Ike: Part the Fourth-Life After the Storm

The question of where to stay after the storm was a pretty simple one. On the one hand, my Mother-in-law needed someone to stay with her while there was work to be done. My wife volunteered to cover that venue. My youngest stayed there to supervise Saturday night.

My 17 year-old and I went to my parents’ house. They have a large house, a big deep freeze, a refrigerator, electric well pump and a butane generator. And a big tank of butane.

Allow me to backtrack a little. In 1999, a friend of my Dad decided that Y2K was a real threat, and that my parents needed a generator to keep them going until the new world order re-formed the grids and restored power. So he hooked them up with a generator wearing a butane adaptor behind the carburetor and the electric line buried and tied in to the house at the box, all up to code. At the first of every month she gets started up and run for five or ten minutes, just to keep loose. That’s been eight years of preparation.

With the generator running and the boards still on the windows, the house stayed very bearable Saturday night. I slept like a rock. We cooked out on the propane stove when something needed to be hot, and when we needed to be cool, we sat still inside and drank water. The first evening was pretty quiet, still assessing what all got busted up by the storm. Late in the evening, the generator started to lope and hunt for a spark. My Dad and I went out and pulled the spark plug, changed the gap on it, and she started purring like an electric cat. That night I slept like a load of concrete.

Sunday morning early, the day started up a little wet and rainy. My Dad and I went out and put a tarp up over the door of the pump house to keep our little electric factory dry. For some reason we figured that a generator and rain would come to no good conclusion. As we hung the tarp and stuck the poles I the ground to support it, the air got a lot cooler, nearly cold. A really good feeling.

When the cool front came in on Sunday, the temperature really dropped and on Monday as we started cutting limbs and raking branches, the girls didn’t even have to break much of a sweat. At night after dinner, we’d sit around telling stories on each other, laughing, cackling, and snorting at all the old stories. My girls, hearing some of them for the first time were staring in wonder at the fun we used to have. As we sat there telling stories in the semi-darkness of the back porch with the sky glowing in and the sound of the generator running 24 hours a day like a manic yardman, it was like a big luxury camp trip.

Monday, after cutting and hauling limbs at my parents’ house getting all hot and sweaty, I decided that I would take a shower at their house. A cold shower. No big deal; I took a cold shower at our house on Sunday after going over and getting some work done. What man can’t take a cold shower every now and then?

Well, when you say you’re going to take a cold shower in a house supplied with city water, and when you say you are going to take a cold shower in a house with a three hundred foot well, you are talking about two completely different showers.

I have some advice to pass along; if you are going to take a shower in the latter, a) take the shower in late afternoon, and b) don’t let your body temperature get back down to normal after working outside.

When the icy needles fired out of the showerhead, it was all I could do to keep from screaming like a little girl staring down a big spider on her Barbie. It was THEN that I remembered the depth of the well. I hurried through the process of the actual bath with such haste and on such a shortage of oxygen that I have doubts about the total cleanliness that was achieved that evening.

The next few days were spent going to my house and trimming and dragging and piling branches from our yard. And our neighbor’s yard, and the widow lady’s down the street.

A lot of oak was lying around Alvin, taunting all of the fireplace owners. On my trips around the neighborhood, I noticed that the local gypsy whose house always looks disheveled, the front window has been boarded up for about three years, so Ike came through and made a couple of thousand dollars worth of improvements. So if you have a lowboy trailer and a log splitter, you could end up with a tidy sum of change.

So when the clouds finally parted, and most of the cleanup done or nearly done, Ike’s silver lining shows us that we can put up with almost anything if we think we can get some free firewood.

Intolerance of Minstrels in Aftermath of Ike

One of the funniest things I saw in my neighborhood after Ike passed through was the sign that one of the residents at the front of the subdivision posted. He had a large piece of plywood with a spraypainted message on it, “You Lute, We Shoot!” Seriously. I would not lie to you.

I saw it and remarked to my youngest daughter that the guy must be really intolerant of traveling musicians from the fifteenth century. I could see Sting wandering by with his new instrument of choice, playing a nice bourreé.

“BANG, BANG! You dang minstrel, get your lute off of my front lawn, the sign is fair warning!”

My girl gave me a great gift; she laughed really hard.

I couldn’t help it.

Ike: Part the Third-Wow

The trip back to our respective homes was interesting. On the way back to Friendswood, where my Mother-in-law lives, we saw many trees uprooted as a direct of the straight-line winds. We saw still others that were twisted masses of tangled branches and limbs indicating the twisty winds of the hundreds of small tornadoes spawned by the hurricane. The different creeks we crossed were already swollen, and at one point, the road was covered by eight or so inches of water. Power lines were down; some in the road, some on houses and others just lying like exhausted snakes along the roadside.

We drove fairly slowly to avoid the branches and piles of leaves in the road, and to assess the damage to structures adjacent to the street. Walls with the brick veneer peeled off like peanut shells, facades on buildings half crumbled or blown away, metal awnings looking like sardine cans with lids still partially attached. The anxiety built, leaving us wondering what our places were going to look like.

Mimi’s house was very well-preserved; she only had some fatigued hyacinths and a broken pine bough. The back yard yielded a fence caught in mid-faint, and one broken picket. A pretty good record, I’d say, since there was nothing too far amiss, save the lack of power and phone. She has a gas water heater and range, so there would be hot food and warm showers until the cavalry rode into town.

So my Mother-in-law was in pretty good shape for the time being. It was time to go to our house to see if we still had one. Since we didn’t know what would be there, I decided to leave the girls at Mimi’s, put one foot in front of the other (not literally, I drove the silver Dodge) and picked my way down to the homestead. All the way down Highway 35, I saw evidence of angry winds and waters that refused to stay in their usual courses. Power lines down, portable buildings that had been moved without the benefit of a truck, with siding and roofing material marking the trail that they took to their resting places in the middle of the median of the Bypass.

By the time I arrived at our subdivision, the anticipation was driving me to a sub-sane condition. There was still water in the street so the back way was the only route to my house. Branches down littering the street, basketball goals and shingles were all painting a picture that I didn’t want to see.

Turns out, the picture wasn’t all that bad. I pulled into the driveway and parked next to my little red car. It looked none the worse for wear, except that there were shredded leaf bits tucked into every crevice, under molding on the side, around the window gaskets, and plastered to the license plate. It looked like my car had been mulched.

The roofline looked good, and as I scanned my way around the house, the plant life notwithstanding, the whole thing looked pretty good. I went around the north side and saw nothing out of place, came through the back gate and saw the Arizona ash did pretty much what I had expected. It’s branches filled up the back yard. And the deck. And where the back fence had been. There was one in particular that made me a little mad. It was one that was about eight inches in diameter that had somersaulted out of the top of the tree, landed top-first on the deck, then rocked to the right and smacked into the edge of the roof right over the master bedroom. It cracked the fascia board, crumpled the flashing and smushed a piece of shingle about the size of a slice of bologna. That was it. Except for the fences. And a few shingles from the rickety shed out in the corner (which I would have wagered to have sustained considerably more damage than what ended up).

My neighbor’s yard was fully visible, since three panels of our seven-foot fence were laying in his yard. He had a new shed with a little steeple on it, and a weather vane bearing a silhouette of a horse and carriage running over the little arrow pointing to the wind direction. I had half-expected to see that arrow in the side of one of our many possum someplace else. But it rode out the storm just fine up there on top. He has (“used to has”) a metal and canvas decorative gazebo, now it’s just a pile of twisted metal. There were some shingles missing from his roof, and his young oak tree in the front yard was in repose on its side. But nothing else wrong, all windows intact, no doors blown in, limbs through the roof or anything.

The guy across the street, Donny, was none so fortunate. After I had checked my house and Larry’s abode, I traversed the street to see how his home had fared. The front wasn’t bad, just some shingles missing, the board on the front window had blown off, although no ill effect was seen from that. Of course their hibiscus plants, like ours, were worn out and lying over. The back of the house was the disaster. The porch next to the master bedroom and living room was ripped back and laying next to the house on the East side. It was almost like looking into an open wound; the insulation and the bones of the house showing, the nerves and arteries laid bare to the elements. I felt a little sick. But like any good neighbor/journalist, I whipped out my phone and snapped a couple of shots of the carnage. I then immediately sent the pictures to him, along with my condolences. I didn’t need to remind him that he was the one who had a bad feeling about Ike.

Ike: Part the Second-The Teeth of the Wind

The preliminary ablutions out of the way, it was time to ready ourselves for the actual event. My wife couldn’t get off of work till Thursday, so that night our preparations began in earnest. Bags packed, food gathered, snacks stashed and flashlights distributed. We were ready.

While I would rather have stayed at my own house, I knew that my wife would need to be with her mother at a time like this. If she was going to be there, then that’s where we all would be. I had boarded up our windows, and said a prayer over our house as we pulled out of the drive headed to MiMi’s house. On arriving at the Maison du MiMi, I couldn’t help noticing that there were no boards on the windows, no tape, nothing. It was beginning to look “not too safe” to me, and the helicopter hangar was looking pretty good about now, since Ike was bearing down on the Galveston Bay area like an ill-tempered second-grader. Since he had already thrown a sizeable tantrum on Cuba, he was promising to make someone’s life miserable.

We decided that with this hurricane bearing down on us as it was, pretty unmistakably, we would be better of in the Houston Helicopter hangar. The owners have been friends of my wife’s family for many years and they welcomed friends and family to their large hangar for safety. The building is rated for something like 150 mph winds, and thus the best place for riding out a storm.

There were 5 helicopters and eight or nine private automobiles in the hangar by the time we got there; the owners, one of their daughters, her husband and two of her kids, all of whom brought a separate vehicle. Then our little entourage with two vehicles, and later another friend of theirs arrived in a Prius. Plenty of space.

I dashed out at one point to bolster our supplies of snack food with an order of hot food; Popeye’s Chicken was open, and doing a brisk business. I pulled into the parking lot, only to find that the staff had locked the side door and was only serving drive-thru orders, and the line looked like a used car lot. I sneaked around to the other side and made my way in to the store, and there I stood with about ten other folks. There we waited for the fried bird to emerge from the grease. I got the “Meal Deal”; really the “deal” was for the Church’s; sixteen pieces and some side orders for over thirty dollars. Highway robbery! But what can you do, I paid and zoomed back to our haven.

The wind was blowing in the 20 mph range when we got there, with some pretty interesting gusts, and surprisingly little rain. On the paved helipad and driveway the grit from the street driven by the wind had a sandblasting effect. Our little dogs explored on their respective leashes, and the mood was rather light and reunion-ish. I hadn’t seen some of these people since our kids were really small, and the catching-up was great.

The afternoon progressed, as did the wind, and we adjourned to the inside of the hangar with the wind whipping past the door. We watched scores of birds battling the wind to roost in stands of trees; dove, scissortail, starlings, grackles and sparrows. There was speculation on the speed of the flight of the doves and further speculation that even I would possibly be able to drop one with a shotgun, were it not for the windage factor!

The wind picked up, and the decision was made to close the doors and move all of our camp gear to the command center offices. Up a set of steep stairs on either side of the shop was the command center, with a large conference table, a couple of huge maps of the Texas Gulf Coast and offshore coordinates, a refrigerator and sink. The large room was surrounded on three sides by offices of varying sizes. These would be our bivouac areas for the duration.

We waited for the storm, glued to the radio or television, hearing stories and anecdotes from storms past. The wind grew wilder and at about 7:30 p.m., the power went out. The big natural gas generator came on automatically to power the essential components of the command center, but not the air conditioning units. Those would seem to me to be essential, but I am not the one who ordered the generator installed. We did have a small 7500 watt diesel generator set up outside in a covered truck, and he was called into play at this juncture. This generator enabled us to set up the fans who stood at the ready to keep us alive in the command center, which quickly became quite stuffy.

The TV news people had been working everyone to an absolute frenzy, emulating Dan Rather during Hurricane Carla in 1961, standing out in rising water being battered by waves and wind. Wayne Dolcefino, ever-intrepid reporter for the Eyewitness News Team, was on the seawall in Galveston, bleating into the microphone about the storm surge and the increasing wind and the inherent danger of standing right where he was standing. There was even some footage of brave Geraldo Rivera standing on Seawall Boulevard being knocked to the street by a wave. Our group hooted and cackled as the tape was played back a couple of times, to our great delight. I could have watched that for another half hour or so. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. A group of Galveston firefighters were standing by their truck, and a trio hurried over to him to help him up. When it was clear that he was all right, one of them remarked that it was “about time to get off the Seawall”. Gold.

Other reporters throughout the night would venture into waist-deep water that eventually covered all but the highest points on the entire island, and I sat breathlessly awaiting a passing rat or snake to climb up their slicker. Alas, on that point I was disappointed.

The studio anchors and weather people weren’t much better, and I feared that if I heard another newsman, newswoman, city official, county judge, state representative, passing motorist or parakeet utter the term “hunker down”, I would run screaming into the face of the storm, completely “un-hunkered”.

The storm inevitably progressed as these giant unstoppable forces of nature are known to do, and we sat in rolling chairs, chasing the oscillating fans on their appointed rounds, waving like wheat in the breeze. One by one, the denizens repaired to their hot little pallets in the makeshift dorm. Only a couple of us hardy (?) souls stayed up to watch the snowy television and track the slow progression of the eye of the storm to landfall.

From the offices, we could hear the wind blowing outside in gusts, and occasionally hear the rain slashing, but down in the hangar, the experience was a fearsome combination of the relentless howling and moaning of the wind at the giant bay doors, the crashing of the louvered vent fan at the end of the building, and the sound of the rain just hammering the outside of the steel shell we were in was alarming. I made a couple of passes through the hangar at different times, to make sure the fiberglass skylights didn’t blow in and wreck any cars (they didn’t). The wind-driven water was coming in under the doors making glassy pools in the eerie semi-darkness.

Due in part to the heat and my shoulders knotting up like frozen briskets, I only managed about two hours sleep that night, mostly in fitful twenty to thirty minute stretches. Not one of my best hurricanes. The last one I sat through was Alicia in 1983 and I got a full three hours of sleep, in longer stretches. Of course, I didn’t have a house and family to worry about. Also, this time, my parents and sister were riding out the storm down in Alvin. Needless to say, there was a lot running through my mind.

Saturday slowly dawned, the wind slowed back down to about 30 mph, and the little dogs were about to explode. My daughters and I went down on the side of the building that was sheltered from the wind, and let them run a little and, uh, other stuff. The small one had to patter through the puddles, too, like any other youngster.

As everyone started moving around, we assessed whatever damage there might have been; one window got sucked out after a tiny crack appeared in it. We boarded that up the best we could, but the worst of the storm was over. By about ten, some of the folks wanted to make a foray around Friendswood to see what sort of damage their property might have sustained. With some space cleared, I figured it was time to move the vehicles and try to get out while the getting was good.

We packed our provisions and headed out to try to make our way to our homes to see how we had fared.

Summer's CAT-astrophe

This summer, my youngest child got a cat. She had wanted a kitty she could call her own for a long time. And finally she got one. This is her version of her story. I'm sure the cat has a different tale.


CAT-astrophe

by Summer Söder––
June 6th 2008-A day I could never forget. That morning I was due for an annual eye exam and I was so excited that day because I had finally got my parents to let me get a kitten.
Since my mom had to take Katie to go get her wisdom teeth removed, my dad took me to pick the little animal up, that is of course AFTER my Dr.’s visit. The whole time at the appointment I could not wait to get my kitty, and finally the time came to drive over to Baytown.

The lady who had spoken on the phone with my dad earlier that day about how to get to her little antique shop where the “sweet” little kitty was, stood waiting at the door when we arrived. When I saw the kitten I was so disappointed, the fluffy, green eyed, black haired kitten she had described was a short haired, yellow eyed, skinny little rat. By the look on my face my dad could tell I was not impressed.

‘She’s really sweet, and very playful,” woman reassured.
I didn’t care about the cat’s temperament at the moment or the anything else she had to say about it, I was just focused on the fact she was about to hand me a wingless fruit bat, but I took it because the lady almost seemed excited to get it out of her hands.

It took about 2 hours to get home and let me just tell you it was THE WORST 2 hours of my life!! The cat I had named Isabelle, kept climbing up my shoulder, biting my arm and scratching my legs. I kept trying to hold her down but it was no use.

When we got home I was worn out, after I got her settled in my room I plopped down on my bed and watched her play with a ribbon she had found under my dresser.

That same night Madison spent the night at my house. She was in awe of my cat and clearly didn’t see it the way I did; I mean it was cute but not what I had had in mind. Madison and I stayed up until my kitten fell asleep. She slept all night, but little did I know it would not last.

She had been set up to sleep in an old baby doll bed I had received several Christmas’s’ ago and it never crossed my mind once that maybe she would be able to get out, until one night at about 3 A.M. she pounced on my head, and scared me to death.

It took about two weeks of that cat pouncing on my head each night until I made the decision that I just couldn’t take it any more. I had tried EVERYTHING to make her sleep at night but nothing worked, so I made the decision to give her away.
After giving her away my Mimi and I went out looking for an animal that was loyal and one I knew I wanted. We went to every single pet shop you can think of but found nothing, until I went to one particular one and instead of finding a cat I found a Pomeranian puppy. I asked my Mimi if I could get her but she told me no, only because it looked sick like maybe it was from a puppy mill. When it was time to leave, I said good-bye to the puppy and left.

Later on that day I called my mom and asked if she would approve of me getting a dog, and surprisingly said yes. (For her she didn’t care whether or not I got a dog just as long as I didn’t get another cat).

I scratched and saved and on July 14, my birthday, my mom and sister took me to get my new puppy, a little bitty black Pomeranian puppy, we all knew would make our other big Pomeranian Dutchess jealous. I called her Xena, and am so glad I got her instead of another cat.

Ike: Part the First

If you didn’t already know, we had us a hurricane named Ike that barreled thru here last week. For both of my readers, you may have missed seeing anything new up here. Sorry, but there have been other things going on.

Last Wednesday, we were let off of work to prepare for the storm that was due to hit 50 miles down the coast. You never can tell what them things are going to do, and since it started taking a turn up the coast toward us, and since the last couple of blows have showed the power of the wind and water, everybody is just a little snakebit about that kind of stuff.

I borrowed my sister-in-law’s chainsaw on a stick, and hauled myself up into the one of my two ash trees to remove some of the branches likely to slap the snot out of my chimney and roof. My middle daughter was watching the spectacle of a bear in jeans climbing a tree with a dangerous tool in his paws. She said she was trying to make sure that she remembered our address to tell the 911 operator where we live when I crashed to the patio.

She handed the saw up to me and I made my way from branch to branch like an oversized lemur, so as to reach the branches marked for pruning. There were no good handholds, no good footholds, and no way to get a good angle on any of the offending limbs to lop them off.

Let me break in here for a second to explain my hatred of the dreaded Arizona ash tree and the “ash is trash” sentiment of everyone I know. These trees grow quickly, thus producing quick shade for a home. The benefits end there. The wood is brittle; it only takes a 25 mile per hour wind to cause them to crack or split down a few feet. When you try to pull them, the tough inner bark just keeps splitting down the big limb till it stops. Then it hangs on like grim death. It takes a good saw to cut through it, but the wood splinters and binds any blade put to it. Unless you have some rpm’s to power through.

So here I am 14 feet up in the air trying to get through the last inch of wood to fell the branch that spelled doom for my roof. SO not fun. I figured out that if I had a third hand, I could have gotten the extra foot or so to get the last tendon to cut loose. The “thunk” that resounded on the deck was music to my ears.

With the main task done, the next and possibly the most important aspect of the job was coming down from my perch. I’m not TOO smart, but I know enough about physics to understand that the amount of weight that I carry, multiplied by ten feet (the altitude of the lowest branch) and the velocity of a falling object equals a hurt geezer. Fortunately for me, my arms are long and so the distance my feet were off the ground was only about two and a half feet. I let go and dropped to the small flowerbed with paving stones stacked around it. There was only a slight twist to my right ankle when I landed, and I only limped around inhaling through my teeth for a few minutes. We piled the branches up on the side of the deck in a rough windbreak sort of configuration.


A quick trip to Kroger yielded a couple of cases of bottled water since we would need that regardless of where we landed. And a half dozen cans of tuna. If nothing else, I would have a week’s worth of lunches at work.

All this in between watching the swirling uncertainty that was Ike on the TV news. My neighbor across the street said that he had a bad feeling about this one. No false alarms or close calls. This one would hit us. We swapped cell numbers and a promise that whoever was here first would report to the other.

There would be more to this than a stiff breeze and a long rain storm.

We, Like Tina, Will Survive Ike!

Yeah, it's been awhile since I posted, ain't it? I have been working on some stuff, but it's not ready for publication yet. The hurricane and time spent with my parents and sister, with my kids listening to old stories, has given me lots to blog about. The only problem is, will I remember all of it when I sit back down to type it in.

After more than a week of doing things non-electronically, I have reverted to elementary school typing level. I can't remember where to click on a mouse, what to do when the web opens up, all that is gone. I have to get my kids to remind me. I hope they know some stuff about Photoshop and stuff, for when my classes start back up at the college. It would be pretty awkward for a thirteen year old girl to be teaching my class with me simply nodding in the background.

We came out relatively unscathed in the night terror that was Ike. Lost a couple of huge branches on our Arizona ash tree (worthless hunk of wood weed that it is) and one of them smacked the corner of the roof right above the bedroom window. It only crinked the flashing, cracked the fascia board and messed up a shingle the size of a piece of bologna. Fences down, but I expected that.

We were without power till Thursday, still have no fone service, and spotty cell service. My parents, whom we stayed with for 5 days, got power on Friday, as did my sister. The folks have a generator that kept the freezer freezing and the fridge fridge-ing and the ceiling fans fanning...so we fared pretty well. The weather here was glorious starting on Monday; a post-'cane cool front came and kept us from burning and sweating too much.

There is more cooking so be patient, thanks for the emails!

I Found Hootie...

...The Blowfishes can't be too far behind!

You may have heard the news; Hootie and the Blowfish have broken up. Sad though it is, rest assured that I have found Darius Rucker. And the reason he left the band is apparently because he wanted to go into convenience store/gas station management at the Speedy Stop in Alvin, and the only way to do that is to start at the bottom.

I must say though, he does handle a cash register well, and always gives correct change. Even in the midst of the 6:45-7:05 a.m. rush. The tree trimming guys and the mowing crews have to gas up and get drinks for the day. And Hootie is the only one working the register. I don't know why, because one of the gals is usually out smoking on a break or shift change or something.

I think he made a good career move, even as a successful musician, you always gotta have something to fall back on...

In a Fog

Yep, this past week, I have been living in a fog. And it’s not half-bad, really. Come to think of it, it’s pretty sweet! On THIRD thought, there’s probably nothing cooler!

No, I am not referring to an alcohol or drug-induced fog. That’s the self-destructive way.

Nay, the fog that I describe is the smoky poison that wafts from the business end of a mosquito fogger.

I got one last week, and every time I set foot outside, I just dare the dagger-mouthed demons to fly in my direction. “Go ahead, punks, make my day.” Where they used to ascend in a great buzzing cloud, they now rise in smaller formations of only the most seasoned and battle-hardened individuals out for man-blood.

But not mine; not today, ladies.

I fogged our house a couple of times on Saturday, then went to my Mother-in-law’s house to provide at least some relief from the swarming hordes of skeeters that have plagued her the last week or so. Then I returned home and spotted a couple more loners that just flew in on the Southwest breeze, and I gave them a little taste of my medicine.

Still not completely satisfied, I fogged my left-side neighbors’ front yard and entry-way, and then, just to make it even, fogged the right-side people’s flower bed and entry way. On the way back to my garage, I gave the boxwoods and hibiscus(es)(s) another snort of Black Flag, and made a quick dash down the concrete side of the house. The satisfying “ShhhHAAAAAf” rang in my rejoicing ears.

Sunday, I went to my sister’s house to repeat the steps. And of course, had to come back home to make sure the status quo was status quo-ing.

When I had gone to the store to make the purchase, the twenty-year-old kid working the register in the garden center asked if I had ever used the hose-end spray that kills mosquitoes in your grass. I remarked that a couple of neighbors had in the past, but that wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted smoke. Lots and lots of smoke. He told me that his parents used the sprayer and it lasted about six weeks.
So what’s the point? Even if fogging lasted six weeks, I’d do it every few days, just cuz I want to.

There is nothing, I repeat NOTHING manly about standing in the yard with a hose-end sprayer, probably killing pests. What IS manly, then? Trotting around purposefully with a smoking wand puffing a toxic flume into known hiding places of your target pest. And watching them fold their little wings and plummet earthward, as their little ghosts speed past them to the dark, fiery regions of Hades from whence they came.

Although I didn’t actually SEE their little wings fold, etc, since my eyes were full of tears and burning venom. But I know it was happening in the midst of the glorious vapor. I am sure I heard them coughing.

My eyes have recovered almost completely, and the odd copper taste in my mouth that caused everything I ate to resemble turnips in flavor and texture, is all but gone.

Just in time, too. I get to repeat the actions tomorrow.

You Are What You Eat

In the past few weeks, the dietary habits of some Olympic athletes have been of interest; Michael Phelps with his 12,500 calories per day, Russian gymnasts eating only half a kernel of wheat and 3 gallons of water.

It brought to mind a poem that I read years ago, but only bits and pieces could be brought to the front of my mind...

But regular life marches on, and I was fogging for mosquitoes at my sister’s house on Sunday, and after I finished, she we stood around and talked for awhile.

As we talked my eyes fell upon an old volume of “Best Loved Poems of the American People”. I remembered that it was my grandfather’s book that I had read selections from many times. And there was that poem in there that I had remembered a couple of lines from. These few lines had haunted me for somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty five years.

Below is the entire poem, finally.

Methuselah

Methuselah ate what he found on his plate,
And never, as people do now,
Did he note the amount of the calorie count;
He ate it because it was chow.
He wasn’t disturbed as at dinner he sat,
Devouring a roast or a pie,
To think it was lacking in granular fat,
Or a couple of vitamins shy.
He cheerfully chewed each species of food,
Unmindful of troubles or fears
Lest his health might be hurt
By some fancy dessert;
And he lived over nine hundred years.

--Unknown

The book carries a 1936 copyright, and my mother gave it to her father for Christmas, inscribed:
“Merry Christmas
To Daddyboy
From Lila” (with a little circle dotting the “I”)


My sister and I agreed to share the book back and forth to read all of those old poems again.

I'll likely eat some ice cream while doing so.

Russia Invades OUR Georgia, Too!

They did it, while we were watching the Olympics or something. Coke is headquartered in Atlanta, right? Yeah, well, they took over one of our most sacred institutions, the venerable Coke can.

I bought one this morning and to my surprise, shock and indignation, there in white on red, was the Language of the Invaders on my beverage can.

I hear Alabama is next. Prepare, Southern Gentlemen, for WAR!

Charlie Daniels will kick them out...

Quite Possimus

My sister is a participant in the “varmint curse” that seems to be plaguing our family of late. She has employed my Dad’s live traps in the past. Her quarry of necessity: the Opossum.

She has been plagued with the little marsupials lo these many days, and had captured a couple of them recently.

Her plan, on catching the little fellows, is to bring them to our parents’ house to leave them to be disciplined/rehabilitated. We don’t ask too many questions, being animal tolerators. Suffice to say, the boss decides which direction to take on a case by case basis.

The latest catch has given my mother a different idea for this possum. She plans to bring it in, dress it in doll clothes and keep them as pets.

This seems very viable, considering my mother’s patience and the inherent gentleness of a possum. I will keep you all posted if she goes through with it.

This could be fun.

UPDATE
Wollf submitted a foto that perhaps indicates my mother's intentions better than the original I posted.

I have to agree. Thanx Wollf!

Mystery Solved

For a couple of weeks now, there have been little conical holes drilled in our yard, with tufts of St. Augustine grass strewn about the lawn. Only a few at first, then in ever-increasing numbers the mysterious holes appeared every morning.

My first thought was a skunk, since I have smelled them in our neighborhood in the past, and from experience in my history, I know that they bore in their relentless search for grubs.

More and more, the minefield grew, day by day. As did my frustration. I would venture out at night to try to catch a glimpse of the little trespasser. Never did I view the deeds.

Every day, though, the holes were punched so perfectly in my turf. Another thing that bugged me was the fact that animals don’t do this kind of thing because you look at them funny when they cut in the line at WalMart, or if you accidently cut them off on the Bypass. Nope, they’re after food, and usually that means grubs.

My yard has grubs…dang.

Last Thursday, I went out just a little earlier to head to work, and lo and behold, there was an armadillo rooting up the divots on my property. I grabbed my camera and snapped a quick photo of the guilty party, then went out to confront him. As I approached, the little worker didn’t lift up its head even as a giant, booted enforcer closed on him.

Even as I reached out with my foot to wake him from his task, I was ignored. So I booted him in the behind, not a full-fledged kick, mind you. Just a slow-motion foot-lift under his shell. At that moment, as if awakening from a dream, the little dasypus novemcinctus gave the characteristic jump and then took off toward Larry’s truck, uttering the “‘dillo grunt” the whole way.

I am wondering if that’s the last I’ll see of the little critter; my parents’ garden out at Soderberg’s Farm and Chicken Resort is under attack from armadillos from all quarters, and there may be a family curse or something. The proprietor and head security officer, my Dad, has a couple of live traps that he sets up in prime traffic areas on their property. He even puts up landscape timbers in a squeeze chute configuration to funnel them in to the trap.

I have lost count of how many of the breed have been trapped, but suffice to say, their fate is not as gentle as the one my little vandal received.

And I think the lenient treatment may have worked; the rotund criminal has not shown his elongated face around here since. I hope for his sake, he didn’t go to my Dad’s place.

Breaking News!

The preparation for the Killer Hurricane Edouard was stellar. The NewsPeeples have whipped the public into a respectful, wary nonchalance. After the Frenzy of Rita a couple of years ago, aided by the fresh memory of Katrina, everybody has had a cool-down period back to the common sense that usually prevails in these situations.

It was really funny to watch the news this morning with the multiple news crews committed to the coastal areas, standing in drizzle, sometimes heavy showers, trying to gin up some sort of drama.

Wayne Dolcefino was standing in a parking lot on Bolivar with the rain falling, and rounding a corner, encountered a local. He asked him about the conditions, to which the old-timer replied that they had experienced similar weather when a “Norther blowed” in. Ted Oberg was standing in Galveston in a slicker without a hat, his hair plastered down to his head, while seagulls strolled around unconcerned in the background.

Power outages eased into the picture on Bolivar and High Island, with the reporter admitting that the power just faded out rather than flashing out with the impressive display of sparks.

This morning, I called my parents (who had put up the plywood over the numerous and sizeable windows on the East side) and we were watching the lame news reports. I pretended to be Geezer Dolcefino and stepped out on our patio.

“I’m standing on a patio in Alvin and as I look to the North and East, I can see that the fence is 12% wet…”

My Dad even took down some of the plywood on the North side windows of their house. All the while the news intoned, “the killer storm is headed in over Bolivar, and the eye of the system seems to be traveling straight up a drainage ditch, almost touching both sides of the channel…”

The buzzword now is apparently migrating to “ponding” in reference to the rain standing on the area roads. “Wow, look at the rain…boy, it’s really bad out there…stay in if you can, there is the danger of ponding on the roadways…”

Wayne was even talking to one of the TxDot trucks headed through La Marque to put up some stop signs. He asked him if they noticed the freeway with any “ponding” being a problem. The guy, who looked a little bemused, replied with his fingers about three-eighths of an inch apart said, “No, not really…no, not TOO much…”

Finally, some of the hype is dying down, after the three hours of strained coverage. One of Channel 13’s on-the-scene reporters has even acquiesced. She was talking to a Galveston resident who insisted on doing the interview in the rain. He told how he enjoyed the weather today, and even used the time to stroll to the Seawall and reflect on the water.

So, Tropical Storm Eduoard has turned into a big swirly thunderstorm getting everybody, except Alvin, fairly wet.

Enjoy your day off, and go back to bed, whatever you do, try to avoid the “ponding”!

Wake Up Call

21 Years
It has been 21 years today. I have been a Dad since my oldest baby was born-ed-ed. I remember when they handed her to me. She was looking around with her little eyes, as if she was scoping the whole place out, taking it all in to remember all the details.

We all know that she didn’t retain all of the details from the delivery room. OK, on questioning, she admits that she doesn’t remember ANYTHING about that day. I don’t think she remembers much consciously about even the first couple of years of her life. Heck, I have even forgotten some of the details. Sort of a blur at first. But the excitement and gravity of those first few moments kinda stick with me.

But she has been worth it, up to now, at least. She has made me really proud in her life, developing a good work ethic and learning about relationships and generally growing up.

And today, I don’t really feel that much older knowing that I have a legally adult child, no thanks to everybody at work saying stuff like, “You’re so OLD, you have a legally adult child!”

I guess because it creeps up on you slowly, it isn’t so apparent as if you’d been asleep for, say ten of the last 21 years, and all of a sudden wake up to an upperclassman Aggie “whoop-ing” all the time and making her own car payment.

WHOA, I need to sit still for a minute, after thinking that through and actually typing it out! I have a legally adult child!

And I’m glad. I love her so much.

Happy Birthday, Des!

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

Part The Second

The damp concrete at the front of my garage door made me sick. I immediately dashed into the house, and was hit by the smell of wet carpet. Ugh. Into the kitchen and the swamp of the area rug. A lot of water.

The familiar culprit sat squatting in the laundry room, and a hint is that the word “dry” isn’t in the name of the appliance. The washer was sitting there, tub full to overflowing with pure, clean water. All over the floor. And it went behind the washer under the wall and drained into the garage, to the right (our left) into the pantry, and from there under the wall into the living room and the corner of the carpet. Right where the cheap computer table sat. And next to that, the cheap entertainment center. Standing there with their feet wet, they looked pitiful.

My immediate move was to run out to get a hose to siphon the still-flowing water from the tub of the washer. The hose on the side of the house was the nearest, and I dashed out to grab it real quick-like. Upon grabbing the fitting of the hose on the spigot, I was aware of the familiar sting of a paper wasp. Dang it! After hopping around a little bit, I tried the fitting again. Welded on after several years of benign neglect. Double dang it!

I rushed around to the back of the house and easily removed that hose. Inside, I dropped the end of the hose into the washer and went back outside to start the siphon. The thought of sucking on that hose with my very own mouth was a little too much for me, and so I got the bright idea to use the shop vac to start the suction. It worked like a dream. Well, as soon as the kinks in the hose were straightened out and the flow got steady. And this whole time, the water to the house was off.

In the time that the tub was emptying and my anger was rising, I went out and turned the water back on. The inevitable air bubbles rattled and sputtered from the kitchen sink and the steady drip into the washing machine miraculously ceased. As I busied myself with vacuuming as much H2O from inside my house, I ran scenarios in my head how this could have happened. I never formulated a better theory than the water simply siphoned out of the water heater (higher level) to the washing machine (lower level).

All while we were splashing around in the same kind of substance a couple of hundred miles away, blissfully ignorant of the activity at home.

The next day I called our insurance agent. She was extremely helpful…for the 23 seconds she was on the phone with me giving me the 800 number for the REAL insurance company. After a couple of calls, they got me hooked up with an adjuster who hooked us up with a “recovery and restoration” company who came right out at about 6:30 p.m. and cut out carpet, ripped out baseboards, drilled holes in walls and toe kicks under the kitchen cabinets, and set up eight big squirrel cage fans and a large dehumidifier that drained into our sink. The noise from the fans was like being at a racetrack or football game for hours on end. The television was pulled away from the wall, and its plug taken over by the fans, so there was silence from the airwaves. Not like we’d even be able to hear it over the fans.

Every day, a representative from the company would come by and check our humidity levels and water in the sheetrock and floors, explaining everything they were doing. Very interesting.

Finally, on Thursday, they came and took away their noisy equipment. I was alone in the house when this finally happened. At first I just sat there and reveled in the silence. Then when my 17 year-old got home from a water polo meet, we moved the entertainment center back to the wall and plugged it in. I reluctantly turned the box back on, not really wanting to destroy the quiet that was left on the exit of the equipment.

So now we camp out with a half-torn up kitchen floor and a living room with 27% of the carpet torn up. And for some reason, I am still worried about the washing machine acting right.

When the new flooring gets installed, I am working on getting a giant Ziploc bag to put the washer in.

Thus begins the wait for the insurance company to make good on the 12 years of premiums that we have paid. Somehow, I don’t think we’ll be getting much back compared to what we’ve put in. But on the other hand, we won this round. There is, however, no doubt in my mind where the odds are stacked.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

Part the First:

In the late early middle of July, we went on our first family vacation (other than to Wal-Mart) in about four years. New Braunfels was the destination and the famed Schlitterbahn was the main attraction. The excitement built up to Wednesday when we were to leave. All preparations were made, the gear and snacks stowed in the van, and I trotted out to turn off the water, then in to bleed the pipes. Turn the thermostat WAY up, lock the doors and fly off to New Braunfels.

The Schlitterbahn park in New Braunfels is the original installment in what is turning out to be a very popular water park franchise. There are parks on South Padre Island, and Galveston Island, respectively. And according to Dennis, the tram driver, there has just been a purchase on the Mississippi in St. Louis in the range of $50 million and something like 200 acres.

The success of the park is due in equal parts of fun rides and features coupled with the philosophy of the ownership that if people bring in their own food and drinks, the park concessions would not utterly collapse. Sure, the sausage-on-a-stick and corndogs are priced well beyond their worth, but there is a market for them. And the fact that a family can come in and stake a claim on a picnic table (if they’re quick of eye and fleet of foot) to leave their basket of goodies there while they play, and to have the stuff undisturbed hours later is amazing. I saw many families bringing in lunchmeat, soft drinks, bread and assorted snacks. I also saw nobody messing with anything that wasn’t their own.

Another thing I saw a lot of was tattooed skin. So much, in fact that if NOT having ink under your skin were a disease, I’d be part of a rare segment of the population doomed to illness. Guys, girls, old men, young women, teenagers, grandmothers, nearly everyone had some sort of body art/piercing showing on sometimes pale, sometimes brown skin in nearly every conceivable configuration. Some have elaborate sleeves or floral scenes growing from the tops of their bathing suits. Others look very ordered and prescribed, as if by some ancient script of a ritual. Like, ah, a GANG tattoo job.

Still others retain the look of a teenager’s sketchbook. Random drawings of skulls and symbols and math equations and a host of other random marks and letters marched across the tableau of human skin that was paraded in the sun of the Hill Country. I did notice that Texas and America were popular themes. And there were a whole lot of skulls with vampire teeth and glowing eyes.

One guy that I shared the queue to the Dragon’s Revenge for an hour and a half was sporting the “sketchbook” approach to his skin art. One particularly scary and demonic looking skull was on his left bicep, with ultra-long top teeth and an elongated mandible that descended below his inner elbow. I asked him if was intentional that when he extended his arm, the mouth was open, and as he bent his elbow, the mouth ALMOST closed.

He replied, “Naw, a lot of people ask me that, but I didn’t really think about it when I got it done.” I told him, “Well, I think you should stick with the story!”

“Yeah, and I’m thinkin’ of puttin’ in a little bitty Snicker’s bar right here,” he said, pointing to the open space between the jagged teeth of the skull just above the crook of his elbow.

“DO IT!”, I shouted laughing. “You have to do it, please tell me you’ll do it! Will you call me, email me?”

He cackled, as did most of the other people within earshot. “I’ll do it! And I’ll call ya!”

The positive atmosphere of Schlitterbahn pervades the park, encouraging disparate types of people to be friendly and civil to one another.

One other humorous vignette involved a guy who was clearly a gang tough guy. He was in his early thirties, his torso was covered with three inch blackletter text letters across his chest, down his abdomen, across his back and arms and up his neck. He had a blue bandanna folded “just so”, very wide and worn down over his eyebrows. Built like a wedge, and very serious in his visage, this guy was standing in line for the Soda Straws, a simple body slide down the hill into the pool of river water. He looked out of place, to say the least. Especially when compared to the seven year-old white girl with blonde hair and a carefree, chatty attitude standing fourteen inches from him.

After two days of trudging up and down the hills that make up the three water parks of Schlitterbahn, we opted on Saturday for the leisurely ride down the Guadalupe River. My nephew and his fiancé joined us from San Marcos and we went to the Horseshoe Bend of the Guadalupe just down from Canyon Lake. We floated down the cool river, enjoying the beautiful cypress trees, limestone cliffs and the soothing sounds of wrens, cardinals and AC/DC. Some hard-core river tubers had a CD player hooked up to their tubes, blasting out heavy-metal hits from the early 80’s.

That took about an hour, and as a follow-up to the pace of the Schlitterbahn and even the crowded conditions of the Guadalupe, we opted for a nice, long swim in Canyon Lake. We spent probably three or more hours just floating and talking with my nephew and his gal, bobbing in the waves and getting just a little sunburned, but very relaxed.

On the way back to New Braunfels later that afternoon, we passed a guy in a parking lot selling Fredricksburg peaches. I couldn’t wait to stop the van and buy some of the peaches I have been craving for the last 25 years.

If you know me, you have no doubt heard me lament the lack of good peaches. “Used to be, you could walk into Weingarten’s and tell when the Fredricksburg freestone peaches were in just by the smell.” Phrases like, “big as your fist” and “juicy and sweet” are constants in my lexicon when peachy reminisces surface.

Well, you can imagine my disappointment when I walked up on this guy’s table of racquetball-to-tennis ball-sized peaches. A small basket was five dollars. They did smell like my memory said they should, so I picked out the most likely group and shelled out my Abe. A little chagrined, I returned to the van and reluctantly presented my prize. Everyone marveled at the “compact size” of the fruits, but my middle gal pawed through the prize bag and with no reluctance, pounced on a likely suspect.

“OooOOOooh”, she said, “this is GOOD!” she slurped. This prompted everyone else to partake and sure enough, this was the stuff that memories are made of. These tiny, oversized apricots were every bit as tasty as the old-time peaches of bygone days. Just not as hefty. And more expensive.

We spent five days in the beautiful Hill Country of Texas, but were ready to come back to our home on the Gulf Coast. The trip home was totally lacking in remarkable events. Upon arrival on our street, our little guest (that we had brought along for our youngest to pal around with) had called her parents and they were waiting in the driveway as we rounded the corner. After standing and talking for a few minutes, we were all anxious to get home.

When we arrived in the driveway, we immediately disembarked with our most important items for our comfort in our home.

That was when I saw the water seeping out from under the garage door.

Forthcoming!

No, REALLY, tonight I finish the blog entry that I intended to write last week.

Or the week before.

I am so ashamed.

Just For Tex

Definition Time

blear•y adjective
(of the eyes) unfocused or filmy from sleep or tiredness: you don't want to face the world with bleary, tear-soaked, itching eyes.

THIS is the picture that's in the dictionary. Or should be, at least.