Bodega. Nor'easter. Houston Street (pronounced How-sten). I'm not in Kansas anymore. Or rather, Fort Worth, where we actually moved from. Nope. Definitely landed on a new planet. From Cowtown to the Big Apple. I've had to learn a few new things.
I have visited Houston (pronounced Hew-sten), Texas, as a child and as an adult. It is the largest metropolitan area in Texas. I attended Sam Houston High School. You can hunt in the Sam Houston National Forest in south east Texas. It's fair to say that the pronunciation of Houston is burned into my vernacular. In NYC, when I first heard the subway conductor say, "How-sten Street" while riding the Number 1 train, I was perplexed. It is spelled the same way, but pronounced so differently. Where was I? I have tried to pronounce it the NYC way, but I feel ridiculous. Not sure I'll be able to adopt that.
In Texas, if you need to go to the corner store, you call it that. "I'm going to the corner store." It's a store. On the corner. Simple. In NYC, it's called "bodega." Spanish for grocery store and specialty wine store. When I first heard of bodega, it was a radio news clip mentioning where someone went for help after a mugging, so I thought it was a counseling center or something. But then a friend mentioned stopping at the bodega to buy a newspaper. And then it became clear. Glad to get that straightened out.
The weather here has fluctuated between perfectly calm and sunny to terribly disastrous and miserable. And I've been told that is not normal. After the first week of moving here, there was a tornado along Long Island Sound and Connecticut. I thought it was normal, being a Texan. We replaced the roof on our house this year because of hail damage from a normal, typical Texas tornado. And then Hurricane Sandy hit the North East coast October 29th. That was terrible. And then a week later a nor'easter hit the area. Hurricane I get, but a wha? Nor. Easter. Had to look that up on the weather websites. It's when forces of varying pressure slam into each other at the same time above the North East. Cold Arctic air from the Atlantic mixed with warmer Gulf air from the south mixed with air from the Ohio Valley area. Crazy wind, crazy precipitation. Six inches of snow fell in a few hours.
So now I know that when you live in New York City you go to the bodega and stock up before a nor'easter. Very useful info. But please don't give me directions to "How-sten" St. You will see this sweet, southern gal cringe with distaste, cover her ears and walk away humming the tune of Texas, Our Texas.
