A Texas farewell

We’re leaving for home in the morning, driving back up to Dallas and catching our flight to Sea-Tac just after noon. I’m apprehensive because flying with a three year-old is difficult enough without some kind of nefarious ailment making the experience even more problematic. I am hopeful that all will be better come the morning, that whatever he’s fighting will be gone with light of the new day. Perhaps he’s allergic to Texas.

I know, really I do, that it is unlikely that his pitiful hacking is a reaction to the Lone Star State. It is hard for me to put into words, but the 28th state puts me on edge; I’m more than ready to return to the green and waterlogged corner of the country where I belong. Charles and Yvonne are dear friends and I am glad we made the trip but I’ll start feeling like myself again when the rubber leaves the runway.

Rick Perry, the sitting Republican Governor, has floated the idea that Texas might want to leave the union at some point, become its own country again, like it was once before. Because the United States is too, you know, socialist. As far as I’m concerned – and I’m speaking as an outsider now – Texas is already a different country, maybe even a different planet. I can’t wait to get home.