DPS Disappoints

I receive a letter from the DPS advising me that it’s time to get my license renewed, also telling me that I’m not eligible for the online service.  I figure there’s an eighty percent chance that the people who sent the letter aren’t in communication with the online people who issue the licenses (oh naïve soul), so I decide to try the online renewal anyway.  The website’s easy to navigate, but misleading in that it’s made to seem that buying the thirty-four page handbook entitled Texas License Easy Guide is a requirement.  I pay seventeen dollars and download the stupid book, press CONTINUE, and a message appears on the screen telling me I’m not eligible for online renewal.  My understanding is that, because I renewed online last time, I need to put on shoes and drive all the way over there simply because the jowly woman with the thick glasses wants to see me every eight years. 

Because I’ll be flashing the picture regularly for the next four years, I put some effort into my appearance.  I curl my hair, choose a flattering blouse, and select my earrings with care. 

I’m apprehensive.  Last time I got renewed, I cheated on the eye test.  After Lasik surgery, one of my eyes sees distance and the other sees near, and when the woman behind the counter asked me to close my far-seeing eye and read the letters, I panicked—but luckily she was distracted by her discussion with the woman sitting next to her about what they were going to have for lunch, and I was able to surreptitiously shift my distance-seeing eye to the adjacent lens.  I don’t know if I can get away with it again.  Is it foolish to hope that they’ve updated their system to include those of us who have been improved?

I arrive to find only a half-dozen cars in the lot.  This isn’t going to be bad at all.  People mill around outside the front door.  Why aren’t they going in?  Curious, I join them.  It’s a sloppy group—stringy hair, wrinkled clothes, lazy shoulders.  Did they come here not realizing that their pictures will be taken?  If you’re longing to hang out in a place where vanity doesn’t exist, go to the Texas Department of Public Safety License Renewal Office.

“What’s going on?” I ask the hapless assemblage. 

“It’s closed.”  A dumpy thirty-something points at a notice taped to the door.

“Why?”

“They don’t say.  There’s just this sign.”

Skeptical, I step forth and read.  Yep.  Closed today, reopening next week.  If driver’s licenses are compulsory, shouldn’t there be someone to issue them?  Don’t the people of the DPS know they’re losing valuable customers? 

This is typical of the way things have been going lately. 

This morning the door fell off the washing machine.  Crash!  It’s ten years old, a discontinued model, no door available.  I’ll have to buy a new machine. 

The roof’s leaking. 

The thermostat in the shower isn’t regulating.   

Already I’ve had to have bodywork done on the car. 

And the refrigerator’s water dispenser makes an awful grinding sound and doesn’t release water.  The appliance repairman says it’s the plumbing and the plumber says it’s the refrigerator.  So I call the appliance guy back and he says he’ll order a part, which is expensive. 

We’re handing out money like it’s got no value. 

Also, when someone rings the doorbell next door, our doorbell rings. 

It seems that there’s not a thing around me that’s working properly.  Except my new MacBook Air, which is pretty sensational.

Oh, and my new washing machine, which is nice—a top-loader this time, so no falling-off door. 

Ne explanation needed.  

Unacceptable.

Do you like the new washer?  

One Way to Get Money

While in Singapore, I forgot about the homeless here in Houston, how they shuffle up and down the medians at every major intersection, hitting up the drivers in the turning lane.  What did life throw at them, that they’ve ended up in the blazing sun with their palms out?  (Also, it becomes heavy-coat cold during the winter months.)  Most are men, but there’re some women.  Most suffer from some form of mental illness, or possibly they’re addicts or alcoholics.  When I worked at a downtown soup kitchen four or five years ago, there was a trend among the street people to hold dead phones to their ears and pretend to talk and listen.  Who does that?  Abnormal people longing to be normal.    

I roll to a stop, turning from Fountain View on to Westheimer.  I’m six from the front.  The red-faced man peers up the line, assessing the newcomers.  His white hair is thin, shoulder-length, and scraggly.  Looks sixty, probably forty-five.  At first he doesn’t move, but slowly he takes one step, then another.  Plucking a five from the pocket in the console, I wonder if he’ll make it to my window before the light turns green. 

“You’re going to have to make more of an effort than that,” I say.  

He meanders between cars, crossing lanes and backtracking.  Nope, doesn’t make it.  The five goes back into its little hole. 

The man at Chimney Rock recognizes me.  His sign reads:  HOMELESS VET.  PLEASE HELP.  I gave him money yesterday.  I’m not in the turning lane, so he limps between cars, waving, a smile on his face.  Because I gave him five yesterday, today he gets only two.  I ought not to have to buy him lunch every day just because he’s set up his station on my regular route.

Other signs they carry:

NO MONEY.  NO HOME.  NO HOPE.

CANCER.  CAN’T WORK

NEED MONEY FOR FOOD

SICK DAUGHTER

The pleas are barely legible, ink on pieces of rough-edged cardboard. 

I come to a stop later, homebound now, at Westheimer and Chimney Rock.  The guy I gave money to earlier is still working the opposite side of the intersection.  Another guy’s on this side.  His sign says:

CAN’T GET WORK

This guy’s between thirty-five and forty.  He stops at my window.  He’s missing several teeth, has an uncontrollable eye, and looks like he hasn’t bathed in weeks.  In Houston these days there’s a job for every person who wants one, and this man’s sign implies a belief that he could hold one if he could just get it.  His hand shakes as he accepts the five through the crack in the window.

 “You’re an angel sent by God,” he tells me.  “Hey, you want some T-shirts?  I got, like, seven or eight shirts in that bag over there.”  He points toward the center island, where his few possessions make a pile. 

“What?  No, I’m thinking not.”

“Some guy just came and handed them to me, like I’m the Goodwill.  I don’t want his old shirts."

“People do crazy things.”   

I’m irritated at the guy who gave this homeless man old shirts.  Does he tell himself he’s being generous?  Unloading worn out stuff on someone who doesn’t want it or have a place to put it seems lazy and thoughtless.

The light turns green and I continue on my way, humming along with the song on the radio.  It’s not often that someone tells me I’ve been sent by God. 

This guy hid his face because he's "done stuff" and is "hiding from people."  If indeed he's "done stuff" I imagine people are hiding from him.  

There's a person asleep in there.  This mound of possessions represents the belongings of all the people who are working the corner, not just the one who is sleeping.  Whose shadow is that?  

I've seen several of these white bicycles with flowers propped around town.  Does anybody know why?  

Stepford, Texas

Someday David will decide it’s time to retire.  The thought is disconcerting.  What will he do when he no longer has a place to go every day?  We’ve heard that many people retire to the area north of Austin, and because David has a couple of days off, we decide to visit the area and see if, in the future, this will be a nice place for us to settle.

The notion makes me feel rebellious.  I have a house full of unpacked boxes.  There’s work to be done.  Also, it makes no sense to move to some random unfamiliar town just because we’re approaching a certain age.  The three towns we visit—New Braunfels, Georgetown, and Marble Falls—are becoming rich off the baby boomers who are flocking to the area, buying homes and boats, golf carts and RVs. 

David is especially interested in a place called Sun City, a Del Webb retirement community outside Georgetown.  He’s overly enthusiastic, in love with the place before we’ve even seen it.  I’ve visited the website and it looks sterile and colorless.  I’m scared to death he’s going to like it. 

The woman who gives us a tour of Sun City is very sweet, a young mother with a soft voice.  It’s her job to sell us a new home; this can’t be easy, as the model homes are awful—closed-off kitchens, tight hallways, low ceilings.  The facilities outside the home are the selling points.  Two fully outfitted gyms that offer classes as well as equipment, several swimming pools, tennis courts, walking trails, three golf courses.  Painting, pottery, wood-working, and fabric studios.  Allotments for gardening, a softball diamond, even a dog park.  There’s a drama club that puts on three productions a year.  And common-interest clubs, like biking, reading, hunting; there’s even a club for people who like to remote-fly airplanes.  If you like to do it there’s a club for it.  There’s probably even a club for people who enjoy clubs. 

“Do you like living here?” I ask a woman in the art studio.  A couple of people sit at easels, serene as they paint—and they paint well. 

“I love it,” she says.  “It’s safe.” 

Yes, it’s safe.  Gray people poke along in golf carts at five miles an hour.  Every stair has a rail and an accompanying ramp.  And a burglar or rapist would never venture here—anyone young enough to burgle or rape would draw notice.  

We enter the fabric workshop, a paradise if you like to sew, which I do.  Machines are set up, ready, waiting for someone to stitch a seam or two.  There’s a quilting table with an in-built Bernina that looks even more advanced than mine.  Several women hover over tables on the other side of the large room.  When they see me enter, they swoop, excited to see a different face, desperate for new blood.  They tell me everything I want to know without my having to voice one question. 

“This is a wonderful place to live.  Do you sew?  We have knitting and hooking, even fabric art.  We take field trips to quilt shows.  And if sewing isn’t your thing, there’s plenty else to do.” 

“My husband calls us old hens,” one says, happy that her husband likes to tease.  “Mostly what we do here is gab, gab, gab.” 

Their ages range from mid-sixties to really old. 

Living here would be easy.  The most difficult decision David and I would ever have to make would be what to have for dinner.  Making friends would simply be a matter of stepping outside the door—literally, as the houses are only separated by a few feet.  It seems self-indulgent, though, to move to a place where all you do is have a good time.  And isn’t it odd to remove yourself from society simply because you’re older than you used to be?  Although I imagine the younger people of Houston would be thrilled to get the seniors off the roads.  No matter how they couch it, this is a place where people come to wait to die.  But shouldn’t they be doing something useful while they wait?  Something besides playing games, filling the hours with hobbies, and talking, talking, talking? 

We leave the area on Saturday morning.  Tomorrow David will begin a lecture tour of Canada and the northeastern US.  Ostensibly, he’ll be speaking to engineers and geologists about the geologic features that indicate the presence of shale gas.  In other words, fracking.  This is, apparently, a controversial topic in Nova Scotia and I fear there will be heckling.  Good luck, David!

If you're in Marble Falls you've got to eat at the Bluebonnet Cafe--delicious food and small town atmosphere.  

We looked at a home on this golf course in Horseshoe Bay, outside of Marble Falls.  

There's a charming square around the courthouse in Georgetown.

David waits for me at the Monument Cafe in Georgetown.  

You thought I made it up, but I didn't.  We really visited this place

Houston: The Best Place to Be

Fly in on Thursday afternoon, Trip-the-dog happy to get out of kennel, makes lake of pee on baggage claim floor.  David stays with Trip while I race to restroom seeking paper towels.  One of those dispensers—wave hand, single towel buzzes out, wave hand, towel buzzes.  Need at least twenty.  Wave, buzz, wave, buzz, wave buzz . . .

Arrive at hotel around two o’clock.  Staying at Hilton on Post Oak, which is hosting the Miss Texas Pageant.  Beautiful women everywhere.  Cluster in lobby, faces perfectly made up, hair in big curlers.  Discuss clothes they’re going to wear and why.  Worry over interview questions.  Compare body parts, disingenuous moaning—boobs too firm, butts too small, legs too long.  Walk on shoes with heels like needles.  Sashes cross from shoulder to hip, identify contestants by counties.  Good luck, Texas beauties. 

Friday morning at the rental car counter.  Jolly man, shaved head, returns David’s license saying, “Expired.  Can’t rent to you.”  The look on David’s face.  Spend our first afternoon back in Texas at the DPS.  David is number 293.  Chuckle all day, thinking about it.  Who doesn’t know when license expires?  David, apparently.

Saturday, car shopping.  Find perfect sedan for me—sleek, clean, loaded, a Mercedes C250.  But jet lagged and feeling fuzzy, unable to follow fast talk of sales guy—demonstration, incentives, promises.  “No,” I say.  “I can’t commit.  My head isn’t here.”  The car goes to someone else and we’re sad.  Opportunity missed, but timing wrong.  Rule:  don’t buy the first car you look at. 

Houston booming.  Torn up for years, I-10 now complete; twelve lanes across in places, all moving fast, zoom-zoom.  Also, Fifty-nine so smooth driving’s like flying.  In three years, population up by a hundred thousand.  Everybody with money to spend.  Restaurants packed, malls overflowing, houses and offices being built.  Two ac repair vans on every block.  So many customers at Toyota dealership, no salesmen available.  Commerce.  Prosperity. 

By Monday Texas beauties gone.  Hotel quiet.  Tuesday, morning after Labor Day, back to work.  Elevators up-and-down with men and women in suits.  Pull wheeled briefcases, keep heads down, somber in hallways.  After eight-thirty, hotel deserted.  I am Eloise, with the run of the whole place. 

Preparing to move back into townhouse, rented out for three years.  Updating and repair needed.  Will take a week.  My job—oversee painting, gardening; schedule vent cleaning, carpet-laying, air conditioner servicing.  Furniture in storage.  It comes in when workers go. 

Computer virus invades, takes over.  Blasted.  No access to internet.  Virus spreads, attacks Spider Solitaire, Scrabble.  Oh no!  Poor vulnerable Dell.  Lobotomize a fourth time?   Maybe just put it down.  At the mall, an Apple invites me to byte. 

Painting and patching.  It'll look better soon.

Eduardo, our contractor.  His company is called Fast Paint, but he does more than paint.  Works hard and does a good job.  Honest and polite crew.  The wine on the counter is mine.  

Sam, coming home from Beijing to fulfill your obligation?

My new car.  Worrisome that my phone and my car talk to each other.