Hurricane Alex and a Humor Piece

Up this am before 5:00, and I had been sleeping fitfully anyway. I've had a humor piece percolating in my head for at least a year, but it really got going last week and this morning seemed like the ideal time to write it, so that's what I did. In my old way -- with a pen and a spiral notebook. There it will sit for a while until I decide to reread it. I'm always disappointed with the way a thing is going as I'm writing it, and I had that feeling again this morning, although lately I'm happy just to have written something at all. The house was quiet, cat was curled up beside me, and I put the words down as they came. I think it's a humor piece. That's what I intend. Not a thigh-slapping sort of thing, but more low-key, tongue-in-cheek. I have an idea for a market, but I'm just not certain enough to speak much about it. Aside from the fact that I really am superstitious about talking too much too early.

As the sun came up, I realized I was looking out the window at hurricane skies. It was 8:00 by the time I finished writing, and it surprised me, because it was still so dark. I went to get my robe, woke the SO from his usual luxurious sleep, and took the dog and cat out to get the paper. I was already feeling raindrops as we walked down to the gate. We have not had much -- maybe a half inch total -- but it's been blustery and dark all day, with some gusts probably getting up around 30 mph.

Worried some about my aunt and uncle in Harlingen. Tried to call and the lines were tied up. The storm is making landfall 60 miles south of them, down in Mexico, but it's a big, wide storm -- would have to be for us to feel anything way up here. We'll probably head down to the Coast on Friday, see if we've had any leaks there. My SO talked to our neighbors down there and they've had a lot more rain, over two inches, and it was still coming down, she said. We usually go to the Coast for the 4th of July anyway, watch the fireworks, spend a long weekend. The big Art Festival is always the same weekend The forecast is for more of this rain to hang around, with lots of clouds and wind, so the art show will definitely be canceled, and fireworks display could be either canceled or unwatchable. It's hurricane season, and I always get a little antsy. Probably a left-over from spending Hurricane Celia inside our house while it blew away. I was 17. It made an impression on me.

Onward ....

Grape Jelly and Salsa

I wrote a letter to the editor this week, and they published it almost immediately, but not until the opinion editor gave me a call to verify I had really written it. The letter was critical of the paper, and I guess he couldn’t believe that I would actually write something critical. I can probably kiss goodbye any future article I might have wanted to write for them, but I’m just sick and tired of all the fluff pieces and the lazy reporting. In the letter I criticised their coverage of the moratorium on drilling in the Gulf after the big BP spill. They have relied on a laid-off offshore worker and a nut case local activist, neither of whom have the correct facts, care to have the facts, and are only out to further their personal agendas. It just makes me sick to read about so-called news coming from such ill-informed sources. Lately, almost every day something in the paper makes me angry, so I just decided to let them know. Not that it will affect any changes. The new general editor isn’t made of the same stuff the old editor was, and that’s just too bad for everybody in this area who relies on this paper for news. If there was a different newspaper I could subscribe to, I would.

After much negotiating, I got my grandson for a night this week. I took him camping at a local water park. We got off to a rocky start, but after a little “talk” things turned for the better, and we enjoyed being with each other. He liked the new travel trailer and wanted to take pictures of it, but his camera battery ran out, so I took the pictures for him with mine. I still haven’t downloaded the photos, which I promised his mama I would do, but it’s on my to-do list, and I will email them to her. She’s expecting a new baby and I’m mildly worried about my grandson's reaction to it. He used to want a sibling but seems to have changed his mind now. I think, sadly, he believed in the past that another child would hold his parents together. Now, I think he sees it as the final straw, as if his mom remarrying hadn’t been that straw, but children often hold to unrealistic hope. He'll be 13 years older than the baby, and that may be a too much for them to really have a close relationship. He's been moved from his old bedroom, into a larger room, but he seems to resent the move. Poor guy; he’s had a difficult life so far. But we had a great time together, just he and I, at the water park, and that night, played Farkle until it was time to go to bed. We had lots of laughter. It was important, I think, to both of us.

Friday, back home, I made salsa. We’ve had a bumper tomato crop, so I used the ugly tomatoes and the ones I had grown especially for salsa, saving back the big, pretty “company” tomatoes for slicing. While I was making the salsa, my SO was boiling grapes he had gathered off some vines growing wild on his land. I put up 8 jars of salsa, and he got a gallon and a half of grape juice. We drank some of the juice for breakfast yesterday, and then I strained some through cheesecloth and made jelly. It seemed to be a blessed batch, with everything going as close to perfect as possible with jelly. Even the foam skimmed off easily, and now there are also 8 jars of jelly in the pantry, right beside the salsa. We had just a smidgen of the jelly left, and so we tried it out at supper on some crescent rolls. Yummy! It has a gorgeous color and clarity, if I do say so myself. Funny how something as simple as a good batch of grape jelly can provide you with such a sense of accomplishment. We could be getting TOO domestic.

Onward ....

Morning Glories

Lady dove and mister cardinal accompanied me to get the paper this morning, along with gray cat and black dog, of course. Kitty never goes the whole way, but stops to go off so catlike on his own excursion. Something will catch his eye, a grasshopper or a tuft of delectable grass that needs grazing, and he will drift in another direction. The cardinal stopped at the inner gate, but the dove flew from tree to tree, curious about the dog and me. She's probably an old friend but hard to recognize from the others that hang around. We've had a pair of Mexican squealers (aka tree ducks) on the stock pond next door, and they were out this morning, too. The fawn twins made an appearance in the pasture beside us. Their mother leaves them to forage. She's wise to leave them in that pasture where they were probably born, because it's well-fenced and brushy.

Sun was on the rise, but just barely. No clouds, which is too bad because we could use a rain. The dog went bounding through the "north forty," joyous to be outside in the new day. She's almost almost always joyous about something. Her enthusiasm is contagious. I watched her roll in two different spots in the north forty, and hoped the poison ivy I spent all Tuesday morning spraying has begun to die. We have an abundance of it and I've vowed to bring it to its knees with herbicide. My back and shoulders were killing me after humping the sprayer around -- a fabulous excuse for a massage, which I had the next day.

I think I may have fertilized the crepe myrtles at the end of the driveway too much, or too late, or something. Every other crepe in South Texas is in glorious bloom except for ours. They have luxuriant foliage, have doubled their size this spring, but no bloom. I'm not complaining too much because they needed the growth, have struggled since we planted them our first Fall. I worried they hadn't made it through last winter after the awful '09 drought, but they've prospered and I'm glad of it, just would've like to have seen a bloom or two.

The owl woke me this morning. He made his normal hooty call but some other unfamiliar sound as well. I don't know if that odd cack! meant he found a meal or what, but it was sort of hysterical sounding and brought the dog to the alert at the sliding door. I tried to go back to sleep but the light was growing, and I had a full, pounding head -- damned allergies. I cleaned at Daddy's yesterday. Dust was so thick I don't know how he's managed. His cleaning lady has finked out on him, and he's had a severe gout attack this week. He needs help but I hesitate to step in. He's so fussy about having control of his own life, which I totally understand, but at times he seems to be floudering -- and declining. Even my SO has commented on Daddy's decline, saying it's more noticeable just since Christmas. But I try not to worry, or anticipate, and just enjoy him while he's still with us. We're taking him to dinner at the Country Club tomorrow, which is Father's Day. Of course, my SO is a father, too, so it will be my treat. Guess I'll bake something special for afterwards back here at the house.

No new writing but I am researching something. Don't want to talk too much about it, but I think it will be an article, eventually, that I might be able to actually sell.

Onward ....

This Finite Life/Birthdays

Had a birthday come and go this week, and I intended to blog about it. But it turned out to be such a good day, thanks to my SO, that I was long over the dreary thought of being another year older by the time was day was gone. I believe in many ways my 50s are going to turn out to be my best decade. We were sitting outside cooking steaks, Daddy was here, and the conversation turned to if we were able to go back, which year would we go back to. I realized that there is no time in my life I would return to from here. There's things I would love to have back, like my younger body, but I wouldn't want to relive anything in the past.

But of course, it's a moot point. Life is finite, and we can only go forward. And we just have this one life so we had better make the most of it. I think of that so often when I see people around me not enjoying themselves in the place where they are in their journey. I don't believe in an afterlife. I've tried to make myself, or talk myself into it, but my saner, logical side always wins the war. So for me, it's now or never, and I intend to go forward in happiness. I don't have time for anything less.

My grandson is coming to spend a few days with me next week. I'm so excited about it, I can hardly sleep. I don't have him often, so I'm planning a lot of fun things for us to do. I even joined the local country club so we have access to a less-used swimming pool than the public pool. I drove by the public pool when I found out he was coming for a visit. It was teeming with people, so I drove by the country club pool. There were three adults on the pool apron, and maybe 6 kids in the water. I called a friend who is a member, told her I wanted to become a member also, and she sponsored me in, got me accepted practically overnight, and so THERE! I guess it sometimes pays to pull strings, although I'm usually so adverse to it. They're having a big Father's Day buffet this Sunday, so I made reservations for the three of us. Daddy asked, when I told him we were going, "What do they wear at a Country Club?" I think he imagined he would have to tie a tennis sweater around his neck.

Speaking of Daddy -- his gout really has him sidelined this week. He always downplays his ailments when I talk to him on the phone, so I drove over this evening, ostensibly to take him some buttermilk pie. He can barely walk. I got his scooter in from the garage for him, and tended to some other little chores he had, bringing in the mail, running to the store to fill his "list." We (me, my SO, the dog and cat) were planning to head off for the coast tomorrow, but we have put it on hold and won't go until we see how he is in the morning.

It's so hot anyway. I'm loathe to go outside until just before dark. It's already steamy in the mornings now when I go down to get the paper. I went this morning at 7:10 and was sweating like mad by the time I got back to the house. The dog still goes along, but the cat hangs back by the patio door and leaps inside when I open it. I don't blame him. I feel just about the same desperation. I cannot wait to get to the mountains again. More and more I think I will be ready to move to a cooler clime once there's nothing else keeping us here. I'm getting tired of taking two or three showers a day.

Onward ....

Familiarity Breeds Contempt ... Hmmmm!

Our friends, who have been married 38 years, threw a bombshell at us yesterday: they're talking about getting a divorce. It seems to be that more often than not, once this discussion begins, the marriage usually is at its end. I found myself almost begging them to reconsider, mainly because I wouldn't wish on anyone the misery I went through with the demise of my long marriage, and yet, I had to qualify all of that with how happy I am now. The other worrisome thing that was said is that being around us (my SO and me) has made them realize how unhappy they are, watching how well we get along, how much we enjoy each other's company, doing things together, and traveling, has shown them how far apart they've grown.

Anyway, after they left, we sat outside with cocktails and cooked shishkebob, both of us quietly contemplating, both of us shellshocked, and in agreement that they do bicker, never compromise, or have meaningful discussions as far as we can see. We had gone out to dinner with them on Friday night and the cross words got so loud at one point, it was embarrassing. I remember Daddy telling me a couple of years ago that my ex and I were like that, bickering to the point that it made people around us uncomfortable. And it's all just got me to wondering why it is that two people who love each other, grow to almost hate each other after a long time. Is human love just so easily wearied? Is it in our nature to dislike having someone else know us too well? There's so much truth in that old cliche about familiarity breeding contempt.

But even so, we seem to gravitate towards monogamy and partnering up. I think it just takes more work to stay together than most people are willing to give. But why is it so difficult? Are we all just that selfish? And what, really, are the payoffs? In the end, we die alone, as it's said.

The longer I live, the less I believe in marriage. When I look around me at people I know so few seem happily married. Especially the ones who have been at it for 20 years or more. I do think that people come in and out of each other's lives for various reasons and after a while, once circumstances or needs shift, people who were once so vital to us, lose their importance. It isn't even easy to keep long term friendships, let alone romantic relationships, alive. But it's still hard to put your mind around. Or even to accept.

Onward ....