregnant with Andrew. (I'm 2 months older.) :) After spending the weekend with them, I can really understand why my dad and Norman are such good buddies, and why the four of them have such fun together. They're so alike:
  1. Dad and N. are the "goofy" ones, and Mom and S. are the "straight (wo)man" to all the jokes.
  2. Both of these men know exactly which buttons to push to set their wives off, and they do it with impugnity, because they think it's funny. (and the wives always rise to the challenge...)
  3. The "which street should I take to get there" discussion in the car is IDENTICAL - with N&S, my parents, even Kelly & Jeff. Everybody does it.
  4. I also recognize that the goofiness (see #1) is more pronounced when I'm around, because they have an audience who will giggle at their jokes. I can't help it! I'm sure I'll think it's funny until someone does it to me, and then I'll get just as annoyed. ;)
Getting ahead of myself. I flew to Houston on Friday. In retrospect, I could have driven and saved some money... it's only about 3 hours from here to there. On the airplane, the actual flight time is 31 minutes. I got to Houston around 2 on Friday, and wanted to see something of downtown, since I had never been there. What I found was a big city with almost no people on the streets, exactly as Dallas had been when M. and I went through there in July. The difference is, Houston has an "undergound" mall-type thing, so that's probably where the people were. [It is much hotter in Houston - or rather, much more humid!]

Neither the Frommer's map in my book nor the map from Thrifty were any good for downtown, so I drove around looking for the major streets and landmarks. (Thrifty again upgraded me from the economy car I reserved to a "surprise" - a Dodge Charger. For a minute I thought it was a Mustang, but it's the ugly stepchild version.) I stopped and had a quick lunch, then I decided it was about time to find N&S's house. Fortunately, they live just north of the Galleria mall, which is on all of the maps! So that part was easy.

As S. had told me, we were going to the "late show" service, 9pm. This is so against their usual timing (dinner reservations with N&S are usually around 8:30!) that I was surprised. But we had dinner at Cafe Annie (which I had read about, and was wonderful) at 6:30pm. We were practically the only diners in the restaurant at that hour. The maitre'd and the wait staff all fell over themselves being nice to N&S -- I learned that that happens to them a lot. ;) The food was excellent. I was already ready for a nap before services, which was a bad sign.

Unlike Temple Sinai, Beth Israel's early service gets about 2/3 of the congregants... the late service was very sparsely attended. We sat in the fourth or fifth row, and there were three nearly empty rows in front of us. The cantor was good, though very nasal (maybe the bowtie was cutting off his diaphragm?). The choir was hiding behind a screen behind the bimah -- when they first started singing I seriously thought it was a recording! They had five Board members sitting on the bimah, but none of them did anything -- except the President, who welcomed us when the service started. (At Sinai, they each would have read part of the service.) They also did a lot less Hebrew than I'm used to. And they have not remotely tried to "de-sex" the references to G-d the Lord, King, Ruler, etc. The senior rabbi (probably not much older than me) was ok, but the assistant rabbi sounded like she was bored with the whole thing and just wanted to get it over with. The other thing I noticed was that the chairs on the bimah looked far too comfortable - big plushy gold-colored arm chairs. The sermon didn't come until the end of the service, and it was so un-memorable that I couldn't tell you what he said. I think it was about "beginning again."

S. made scones for us for breakfast on Saturday morning. They were delicious! (Much better than my homemade samosas... too bad they aren't Indian or I'd make them for Saturday) ;)

Saturday's service was a little more crowded. We sat in the first row of the nice padded folding chairs, which was very comfortable but also very distracting: I spent much of my time assessing the style choices of the congregants as they came and went. We were definitely in Texas. Lots of men in suits with cowboy boots. Perfectly made up tall blond women who have clearly had some "work done." And a look I am calling "Mischa Barton goes to Temple" -- they apparently breed tall skinny girls in Houston, and then their mothers let them out of the house in high heeled shoes and short skirts. (Meow!) S. and I had a discussion about it afterwards - there's NO WAY my mother would have let me out of the house looking like that.

For our new year's afternoon, S. and I went shopping. :) We went to the Talbot's outlet, the Chico's outlet, and the Galleria. The Galleria is a Simon Mall, so it's not that different from the ones here, but it is nice. You could walk miles and still be indoors. I didn't buy anything, but S. got some gorgeous stuff at the Chico's outlet - for a steal! Linen Pants for $7!

Saturday night's dinner was at Mockingbird Bistro. The chef came out to greet us (everybody loves N&S!). The food was fantastic. We had excellent calamari and then I had seared ahi tuna, and lovely truffle french fries and a taste of three different sorbets. Yummmm! We also got to watch the light show created by the coming thunderstorm -- it didn't start raining, of course, until we were standing up from our table, and then there was a downpour! The only downer on the night was not being able to watch USC beat Arizona. (we are in the wrong part of the country for that, so my DVR has an excellent recording of the Michigan-Notre Dame game. ugh.) Mom was nice enough to send me score updates on my phone. :)

Phew! I'm exhausted! After a weekend of eating that well, I really need to hit the gym this week!

Comments

Just Me said…
So why do N&S get fawned over at every restaurant? MB look-a-likes really don't need to crop up anywhere in the real world, much less anywhere outside of Cali.
Anonymous said…
All that shopping and I wasn't contacted??

Popular posts from this blog

I see London, I see France...

Ciao, Italia!

Sixteen Days in the UK - Part 4