  We are a one-car family. In a city whose blood runs black with oil, and where a love affair with cars better distinguishes citizens than a sports team or even Texas history, we've become something like martyrs precisely because we continue to be a one-car family. John takes the bus every day from downtown to NASA, a 45 minute ride before 9/11 and a 60-70 minute ride since. He learned to fill the time with checking and returning emails and reading his daily myriad of government documents, the nature of which urlLink Al Gore tried so valiantly to distinguish in the federal government. Last month John bought a scooter off ebay, an electric Zappy, that was supposed to aleviate the many obstructions people eagerly inserted to the Houston commute in the name of 9/11. The first week he had the scooter, he was urlLink quickly tied up in a battle of legalities at NASA . After that, he enjoyed one blissful week of riding the scooter before he broke it by hitting a curb and breaking the rubber belt. Since then, we've tried in vain to replace the belt, but until we succeed, his commuting problems continue to abound. I'm not sure what value there is in having a gigantic federal government try to slightly downsize itself by outsourcing _everything_, but decentralization is the Soma of our electorate, and in a day and age where the motivation is fear and attitudes in the federal government resemble Salem, MA more than Arthur's round table, inviting contractors from around the world to submit bids for, say, equipment on the Space Station is, er, challenging.
So instead of hosting meetings at JSC this week, John is tied up at the ever illustrious, and by illustrious I mean tacky, Nassau Bay Hilton. Needless to say, the Hilton not only lacks a bus stop, but is pretty far from the bus route. That is how I found myself at REI last night buying a bike trailer.
Because, damn it, we're a one-car family. We believe in New Urbanism and Green Development, and we even sacraficed our first child, the Vehicross, to these ideals. John brilliantly fanagled this deal where we got the website sale price of $270 off $400 at the store and didn't have to pay the shipping from the website. This morning, like the good soldier I am in the battle to save our planet, I woke up early, fed and dressed the kids, and loaded them into our brand new Burlie D'Lite. The problem is, Houston is not made for anything but a car, and an SUV at that. That's not the only problem. Ellie isn't keen on her helmit, and the nylon straps have to hold her in the seat in lieu of her physical development capabilities. The trailer doesn't have shocks so the kids are jarred at every pothole, and in Houston, potholes are so proliferate that they were actually the deciding issue in the last mayoral election. As I bravely navigated the sidewalks and streets, I planned letter-writing campaigns to refurbish the sidewalks and giant mobilizations of handicapped and liberal one-car families where we march hand in hand demanding safe pedestrian ways.
I got Aidan to school only 45 minutes late. The return was punctuated by Ellie's now over-tired cries and a nasty showdown with a semi-truck. It was totally his fault. He saw me in plenty of time to give me room to pass, but instead kept turning until he blocked both lanes of the street he was coming from and both lanes of the street he was turning onto, the street where I was stopped waiting for my light to turn green. My valour quells when my baby daughter is in the seat behind me, so instead of standing him down, I had to pick up the bike and the trailer, a feat of physical strength and coordination, and move onto the sidewalk. But from the safety of the sideline, I stood the most defiant stance I could muster, considering I was straddling a bike, wearing a helmit, and pulling an infant.
I flicked my hand at my chin at him and he made hand gestures back to me. I saluted my middle finger triumphantly high in the air and yelled as loud as I could over his uber-engine, "fuck you you fucking bastard! " It may not have been a proud moment, but it was a human one. At this point I was just a few blocks from home and the rest of the ride was uneventful. John asked if the experience was a complete failure, and I could only say that the system needed an overhaul in order to survive, but that I plan to take the bus this afternoon. 
