Painted Rock

Late afternoon/early evening, we got rain–glorious rain!–and the wind was blowing so hard it flipped open the top of our recycle bin that was waiting on the street to be picked up. Tom went out to close the patio table umbrella (because of the wind), and then he went to close the recycle bin so it wouldn’t fill with water. He found this on the street: someone’s painted rock.

I thought it was interesting because back in June, I blogged about wanting to add memorial painted rocks to Aaron’s Garden. Looks like we just got our first anonymous donation. No plan yet for whose name will go on it.

Tiny Tuesday!

One of my favorite things at Christmas since 2001 is watching Tim open the package he gets from his parents. In addition to their real gifts, they send him the funniest random stuff that cracks me up. (Is this a good time to remind you that December is only four months away?)


This past Christmas, his gifts included this game. In the Pandemic Time, on the occasions people gather at Houndstooth Hall, we’re usually all pretty desperate to catch up on conversations and cook and stuff our faces, so we haven’t played it. But surely its time will come, and just in case, I even picked up a couple of extra kazoos at Cactus Music.

You draw a card and choose a song to play from either side. I haven’t opened the package of cards, but I’m hoping that for all the songs I won’t know, on at least one side will be a tune for boomers like me.

I have a feeling there will be abundant laughter when we finally do this. I hope we don’t play kazoo songs like we sing happy birthday at our birthday celebrations, because that usually sounds like a dirge. Maybe because by the time we get to cake and candles, we’re in a food coma.

Wish you could know their scent

The various things we planted in late May are a good diversion from watching the price our lawn and shrubs are paying for this drought. We have a little more control over the potted plants, and they’ve flowered, lost flowers, greened up, and come back in cycles that are new to us. In addition, Tim has a lot of herbs and Debby a lot of flowers in pots. It does help my perspective to see things thriving despite the weather/climate.

A few of the knockout roses:

Their fragrance is delicate and sweet.

We did get some rain yesterday and maybe a little overnight, too. I’m hoping the scattered showers in the forecast over the next couple of days land on us, too. Houston covers a lot of territory, so predictions of rain are hit and miss.

Meanwhile, in news outside my little world, there have been satisfying moments of seeing justice meted out to some of humanity’s villains. I never know if it’s a good idea to show the restraint on here that I do, but I don’t want to be just more noise amidst the cacophony that bombards us all daily.

So you get flowers.

It’s the heat

I was up early this morning. Took care of a few business matters, showered and dressed, made sure our dogs and Tim’s had some outdoor time (both Tom and Tim being elsewhere for the morning/day), and got on the road to run errands around ten. I did that–not all of those successful–then got home around two. Ate lunch, moved my sanctuary table into the big office to start handling novel-related issues… Then I realized how drained I was by the heat. I thought I’d rest my eyes for a few minutes and get my energy back.

“A few minutes…” It’s now almost 6:30, and I’ve accomplished nothing on the writing/editing agenda. But I have water and grapes, the set-up still awaits, so I’ll try again.

ETA: Took me until 8/2, but NOW I have a fully revised draft of the fifth book and can officially move on.

Photo Friday, No. 816

Current Photo Friday theme: Heatwave


Sitting outside during the dogs’ midmorning recess, iced coffee and a coloring page next to me, but staring at my poor scorched grass. It’s 87°F before 10 AM, partly cloudy, with afternoon showers in the forecast. I hope the forecast is accurate.

ETA: The forecast wasn’t accurate. We got a few minutes of a very light drizzle.

Houston and Drought

If you follow me on Instagram, I’m sorry for repeating photos, but for those who read the blog, this is an example of what we’re dealing with in Houston right now. We are in a drought, and we are limited to watering two nights a week between the hours of 7 PM and 5 AM. The extreme temperatures are exacerbating the situation, and we just aren’t getting the help from the Gulf that we usually get. No idea how this will affect hurricane season, which usually really kicks in for us in August.

This is a shot of our backyard on May 30.

I took this shot today.

It’s likely to get worse, and we have no idea how much if any of the grass might be back. When we moved here, there were four large dogs (Tim’s three, Debby’s one–her other is a small), and our dogs, two mediums and one small. Now there are two large dogs–one senior, one adult (Tim’s), Debby’s one small, and our three small/one tiny. We don’t need the amount of running space for dogs we used to, and we’re hoping that eventually, we’ll mix grassy areas with more bee and butterfly friendly plants and flowers. It’s a long-term plan.

Right now, we’d just love regular subtropical rain–nothing of the hurricane variety–and a break in the heat with its three-digit temps. We are conserving water and electricity, because we are also subject to power grid outages and rolling blackouts.

How are things in YOUR part of the world?

Thursday thoughts

One thing about going back through many years of keeping an online journal or blog is that it reminds me of some of the difficult times I’ve gone through–and come out on the other side.

This is a bad time for me, and it’s not just the attack on my website. It’s an ongoing list of things over which I have little to no control. I do have support, and it’s good support. I’m so grateful for that.

Tom and I went nursery shopping a while back and picked out some things to dress up our patio. He filled several large pots with knockout roses. They were fully flowering when we got them, though of course, those petals are gone. Above is one of the first of the newer buds that opened; I’m looking at it as a good sign. I had roses at The Compound, and I’ve missed them. I hope these roses will take hold and thrive here.

Houston’s experiencing drought-like conditions; with luck, we won’t end up with a watering ban. Even if we do, it’ll mostly impact our grass. We’ll have enough gray water to deal with all the new pots we’ve filled. It’s one reason we chose to go with pots instead of trying to spruce up our “flower” beds. I do have a lot of photos I can share… but I’m writing these posts with my site locked down until I can get everything cleaned up. Every post from LJ and WP have been affected (more than 7,000). I’ve finished cleaning up year 2022, and have completed 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009. It takes a full day, sometimes more, to do a year, and I still have a household with dogs to take care of, among other things that require attention. I barely have time to look at social media or the news. Maybe it’s for the best; what I do see leaves me despondent (I am so, so, so, so tired of wealthy white men ruining the world). I know that I should be writing, and I hope as I get into a routine, I’ll manage my time better. There’s no TV, no movies, no reading happening right now. No coloring or art.

I feel driven to complete the task of repairing what’s been done to my eighteen years of people and animals, books written and published, and other interests, along with so, so many photos–it’s my life, or the part of it I’ve shared publicly. When you’ve gone through the experience of a parent with Alzheimer’s, you–or at least *I*–know that memories are packed into our identity and sense of place in the world. In moments when my mother couldn’t remember where she was, and sometimes who I was, all I had to do was bring up something from twenty or thirty or fifty years before, and she could remember and talk about that. Even if she sometimes got a few details wrong, she was happy in reliving things as she remembered them, and seeing her happy was enough.

I’ll keep posting every day. Even if no one ever catches up on what they missed, it’s my record so that, once again, when I’m on the other side of all the things that are awry right now, I’ll see that it all worked out.

Tiny Tuesday!

I painted and Tom installed a couple of letters in Aaron’s Garden. They resemble the tattoo I got back in 2014 on a night out with Timothy and The Brides. Rhonda told me if I’d get it, she’d pay for it, because she knew how much it meant to me. I’ve never regretted it.

Here’s the more colorful version that is now on the wall over Aaron’s Garden.

Subtle from a distance, but our way to show this little section of Houndstooth Hall is a place to remember him.

Today is the thirtieth anniversary of our friend Steve’s death. I remember that I once intended to get stones etched with the names of those friends we lost to HIV/AIDS for one of our flower beds at The Compound. It was the bed where we had the small sculptures of the Winnie the Pooh characters, and I called it Pooh Garden. Those were damaged long ago by time and weather and are gone, but I started considering smaller rocks, maybe even painted stones, that we could place in Aaron’s Garden. It’s something for me to think about, and maybe enlist some friends for help. A creative effort that becomes communal is my favorite kind.