getting lost in Harris County...

...when I was looking for the house of my friend from church. I had called K. yesterday asking about getting together for lunch. She called back and we made plans for me to drive up to see her someplace in a subdivision they moved into back in the late fall. She used to run the café at church and was managing the church kitchen for several years. Providing meals for groups meeting at various scheduled events in our building, and keeping the kitchen going with short order meals, coffees and exotic beverages.  Finally decided she had enough, after some mysterious symptoms and strange cluster of undiagnosed-able ailments that were overwhelming. She thought heart problems, then something awry with her immune system, and finally settled on beginning menopause complicated by adult onset of asthma.

Anyway, she is considerably better and concludes some of her disabling symptoms were due to job-related stress. They moved out of a house that was going into foreclosure and into something much more affordable. I think the place they could not manage was bought and built during the bubble, and they were paying literally thousands of dollars on a mortgage, feeling swamped. When they decided to make a move/change, she quit her café managing job and now a stay at home mom. Except for all the trips into town with kids and after school activities day after day.

I took a couple of frozen pizzas and a quickie lemon pie, for us to have for lunch. We had a good visit once I finally got there: numerous U turns plus asking for directions from two different people on the way. One guy was jogging along the road and extremely inconvenienced to have to remove his ear-buds and hear my question. The other was a grandmother, stopped at an intersection on two county maintained country roads,  passing off a sleeping baby in a car-seat to the mom. Even though the locals were knowledgeable and  helpful, it took several more false starts to finally get there. Crossing over the interstate twice and roaming around in the woods on gravel roads for miles.

But it was a gorgeous spring day, with bright sunshine, clear blue sky and trees covered in palest green leaves. Driving down country roads, with the windows open and tires humming. Thankful to be alive.