February 2006

[Sweder]

. . . oh, alright then, let's call a spade a spade - hangover.

I love Houston and Houston loves me. It’s just that reliving my life of 20 years ago (when I arrived here wide-eyed and green around the gills) even on a less-committed scale, is taking it’s toll. Throw in the occasional bout of actual work and there’s little time left for writing.

Yesterday I had several hours of free time allocated to compiling my report. Instead I went to Fire Station number Three on West Alabama and Westleyan to hang out with my old pal Lisa and her firefighting buddies. I'll never complain about hard work again. Lisa's a paramedic firefighter - they have a funky system where paramedics are assigned to each emergency service. On a 24 hour shift the two on-duty crews received 22 shouts between them. Lisa’s crew, having responded to the first call at 05:20 got back to Fire Station Three at just shy of 6pm.

As an overseas visitor I was privileged to hang out in the rec room as the crew wolfed down fried shrimps and oysters collected en route from the Ragin Cajinfast food store. What a sight tat must have been – they crew a full-sized multiple axle Fire Engine - that's some drive-thru. The last few congealed fries were barely stowed when the automated alarm system announced another call. Still discussing where they were going to stash a large portion of catfish (for the olfactory benefit of C shift, due on tomorrow morning) they calmly donned their gear and headed for the Engine. Once aboard a sort of super-SatNav feeds them instructions on the nature and location of the emergency. On this occasion a local resident’s kitchen alarm had detected a pan fire, the fully automated system linking through to the Firestation HQ.

I stood in the dining area of the rec room watching the swing door rock to a close and it dawned on me that I was the only person there (Crew #2 were at Hermann Hospital dropping off a smoke inhalation victim). Blimey.
Then the phone rang.
I froze; do I answer it? I did.

‘Er, Fire Station Three . . .’ please, please, let this be trivial.
‘Hello? Is Lisa there?’
I recognised the voice; phew! Bill, Lisa’s impossibly handsome Fire Captain and significant other of the past several years, calling on a domestic matter.
‘Hello Bill’ – relieved – ‘It’s Ash. They’re out on a shout. I’m, err, it.’
‘Well – you’re in charge of the (TV) remote then.’

I left the empty Firehouse to take up my duties as designated driver for the ITM show management team, my clients here. After three hours at a private function at Sambuca, Houston’s trendy and excellent Jazz café, where exotic shots mingled effortlessly with superb live Rythmn & Blues as we danced like crazed loons, I loaded three rather lovely young English Roses, all considerably the worse for wear, and took them on a classic rock-fuelled tour of my second home. By 1 am they had all fallen in love with a variety of local characters and bars, making me promise that we can do it all again tonight. As we rolled along the deserted downtown streets in my car-come-boat, the ladies chomping on their compulsory Whataburgers, the inevitable happened; Bohemian Rhapsody on the radio.

‘Heeey!’ the girls squealed in unison. ‘Turn it UP!!!’
We were perilously close to the hotel by now, so I did the honourable thing and drove laps around the city blocks as the ladies obliterated the lyrics with some enthused caterwauling followed by committed head-banging in a Wayne’s World stylee. And yes, I did think to myself as we drove past slack-jawed late-night party-goers strolling back to their hotels in our gently rocking ship of fools, life is great.

We’re planning a night out tonight where my worlds here will collide.
A de-mob happy Firecrew D will meet up with foot-weary exhibition organisers and trip the light fantastic around the bars and ice-houses of this great city. We'll be taking Taxis.

Today is Fat Tuesday, more commonly known in this Gulf Coast region as Mardi Gras.
Don’t expect you’ll be seeing that race report any time soon . . .