Houston Day 76 - White Linen Night

The Heights has a kind of bizarre tradition called White Linen Night.  It was invented (or much improved) by Hurricane Katrina escapees, coz people from New Orleans know how to party much better than Houstonians.  It's centered in 19th St in the Heights, and it's a big neighbourhood party.  Everyone wears white, and all the shops are open and have sales and free food and drink, and there are bands playing and market stalls set up, and people have pool parties.  It's quite festive and fun!
We started White Linen Night at 4.30pm in the afternoon with a few drinks at Scott and Maggie's place, also with Dan and Shani.  Headed over to a friend of Maggie's who was having a pool party and serving awesome jumbilaya (but still not as good as Lucas').  Then at 6pm the street party aspect of it kicked off, so we wandered the streets eating goodies and checking out shops and listening to the bands and chatting to people.  Lucas and I also got our photo taken on a longhorn steer.  It was mildly terrifying.  We got tired and thirsty and in need of a bathroom so Scott, Maggie, Dan, Shani and another Exxon employee called Jay wound up at our place, which is a bit closer to the 19th St shopping district than Scott & Maggie's.

Then I got a call from Mum, who was visiting with my grandma, who's really sick at the moment.  It seems her COPD is finally getting the better of her.  When Mum called I thought she was going to tell me Grandma had died, but she just wanted to Skype me from her laptop so that Grandma and I could see each other.  But alas, the wireless signal in the nursing home is not brilliant (can't imagine there's a massive demand for it among the aged patients), so we could only see each other for short moments at a time before the signal got patchy again.
When I was a child I was in hospital with asthma for a while.  Can't remember how long, but it must have been at least several days, because I do remember Grandma coming to visit me everyday and bringing me a new sticker book.  I have another round of auditions this week, but after that I'm seriously considering flying to Melbourne to visit Grandma every day for a couple of weeks and bring her things she might enjoy...pink doughnuts and flowers and DVDs of people tap dancing.
Also, a brief word about the weather.  I have never experienced heat like this.  It has been in the 90s or 100s (Farenheit) consistently every day bar one or two pretty much since we got here.  That's high 30s/low 40s for those of you who speak Celsius.  I keep looking out the window and saying "oh, it's a nice day" then going outside and remembering that the heat is absolutely heinous.  Reminds me of when I was in Scotland saying "oh, it's a nice day out" and going outside only to remember that it was below freezing.  A blue sky does not mean anything.  It's muggy too, so you sweat something nasty.  However, I am grateful for air conditioning, and enough money to pay the accompanying electricity bills, and for this still being better than Melbourne winter, where most buildings are not insulated well enough.