TREKKIN’ TO TEXAS

Tomorrow night, She Who Must Be Obeyed and I board the Great Silver Aerial Bus for a long weekend in Foat Wuth, visiting the various In-Laws d’Elisson.

By then, maybe the weather here will have settled down. This morning, it rained like a cow pissing on a flat rock...except the cow usually can’t generate the lightning and thunder. Nasty business.

The driving force behind the trip is Bro In-Law d’Elisson, who is undergoing a sort of Re-Bar Mitzvah Process. I guess now that he’s frum (observant), he wants something with a little more religious substance than the Reform-style event he had 32 years ago. No fancy party this time, just your basic Saturday-morning service - only this time, it’ll be Hasidic-style, old-school. Chicken soup for the Jewish soul, as it were, made from a glatt kosher chicken.

And, of course, we get to see Nephew William and his mom and dad. And the Folks de SWMBO.

The Nephew, whom we last saw in December, has continued to amaze everybody with his child-like brilliance. A few weeks ago, he had received a stuffed cow in the mail from his Auntie SWMBO. Shortly thereafter, he asked his mother if he could “call Auntie SWMBO on the phone and thank her for the cow.” Which he proceeded to do. Made SWMBO’s day, that did.

This is a kid that, at the age of two years and two months, could look in a book of animal photographs and identify just about every animal by name. I’m not talking your basic “cow,” “cat,” “dog,” either. I’m talking “bear,” “snake,” “rooster,” “antelope,” “ox,” “whale,” et alia. Complicated stuff. I do believe the boy has veterinary potential - which would be a right good fit with Momma’s horse breeding business.

Yeah, we’ll see little William...which means we will also be seeing Thomas the Tank Engine, whose best quality, in my eyes, is that he is Not Barney.

I can deal with that kid stuff - Uncle Elisson! - but when I’m home?

No Tanks.