We ARE perfect for each other

In case there was any doubt about it, we discovered this past weekend that yes, The Texan and I are a match made in heaven. Know what was the clincher? We both damn near selected ourselves out of the gene pool.

His bedroom's ceiling is fairly low, and, since it is hotter than blazes in San Antonio, has a very important and necessary ceiling fan that is constantly in motion.

Saturday we were chatting while getting ready to grab some lunch. The Texan stretched his arms up to change his shirt and immediately got butchered by the ceiling fan's blades. I felt a bit guilty, as I'm sure our conversation was the agent that distracted him enough to put his hand through the chopper. So every so often that day, I'd check to see how the wound was congealing and generally fuss over him.

Saturday night we were back at his place and prepping for dinner. You'd think after all the trauma earlier I'd be particularly careful about my vicinity to the ceiling fan. Unfortunately, I was not. This time, it was me who got distracted mid-conversation. I didn't suffer the abrasions that The Texan did, but I did get a lovely blood blister running the length of my index finger that I was sure was going to clot up and head directly to my brain. All's well and I lived long enough to type this out, so obviously no major damage was done.

And while I thought that I would see rabid patriotism this weekend, it was at the place I didn't expect. Texans were in general about as excited about the 4th of July as most Americans, which translates into red, white, and blue everywhere but the real thrill lies with the fireworks. And Texans know their fireworks, believe you me. One of the neighbors even had a mortar launcher that really shot those fireworks high in the sky.

No, the national fervor was expressed at the Canadian embassy for Canada Day. I swung by there with a colleague on Friday and was immediately overwhelmed by the preponderance of red and white decorations. You had to wear a little maple leaf sticker to show you'd gotten through security (which I wore with pride all day. Hee). All the refreshments came from Canada: Canadian beef, Canadian strawberries, and of course Canadian beer. Every third person had some sort of specialty Canada t-shirt on. Who knew that the Gap made up shirts that would explicitly appeal to Canadian nationalism? We saw mooseheads, maple leaf hats, and red and white beanies.

It got to be the point where my colleague and I began to believe that there are more Canadians in the United States than anticipated and that they've been sent to establish sleeper cells which are awaiting commands to action. It started off as a joke but the longer we were at the embassy, the more we began to believe it. Then the Canadian ambassador to the United States got up to address the crowd. He did the usual thanks to the sponsors and the volunteers, and then started talking about how Canada is the greatest country in the world and generally working the crowd up. It was then that my colleague and I started edging for the door. If there was going to be a call to arms, we wanted to get as far away as possible before they turned on us.