Sigh, Colorado.

After a recent post, a reader asked me to ask "what makes you travel?". (ha! a reader! Like I am a celebrated author). What is it for you? Family, friends, adventure, to see new things, to have an experience, to eat different food?  I think for me it can be all of those things but also that a state like Colorado exists. I am not sure what the nickname for Colorado is and while I could look it up, I like to think it is Colorado: The-wait-ten-minutes-and-it-gets-even-prettier-state. I am not being hyperbolic when I say that the scenery constantly changes and gets more breath-taking around every corner.

When you land in Denver, the airport and its mass of humanity are not beautiful, but when you step outside, there are mountains in the distance!  Beautiful!  As you drive and mountains get closer and you can see the different levels in them and snow on the top that helps you think maybe the earth isn't just a hot pit of hell in a Texas summer, and you can't help but sigh.  It is non-stop beauty from left to right and top to bottom. White-barked Aspens along the road with dancing leaves. Pines and cottonwoods (ah-choo) soaring upwards.  Grasses swaying.  Wildflowers abounding.  Sigh. This is just around the Denver area too.

Seriously. This is just the view from the trail by my cousin's house

On this trip with my cousin Jim and his wife Amy, we took their RV and drove to Ouray.  It was a five hour drive and seriously, every ten minutes, it only got better. Oh, there are mountains ahead.  Oh, we are in the foothills of the mountains. Oh, we are over that mountain and there are more.  Oh, there is an idyllic river bubbling and racing along the roadside.  It was so green and vibrant and alive! Pulling into Ouray is like stepping into one of those postcard-pictures of a small town surrounded by mountains.  Ouray is in a box canyon (this is a name I learned, not a soup bowl like I was calling it) with trees and cliffs and mountains all around.  The town itself is small and nestled among the mountains and it just quaint and you can walk all around town to get to wherever you want to go. I imagine the first people to settle there took one look at the mountains ahead of them, ran out of brave, and said "This will do."  And boy does it! I loved Ouray!  I loved our RV park with the bubbling, busy river behind it.  I loved the short walk into town and the variety of restaurants and shops in town.  You can see two different sets of waterfalls from town. I would say that the only thing I did not love about Ouray was our very rude waitress, Heidi, who informed my cousin and I after three beers that we couldn't just sit there and drink all day. Heidi was very wrong as our stop to three other bars proved and really when I think Heidi, I think Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman and "Big mistake.  Huge."

Ouray Perimeter Trail

We hiked the Ouray Perimeter Trail and we all said it was one of the best trails we have ever hiked.  My Fitbit claimed 9.5 miles, my cousin's 6; I choose to believe mine was correct.  And I know it has to be closer to 9 because Amy likes to go past every sign that says "Keep Out" or "Closed" so there was some serious meandering happening.  Like the drive to Ouray, the trail changed every ten minutes or so.  Switchbacks, up and down and technical, here we are at a waterfall, the edge of this cliff, an open meadow, a bridge, I can see forever, I can see only these trees ahead of me.  It was technical and a challenge and amazing. I stood very close to a waterfall but not behind because it was cold and slippery and pretended to have my Last of the Mohicans moment.  I crossed a suspension bridge that led into a cave before it popped out on the other side of the trail.  I was not excited about that cave but it wasn't bad.  I felt exhilarated and exhausted. I love that feeling.  If you get a chance to hike this trail, hike this trail!

Just one of a million amazing views.

Picture me almost, but not really close, to the waterfall.

I would have to say that the only other thing about Ouray that was not amazing was the hot springs and that was more on me than the actual hot springs.  When I looked on the internet and the pictures of the hot springs showed me what looked like a community pool, my brain refused to believe and thought "Oh, that is the community pool and the hot springs must be behind that building with the sign that says "Lettuce".  Let it be know that those were indeed the hot springs and the sign said "Entrance" and I should always wear my glasses.  I guess I pictured that hot springs would just bubble up in a quiet pool away from people and it would be me in my own pool and other amazingly good-looking people in their own pools.  It was more like me and all the people you pass by in the airport enjoying the warmth of the hot springs as one.  The water still felt amazing and I really appreciated that they had two pools where no kids were allowed.  

After Ouray, we went on to Telluride.  There we hiked the Bridal Falls Trail which was crowded and my knees were sore.  There is just no good way for a flatlander to condition their knees or lungs for real hiking.  My cousin, jerk that he is, commented to two people who had stepped aside for me that "Wasn't it nice to see senior women on the trail?"  Be it known this man is nine years older than me and I cursed him out appropriately just as four of the blondest, most angelic, cherubic children popped out of nowhere and heard all of the bad words I called him.  I hope they prayed for me at dinner that night.  This trail was also gorgeous and the weather at the top of the trail by the falls was like winter! Telluride itself was crowded but we ate an excellent cheesesteak from a food truck and took the gondola up and over the mountains.  That was a great view!  We watched people preparing for some race up the mountain and all I could wonder if why they hated themselves?

not bad at all.

Next we drove a highway that is either called Last Dance Highway, Million Dollar Highway, Million Dollar Baby, something like that. (I don't pay very good attention when I am not driving) Winding, winding, winding until you come out on the top and wonder if you are indeed at the top of the world. It sure felt like it!  There wasn't room to stay for the night so we just pulled over and had a snack of leftover ribeye and feta; roughing it, I believe this is called.  Every person stopped to say hello and ask where we were from and talk about how frigging gorgeous it was up here.  They were not wrong.

Even in pictures it's breathtaking.

After Telluride, we went to Silverton and then Palisades.  I like the little town of Silverton because it was small and not crowded and really got my fear of bears.

IYKYK

In Palisades, we stopped at a winery and enjoyed a different view. It is a high desert but has enough water to be famous for its grapes and peaches.  It felt much dryer and browner and the terrain seemed more full of mesas than mountains but it was still beautiful.  After, um, three glasses of very nice wine, I ate the best peach of my life.  Was it the best peach of my life or was it the best peach after three glasses of wine?  I can't say, but the cherries were good too.  You'll just have to go and try some yourself to be sure.

This trip was amazing because of the the things I was able to see and experience.  It was amazing because it was time spent with family I love even when they are incredibly rude to me on a mountainside or make me go into places that say "Danger".  The weather was perfect and neither too hot nor too cold.  Also, I think I am not exaggerating when I say that every single person in Colorado owns the happiest and healthiest dog I have ever seen.  These silky-haired dogs were everywhere we went and smiling and living their very best dog life.  I imagine that if you move to Colorado, you are stopped at the state line to go in and pick out your own gorgeous dog.  (even shelter dogs are gorgeous in Colorado).  

So, if you are wondering why it is that you travel, go see Colorado. You won't wonder another minute; you will just know.

Go West, Middle-Aged Woman, Go West

 I believe it was Horace Greeley in the mid 1800's who first stated "Go west, young man" while listing the opportunities for an adventurous young man.  Toby Keith then added to that "Haven't you been told?" in the early 1990's before excusing Marshall Dillon's commitment issues, and really, poor Miss Kitty.  But it was in 2023 that Rebecca McMahon heard and followed the words "Go west, middle-aged woman, go west."  And really, who would you rather read more about?  (also please know that it makes me almost physically sick to use middled-aged while describing myself, but numbers don't lie).

While this adventure truly began in Colorado, I feel like I have to start the story with Wyoming and South Dakota and flash back to Colorado in the next piece.  WY and SD was where I solo adventured: drove 912 miles in two days, saw three national monuments, the entirety of Deadwood, SD and didn't cry once! Well, I did curse a roundabout towards the end of my trip in a high-pitched tone but I was hungry and tired and that roundabout was stupid.

First up, Wyoming.  My prior knowledge of Wyoming came from watching Longmire, and really, I was not disappointed.  Wyoming is vast and green and endless.  I learned very quickly that if you think you need to pee, you stop at that gas station because there is nothing, absolutely nothing, for the next 70 miles.  It was me and my cousin's very nice car and two-lane highways and a speed limit of 80.  And people in Wyoming are considerate drivers and move into the slow lane and let you pass!  Oh, and windy!  Everywhere I stopped, the wind was whipping, just whipping around.

Long, lonesome highway.

Cheyenne was my first stop and I stopped solely for The Cowgirls Museum of the West.  Cheyenne was lovely! Every single person that I passed looked me in the eye and said good morning.  They also had downtown, street parking for free. I am still not over that.  The old man at the museum was so excited when I walked in.  He told me all about WY, its equality, and how the museum came to be.  It was nice to be in a museum all about women.  It was small and well cared for and definitely someone's labor of love.  The three old people sitting around asked where I was from, what I was doing.  They loved that I taught a Women's class and when I listed what I was off to do, the woman commented, "Well, aren't you an adventurer!" and in that moment, I remembered that like all of these women on the walls here, yes, I was an adventurer!

When in Cheyenne, stop here!

This served me well the next four hours of  driving to Devil's Tower.  There was a great deal of time that I was the only person on the road and I wavered between singing "Wide Open Spaces" and feeling for sure I would die and no one would know for days.  It's a real treat inside my brain, let me tell you. Case in point: there were a lot of gently rounded hills that came in twos and I laughed and then was a little sad no one was there to call them boob hills with me.  

Devil's Tower, Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial.  All three come popping out of the hills when you least expect it and sort of just take your breath away.  Devil's Tower had a more remote feel to it, but a hike around quickly showed me that I was nowhere near alone.  These monuments were crowded and I quickly hated the rest of America there with me.  One, I have been to beautiful, pristine places and I guess that I don't like to share.  Two, these people sucked.  They were climbing rocks that said "No Climbing" to get their best Insta photo.  They were scraping parts of rock off to take with them.  They were not yelling at their children acting like lunatics and scraping off pieces of rock.  I am so glad I went to these places, but if I was to do it again, I would go at 6 in the morning and revel in what I was seeing alone.

Crazy Horse. The most poignant.

Dead white men.

Devil's Tower

After Devil's Tower, I made my way to Deadwood, SD.  I had a hotel booked based on beautiful internet photos and I was tired.  Oh, did those photos lie!  When I pulled in to what Google Maps assured me was my location, I saw a motel.  Doors to the outside motel with more than 30 motorcycles parked.  I was wrong; it wasn't the isolated road I was to die on, it was here.  I was even more surprised when I went to check in and saw not only was this a motel, but a casino!  With slots.  Only slots.  My room was on the second floor and didn't open to the outside and that was fine with me.  I laughed and laughed when I opened the doorway to the second floor and found this carpet and the smell of 1983 in the air. You know, cigarettes, Tab, Smurfs on TV, a newly microwaved meal, and despair.

No words.

I walked to the adjoining restaurant and noticed that the biker gang was comprised of people older than me and all speaking German.  I ate at the bar alone with a giant beer and french fries and a fried chicken something and felt much better.  Sometimes you just need fried food and a giant beer to wash the road away.

The next morning I got up early and did Deadwood top to bottom. Like 80 flights of stairs, per my Fitbit, top to bottom.  I loved Deadwood! I loved that it was 55 degrees when I woke up. I loved that the nice man at the visitor booth at the Mt. Moriah Cemetery asked me if I was a student.  Bless him; he must have left his glasses at home.  I hiked that whole cemetery and saw the graves of all the famous dead people of Deadwood.  Hike? Check.  History? Check?  Kind words? Check!  Deadwood was speaking 3 of my 4 love languages and I loved it!  All that was missing was someone handing me chocolate along the trail. I would definitely go to Deadwood again.

top of Deadwood

If you get a chance to just drive anywhere in this country, drive the Black Hills.  They are too gorgeous to even describe.  I know why the Native Americans fought so hard to keep them.  At one turn, I came across a lake that was so beautiful amongst the surrounding hills that I decided then and there that a bear could eat me there and it would be okay.  This drive took me to Mt. Rushmore and then Crazy Horse.  I liked Rushmore more than I thought. It pops out at you from the hills and even if you are tired of the history of dead, white men, it's still kind of amazing. Crazy Horse was poignant with so very much work still ahead of them.  The museum was great and I enjoyed it a learned a lot of things.

Hmm. All that driving and not one woman carved into those hills.  Just saying.

My plan after Crazy Horse was to go to Custer State Park and hike.  I sat down outside and looked up at that memorial and suddenly realized that I was kind of tired.  And I thought about hiking on my own and well, I just ran out of brave.  I couldn't picture fending off a bear or creepy serial killer and knew it was probably just time to head back.  I still had an almost five hour drive along lonesome highways back to Denver vacillating between the exhilaration of being all alone on a highway and the moments of terror about being all alone on a highway.  

If I was to do it again, I would plan out one more night in SD. Hike Custer State Parkway full of energy and bravery and bear spray.  I don't regret not pushing on with that. I had an amazing adventure, saw things I have never seen before, experienced two new states, and met some nice people and some really annoying people along the way.  And as that nice woman told me, I am an adventurer!  And sometimes, adventurers get tired and play it safe so they can have more adventures next summer!

To Teach or Not to Teach

 This was not my best year teaching.  My heart was not in the job a lot of the year.  I was present and accounted for and did all the things I am supposed to do all while not enjoying much of it.  When I admitted and apologized to most of my classes towards the end of the year that I wasn't at my best,  I was surprised that they didn't readily agree with me. I said I was a B, B- teacher at best and one Senior responded that he would hate to see me on my A game.  

In January, I actually applied for another job outside of education because I felt like I just couldn't do this anymore. Coaching plus teaching is exhausting and I constantly felt as though I was running in butter and getting nowhere.   And the hours!  Soccer games mean the day starts at 8:30am and ends somewhere about 10pm.  Y'all. I am old and this is hard on the body.  I also spent much of September to January in this weird malaise where I just didn't feel like me.  Symptom of COVID or menopause or this career or all of these things?  Add to it both kids living away from home for the first time and moving.  It was a lot and it showed up where I work because I am human.

This meant that I really phoned in some lessons.  It meant that I couldn't keep my disdain for Steinbeck from leaking through as we read Steinbeck and made me avow to never read Steinbeck as a class again.  I didn't write comments on a lot of work that was turned in. Just checked and graded and entered and compiled.  I didn't always reach out to the kids I could see who were hurting because I had no emotional bandwidth to give them.  (I am not sure if I am allowed to admit this?). It meant that my coaching was sloppy.  It meant that I was half-heartedly going through all the motions and thinking it would be better and I would be better somewhere else.  And the pay would certainly be better.

I am not sure if it happened all at once like the Grinch and his growing heart or was more like a slow thaw, but somewhere in late February, I started to no longer hate my job.  I was still tired and annoyed with many things, but I didn't hate being here.  Even for ten hours a day.  There was joy and I was seeing it.  It was winning a hard soccer game and doing a stupid TikTok dance because I promised I would if we won.  It was watching the quiet kid laugh at something I said and then write with all of his heart.  It was listening to two baseball boys call each other terrible things while arguing over how to analyze poetry.  (This actually might be one of my favorite teaching moments ever.)  It was writing all of my seniors a note on their last day and watching them become quiet and thoughtful as they read them.  There is happiness most days and I was finally seeing it.  And even better, I could feel it.

I think teaching is a career where I will periodically wonder if I should teach or not teach.  If I am doing the right thing for me, for my future, or hahahaha, retirement.  There are a few things I know for sure though: anything with an acronym will serve to make my life a mess for one year and then be replaced with another acronym, I will always be exhausted, I could get a 20% pay raise and still be underpaid, and that I am total sucker for nice words written on the back of an exam or assignment.  And maybe I am a total sucker in general for not jumping out of education and into something more lucrative or less taxing on the soul. But then I would miss that quiet kid in the corner, or the way that the air is electric in a huddle before a game, or the next section of Women, Words, and Wisdom, and well, I am just not ready to give that up.

And, I do get to see some amazing sunsets.

Shhh. Don't Anyone Talk About This

 This morning, prior to 8am, I found a grey eyebrow hair, a pimple, sweated through my shirt, and told my person I am thinking of not coloring my hair anymore.  But I might still color my hair because what if I end up looking like the Cryptkeeper and made him promise me he would tell me if I did start resembling the Cryptkeeper.  

Self-portrait

This is, unfortunately, a rather normal morning for me lately.  I am, sigh, at this stage in my life no one talks about because we have been conditioned to think that it is an unattractive place and we should deny, deny, deny.  Perimenopause or menopause?  Ten dusty eggs left rattling around in there or none?  No one knows.  And no one talks about it. Maybe in hushed whispers, but no one is talking loudly about it.

Once upon a time and a million years ago or until the 1960's, women were only valued for their child-bearing potential.  Once that shipped passed, so did they.  Relegated to the outside, seen as unattractive and a burden, they were ignored or labeled with amazing monikers like "hag", "crone", "witch".  We were conditioned to accept that we are important, productive, and valued members of society (well, sort-of) until we could not longer have a baby.  So of course no one stood up and said "It's me!  I am waking up with night sweats and haven't had a period in two months!"  They just quietly withered away in a corner and took pleasure from those aging faster than they did.

I am all for feeling better about myself at someone else's expense, sure. But I think we start talking about this weird, weird time in our lives. I feel like a teenager in reverse.  My body is changing, my skin is a mess, and my hair doesn't work anymore.  I am intensely happy and furious and sad.  I am sweaty half the day and night. But producing some sort of dry eggs (I truly imagine them going "pooooof" in a cloud of dust as they release) and still getting wicked PMS and a sort-of period.  Yeah me!  What is happening with other people my age?  I am unsure because NO ONE TALKS ABOUT IT.  And if they do talk about it, we think silently "hag", "crone", "witch" and move away because it could be catching.

I continually feel a juxtaposition of all things. I feel older than the earth, but a good belly laugh makes me feel young again.  I feel unattractive and hideous some days (turn away! turn away!) but am more comfortable in my body than maybe ever.  And that includes its many imperfections. I feel anxious and worried and insecure but I also don't care a lot about what people think.  I am going to stay at this job forever, I am going to find a new one tomorrow.  I have been sensitive about my face in pictures since the Bell's and that is raging at a whole new level.  But then today, I took a decent picture and did not think cryptkeeper. I thought, "okay".

Maybe what we need to all think is "okay".  It's okay that my body is doing weird things.  It's okay that I get pimples and grey hair.  It's okay that I am getting older because my age and my child-bearing abilities do not determine my place in the world. It's okay that I feel like crying and have no idea why.  It's okay that I feel so angry that I could punch a stranger in the face and smile.  And you know? I teach high school so I know that I am called worse things than hag or crone.  So, it's okay.  

We don't need to go around and say "Menopause?" and high-five anyone who nods.  I mean, you can if you want, sure.  I think we need to just find a way to talk about it and be comfortable if other people want to talk about it.  Where is Judy Blume and why hasn't she written about this??  Where is the sequel to Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret where Margaret is 50 plus and she and her girlfriends are welcoming in menopause with wine and rituals like they did their period.  I picture them circled up and saying things like "My ovaries do not determine my worth" while doing pelvic floor exercises.

So, I guess until Judy Blume writes this book and lets the world know it is okay for women to age, we just need to be okay with talking about it.  And that it is happening.  And talking to other people about what is happening.  Because, just like getting periods, it is weird and it is scary, and sometimes, nothing feels okay.  And it feels even worse when no one is talking about it.  

The "L" Word

If there is no crying in baseball, as Tom Hanks' Jimmy Duggan explained so succinctly in A League of Their Own, why do high school sports teams still call their girls' sports teams Lady this or Lady that?  The high school I teach at, our mascot is the Trojan.  Many of our female athletes are referred to as Lady Trojans and this makes me crazy and incensed for many reasons. I am glad to say that our soccer team dropped the "lady"part years ago.

First, when one thinks "lady" one thinks of drawing rooms, vapors, and tea.  One does not think of sports fields and turf burn and competition.  The word lady evokes thoughts of ghostly moors and fainting couches.  For me, personally, I think of the story in Free to Be You and Me, where the girl always cries "Ladies first" and gets eaten by the tiger and even as a child, I thought "good riddance".  Lady denotes delicate, dainty, and demure.  None of this applies to an athlete.

Second, we do not refer to the boys' sports teams as Gentlemen anything, so what kind of micro-messaging are we sending to young girls?  That they are less then?  That less is expected from them?  Or are we simply continuing to instill Victorian ideals of purity and chastity onto young girls and letting boys be boys?  

I spend a great deal of time at Cross Country meets and on a soccer field and always look to see what the female athletes are called. I mentally applaud the ones where I do not see a lady and wonder why it still prevails when I see so many with it.  Let's talk about the lady teams I have seen and how the name makes no sense.  First up, Lady Tigers.  Would that not make them a Tigress and does not Tigress sound so much fiercer??  Lady Vipers.  A snake is a snake, friends. And my favorite of all, Lady Hippos.  Lady Hippos.  What teenage girl wants to be known as a Lady Hippo?  Unless they mean Gloria from Madagascar who is confident and sexy in all of her hippo-ness, but you know that they do not mean Gloria.  They mean lady hippo.

I thought that maybe this lady thing was just here in Texas being that we were part of the South, sort of, and our own weird country, for awhile, but it is true even in my hometown of Lancaster, NY.  Lancaster High School recently got rid of a horrible, offensive, and racist mascot and became the Legends. And the female athletes?  Lady Legends.  Two steps forward, one step back.

I caused a real ruckus at a faculty meeting a few years ago asking why we used the lady moniker.  And by real ruckus, I mean I stirred shit up.  A few colleagues were so incensed they went years without acknowledging that I existed.  Others jumped up and in and said "PREACH".  And this was before I coached.  This was before I stood on turf, and blacktop, and grassy fields and watched girls run and play at a sport they excel at and love.  This was before I saw all the turf burn and concussions and ACL tears and shin splints.  Before I saw them tape their ankles before each game.  Before I watched them jam cotton up a bleeding nose so they could go back in to play.  Nothing about that says lady but it says absolutely everything about being an athlete.  

I just ask you to consider next time you are about to say Lady This Team or That Team, why are you saying it and what does it say to those girls?  While I can't even get the teams at my school to stop using it, I can keep trying and I will keep trying.  And until we are all just Trojans, or Tigers, or God help me, Hippos, I will make the change where I can.

going to need more Sharpies

Heard it From a Friend Who

When I was a kid, snow days were magical.  Magical because it was Buffalo, NY and snow is one of the six elements up there: water, fire, air, earth, snow, and the Bills and you don't cancel school for snow. Magical because this was a time when kids were being brought up mainly to suffer.  Throw some bread bags over those worn out boots and just walk yourself to school; you will be fine.  Magical because we went to bed wondering and woke up to a beautifully covered world of white.  Magical because the days was ours to go out and play and get so cold and come back in and get warm and then put on damp, smelly mittens and boots and do it again.  Magical.

When I moved to Dallas and experienced my first snow and ice storm, it was a world of wonder.  Wondering why I was the only person on the road?  Wondering where the snow plows were and why hadn't anyone salted the streets?  Wondering why I was the only one in the little hotel office when I walked in?  My general manager burst in about ten minutes later, said he knew I would be there, and had something for me to do.  He needed me to drive two stranded guests to their location.  Wondering why it was too dangerous to send the hotel van out and not the girl with the crappy car?  I went and it was wild; we slid all over the tollroad.  My passengers were from Michigan and we laughed and wondered about this frozen Texas world.  When I got back, I got a round of applause AND a giant chocolate chip cookie and the twenty-year old child I was thought that was a fair trade.

And then I moved to Austin and I had to learn to not find winter storms a time for wonder or magic, just fear. Winter storms in Austin mean ice and ice is fierce.  It is formidable.  It bends things to its will and shatters what lies beneath.  Ice is harrowing.  Don't drive on it.  Ice is tricky.  It covers the world in a glistening layer of white that looks like a giant's exhaled breath captured the world silent and still all while waiting to crash and destroy.  Ice means lying awake and hearing the CRACK of a tree branch snapped by the weight of ice layered upon it.  The WHOOSH as it hits the ground and the ching-ching-ching as frozen leaves skitter away.  And you hear it again and again and again and wait.  Wait to see if this is the branch that hits the power line.  This is the siren going by that means the transformer is on fire.  Wait. Listen. Wait.  Until the world goes dark; all the lights blink off, the hum of the refrigerator is silenced, and you are enveloped in a world of stillness and wonder how long this time? 

deceptively beautiful.

I was fortunate during the last Snow-apocalypse that I had water and electric the entire time.  I know I was fortunate.  I begin any retelling of events from that time with "I know how lucky I was..."  Not so this time.  My power went out at 8:39am on Wednesday morning.  It is 1:13pm on Sunday and it is still not on.  I have thrown out all the food in my fridge and freezer.  The smell from my dishwasher is not a pleasant one.  I have been fortunate to have a place to stay and am grateful. I am also really annoyed.  I have to start this work week off, a week with three soccer games, with no food, no meals made, and no word of when I will get my power back.

Oh, wait a minute. I did hear from a neighbor who heard from a neighbor who heard from a lineman that it could take UP TO A WEEK to get the parts for the transformer.  It is 2023 and I am getting information like a game of Telephone and that is crazy!  Austin Energy isn't answering their phone (automated stuff only), hasn't called me back as promised, and keeps sending general emails out saying they are still working on it.  92% have power restored and look at us go!  As one of the lowly 8%, I have to say not good enough.  Send that generalized crap out day one or maybe day two.  Day five? I would like a phone call from their president explaining to me why my little pocket of civilization can't have nice things like power and offering me an HEB gift card to compensate for all the food I had to toss.

This is going to happen again.  Global warming assures us that this will happen every year.  Every winter.  Ice will come and lay havoc to the world we know and our utilities HAVE to do better. I am not talking linemen, or lay people, or the ones out there in that ice fixing what they can.  The companies themselves need to stand up and say things!  No more generalized emails!  Say my name in them!  Refer to where I am so I don't think maybe I am crazy and am the only person without power.  A phone call.  From a human.  Saying crazy things like I am sorry, I know this is a pain in the ass, and what can we do.  Or even just why the power can still be out.

Austin Energy has to do more.  It does. It's communication is appalling.  If they ever called me back, I would tell them. Better yet, they should hire me. I will be the new Director of Communications and fix the fixable by being accountable and transparent.  I will give them all the words to say, they will say them, and those left without power won't be left wondering.  They can make a plan, know that there is an end in sight, and maybe, just maybe, still find some magic in a world covered with white.

Once a Bills Fan

When I moved to Texas in the 90’s, I moved my Buffalo Bills fanship with me.  My Buffalo roommates and I, along with relatives and friends, would meet every Sunday at Snuffers; ostensibly to root for the Bills in a bar that aired them, but mostly to drink underage beer and eat every-age cheese fries.  I don’t know if you know, but Cowboys fans are crazy and when my roommate and I wore our Bills’ shirts to Target to get supplies for the Superbowl, we were honked at, cursed at, told “for shame”, and even had cars swerve dangerously close to us.  We were shocked and hurried to get our errands done and return to the safety of our apartment and our little Bills’ nation.  I think it was the first time we learned it can be rough to be a Bills’ fan.

I will admit that there are a lot of years after that where I didn’t always catch a Bills’ game.  They are not often aired in Cowboy country.  When I moved from Dallas to Austin in the 2000’s, it was nice to get out of central Cowboys territory but I found people here rooted not only for the Cowboys but the Texans as well.  I was also busy raising small kids and again, rarely caught an actual game.  That didn’t matter; if anyone asked what team I was going for, my answer was always “the Bills!”.

I am proud of being from Buffalo. I tell my classes every year that I am from Buffalo and ask who else in the class is.  I have never had a student tell me they are from there but occasionally they will have a parent who is from Buffalo and I will get excited and say “Go Bills!” and they will look embarrassed or indifferent.  Fair enough; it is the first day of school and I teach Juniors and Seniors and they do not want to be seen sharing a moment with an over-eager English teacher.  Usually someone will say “Didn’t they lose like four Superbowls in a row?” and I will counter with “Didn’t they make four Superbowls in a row?” and this gives us a great time to talk about perspective.

This year, however, I have seen students at school with Bills’ gear on. I stop every single one of them and say “Nice shirt, sweatshirt, hat, etc.”  Kids in class will talk about who they have on their Fantasy Football teams and I always say that I hope they have Josh Allen.  They will either readily agree and talk to me about football or they will learn to whisper and sit farther away from my desk.  Yesterday, I may have spoken very loudly to a man across a restaurant to say “I love your shirt” because he was wearing a Bills’ shirt.  Later, I stopped to consider that maybe this man really just wanted a taco and coffee and not to be accosted by a strange woman talking about his shirt.   But for me, at that time, it was a very nice moment of being Bills’ fans together in a sea of confused Texans and it made me feel like home wasn’t so far away. 

If you are wearing something with this logo, I am 100% talking to you.

It’s easy to be a Bills’ fan this year; they look great and the games are exciting!  Except that one where they won and lost and won and lost 18 times in the last two minutes.  That one was more ulcer-inducing.  I can say confidently that I will always be a Bills fan and proud to be one.  I had a kid scoff earlier this week and say “I don’t know, Miss, think this is really their year?”  I answered yes immediately.  After a few seconds I added, “I always think it’s their year.  That’s what being a fan is all about.”