Sadie, Sadie, Married Lady

Houston is a magical place. Before this weekend I'd only ventured to the city once. It was 2004, and I was on tour with a friends band - the infamous tour that I quit school for. Naturally other big things factored in, but the tour was the proverbial straw. This time I'm here for the joyous celebration of my cousin Brad's nuptials at the Houston Zoo.

We pulled into town yesterday evening, just in time to make the pre-wedding crawfish boil at Little Woodrow's, a delightful back yard patio type of joint with plenty of charm to go around. We had the entire back patio reserved, and it was stuffed to the gills with family, friends, beer and crawfish. As if this wasn't good enough, God also saw it fit to send a wonderful man selling homemade tamales to the party. I grabbed 3dz/$20 for the table and the feast was in full swing. I'd never had the pleasure of eating crawfish in their purest form, but the N'awlins side of my family gave me a brief, but thorough tutorial. I was totally grossed out, and completely in love. They're so wrong they're right. Much fun was had by all.

Today, in the interest of killing some time, the family rendezvoused at The Cheesecake Factory before doing some shopping at the Galleria. After dining on Chicken and Biscuits and Lemoncello Tort, we hit the second floor. Christi and mom bought shoes, I bought some Godiva and dad bought a Puma hat. In the midst of shoe shopping we made our way into Payless; dad went next door to Borders. It wasn't 20 seconds after we walked into the store that I saw him: Black suit, loooong blonde beard and a dread locked skull cap. He was a sharp dressed man, he was Billy Gibbons. I actually didn't think it was really him at first, but that didn't stop me from running (yes, I ran) over to Borders to tell my dad. For those of you not in the know, my father is in love with ZZTop. We have seen them 4 times in concert as a family, he has a poster hanging in his office and he has a replica keychain. My dad bravely approached him and asked for a picture, Billy obliged. My father can now die happy.

And a big shout out goes to Wifi, Godiva and The Deadliest Catch for making this peaceful afternoon possible. Fun pics coming soon!

Deep Thoughts......from John Tesh!

~SIGNS YOUR MARRIAGE WILL LAST~

Depending on which “study” you believe, the secret may be to make a lot of money, have more sons than daughters, and NOT live in Oklahoma – which has the highest divorce rate in North America! Not exactly advice that applies to everyone, right? So with help from the Wall Street Journal, which analyzed hundreds of studies, here are four truisms that work for ALL long lasting marriages.


The first sign your marriage will last: You take life’s big steps in the right order. Of the 57% of couples who DON’T get divorced in North America, most took the time to graduate from college before they got married. Then they waited until after the wedding to start having kids. However, the divorce rate climbs any time couples reach these milestones out of order.

Another sign your marriage will last: You’re both treated fairly on the job. Studies show that people who are overworked and underpaid often bring their job stress home with them. That stacks the deck against their marriage, because they argue more over things that have NOTHING to do with their relationship. So even if your job is to be a stay-at-home Mom, make sure there’s no resentment about it from either of you.

The 3rd sign a lasting marriage: You tie the knot before you sign a lease. Statistics show that couples who wait until after their vows to move in together last longer than couples who rush to cohabitate. Why? Researchers believe that people who live together before marriage place less value on lifelong monogamy.

A final sign your marriage will last: You share the wealth evenly. Stephanie Coontz, wrote the book Marriage: A History, and her research shows that couples who both have a job, yet share housework and child care evenly, have the lowest risk of divorce. It’s important that both partners are happy with that arrangement because working people will walk away from a marriage faster if they’re unhappy – since they believe they can leave and support themselves.