>So I have just completed week one of being back in my hometown of Marshall, Texas. I will begin by saying that it is quite a phenomenon to be approached by people who have known you since you were in diapers and to have them talk to you as if you have kept in touch for all these years. Quite a phenomenon. The first day that I passed through, on my way with my friend Rita, to Central Texas for some visiting with friends, family and some fun music stuff, I had to go by the service station to get an inspection sticker on my car. This fellow stopped in, and I thought I recognized him, so I asked his name. He said, “Chris”, and I introduced myself — we went to high school together. Then he just looked at us and said, “Y’all broke down?” It was so funny. As if he presumed the only reason I could possibly be in Marshall, Texas, was if my vehicle had betrayed me and rendered itself useless. We set out for Waco, Texas later that day, and at one fuel stop, we engaged in conversation with a man with multiple scars on his bald head in the convenience store. He was telling a story about one of his wives that he had been with near Nashville, Tennessee. But he had left her. Because “she needed to be left”. Okay. Then, in Athens, Texas, we saw a fun little shop on the side of the road called “Still Life Taxidermy”. That one made the trip notes page.The first few days that I was here, I just worked on unpacking boxes and trying to settle myself into the room that my mother has set aside for me. Learning to be comfortable on a twin sized day bed after having slept for five years on a queen size bed (generally alone) is quite an adjustment. But not the biggest one. Last Tuesday, I attended the Marshall Independent School District’s Substitute Teacher Orientation Meeting. Let’s just leave it at the fact that I was far more disoriented when I walked out of that room than before I arrived. When the woman conducting the seminar actually said regarding paycheck accuracy, “if you find that the information you have on your days of employ does not ‘jive’, as it were, with the information that the school district has, please call”, i nearly died. She actually instructed a room full of adults on several occasions to underline a certain word in a sentence (e.g. “commitment” or “responsibility”). Then she imparted the knowledge that page two would follow page one in the handbook. (Yep.) I left that meeting and immersed myself immediately in my “moving to Spain” research project. What did the rest of the week hold for me? More unpacking, some visiting with family. My sister was coming home on Thursday evening for her 10 year high school reunion, and my niece and nephew were also coming in on the weekend for a few days. Saturday, I attended my nephew’s two-year-old birthday party at the McDonald’s in Henderson, Texas. There were quite a few people there, adults and children, and as usual, in those situations, I hung very near my immediate family. I am not that close with my step-brother’s wife, so I did not know many of her friends who were there, with their children. My sister did, however, overhear one of the parents, a pregnant mother of one, say, “Football means nothing to me. NASCAR is our lives.” (Yep.) Later, at the end of the party, that woman’s child, Cassie, 3 years old, wanted to take some of the helium balloons home with her. So her mom told her she could have one, and Cassie wanted them all. They compromised, and Cassie was allowed to choose one of each color. So she told her mother that she wanted a Bobby and a Tony. (Huh?) Karyn and I immediately began to pay closer attention. A Bobby and a Tony? The mother proudly informed us that that meant green and yellow. Why? Because NASCAR driver Bobby Labonte drives a green car, and NASCAR driver Tony Stewart drives a yellow car. My father and I got up and walked outside for air. Can you believe that? Isn’t Cassie’s kindergarten teacher going to have fun fighting with her over the seemingly incorrect 24 box of Crayons?Later that evening, I attended a birthday party for my step-brother, given for him by his girlfriend. She was throwing the party for him, her father and another family friend. A surprise at the local Italian restaurant, Gucci’s. She is pregnant with my step-brother’s baby (or so she says), but she is married to Gucci’s nephew, who lives in Houston (so he could obtain U.S. citizenship). Now, you have to understand that the girlfriend has had some drinking and drug problems in her time, and they appear not to have subsided, even with her second pregnancy. She was so loaded that she could barely keep her eyelids open during the fiesta. Then this older fellow comes and sits down by me and my step-sister (a high school Spanish teacher). And he starts blatantly flirting and hitting on us. He is so drunk that he can barely speak properly. He introduces himself to us as “Rick” and is asking us our names and how old we are. I ask him what his relation is to the party guests, and he says, “I’m Methodist”. I said, “relation, not religion”. Then he begins to tell us the following joke, “You know what the difference between Methodists and Baptists is?” No. “Methodist ministers will speak to members of their congregation in the liquor store, and Baptists ministers won’t”. Delightful. At which point my father thought it would be funny to introduce my brother-in-law, “Rick, I’d like to introduce you to my son-in-law, he is the pastor over at M******* Baptist Church here in town”. It was hilarious. Rick goes away briefly, and my sister and I take the opportunity to discuss all the bizarre people at the party, but in Spanish, so no one else could understand us. Never have I been so thankful for a gift in all my life as at that moment. By the way, Rick is my brother’s girlfriend’s dad, who is currently married to her mother. He came back for more, and thanks be to God that our pizza arrived for take out at a very crucial moment. Back at the house, I was having arts and crafts fun with the kids, and I decided to see if I could remember how to make paper dolls. So I began my trial and error process, and the first set I created had four legs. My sister picked up one of them and handed it to her mom, introducing it as her next grandchild (due to the scary drugs the step-brother’s girlfriend was doing while with child). Sick, yes, but I choked back a laugh. Today, the big adventure was going to the Social Security Administration Office to get a new Social Security card. Mine was in the batch of things stolen in Barcelona earlier this year, I think, for I cannot find it anywhere. There was this fellow in there going on and on about how he really needed to get this business taken care of because the cafeteria at the Marshall Memorial Hospital (it hasn’t been called that in at least ten years) was opening at 11:30 am, and he really needed to be there. If he said it once, he said it a hundred times. And he kept making sure that everyone in the room had taken a number. And that they were in order. And what should he do with the ones that earlier patrons had let fall on the floor? Yikes. Tomorrow (Tues. 23 October), I have my first substitute teaching assignment. Fourth through sixth grade social studies. Eeeeeeeek. Everyone knows what a delight I think children under the age of sixteen are, right? Include me in your nightly prayers, please. Make that hourly. I’m sitting in a terribly uncomfortable chair, so I will go now. Please keep in touch. And if you have any questions about any of the aforementioned information, please do not hesitate to write.