A Real Good Day

Today was a real good day.

GA and I went to see "White Christmas" at the Theatre Under the Stars, or TUTS, a non-profit but professional theatre. It's one of GA's favorite Christmas movies, so she has wanted to see the stage production ever since she saw it announced when we moved here. It's very nice, and at the end, they have it snow on the entire audience during the finale and final bows. As an extra blessing, the three seats directly between us and the stage were empty - no-shows. So we had a clear view of the entire show.

On the way home, I discovered that hwy 288, which is convenient to our house, makes a direct connection to Interstate 45, which goes north to Dallas. This will mean a shorter, more convenient trip to Wichita Falls when I go to visit family and friends.

We got back to the plantation just in time to swing by the amphitheater to see the living nativity, which turned out to actually be more of a Christmas pageant with live animals, as the actors moved from place to place as the Christmas story from Luke was read, and carols were sung. They had sheep, goats and a very stubborn donkey led around among the angels and heavenly host and wise men and so forth - sorry, no lobster at this production - and this little boy spent the entire performance dancing around and tossing his little shepherd hat up in the air and fetching it, and falling down and rolling in the grass. The donkey, who was constantly fighting Joseph about where he was supposed to be - you know how actors can be - decided to poop right in front of the bales of hay. And here came the little boy, tossing his hat, and rolling around in the grass... and into the donkey poop. He kept right on dancing and tossing his hat.

After the nativity, we drove to some of the wealthier neighborhoods to see how they had decorated, and many of the lights were brightly and tastefully done. One house, though, reminded me of the house in Deck the Halls: not only could you see it from space, I bet people who saw the satellite image were asking which bright spot was Houston.

Sometimes I really like living here.

Nature's 5.1 surround sound

It's raining today.
The bad news is that I don't get to go for my walk. So I can't eat candy, or at least I can't eat as much candy.

Not that I just stuff myself with such things, but if you don't burn the calories, you have to limit the intake more. Besides, I eat the sugar free Reese's cups, and low-carb Dove dark chocolate and raspberry things. The Dove things, by the way, are sweetened with sugar alcohols, which means you can't go nuts with them either, unless you need a laxative effect. If you do need a laxative some day , forget the drug store - buy a bag of these babies and go to town.

But I digress. It is raining today, and we're getting thunder with it. Down here in Houston you usually get just rain, with no thunder. Back in Wichita Falls or in Midland, you could usually count on some nice loud thunder for a soundtrack with your rain storm. In Wichita Falls, you could also count on some nice loud tornadoes too, but that's another story.



The 1979 tornado in Wichita Falls, TX

I remember a time when GA and I were hiking in the Smoky Mountains National Park, and when we were lying in our little tent, there was a thunderstorm crossing overhead. It was a wonderful experience - the sound would echo across the sky and reverberate. We just lay there enjoying the sounds for a while before we fell asleep.

I heard from the insurance company about our damage claim on the fence in our backyard. Our deductible is about $2000 so I'm supposed to find a fence company and get an estimate. If they can fix it for less, I won't file a claim, but if it's more I can file the claim. I have no idea what it will cost. If I were the hulk, I could just push it back into place and tamp the dirt down.


The Hulk, about to push my fence back where it belongs

But I'm not the Hulk, I'm more of a Captain Sloth.

And the sun just came out. If the sky turns blue, I will need to go run an errand or two.
Instead of blogging with no real point to make.

Hot bumper sticker

I love this little bumper sticker. If I still put stickers on my bumper, I'd buy one.
We sure enjoyed the week or so of cooler weather there, when the north wind gave us lower humidity and temperatures.

How's that for a short blog post?

Ike, take a hike!

So here's the tale, for those who are interested.

After the power went off Friday, and I phoned in an update to Dave so he could post it as a comment to the blog, the house started warming up, as it tends to do in Houston when you don't have AC. So we went outside, and there were several neighbors standing outside on our driveway. They were there because our house happened to be a sort of midway point between their houses.

So next thing we all knew, we had brought chairs to our driveway and started bringing cold ones of various kinds and sat around talking about hurricanes and other exciting stuff. Might as well, nobody had power, and it was getting really warm indoors.



photo by Wm

We sat around getting to know each other, which was a new thing, because until then, most of us were only on a "how's it going" basis. People kept bring out more cold beverages, knowing full well that we weren't about to keep them cold for long. I think we stayed out until about 10:30, when it began lightly raining again. The wind wasn't too bad - unless you got out of your chair, in which case it tried to blow away.

We knew that Ike wasn't going to arrive until one or so in the morning, so we "hunkered down" as our local officials had advised our area to do. (They discouraged us from evacuating because the roads were full of people who needed to get out by that time).

It was hard to get to sleep because it was so hot. We got some breeze from the south-facing window, and it was good, but it was still stifling. It started blowing hard at 2:00 am, sustained winds of 65 mph, with gusts to 90. But the hurricane force winds got here about 3:30 or 4:00, and lasted until about 6:00. We weren't in the eye. At the worst of the storm, our wind was directly from the north, and it was shooting rain into our doorknob's lock slot and water was streaming out the doorknob on the inside. There was a constant howling sound under the rising and falling noise of the rain hitting the walls. We left windows on the downwind side open so we could get some more cool air, but it was still hot. If you ever wondered, a hurricane doesn't cool you down like a normal thunderstorm.

Next morning, after the winds left, I went outside in the gently falling rain to see what damage we had. Our fence was still standing, but the length to the east of the gate had been moved about ten inches or so out of the yard. The posts, instead of breaking off, had simply plowed a trough into the ground and moved out of the yard! Our neighborhood got off easy, thanks be to God. Virtually all the trees were young, and so they leaned at a 45º angle to the ground instead of breaking off and flying away. Several of our new friends and I went to each tree, pushed them back to more or less upright, and pressed the soil down with our feet. No one of us could have done that, but with all our combined strength, we got all of them up except the second biggest tree in my yard. It will continue to lean, possibly as a cool reminder of the hurricane.

Some people had gone for a local tour outside of our immediate neighborhood, and said that we should go see the older areas of the Plantation. We left Poet's Corner and we could immediately see that the fence hiding the railroad tracks was down in several long stretches. There were some large, older trees by the bayou that were down, and when we got to the railroad overpass west of our house, we saw about forty people standing around with cell phones on their ears. Seems that you could go up there and try to call - some could get actual voice calls, but most of us could only text. I dubbed it "cell phone village." We went further, and toured the older areas, and there were downed trees everywhere. Most had been pulled off the road, so traffic could move. Where trees had landed on the brick fence, it was collapsed. Here are some photos of the plants around our house, and then some of the Sienna Plantation area.


This is the crepe myrtle outside our house. It was on the west wall of the house, where the wind struck us for the last half of the storm. If you look close, there are still a few leaves attached here and there.



Here's the rose bush in the back yard. There are still some blooms, but I have no idea how they managed to hang on.



Here's the little shelter they built to commemorate the old Sugar Cane plantation that our houses now occupy. The structure did very well - the downed tree is resting partly on the roof, but doesn't seem to have hurt the shelter at all.


Here's a sign leaning way down at the school. This is the way most of the trees were leaning. Some of the signs were simply sheared off at ground level. I guess it has to do with how strong the poles are.


So there we are, with all our new friends, and one couple (Bob and Priscilla) has a generator and a grill set up. So the rest of us start digging food out of our freezers, and we brought over shrimp, and chicken breasts, and briskets and fish. Bob set about barbecuing happily, and we all set up chairs on their driveway, and we feasted on food that would otherwise have ruined. More adult beverages appeared, and we made hurricanes, which is a drink involving rum and something purple in color. A great time was had by all, and we speculated on when power might be restored. We saw brilliant flashes of light in the distance, which were not lightning, but merely transformers exploding as they tried to get power restored.

We had a little transistor FM receiver as advised by the local officials who tell you how to prepare for a hurricane, but it decided to start messing up on us. Specifically, the power button stopped working. If it was on, you couldn't shut it down. So I pulled the batteries, but then it wouldn't come back on because the power button didn't work that direction either, so GA beat it up, and it came on. Anyway, we heard news that the city of Port Arthur had banned liquor sales after the hurricane. How barbaric! After a hurricane is exactly when you need booze!

Word got in that a cold front was on the way. The prediction from the weather people was that it would arrive Monday, and that Sunday would be a hot day. I began praying that it would arrive early. And it did. Sunday was nice. We slept nicely, very nicely that night, as a cool breeze blew through our bedroom.

Monday morning, we had some cell reception in the house. Not enough for phone calls, but we could text. Soon, we could actually make calls - but we didn't make too many, because we had to conserve the phone batteries.

I spent most of Monday pruning the remains of my rosebush, clearing leaves out of our landscaping, putting appropriate foods into the compost bin, and so forth. It was a lovely day today. And then GA shouted "Woo Woo!" The power had flickered on for just a second. That meant that the electricity guys were working in our area. Sure enough, by 3:30 the power came on and stayed on. For us, the worst of it was over. There are still a half million or so families without power, and some more without drinkable water, and many many still without ice, which is more of a hardship than you might think.

It will be a week or more until we can buy any meats at the stores, maybe not that long until the lines at the gas station go down to a reasonable level. It still seems a little strange to be able to just flip a switch and a light comes on. It's kind of magic.

Lessons learned:

1) Trust God in the storm, as well as after.
2) A disaster is only as fun as you make it. Make it fun if you can.
3) It really feels good to have friends and family care about you.
4) Those things they tell you to do to be prepared for hurricanes? Do them.
5) Texans come together in hard times.
6) Caving lamps work very well after a hurricane.
7) Never move to Port Arthur.

ps. You may have seen something on the Drudge report about a woman in Galveston complaining that there ain't no FEMA coming there and they don't care about nobody. That woman is way out of line. They tried to get everybody to evacuate Galveston island up until the water was too deep to get them out. That woman is also not typical of Texan attitude. Most of us either evacuated, or we've been darn patient while people work hard to get things back to normal.

I figger she's not a Texan. She's probably from Louisiana.

Hurricane Ike Turner

OK, this could be bad.

We won't really know until it actually gets here, but it could be bad. We've decided to stay here, mainly because none of our neighbors in Sienna Plantation are bailing out, and they probably know more about hurricanes than we do - especially since this is our very first hurricane ever. And anyway, we don't want to miss our first hurricane. I'm all about experiences.

So far, it looks like Ike is going to come ashore and tramp right through the middle of Fort Bend county, where we live. It's kind of hard to figure out exactly where it will go in relation to our home, because the scale they have to use on this is huge.

So, I decided to make use of blogging technology to keep everyone updated. The updates will, of course, cease abruptly in the case of a power outage, or a flooded study.

At the moment (2:45 pm Thursday), they expect Ike to roll ashore tomorrow afternoon. We may have some winds and outer bands or stuff before then, but they will likely be more like the usual rain storms that don't really hurt anything. By Friday night, we should have high winds and hard rain. By that, I mean that we are promised 75 mph winds - but the barometric pressure inside the eye suggests the possibility of 125 mph winds. If it gets that high, we may have windows blown in. Jeff has suggested that we put tape on the windows in an X shape, which apparently gives them more strength. Jeff has been in many hurricanes in his day.

We aren't really worried about flooding here in the Plantation, because we have a 50 ft. elevation and lots of strong levees.

The evacuation from Galveston has begun in earnest, and the roads started getting majorly clogged by people fleeing the low lying areas to our south - Pearland and the other 775 zip code areas - about an hour ago. I got back from my dental appointment as it was getting thicker. We're watching channel 2, which seems to be the most reliable and up to date, much as channel 3 was back in Wichita Falls (good old Skip McBride).

I have brought in all loose objects from the yard: gardening tools, buckets, potted plants and so forth. I need to also bring in the burglar warning from out front, even though it's stuck deep in the ground. If it does get pulled out, it will become a deadly missile indeed.

Feel free to leave comments on this blog. I think I have it set where you can, but I am going to go make sure in a moment that it allows comments by non-registered folks. I will put the updates on the actual blog area; check to see if there is a newer blog entry, but I plan to just keep updating this one.

---update, 9-11, 3:25 pm---
Galveston is already flooding in the lowest areas. Storm surge is already here. wow.

---update, 3:32 pm, or 1532---
They say now that we may be enduring hurricane force winds for 18 hours.

---update, 1615 (or 4:15)---
The "track" they keep talking about is mostly just an educated guess, though apparently very well educated. We just heard that the track (which is an average of the various computer models, aka spaghetti) has shifted slightly northward. This is bad for Houston downtown, but good for harB and GA and Wm. We are now predicted to be on the "clean"side of the storm, which means the winds will be not so bad (75 mph or less), and they will be from the north instead of from the south. Most of our southern exposure consists of windows, on both of our two stories. But the north side of the house has only ground level windows. The upper level is one massive brick wall.
So we will wait until tomorrow morning to tape the windows.
In any case, the wind and rain (outlying tropical rains) will probably begin about 0100 hours tonight, and won't become severe until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest, and probably Friday evening. We still get trash pickup tomorrow morning, so I will likely take it out to the street after sun up depending on how hard it's blowing - and bring the empty container in as soon as they dump it into their Tonka truck.

Meanwhile, the surge has arrived on Galveston Island already - this is a little surprising to the weather folks here, and probably means something, though I don't know what, exactly.

---update, 2049 (8:49 pm)---
A while ago we heard the neighbor hammering plywood over his windows. In the dark. That makes me a little nervous.
They're supposed to update the track in another hour.

---update, 9:08 pm---
The county judge here says that Saturday is going to be "ugly." I don't like the sound of that.

---update, 10:10 pm---
The new track says even further east. Still not good for Houston, but better for us. The good news: they say it could possibly come ashore as a category 2, which would be a wonderful thing. Also we won't have tropical force winds until after 7 am tomorrow, and no hurricane stuff until maybe 5 or so in the afternoon. But the bad news is that surge. It could reach a 20-25 ft. storm surge if it hits Galveston directly. And even if it misses, it could be 18 ft. That's well over the sea wall.

But the track, remember, is sort of an average. Some of the trackettes go directly over Ft. Bend county. If so, we will see the eye in our first hurricane.

---update, 10:50 pm---
Have you looked at the satellite image? This storm is huge! It fits neatly just inside the shape of the entire Gulf of Mexico. And it looks like it's going to go straight into the ship channel, which is really bad news for downtown Houston. Also, by this time, hurricane Rita had changed her direction, which is what many were hoping for this time around. It has not happened.

===update, 730, 9/12/08===
Good morning. The track is still pretty much right where it was, so that's probably going to be it. No sudden shift to the north, just rolling along on schedule, with murder in its eye. It's likely going to move right up the ship channel, flood downtown Houston without mercy, and we here in the Plantation can expect some strong winds and rain from the east, then from the north. We could see the eye sometime before it's all over (that would be a bonus), but most likely we'll see sheets of rain on our north facing windows. I really hope that we don't see sheets of rain blowing onto our living room floor.

---update, 1034---
I went on my morning walk. I figured I might as well, since the rain won't start for a while yet. The sky was sunny and blue at 8:30, cooler than usual, which is to say warm but not stifling.

An odd thing happened. The air had been perfectly still, but suddenly a strong, steady breeze came up from the north. It held for about five minutes as I continued down the path, then faded to a gentle breeze from the east. By the time I got back to my neighborhood at 9:30, I could look to the sky and sea clouds moving in a relatively fast arc, traveling from the east to the north and then to the south. These must have been the first signs of the hurricane.

I met some neighbors out talking on the sidewalk, so I joined them for a bit. One was surprised that so few people had boarded their windows. But others had the same view I did - we have no idea how to install the plywood necessary to protect anything. Do we drill holes into the bricks? The mortar? Won't that damage the mortar? Besides, I don't have a ladder long enough to reach the upper windows, I don't have a skill saw or the skill to shape it to fit, and besides, the Home Depots are out of plywood by now. Some had taken pictures of the long lines outside Home Depot and Lowe's, waiting to buy plywood if any came in. Another says if the winds get to 100 mph, he's going to go outside and lean in it for fun.

We're getting different estimates from different sources, but some say the winds will be 50-75 mph, some say 75-110. I don't think anyone really knows. Some tell me that tape on the windows will help protect them, others (including the Weather Channel™) insist that it will do no good at all. Most in my neighborhood say that the windows will generally be fine anyway, at least in our area.

We both showered and put on clean clothes, I'm doing a last load of laundry as we speak, and we have two large camp bladders full of water to drink, and when it starts raining I'm going to put the cell phone on the charger to top off the battery. Local officials are telling us if we're in the flood areas, to evacuate yesterday, but if we're not, "hunker down." That's Texan for stay put, hold tight. If the eye passes over us, I plan to get pictures and video if at all possible, but if that happens we will be in for higher winds, so who knows?

By the way, the comments you guys have left have made me feel good. You don't know how much my friends mean to me. Or maybe you do.

---1100---
Holy cow.
The local TV coverage on channel 2 just featured an interview with a guy who says he's going to stay - on Galveston, not the mainland. He says he's staying because he loves the elemental energy, and he has salt water in his soul. There's a TFM for you.

The authorities have a recommendation for such people: make sure you have an ID of some kind fastened securely to your body so they can ID you if you're recovered after the storm.

The background for the interview was the sight of the waves crashing against the seawall, splashing thirty feet into the air, and coming down in a huge foaming mass toward the camera. That's right: the 15 foot seawall in Galveston is about to be topped. When it does, soon, they will remove all the reporters and cameras, because the island will be underwater. Not just flooded, you New Age moron, underwater! The nearest land will be the coast of Texas, and all the elemental energy in the world will not enable you to swim that far. Each wave crashing into the island's pathetic little seawall has enough force to kill you if it hits you while you're treading water.

There are some brave souls who are going to ride this one out on the mainland, and they are risking their lives to do it, but staying on Galveston island when this thing actually comes over it, with a 20 ft (or higher) surge? Stay tuned as we clean the gene pool.

I think I will close this entry, and begin a new one. See the menu at the left for a link to Riding the Storm Out.

Comments are still enabled!

Rain drops

I like rain. I like the sound of thunder, especially rolling thunder. It's like having a really good outdoor surround sound.

But I especially like rain because it's so much better for the lawn and garden than the water from my yard hose. Plus, I don't have to pay for it. Plus, it cools everything down so that my electric bill goes down for a while.

I am alone this weekend, because GA is off on a business trip to Louisiana (motto: a corrupt, yet delightfully unrefined government), so I'm here taking care of the cat. On a whim, I took the pickup out for a short drive to the nearby fruit market to buy two tomatoes and an avocado. Avocados are always good here, for some reason. Rich, smooth, creamy. And I made my entire lunch out of it - not bad for $1.89, eh?


Now, I can make an awesome guacamole, but if it's just me I like to do the simple 'cado prep. You just cut the avocado in half, remove the pit, and fill the seed cavity with lime or lemon juice. You can actually eat it out of the skin, but if you're at home, just scoop it out into a bowl. Add salt to taste, mash it up, and serve on crackers. Yum!

Now, for some time I have made it my practice to stick all avocado seeds into the ground in my garden. Sure, most of them have been irradiated to control pests, and I have no problem with that, but once in a while you get a virile young avocado seed, and it will sprout. I did this in Wichita Falls and then again in Midland, and they look kind of neat just sticking up out of the middle of the black eyed peas.



But here in Houston, I have the added hope that it doesn't freeze here every year. The plant could actually become a tree. Now that could be problematic if I get caught, because I don't think the avocado tree is on the approved list in our HOA. But I figure by the time it gets tall enough that my neighbors will even see it, it will be too late for anybody to object. Besides, each of my neighbors has a yappy dog, which is against the HOA rules, too, unless you keep them quiet, which is impossible.

So before I even mixed in the lemon juice, I took the seed out to the backyard and shoved it into a small area I had prepared with some extra sand and compost, because avocado trees like good drainage, and we have mostly clay here. It started raining within five minutes of coming back inside, and that's a Very Good Thing™ when you're sticking seeds in the ground.

And then, with the rain pouring down, and the rolling thunder playing on the Outside channel, in 5.1 DTS, I pulled out my cell phone and scrolled down the list, and called my favorite cousin Ginger, in Kentucky. I love chatting with her; she always makes me laugh, and the smile lasts for at least an hour after we hang up.

So I had my walk, I had my avocado, I had good company (electronically, and that counts), and I can still hear the rolling thunder outside. Life is good.

4th of July

How do we celebrate the Fourth of July here in Houston?

Or more accurately, how do we celebrate the 4th here in Sienna Plantation, just outside of Houston proper?

The longer I live here, the more I like my new home. I'm not discounting Midland, mind you. I love my friends back in Midland. But this here Sienna living is growing on me.

The people here are so polite and considerate. And cool. Cool in the good sense, not in the fashionable sense. They're friendly, and nice to each other, and considerate of each other's space and dignity.

Yesterday evening, to celebrate the 4th, our HOA hosted a party of sorts on the amphitheater by the Water Park. (That's right - our HOA does more with the money they extract from us than just tell us what we can do with our own property. They use the money to do things that make life more enjoyable for those who live here. It's what taxes are supposed to be used for.) So GA and I brought our comfy little camp chairs, and set them on the hillside facing the band that was playing for our enjoyment:




They call themselves "Crisis," which is not an especially great name for a band, but they're pretty good for a three piece. They play rock, country, disco, rap (very little of that, thank God), and even some reggae. It felt kind of strange, though, to be a part of this. We were surrounded by what they would have called the "beautiful people" back in the 60's, mostly in California. They are all young, in great shape (nobody fat and ugly like me), and with perfect children, laughing and playing and running and being nice to each other. All races: whites, blacks, Asians, Hispanics, and so forth.



You can't really see it in the picture, because the Google people shrink the fool out of these photos we upload - not that I'm complaining, since it's free.

But how do we celebrate the 4th here in Sienna? Like this.

Before we left for the picnic/festival/party/concert/fireworks display, we cooked some hot dogs. We ate them on American buns, with American chili and American mustard, and I added American jalapeños.


And for my beverage? No, I didn't drink American beer, because I hate beer. I had Dr Pepper.

Not communist Dr Pepper with communist high fructose corn syrup. This was the real thing, made with Imperial Cane Sugar, and 10 2 and 4 on the bottle.



And that's the flag in front of our house there, flying proudly above the national soft drink of Texas, in Sienna Plantation, just outside of Houston TX, in the good old US of A.

Take that, radical Muslims. Take that, Democrat and Republican parties. Take that, you LTRB politicians. Blow it out your ears.

And God bless real Dr Pepper and the USA.

Excitement

Wow.
GA just came back from her afternoon walk, and there were five (5) cop cars here in our neighborhood, all to arrest one guy. He lives across the street and about three houses down.
One car was parked at the only entrance to our circle, and nobody was allowed to drive in or out.

They drove off with him in handcuffs on one of the cars.

I don't yet know if this was a dangerous enough guy to warrant five cop cars, or if the county cops just have that little to do. I wonder if they'll have color photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, to be used as evidence against him.

I will report more on this when I find out what was going on. So come back to this blog!

*******

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

Here's the deal. He had violated the terms of his probation.
He had failed to complete his community service.
That's right, probation violation. For this they sent in five cop cars, blocked the entrance to the neighborhood, made everybody go inside for their safety, and took the guy away in handcuffs.

There are two ways of looking at this. The cops here go overboard on everything, and I had better make sure my lawn is kept trimmed to specs. Or...
There is so little crime here that when something actually happens, every cop in the county wants to get in on it (a la Alice's Restaurant). I vote for the second option, and if that's the one, I am grateful that we live in a place like this, where the cops actually do something about crime.

Still no word on what his original crime was.

Oh deer

I took this photo yesterday, a short distance from my home, still in my neighborhood:



As much as I may complain about the heat and humidity and the traffic, I have to admit that in my neighborhood, there are some good reasons to live here and l like it.

Fort Bend County update

At our local Target, in Missouri City, a pickup owned by a family in Arcola was parked in the fire lane. So far, not so good. You should never park in a fire lane.

Now, a Missouri City man drives up behind the truck, yells at the woman in it to move the truck and then starts ramming the rear of the woman's truck with his own car. So far, even worse, because now we're apparently fighting over who gets to park in the fire lane.

Now, the woman gets out and asks him what he's doing, so he curses at her and makes a finger gesture. Use your imagination, this is a PG rated blog, here.

The woman's husband comes out of the store with his children, and he asks the Missouri City man how come he hit the truck. Seems reasonable to me. I would be curious in that situation.

More yelling, and the Missouri City man -the one that rammed the pickup from behind - gets out of his car and rushes the Arcola man, who pushes the Missouri City man back into his own vehicle. Again, reasonable.

The Missouri City man comes at him again, waving his fists. The Arcola man punches him in the face. So far, this could be any story back in Midland, but probably not Wichita Falls.

The Missouri City man then takes his shoes off, puts them on his hands and attempts to hit the illegally parked Arcola man with the shoes! OK, now it could be happening in Wichita Falls.

The Arcola man punches the Missouri City man in the face again, then puts his children in the truck and drives off "to get the kids out of harm's way," according to the police.


Note to self: never park in a fire lane in this area. Apparently, them are prime parkin' spaces here.

Houston wildlife

There are really some fun things to see in Houston.

Yesterday morning, I was on my usual 70 minute walk along the trail provided by the Sienna Plantation HOA, and I saw four deer in the man-made valley - the valley being, of course, a flood control feature.

Here's the Homeland Security satellite image:



I'm the green X, the deer are the little green dots. It's a great view down the valley when you turn the corner on the trail - one of the few places you can look down the length instead of just into it from the sides, without leaving the trail and risking being taken down by a predator.

I also saw six white herons, but I see those almost every day. The deer were special.
But yesterday afternoon, on the way to the theatre, we saw GA's alligator again, so we went back to the house to get the camera. Here he is:


Sienna Plantation alligator (photo by wm)

Now there's something you don't see in Midland or Wichita Falls every day. And he even smiled for the camera. See how friendly everyone is down here?

Houston, we have a - what was that, anyway?

I suppose there are an infinite number of ways to compare cities. One common way is by crime statistics. Houston has an exceptionally high crime rate, higher even than Wichita Falls. Midland has a relatively low rate, and Missouri City (where my mail is processed) has an even lower one.

Another, more useful comparison would be the percentage of TFM's encountered on the streets and highways. Oh, you aren't familiar with that acronym? Let's bring you up to speed. A TFM is a Total Freaking Moron, but you can adjust the acronym as you please. It could also stand for Terribly Foolish Moron, but the point is that these drivers are morons, and not just normal standard-issue morons.

A standard-issue moron is a person who tailgates, speeds, and generally takes risks that don't need to be taken. He drives aggressively, he uses a cell phone without bothering to compensate for the distraction, he believes that he is a good driver when he isn't a good driver by any stretch of the imagination. These people are everywhere, and the percentage from city to city doesn't really vary enough to be statistically relevant. You see them all the time, on virtually every drive home from work. They irritate you, they make you a little more defensive as you continue your drive.

But a TFM is an amazing creature to behold. One sees them in action and one either utters an expletive involuntarily, or one prays for divine protection and truly means it. While the normal moron will change lanes suddenly and without warning, nearly taking your bumper with him, the TFM will do it in an 18-wheeler. While the normal moron will make a left turn from the right lane, forcing you to slam on your brakes, the TFM will make the same turn across four lanes of busy traffic, causing a multi-car pile up. While a normal moron will weave in and out of busy lanes of thick traffic to gain perhaps an extra car length or two, the TFM will do it at 90 mph, and his weaving will involve six lanes of traffic at once, just before darting to make his exit on the opposite side of the freeway. That's a TFM.

He is incapable, I suppose, of assessing risk - the odds of a given action resulting in unwanted consequences as opposed to the goal or reward, the degree of that unwanted consequence, and the size or quality of the reward - all at the same time. He only gets as far as "if I can get from point A to point B faster, I won't have to wait as long." He rarely considers "if I kill myself on the way, I won't even get to point B." He never considers "the minor goal of getting to point B two minutes sooner isn't remotely worth the high risk of severe pain or death involved."

I estimate the TFM percentage in Wichita Falls to be about 4%, based on living in Wichita county most of my life. For Midland, maybe 2% at the most. Sugar Land or Missouri City would be about 6%, with the worst coming out at rush hour and going dormant the rest of the time. But Houston.... I would put the score at no less than 10%. If you aren't used to Houston traffic, you cannot possibly drive more than thirty minutes without your jaw dropping to your lap in amazement at least once. You cannot remain indifferent when you have seen a motorcycle on the service road, his crying, tormented little engine audible from high on the expressway, racing at 100 mph, down there precisely because there are fewer cars in the way, which means that he won't have to weave through them quite so much. Is he wearing a helmet? I'll let you guess.

Even on a short drive, you will typically see about three cars each minute blow by you at 30 mph over the prevailing speed (never mind the speed limit). You get used to it pretty quickly, and you figure out that to deal with it, you simply stay in your lane and ignore them. You assume that if you don't do anything unexpected, they will likely miss you, much as the bats do if you get caught in a cave at sundown when they awaken. And, on the bright side, TFM's don't pee on you as they pass. Well, they haven't so far, at least.

Now, the one good thing about having such a high TFM score is that the other 90% learn to be very good drivers - careful and logical. They learn the importance of driving close to the prevailing speed, regardless of the posted limit. If the limit is 60, but the traffic is moving steadily at 50, we all go 50. If it's going 65, we all go 65, because driving at a speed that's too different, whether slower or faster, is more dangerous than merely speeding is by itself. People try to keep a distance between them and the car ahead if possible (not the distance recommended back in driver's ed - that's not possible in Houston), and though there is a tendency to push the amber lights and thus run the reds, they generally don't floor the accelerator to do this when the car in front has applied his brakes to stop at the light. The TFM's, of course, do this all the time, and then slam on the brakes, coming to rest sideways just inches behind the next car - if all goes well, that is. (Oh, yes, they do. When I see this about to happen, I move to the rightmost edge of my lane to increase the chances of being missed by the tire-screaming missile to my left).

A friend of mine who used to live here said to me the other day, "Do you know what most parents in Houston give their kids for their first car?" The answer: a Piñata.

12 Angry Men

Now we're cooking.
We went to Theatre Southwest last night to see "12 Angry Men," partly to find out if this small theatre in Houston can put on a good play.
The jury has a verdict: yes, they can.
The actors gave us good character development, and believable mood swings. The director (Mimi Holloway) gave us good blocking, which is not so easy with a set consisting of a table and 12 chairs. I found it hard to think critically, because it was so easy to believe that I was in a jury room.

So the good news is that I have a very good (though under financed) theatre to be involved in. The bad news is that it may be a bit harder to get cast - I will have some competition for the juicy roles.

I'm in the upcoming show, Voyages, so I will at least have a chance to prove that I'm more or less reliable, and that I can remember my lines most of the time. That should help.

Gardener / Lawn guy

I have a lawn guy now.
I can't believe the deal: only $25 a week, and he comes by and mows, mulches, edges, and generally takes care of the lawn. You may recall that this was one of the conditions I set on moving to this hot, humid climate - that we hire somebody to keep the lawn mowed so I don't have to work in the heat in the summer.

As a bonus, he brings me yard clippings from other places he's worked and puts them in my compost bin. This saves him from having to dispose of them, so it's a symbiotic deal for us, and today he put the first batch in. And oh, my, it's finely shredded already. It will compost beautifully.

The soil here is an odd, marbled mix of clay and sand. The sand runs as veins through the clay, which tells me that maybe they added it back in the day when this was a sugar cane plantation (hence the name Sienna Plantation, which is what they call our planned community). This is good, because the best soil you can have is a mix of clay, sand and organic waste (compost).

The yard is already planted in St. Augustine grass, which is an awful choice in Midland because it needs lots of water - but a fine choice here in Houston because it will get lots of water, and because St. Augustine doesn't look too bad in the event that it skips a mowing. It also spreads well.

So far I have tomatoes, garlic and bell peppers in my tiny little garden. I put some cilantro seeds in there too, and we'll see if they germinate and give me some nice yummy cilantro.

So far so good. I haven't gotten any utility bills yet, so I don't know how they are going to go.

Oh, the good news: as of yesterday, we have a contract on the house in Midland. We could close as early as two weeks from now, but no later than the end of this month. We can get all the loose ends done, and then we'll have no ties to Midland except our friends and the theatre. And that's what it was all about all along.

A Moving Experience

Four years ago, I promised myself I wouldn't go through the horror of moving again - not for a long time. I also promised myself if I did move, it would never be to a city like Houston, the armpit of the Texas coast. To prove God has a sense of humor, here we are, unpacking in Houston and setting up housekeeping.
One of our worries was how to get our stupid, elderly cat here. The vet said it would be easier on the cat to take her by car, because sedating her for a plane flight would be hard on her at her advanced age - so we planned to take her on Thursday, in a Pet Taxi™, even though she'd be locked in the darn thing for eight hours, probably yowling and complaining the whole way. So Wednesday the movers hauled all those boxes and things and stuff into the moving van, and pulled away. And something happened that we hadn't expected - Pearl, the stupid cat, had stayed awake the entire day due to the excitement. Now, old cats sleep most of the time, in case you didn't know. So we're sitting there in the furniture-free living room floor, eating something on paper plates, and getting ready to inflate a mattress to sleep on, when it occurred to us: the cat must be exhausted. Why, if we were to go ahead and load up the car with the rest of the stuff we didn't want hauled by the movers (plants, the cat's stuff, some other stuff), and shove the cat into the Pet Taxi™ and just go, well, mercy sakes, the cat would likely sleep all the blessed way. Sure, we'd be tired - really tired - but the cat is what matters, right?
So we packed the car, and made sure the house was in order one last time, and shoved the cat into the car. Pearl was not happy, and made that fact clear to us. But off we went, toward Garden City, with the GPS programmed to take the shortest route possible. How brilliant of us! How considerate of us as pet owners! How...
Stupid. About an hour into the trip, both cars were braking constantly, which woke the cat up and started her yowling again, because every square inch of open land between Midland and Austin was crowded with herds of deer. Big deer, little deer, deer grazing just within the reach of the headlights, deer strolling leisurely across the highway, deer carrying signs that said "Go ahead and shoot me, fool, we both know it's against the law." Forty freaking miles per hour. The trip took us eleven hours! Eleven hours of desperately trying to stay awake while the cat is threatening to call the ASPCA, or PETA, or Johnny "I-passed-the-bar-somehow" Cochran.
And to make it worse, the GPS takes it literally that you want the shortest route, and when we got to the Houston area she took us through the back neighborhood streets to save maybe twelve inches of traveling distance. (note to self: always select quickest, not shortest).
It took several days to find the camera and some paper for the printer, and about a third of my office files, but they finally turned up in a box marked "books." We're still looking for two of our three table lamps.
Now, on the positive side. Since we arrived here, we have eaten the best fish tacos ever! We have hi-def on our cable system, on all the network channels. My internet speed is 4.9 megabits, and the cat is even happy - now that she's here and allowed to sleep peacefully.

You do have to make use of the toll roads here, so we got EZ passes for our cars, so we can blow through the toll stations. I'll still avoid driving outside of my little area, but I'll need that pass if any of my friends fly into Hobby and need to get picked up.

It could happen.

And you have to give a little credit to harB - he's been a great little supervisor, checking off all the boxes with their little green stickers as they come in and get put where they belong. We still haven't found box number 160, though. That one's a mystery.