Even though I “captured” Marilyn with a fantastic traveling vacation, I didn’t truly understand how much she loved traveling until we moved to Houston, Texas. (Come to think of it, she did take me to a Canadian Rail Travelogue documentary at The Ohio State University. That was what prompted our long and unfulfilled desire to visit Banff.) She was an unabashed tour guide. She always loved to show her visitors the sights, many of which she had already scoped out, in person. She read tour books. She read the travel section in the newspaper. She watched all the travel shows on TV. Once based in our Houston apartment, we were able to put her research into practice.
She went to the tourist spots but also liked the out of the way spots. Our first year in Houston was spent at work during the week and on the road every weekend. It slowed down when we bought our first house and slowed even more when we started having children, but it never stopped. As our children got older, it picked up again. She loved the planning, the anticipation. She made all our trips a great experience.
Over the eight plus years we lived in Houston, went everywhere in and around Houston and Texas, except Big Bend and Amarillo. She always wanted to see Big Bend in the spring for all the desert flowers, but we were otherwise occupied: new house, new children, other uses for our limited vacation time.
We did see most of the rest of Texas, sometimes several times. Many of these are worthy of separate topics:
• Spots in and around Houston, including Bayou Bend, Gilley’s, San Jacinto Inn, Johnson Space Center, Galveston, …
• Mustang and Padre Island, along with Corpus Christi. (We returned regularly to Mustang Island.)
• San Antonio
• Austin
• Several camping and cabin excursions north, west, and south of Houston
As in many of our living places, if you could find a native Houstonian, Marilyn, and because of her I also, had visited more places and knew more about the local area than they did. If she did encounter an exception to that rule, she would usually pick their brains for recommendations on where to go and what to see, of course, she would also do this with her less traveled encounters. Everyone had been somewhere and she wanted to know about it.
---------
Marilyn lost her life to cancer but was able to truly "live" until the very end due to a lymphedema garment from Don Kellogg, inventor and founder of Telesto-Medtech. It is due to the "living" he provided Marilyn and through his suggestion and connection with Saskia Thiadens of the National Lymphedema Network that the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund exists. It needs other people's help to remain a living memorial of Marilyn. Please help other people receive the gift of living by donating to the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund. Thank you.
Showing posts with label Houston. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Houston. Show all posts
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Friday, October 24, 2008
Our first (and only) Houston apartment
We had been living in hotels for three weeks but had finally found the “perfect” apartment. Well, we both knew it wasn’t perfect from the start but most of its imperfections took time to discover and are at least one, if not a few, topics of their own.
We had also been dining out at the best restaurants that a per diem would allow. It was our second honeymoon after all.
Well, we get that special apartment with the gold shag carpet, the narrow cul-de-sac galley kitchen, a breakfast nook for a dining room, bedrooms, two, whose windows looked out over the scenic parking lot, … You get the idea. The very first night we got the key, before the little bit of furniture we had could arrive, Marilyn just had to eat at our new place, a picnic on the carpet.
It wasn’t directly on the carpet but I forget what we put down to make it both feel like a picnic and our first meal in our new home. The food, of course, came from some restaurant but it had a much different feel. I remember the feeling but can’t for the life of me remember what we ate. It felt like another tumbler to the lock of our lives just clicked into place.
---------
Marilyn lost her life to cancer but was able to truly "live" until the very end due to a lymphedema garment from Don Kellogg, inventor and founder of Telesto-Medtech. It is due to the "living" he provided Marilyn and through his suggestion and connection with Saskia Thiadens of the National Lymphedema Network that the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund exists. It needs other people's help to remain a living memorial of Marilyn. Please help other people receive the gift of living by donating to the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund. Thank you.
We had also been dining out at the best restaurants that a per diem would allow. It was our second honeymoon after all.
Well, we get that special apartment with the gold shag carpet, the narrow cul-de-sac galley kitchen, a breakfast nook for a dining room, bedrooms, two, whose windows looked out over the scenic parking lot, … You get the idea. The very first night we got the key, before the little bit of furniture we had could arrive, Marilyn just had to eat at our new place, a picnic on the carpet.
It wasn’t directly on the carpet but I forget what we put down to make it both feel like a picnic and our first meal in our new home. The food, of course, came from some restaurant but it had a much different feel. I remember the feeling but can’t for the life of me remember what we ate. It felt like another tumbler to the lock of our lives just clicked into place.
---------
Marilyn lost her life to cancer but was able to truly "live" until the very end due to a lymphedema garment from Don Kellogg, inventor and founder of Telesto-Medtech. It is due to the "living" he provided Marilyn and through his suggestion and connection with Saskia Thiadens of the National Lymphedema Network that the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund exists. It needs other people's help to remain a living memorial of Marilyn. Please help other people receive the gift of living by donating to the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund. Thank you.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Crazy New Houstonians, Going to Zero
There are probably a lot of stories that I will eventually think of but the one that will be told here is Marilyn’s compulsion to finish the move to our new city. This didn’t involve finding living space, although we had just two weeks to do that. It didn’t involve trying the local cuisine, although we were doing that to a certain extent. (Marilyn never did fully embrace the “Cajun” spicy food imported from Louisiana or the spicy equivalent in Tex/Mex. Indeed even the native barbeque was not her food of choice. There will be a lot of food discussion opportunities throughout many of these topics.) It does involve going to a landmark that many cities have but one that I would have never thought of in a million years, going to the zero-zero address.
I can’t even remember the names of the Houston cross-streets that formed this landmark. But Marilyn insisted that we visit it. We were lucky that this address at least was in the Office Building portion rather than the middle of a slum. We were unlucky in finding parking, even though this was a weekend, not because of the crush of cars, but rather the dearth of open parking lots. I don’t know how far we ended up walking but at one point in our walk Marilyn wanted to cross diagonally across an intersection. She knew that meant she had to cross two streets rather than just cross the intersection itself, there was at least that much traffic to keep us safe, but she unfortunately insisted on crossing the street that the traffic light allowed immediately. Now, I don’t know whether Houston has any other street, intersection, or crosswalk, like this anywhere else. I can’t remember whether this was a temporary condition or one of intentional design but there was nothing to cross to.
In fact, there were signs, there was a fence, and an obvious lane of pending traffic that would pass in the lane we would have to be standing in once we arrived across that street. While Marilyn and I often held hands on many of our walks, we weren’t then. She was halfway across the street before I even realized what she was doing. I couldn’t think of any words that would have gotten her to realize her error in time so I ran out and grabbed her arm. She made to shake it off and got a real “I’ll show them” look on her face when she finally heard me say, “We can’t cross here.”
I still had to point out the signs and the lack of anyplace to stand, safely, before she would move back to the sidewalk we had left. We did get back, obviously.
It was then I realized just how stubborn she was. While I never did use this example of her stubbornness, I knew that she was far more stubborn than I was or ever could be. She always won true tests of wills but we rarely had them on the important things.
There is a good side to stubbornness and Marilyn had it—determination to spare.
---------
Marilyn lost her life to cancer but was able to truly "live" until the very end due to a lymphedema garment from Don Kellogg, inventor and founder of Telesto-Medtech. It is due to the "living" he provided Marilyn and through his suggestion and connection with Saskia Thiadens of the National Lymphedema Network that the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund exists. It needs other people's help to remain a living memorial of Marilyn. Please help other people receive the gift of living by donating to the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund. Thank you.
I can’t even remember the names of the Houston cross-streets that formed this landmark. But Marilyn insisted that we visit it. We were lucky that this address at least was in the Office Building portion rather than the middle of a slum. We were unlucky in finding parking, even though this was a weekend, not because of the crush of cars, but rather the dearth of open parking lots. I don’t know how far we ended up walking but at one point in our walk Marilyn wanted to cross diagonally across an intersection. She knew that meant she had to cross two streets rather than just cross the intersection itself, there was at least that much traffic to keep us safe, but she unfortunately insisted on crossing the street that the traffic light allowed immediately. Now, I don’t know whether Houston has any other street, intersection, or crosswalk, like this anywhere else. I can’t remember whether this was a temporary condition or one of intentional design but there was nothing to cross to.
In fact, there were signs, there was a fence, and an obvious lane of pending traffic that would pass in the lane we would have to be standing in once we arrived across that street. While Marilyn and I often held hands on many of our walks, we weren’t then. She was halfway across the street before I even realized what she was doing. I couldn’t think of any words that would have gotten her to realize her error in time so I ran out and grabbed her arm. She made to shake it off and got a real “I’ll show them” look on her face when she finally heard me say, “We can’t cross here.”
I still had to point out the signs and the lack of anyplace to stand, safely, before she would move back to the sidewalk we had left. We did get back, obviously.
It was then I realized just how stubborn she was. While I never did use this example of her stubbornness, I knew that she was far more stubborn than I was or ever could be. She always won true tests of wills but we rarely had them on the important things.
There is a good side to stubbornness and Marilyn had it—determination to spare.
---------
Marilyn lost her life to cancer but was able to truly "live" until the very end due to a lymphedema garment from Don Kellogg, inventor and founder of Telesto-Medtech. It is due to the "living" he provided Marilyn and through his suggestion and connection with Saskia Thiadens of the National Lymphedema Network that the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund exists. It needs other people's help to remain a living memorial of Marilyn. Please help other people receive the gift of living by donating to the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund. Thank you.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Traveling to a new job, our second honeymoon
While I didn’t have a single interview until much later in Phoenix, covered in another topic, the attempt put my resume’ on the market and corporations in Houston were hiring. (The interview and associated stories are not part of my memories of Marilyn so if covered at all will have to be in a different forum.) Since Houston was on the way to Phoenix we decided to take the job. So the middle of February saw us on the road, again traveling to our married life in a new city.
I would like to be able to say that we gave each other longing gazes, and sweet-talked the entire trip but what actually occurred is that we drove two cars. There being two of us, and two cars, meant that we couldn’t even see each other when we were “on the road” but we made up for it most of the time when we stopped.
And stop we did. We made side trips to several places. I’ve selected a few of the more memorable for greater detail below. Since I wasn’t then and haven’t kept a journal what I’m leaving out may not be all that much but you wouldn’t know that if I didn’t tell you.
In Tennessee we discovered that Jack Daniels was distilled in a dry county. But they did let us smell the well alcohol laden vent gasses in our tour.
We stayed overnight in Nashville with a visit to the Grand Ol Opry.
Our next overnight stay was in the bad side, well the less affluent side of Birmingham. We would remark on this as our first of a trend later when we knew it for a trend. Many of the places we visited inevitably involved some tour of the more scenic side of the town, a nice looking road would be a dead end into the area dump or sewage treatment plant. Although to the best of my recall we never again tried to sleep in the scenic area.
Then came New Orleans. We stayed there several nights. While a lot of what we did involved truly good food, including the beans and rice at Hobo Billy’s and Bananas Foster at Brennan’s, we also visited Preservation Hall (I didn’t understand why anyone would want to preserve the hall but preserving the jazz was great.), walked on the waterfront, looked in on all the bars, watched people, took a ride on the Charles Street trolley, had our faces immortalized with a characterization (My upwardly growing eyebrows were made into devilish horns that was obvious as to the devilment in mind while Marilyn was characterized as an angel.), and my first introduction into shopping.
Up until that time, I had always thought that the purpose of shopping was to find something you wanted to buy. Marilyn nicely limited her introduction of shopping as an end in itself so I didn’t drop but I got the message. It was much later, and may make a separate topic in and of itself, that I heard the dreaded combination: “Since we are here, do you mind if I go in [to this store]?” and “Why don’t you come in and keep me company?”
Finally we made it to Houston and for two weeks were put up in a hotel at the Greenway Plaza. The fun we had living within walking distance of my work…
---------
Marilyn lost her life to cancer but was able to truly "live" until the very end due to a lymphedema garment from Don Kellogg, inventor and founder of Telesto-Medtech. It is due to the "living" he provided Marilyn and through his suggestion and connection with Saskia Thiadens of the National Lymphedema Network that the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund exists. It needs other people's help to remain a living memorial of Marilyn. Please help other people receive the gift of living by donating to the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund. Thank you.
I would like to be able to say that we gave each other longing gazes, and sweet-talked the entire trip but what actually occurred is that we drove two cars. There being two of us, and two cars, meant that we couldn’t even see each other when we were “on the road” but we made up for it most of the time when we stopped.
And stop we did. We made side trips to several places. I’ve selected a few of the more memorable for greater detail below. Since I wasn’t then and haven’t kept a journal what I’m leaving out may not be all that much but you wouldn’t know that if I didn’t tell you.
In Tennessee we discovered that Jack Daniels was distilled in a dry county. But they did let us smell the well alcohol laden vent gasses in our tour.
We stayed overnight in Nashville with a visit to the Grand Ol Opry.
Our next overnight stay was in the bad side, well the less affluent side of Birmingham. We would remark on this as our first of a trend later when we knew it for a trend. Many of the places we visited inevitably involved some tour of the more scenic side of the town, a nice looking road would be a dead end into the area dump or sewage treatment plant. Although to the best of my recall we never again tried to sleep in the scenic area.
Then came New Orleans. We stayed there several nights. While a lot of what we did involved truly good food, including the beans and rice at Hobo Billy’s and Bananas Foster at Brennan’s, we also visited Preservation Hall (I didn’t understand why anyone would want to preserve the hall but preserving the jazz was great.), walked on the waterfront, looked in on all the bars, watched people, took a ride on the Charles Street trolley, had our faces immortalized with a characterization (My upwardly growing eyebrows were made into devilish horns that was obvious as to the devilment in mind while Marilyn was characterized as an angel.), and my first introduction into shopping.
Up until that time, I had always thought that the purpose of shopping was to find something you wanted to buy. Marilyn nicely limited her introduction of shopping as an end in itself so I didn’t drop but I got the message. It was much later, and may make a separate topic in and of itself, that I heard the dreaded combination: “Since we are here, do you mind if I go in [to this store]?” and “Why don’t you come in and keep me company?”
Finally we made it to Houston and for two weeks were put up in a hotel at the Greenway Plaza. The fun we had living within walking distance of my work…
---------
Marilyn lost her life to cancer but was able to truly "live" until the very end due to a lymphedema garment from Don Kellogg, inventor and founder of Telesto-Medtech. It is due to the "living" he provided Marilyn and through his suggestion and connection with Saskia Thiadens of the National Lymphedema Network that the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund exists. It needs other people's help to remain a living memorial of Marilyn. Please help other people receive the gift of living by donating to the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund. Thank you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
