Picking up Steve (Background)

Writing this one really quickly before work, as background for the story I'll write later, which is what happened after the fireplace incident. Confused yet? Me too!

It was literally about two weeks since Miah and I had moved into our apartment (note to self: go back and tell the cockroach story later), and we were to have our first houseguest. A friend of hers named Steve, whom she had known from back when she lived in El Paso. The place still had That New Apartment Smell, and we were both excited to be having anyone there. That would change soon; the semester had yet to start, and we hadn't become the default place to crash yet.

So we went to the airport, forget which one, and met Steve's flight. We wanted to take him on a little drive to show off our fair city. Now it gets fun. I had only lived in Houston for two years, and didn't have a car for any of that time, so I didn't really know how to get anywhere. Miah had lived in a far south suburb and the main route she was familiar with, was home-to-school and back. Houston, if you've ever driven it, gets a little confusing. One-way streets, streets that change names three times in a one-mile stretch, streets that blend into one another - whoever initially laid the city out, was on the early-20th-century version of crack. (Note: Houston existed earlier than that, but didn't really become viable until the 1940s or so. Not coincidentally, that was shortly after air conditioning was invented.)

I don't remember where we were trying to take Steve, or what it was we were trying to show him. What I DO remember, is that we drove past a lovely water fountain in the Museum District, right near where Main, Montrose, and a few other streets intersect, near the zoo and Hermann Park.

We drove past it three times.

We never meant to drive past it at all. To this day, "Let's take Fannin!" sends us off into fits of laughter. But then, a lot of things do. She and I are one hell of a team.