Deep in the heart of Texas

I went to Houston this weekend for my friend Mark's 30th birthday party. The weather was lovely, the party was fun, and I got to see some of my old friends, which is always good.

On the way down, I tried to watch The Passion of the Christ on my portable dvd player. Now, I wasn't too psyched to see this movie in the first place. A movie in Latin and Aramaic? yawn. An exceedingly violent movie in Latin and Aramaic? no thank you. But in my quest to see all movies nominated for Oscars before the Oscars, I gave it a whirl. I got about 40 minutes in to it and I couldn't take it. I turned it off and put Shark Tale in. Maybe other people liked that movie. I couldn't get past the beatings. and the confusion. I couldn't keep track of who everyone was.

Once I got to Houston, my friend Angela picked me up and the airport and we had dinner, which was nice, especially since she was sick and I didn't get to see her any other time that weekend. Mercy and I stayed at Mark's house.

Saturday morning, Mercy and I walked down to a diner to get breakfast to bring back to Mark's house, since he couldn't leave the house. On the way back, this guy in an SUV pulled up next to me and said, "Are we walking for exercise or necessity?" and I replied, "um, we just like to walk." That was so bizarre. It was only 6 blocks away, and it was a great day to walk. I'm not sure why it seemed abnormal enough for someone to comment on it.

We ate dinner at Ninfa's, so I got to have Mexican food, which I so greatly miss. Handmade tortillas, great margaritas (even if she did forget to put salt on my glass), and cheese enchiladas. The only thing that I think they should have added would be mariachis, but the restaurant was small and I saw some mariachis in Los Angeles, so I'm over it.

Houston is huge. Mercy and I got lost driving to the party. I think we saw the whole city. We asked like 8 people for directions, some of which were right and we just messed them up, and some of which were just plain wrong. I ended up spending $7 on a map, and we finally found our way there.