Crisis of conscience

"But David," people ask me.  "How do you deal with the crushing guilt of being a stay-at-home Dad and a kept man?"

"Well," I tell them, pausing my computer game and taking a sip of my mid-morning cocktail, "it's tough."

Unfortunately, now and again I feel a sting of something I've come to recognise as 'conscience' and wonder if maybe I should be giving back to society, or whatever.  Equally unfortunately, Pete's school offers infinite opportunities to volunteer, which is why I found myself there several times this week.

One of the biggest puzzles of US society is its utterly clichéed me-first individualism, while at the same time Americans gave a whopping $400 billion to charity in 2017, putting them at the top of the World Giving Index.  Pay taxes to look after everyone with equal healthcare and education?  Oh no.  Make up the shortfall directly out of your own pocket?  This they like.

All of this is why Pete's (and every other) public school runs on volunteers and fundraising, and why I receive nods from other parents at pick-up time who have also chaperoned multiple trips, packed up classrooms at the end of term, or helped the school nurse administer flu shots.  We're a loose collective, recognisable by our pre-printed visitor badges and emotional scars.

My first volunteering this week didn't really count, as it was to see Pete read a poem in front of the school.  This was the annual poetry and prose competition, although (very strangely for America) no one was declared the winner.  Pete seemed to consider being picked from his class to stand in front of the school to be the prize, and recited "Say Hello To Pikachu" with aplomb.  So young, and already surpassing all literary achievements of his father.

Two days later I was back again for the school grand opening.  The school has been open since January but now it was "grand", and various elected officials were here, including a representative of the lovely popular Texas Senator Ted Cruz, as was the school's oldest alumnus who started Kindergarten in 1929.  Lets hope she graduates soon.  The children sang, the principal cried, and we had to say the Pledge of Allegiance before the ribbon was cut.

Finally, Friday was the day of the school fun run, where they were hoping to raise $16,000 to keep the lights on a little longer.  It was a slick affair, organised by a outside marketing company who (reportedly) took a 40% cut of donations.  Hey - it's charity, but this is still the land of free market economics!  We also had to sing the US National Anthem beforehand.  Before a school fun run!  Unfortunately I'd misread the information and believed Pete would run 16 laps, when in fact he did 35, which means I'm on the hook for quite a large sum of money.

Coming up in the next few days it's the Kindergarten 'sock hop' dance, followed by a field trip to the Museum of Natural Science.  It's going to be a busy week for me once again, which is a shame as there are some particularly tricky levels on my current game that require my undivided attention...

Pete wows the crowd with his poem (authors: P & D Davies).

Neighbour and cycling-mate Levi recites his poem in Spanish.

Nara, a fellow Cub Scout and school friend of Pete, gets into character with his pizza poem.

Angels at the grand opening.

Dance beforehand from some embarrassed eighth graders.


 
Top performers.

Ribbon cut!  Much rejoicing.

Lining up for the fun run in the sun.  Fun for whom?

"Baby Shark" for the warm-up.

Pete and Elena sing the anthem.  Elena is Chilean, Pete is British, but whatever.

Runners and riders.

Every mark on that T-shirt is another $20 I owe!  Time to ask my wife for an extension to my credit.

Lucky Land

We liked California - it's where all the weirdos end up.  Need a holy mountain made out of straw?  A place where gravity doesn't exist?  A Danish town?  Or (just by the Arizona border) the centre of the world?  It's all there, and we saw it all.  It's fair to say we fitted in.

Now that we're Texan we're far more sensible, and things like that scare the cattle and vote Democrat so we give them a wide berth.  But this is still America, which means you don't have to go far to find someone who came up with a crazy idea and starting charging people to see it.  Which is why today we went to Lucky Land.

Lucky Land is a pure and simple slice of China in the middle of Houston.  They have pandas!  They have terracotta warriors!  They have Buddhas!  They have kung fu masters!  None of it is real, of course, given away by the fact that it's all made out of concrete.  But that doesn't stop them.  It's like a theme park built by someone who only heard about theme parks from their second cousin.  And it's glorious.

I knew I would love the place when the ticket guy gave us a free return visit because it was raining, and then handed us complimentary umbrellas.  Once inside and enclosed by tall walls of green bamboo, you might actually be in China.  If China's made from concrete and fake plants; I don't know, I've never been.  We sauntered at our leisure, worrying (in a completely British fashion) that as we were the only ones there it might seem rude to leave.

Yet, after two hours of concrete enjoyment, we did drag ourselves away from this piece of genuinely breathtaking Sino-Americana, wondering why we haven't brought every single one of our guests here.  Probably because most of them are far less easily impressed than us.

Welcome to China!

Panda!  Think how dangerous it would be if it wasn't tied to that tree.

A fine vantage point to overlook the whole sweep of the park.

More pandas * * not real

Protecting an endangered species.

Lucky Village (Great Wall of China in background).  Hannah for scale.

Reluctant warrior.

Less reluctant warrior.

Entertaining a little emperor.

Yin and yang.

Through a bamboo forest.

Terracotta army.  Hannah for scale (again).

No idea.

I too have the body of a god.

Everybody was kung fu fighting.

Including us.

The koi (not concrete) were extremely pleased to see us and our fish food, which is included in admission!

Optimus Prime.

Iron Man.  And now we don't need to go to China because we've seen it all.

Home advantage

Watching international sport in America is an interesting prospect when a "home" game can take place half a continent away, which is why I jumped at the chance to take Pete along to watch the USA play football ("soccer") here in Houston!

They were playing a friendly against Chile at the Houston Dynamo stadium, and no sooner had I told our old friends Silvi and Ignacio in Santiago we were going than a box arrived at our door holding official Chile supporters T-shirts!  As that team was by far the favourites I was happy to turn up in Chilean regalia (wearing my England shirt with our one World Cup star underneath for good measure).

By a serendipitous coincidence Pete's best friend in his class, Elena, is Chilean, and so we had the company of her and her family.  Unfortunately both Pete and Elena, having been born in the USA, enjoy dismaying their parents by claiming to be 100% American rather than acknowledging the truth of their heritages.  I took along both my Chilean and USA flags so that they could express the preference, as well as my Welsh flag as a true loyalty test for my son.

I'd like to tell you it was a game of two halves, but it was a game of two goals scored in the first nine minutes and then little after.  There were some chances, but there was a definite lack of finishing quality, mostly because Man U wouldn't release Alexis Sanchez for what was basically a kick-around in a park, even though Barcelona's Arturo Vidal and his mohican haircut made it.

None of that dampened anyone's enjoyment, especially Pete and Elena who spent the match eating hot dogs, nachos, and popcorn while screaming "Chi Chi Chi Le Le Le!" at the tops of their lungs.  "Thank you, you've made a Chilean out of my daughter!" Elena's mum told me.  What I've made of my American-born British boy who now claims he's Chilean while his father tells him he's Welsh is another matter...

Chileans together!

Time for the anthems.  The Chilean one is about twice the length of the Star Spangled Banner - an early power move!

Rowdy supporters.

 

A rare attack.

When the game gets boring, the supporters amuse themselves.

Tonight we are all Chileans.  Or maybe Americans.  Or just a healthy mix.

Proudly serving my corporate masters

There comes a moment that a boy reaches an age when he must decide what he's going to do for the rest of his life.  For Pete, that age is six, and the moment is the When I Grow Up Expo - a careers fair put on by Houston Independent School District for six-year-olds.  With no pesky federal laws around here, we start 'em young in Texas!

I think the event was open to older kids as well, but the advantage of having a cute kindergartner who's happy - in a very un-British manner - to go up and talk to anybody is that you get LOADS of freebies.  We are not going to be in need of pens for many years, even if a lot say things like "Houston Sanitation District" on them.

As ever, it's just fascinating to talk to people who are experts in their fields, and so we learned all about where Houston's water comes from (mostly surface run-off, unless they get really desperate i.e. every day in summer) how the Port of Houston works (the US's largest importer of things-that-won't-fit-in-shipping-containers!) and how many words-a-minute a professional stenographer can churn out (220!!)

It was an excellent and inspiring event, and at the end of it I asked Pete if he now knew what he wanted to be when he grows up.  "I want to be a Dad," he said, melting my heart, "so I can stay at home all day and play computer games."  He's so funny, where on earth does he get ideas like that!?  Haha.  Who knows?  Haha.  Hm.

It's a trap!

Hannah, who is absolutely not a corporate spy, checks out a competitor's oil rig in virtual reality.

Local employers were here too.

Police horse!  Not one of the freebies.

Pete spent a disproportionate amount of time testing fake (I hope) urine.  If it was real, the donor has some medical problems.

Nope.  Nope.  Not an area of work I will be going into.  I'm just going to sit down for a bit...

Interesting how money seems to be the biggest component on the road to college success.

I've always found firefighters sexy.

Not sure either of these two is cut out for running Port Houston.

If you want to get rich Pete, you know what line of work you have to go into.

Back for Brexit

As a child, you think your parents will always be around for you.  And then, in the blink of an eye, they're waving you goodbye and heading to the business lounge in Houston airport.

Spring Break continued, which meant no school and therefore 1000% more Pete in his Grandparents' life.  A happy occurrence, but a tiring one.  I did my best to keep both ancestors and descendants happy with more trips to museums and coffee shops, and we finished with a long weekend in Galveston, our local seaside town of much renown.

My parents came at this time of year because they wanted to avoid the Houston heat, and they managed to do that remarkably well, with the weather resembling Britain rather than Texas.  Then, as things began to warm up at the end of their stay, a huge oil fire blotted out the sun.  But it's OK, because it's not Chevron's (sighs Hannah) and it didn't delay the flight (sighs Dad).

So that's it!  What am I meant to do now?  Go back to whatever it was I was doing with my life, I suppose.  I know childcare was involved but I'm a little lost beyond that. I implored my parents to stay until after Brexi-pocalypse on 29th but they heeded me not.  If I start rowing now perhaps I'll be off the coast in time to evacuate them quick...

Brits together!  In front of a Damien Hirst at the Museum of Fine Art.

Something even more abstract.

"So Grandma, if you need to grow your own food for any reason in the near future, this is what you do..."

What does chaos look like?  A Spring Break balloon show at the local library.

Making a connection on the electrical music bench at the Kids' Museum.

 Another Texas tradition: Whataburger.

A picture of Victorian criminality, at the Naval Museum in Galveston.

Do you have to ask?

The Admiral is aboard!

Port and starboard.

Mum orders a large one "just to take the edge off" at the Rainforest Cafe.