A day of baseball

Photos from my Wednesday, when I was the guest, along with Lindsey and Rhonda, of Lindsey’s father at an Astros baseball game! (Tom went with them to a game a long time ago, and it was my turn this time.)

I’ll start with some souvenirs.


Another cup! Doesn’t say “Minute Maid Park,” but it does say Astros!


Lindsey bought a couple of these little hats that were then filled with ice cream. She and her dad shared one, and I took a couple of spoonfuls from Rhonda’s, and then she gave me her hat after she finished her ice cream. I took the second photo with an official league-sized baseball to show its scale.


Took this one of Astros number 30 player, right fielder Kyle Tucker, at bat.


Yesterday, every fan at the game received a free replica Kyle Tucker 2022 World Champions ring.


Back at RubinSmo Manor after the game, Pepper stopped playing for a few seconds to admire it.


While foster cat Tofu hung out next to me taking it all in.


This isn’t my ticket; our tickets were on Lindsey’s dad’s phone. It was likely the ticket of one of several guys sitting in our row. We were seated in front of the press box, and at the end of the seventh inning stretch, members of the media tossed bags of peanuts into our area. Rhonda just missed snagging a bag when a guy taller than us grabbed it. At the end of the game, he turned to me and said, “I feel like I stole these peanuts from y’all,” and gave me the bag, which I in turn gave to Rhonda, whereupon Lindsey’s dad said, “Give them to Tom since he couldn’t come to the game!” That’s exactly what Rhonda did when Tom came to pick me up at their place later. Thank you, stranger, for the peanuts and maybe the ticket. More good baseball vibes.


This little fan sat in front of us with her grandparents and mother and was SO good the entire game.

These are some photos Lindsey took of the day.

Going to what in the pandemic would be called a “super spreader event” was something I did because I was almost always masked, Lindsey and Rhonda were masked as well in highly trafficked areas and inside our Uber rides, and all my companions were considerate of my concerns and in helping me be comfortable. Lindsey and Rhonda invited me to join them at this game around the beginning of July. They knew I’d planned to go to a baseball game (albeit in Chicago to see the Cubs play) with Lynne in 2020 before the pandemic put an end to all travel plans.

Like people all over the world, I was bummed that all the things I intended to do in 2020 never came to be, plus I lost my job, and of course, since then, I’ve had to face the fact that chronic anxiety became part of the new pandemic/post-pandemic me. There are several reasons I’m not able to travel these days, only minimally related to my health, and my family and friends outside of Houston are understanding about that. The way friends like Lindsey, Rhonda, Lynne, and Amy, and family like Tom, Tim, and Debby, help me navigate and adjust to how to “do” life, going places and seeing people in ways that make that easier, gives me a quality of life I wouldn’t have without them.

Once again, as I described in yesterday’s post, baseball has come to have wonderful associations for me. I’ve woven my new respect for the game into the lives of a couple of my characters in the work in progress, and “Papa Smo,” as Lindsey and Rhonda call Lindsey’s dad, told me great baseball trivia during the game in the name of “research.” Lynne, who has been a huge baseball fan her whole life, is glad to have me come on board and like Lindsey, Rhonda, and Tom, is always happy to help me understand the game better.

These are great memories that will carry me through the coming days when I monitor my health for any signs of Covid exposure because while, as they say, “the pandemic is over,” the virus hasn’t gone away and is having a bit of a summer resurgence, though fortunately most people are not as sick, or not getting as sick (thanks to their immunity from either having had Covid or because of vaccinations) or being hospitalized as much. This, too, is just part of anxiety and something I work to manage. Such realities are one reason writing and creating and having interactions via this blog and my Instagram account are so helpful to me. Thank you for reading here and commenting or emailing about posts; you all lift my spirits.

New things…

Happy Hot August! Today, when Tom finished work, we ran some errands, including picking up my new glasses!


New computer glasses.


New bifocals.

Now my eyes get to go through more adjusting, but I hope this will help get rid of some of the eyestrain and headaches.

Then… I picked up new Ken fashion.

Kind of cool that most of this Ken-wear is made from recycled plastic.

That sporty jacket just lent itself to this shot.

“Hi, Ken!”
“Hi, Barbies!”

Nope, haven’t seen the movie yet, so no spoilers please. Baseball, not the movie, has been on my mind, so I hark back to my list of missing things that I blogged about in December ’22. I realized that I might have a photo of one of those missing items on a different website I used to curate a long time ago. I checked my Flickr album and there it was, shot in 2007.


I know we had this cup when we moved into this house in 2015, and I think I know how it went missing. At some point when several of us were going somewhere, maybe Christmas shopping, or maybe after going our separate ways after a big dinner, someone grabbed it from my cabinet to use as a “go” cup, and it never found its way back home. No big deal, except the cup has a little bit of history; it comes from the era when what is now Minute Maid Park, where the Astros play baseball, was then Enron Park, before the collapse of Enron and the scandal that ended in founder Ken Lay’s bankruptcy and trials before he died while awaiting sentencing in 2006. Ken Lay was a huge part of Houston’s history, and I know people who worked at Enron, including one who was developing something with Lay that would have been a massive success (I say this with confidence because when things fell apart, someone else unconnected to Lay or Enron had a similar idea and it resulted in a globally successful online business that launched in 2007).

The other reason this cup is part of my personal history is how and when I got it. After the terrorist attacks in the US on September 11, 2001, you may recall that a whole lot of things shut down for a while, including large gatherings, for security reasons. A friend’s husband who works in the oil and gas industry often had tickets to events that he gave to clients, but since traveling and other activities were curtailed, he ended up with tickets to an Astros game and no clients in town to use them. So he and his wife invited Tom and me to attend an Astros game with them. Baseball wasn’t really my thing, but I was happy to go for their company, and I knew Tom would enjoy the game.

That game was the first time I’d really done anything after the attacks. I was doing contract editing at that time for a financial company, and the fallout to the financial markets put a stop to a lot of work, in my case, for several years. It felt SO GOOD to be out among people again. To be doing something that felt American and wholesome (as the old jingle says, “Baseball, hotdogs, apple pie and Chevrolet!”) with my fellow citizens. It wasn’t that we forgot the national trauma we were experiencing, but we could remember that most of the world stood with us, supported us, and believed in us, reminding us to believe in the best of us. If I recall correctly, at the seventh-inning stretch, we saw a moving film tribute  to the first responders at the tragedies in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania.

The cup is gone, but the memory remains, and it marked a turn in my attitude toward baseball (I have deeply unhappy memories connected to baseball from the 1980s). The change in me didn’t manifest immediately, but I was reminded again of baseball’s power to heal when the Astros won the World Series in 2017. Houston was reeling from the effects of the Harvey floods in late August. When the Astros took that title in October, it was the first time they’d won the series in the franchise’s history, and they were the first Texas team to win it. The impact on Houston’s mood, and my own (as we began to put our home and property back together after being flooded), was immeasurably positive. We had something to celebrate, something to feel good about, something good, not tragic, that brought us together as a community.

To be continued…

Tree of life (and friendship)

Last March on one of the days Lynne was visiting, she, Tom, and I ran a bunch of errands. One of those was to Joann Fabric and Crafts on 10 West. I’d never been to that location. Lynne said it was a good one, and she was definitely right. I can’t even remember what all I bought there, and who knows what I’ll do with some of the fabrics, but I’ll have them when I need them!

She’d been doing a lot of quilting at that time for friends and family, and she said she’d messed up something and was looking for a replacement fabric with colors drawing from her memory. (This was also the time she picked up the fabric she used as a small border on my mother’s family quilt that I posted a couple of weeks ago. But I digress.)

Turns out she was working on a quilt for my birthday, which she knew was going to be late, and on her recent visit, she brought me the finished quilt. It’s a smaller quilt, the perfect size to curl up with on a bed or chair when I’m reading or watching movies on my laptop. And it’s GORGEOUS!

I’ve been holding off photographing it until we picked up a product she recommended, Shout’s® ColorCatcher® Dye Trapping Sheet, to use when we washed it for the first time. That product is a little miracle because if any color runs, it goes to the sheet and not on the rest of the fabric.

Here’s the front of the quilt.


The center panel is a magical tree in colors, both flat and shiny, that I love.

Here’s a detail photo.

The back of the quilt is the fabric she picked out that day while we were shopping, and it is indeed a great match for the color borders around the tree.

Detail of the borders.

I’m always so awed by everything Lynne sews and creates and by her color palettes. It’s the best birthday friendship quilt I can imagine. Thank you, Lynne! All these wonderful gifts, and I’m STILL not finished with the chapters you’re waiting to read.

Photo Friday, No. 864

Current Photo Friday theme: Stair

Likely part of the walkway to the graves of the Sharp family, including Estelle Boughton Sharp, widow of Houston oilman Walter B. Sharp. Born in 1873, died in 1965, she was a renowned philanthropist who, as the cemetery notes, “devoted her wealth and talents to social welfare and world peace.” Good footsteps to follow in.

I took this photo in July 2010 when we went to Glenwood Cemetery with Jim while he visited.

Mid-week roundup

Still really having to take it easy. We had some brief power flickers today because of storms, but fortunately no outage. I think Tom said there are about 75,000 in the area without power post-storm.

So far this week, I’ve watched this DVD I bought sometime last year, the reboot of Sex and The City, ten episodes total. The second season of this starts streaming tomorrow, I think, though I don’t have whatever it streams on, as far as I know. I’d rather wait until the next DVD drops. Waiting between episodes of something usually means I forget about it.

Also read this book by ‘Nathan Burgoine on my iPad. I hadn’t realized this was an addition to ‘Nathan’s Little Village series, all of which I have and either read or will read. It was interesting to find two of his stories that Tim and I edited for Cleis Press anthologies fit nicely into this collection, too. (It was also kind of him to mention Tim and me as the editors who gave him his first YES. He’s published a lot since those days!) I was happy my eyes were willing to read, and this was an engaging way to ease back into doing so.

I might have to wait a while to tackle this one, a 1971 offering from James Michener. It’s around 750 pages; that’s a lot of commitment. One of my characters needed something to read back in ’71, and I chose this for her. I figured I can’t know if it engages her unless I attempt it myself. (I know what I’m getting into, having read Michener in the past, though it’s been decades.) It was either this or one of the Russian writers, but the timing was good for this one, and I think the Russians might exhaust me. Will be reading this one in hardcover.

Still not writing the new last chapter for my own sixth novel in the Neverending Saga, but I’ve done a little revising on earlier chapters. Even eyes need to take baby steps.

Tiny Tuesday!

My post-op appointment with the ophthalmologist went well today. Healing appears to be on schedule, and I was given updated after-care instructions. I also was given a little kit that included these sunglasses.

For me, these were a game-changer on the ride home because of the tinted lenses on the sides and the ridge on the top edge for my peripheral vision. AT LAST all the motion, light, and shadows weren’t startling and overwhelming me. Anyone who’s been driving me (Tom, Lynne), who I kept telling, “It’s not you, it’s me!” it really wasn’t your driving.

Caveat for driving in Houston: It’s always good to anticipate the batshit shenanigans of bad drivers, as well as to avoid expressing your anger at other drivers in visible ways. Not every tale about Texas is a tall tale. 😲