Southern Belles

We've just arrived back from the great state of Texas and had quite the caliente time down there. As you've no doubt already gleaned, I now speak fluent Texan and I actually bought a pair of spurs down there to wear around the apartment back here in New York. Manolos may make some women feel sexy, but sugar pie, you ain't lived till you've done some struttin' in wrought-iron spurs!

The second leg of our journey into the Red brought us to Houston where we did a reading for the Princeton Alumni Association of Houston in a genuinely cool wine bar called the Tasting Room. Needless to say, Renee and I felt very much at home surrounded by all those bottles of wine and the Tiger alums were an enthusiastic and incredibly welcoming crowd.


They smiled! They laughed! They bought books! They were just beyond fab, and three of them deserve a special shout out: Mark Poag '93, who arranged the event for us, Megan Henry '91, who served as our official hostess for the evening, and Dick "Tiny" Morgan '66, who is the most spirited alum with the best belly laugh we've ever encountered. Didn't hurt that one random bar patron tried to pick one of us up, either...

Renee's friend from law school, Kristen McKeever, a brilliant, beautiful & tall woman, served as our hostess for the weekend and even threw us a great party at her oh-so-lovely-I-desperately-want-one-of-my-own home on Saturday night, which was just fabulous. Arguably there were more lawyers gathered in that house than I've ever encountered before, but they were such excellent folks, it made me think, 'huh, law school! Maybe it's not too late for me after all..."

In addition to sampling some of Houston's finest fajitas and checking out the very cool Museum of Fine Art there, we did two other signings/readings to boot: one at the Woodlands, home of a giant mall (where we indulged in a Doozy, a cookie treat too cloying to describe at this early hour), and at a Borders near Kristen's house, where another Princeton alum, and a great friend to Team Assets, Anthony Hong, came. With Kristen's friend, Nicole, another HLS lawyer, and Anthony (P-ton & HLS himself), we realized we had the smartest crowd gathered for a book reading ever.

Despite being held up at the airport in Houston rather unceremoniously yesterday due to "weather," we had a great time in Texas and I now even feel slightly bad about the way I maligned the state around November of last year...