Month: June 2012

Legacy Writing 365:174

This is one of the first photos I took of Tim and Rex. In fact, I may have taken it on the day he came to live with Tim at The Compound.

And this is one of the last photos I took of Tim and Rex.

I must have taken a thousand or more photos of them in the six years between those two. I wish I could write a tribute to Rex and tell you all the things he meant to me, to all of us, but right now, I can’t. In any case, Tim’s words, which you can find here, are a loving testament beyond what I could say. I love them both so much.

One picture I can’t show you. When Aaron was here in March, he Tweeted a photo of Rex sleeping at his feet and said, “Proof! Rex is able to calm down and not jump on me.” Later during that visit, when I said I was sorry Rex kept jumping on him, Aaron said, “Secretly, I like it,” and made me laugh. When Aaron died and his Twitter account was closed, that’s one of the photos lost to me.

In Helen’s comments to Tim’s beautiful tribute to Rex, she said, “Rex’s energy is back in the Universe. I wonder where it will go now.” I’m going to share what I’ve been telling some of our friends. When I imagine Aaron’s beautiful spirit running through the Universe, now I see Rex running next to him. And jumping on him.

There’s no photo of that, either, except in my heart.

Legacy Writing 365:173

June 20 is our friend James’s birthday. This is one of my absolute favorite photos, though I don’t know who took it. It’s John and James standing at the gate of James’s old apartment that he lived in when I first met him.

The friendship that grew between James and me had its birth in a shared loss, and ultimately, it transcended that. Like the very best friends, the things he’s brought to my life have all enriched it. I love to hear him tell stories. We’ve shared art and movies and books and trips and more good meals than I can count. He helped me learn that not all change is bad. That sometimes things have to be cut away to allow new growth.

He’s introduced me to new people and enthusiastically welcomed my friends into his life. I could wish nothing more than that everyone could have someone like James–though he’s, like, one in a zillion. Happy belated, DP. Thank you.


Steve V watching over James as he plants a little tree.

Legacy Writing 365:172

This is our third Houston home: this time, we rented an actual three-bedroom house with enough space for us to breathe. Oddly, a few months ago when I went into the Northwest suburb where it’s located, I almost never found it. Everything has changed. Old access roads no longer exist, and new roads look so different. Even when I found the house, it didn’t look right. For one thing, that iron gate wasn’t on it when we lived there. Tom agreed that the house looks different from how he remembered it. I know the landscaping has totally changed.

The house is larger than it looks from the front, and it had a good-sized backyard that the dachshunds loved. For the first time they could be outside unleashed and run as much as they liked. There was an uncovered patio, and sometimes I set my little Mac out there and wrote.

Some things I remember about living there:

  • We didn’t have enough furniture to fill it, so we bought a twin bedroom set with a dresser and an additional dresser/hutch for the guest room. We bought a daybed for the other bedroom. My mother moved in with us for a year or so. Though she put most of her stuff in storage, we used her living room and dining room furniture. The only stuff left from all that are the twin beds and the dressers that went with those, which are now in Lila’s room in Lynne’s house at Green Acres. I do wish I still had the daybed. Lynne made a lot of furnishings for the daybed with some Ralph Lauren sheets that I loved. I still have those. We put the pillows on the window seat in our current dining room and she turned the daybed’s dust ruffle into a dining room curtain for us.
  • Either we took some of the roaches with us from the dreadful apartment or there were some already there, because we had to do battle with them the entire time we lived in the house.
  • Before Steve R died, he made arrangements for where his cats should go. That didn’t happen as it was planned, so the cats ended up living in the daybed room with a gate up so they could get out if they wanted to, but the dogs couldn’t get in to bother them. Dachshunds are burrowers, so at night they’d get under the covers with Tom and me, and the cats would wander the house, even coming into our bedroom to say hello, and the dogs never knew it.
  • Someone used a crowbar to try to break into my car, doing a ton of damage to the door. When the crowbar didn’t work, they broke one of the windows. The grand total of what they took: a pack of cigarettes. That was a pricey pack of cigarettes for my insurance company and me. They snubbed my cassettes–obviously didn’t share my taste in music. And they took all my photos and files that were being used to create a booklet for Steve’s memorial service, plus whatever was in the glove box, and spread them all over the driveway. Nothing was damaged other than the car.
  • That house was the first place large enough that we could do any real entertaining. It’s where we lived the first time our friend Amy visited us. When the dogs ran in from the back yard, Pete charged her and she jumped ON the dining room table, I think bypassing the chair completely, so he couldn’t bite her. Later, they became best friends.
  • We were living in that house when Cousin Rachel called to tell us that her mother, Aunt Drexel, had died. I vividly remember standing in the kitchen, talking to Rachel on the phone, and feeling so sad and far away. I really loved Aunt Drexel.
  • One time my mother was going to chop up a leftover pork roast in the food processor to make barbecue from it. She forgot to put the lid on, and pork went everywhere. From then on, whenever they heard the food processor, Pete and Stevie ran into the kitchen with high hopes.
  • We kept getting onto Stevie for turning the trash over. Then one night after we left to go somewhere, Tom ran back inside for something and caught Pete IN THE ACT. We’d been blaming the wrong dog.

Legacy Writing 365:171

Some photos give me all kinds of memory cues that no one else would guess. This one’s from my mother’s Kodak Instant camera (spits out Polaroid-type shots immediately), and it was taken sometime in the week before Mother’s Day back in the Late Stone Age. I know that because my then-husband is across the table from me reading our local newspaper and the ads proclaim “Mother’s Day BARGAINS.” It would be Lynne’s first Mother’s Day without her mother, who’d died in September of the year before this photo was taken.

That kitchen is as familiar to me as the one I live in now, even after so many years have passed since I was in it. The trivets, the coffeemaker, the empty ice tray on the counter (no doubt left by me, because for some reason, it was always me who had to “take up the ice,” as we called–and still call–putting the ice in glasses before a meal).

It’s after the dinner hour. Everyone else has already eaten, because my ex and Lynne are sitting in other people’s spots at the table–and no one else is there and eating. I imagine the two of them showed up later in the evening and Mother brought out the leftovers and told them to fix a plate. It’s fried chicken, by the way, along with mashed potatoes and green beans. (Those things are visible when I embiggen the photo.) They’re both drinking iced tea (you’re welcome for the ice). I don’t know where he was coming from, but Lynne was coming from her house, because the first thing I wondered about were all those flowers on the table. I’m betting Lynne brought them out of her own garden (she’s always grown amazing roses), and Mother put them in multiple vases so she could send some home with me.

As for me: I’m trying to get shots of those roses with my Canon, and no one is paying any attention to me. They’ve obviously gotten used to the way I constantly have that thing in front of my face. I’ll bet if I looked through my own photos, I’d find shots of the roses. I’m sitting in my usual spot at the table–I still have a specific place that I always sit at my own table, and if anyone else takes it, I get twitchy.

My hair makes me laugh. For many years, I had the same hairstyle: parted in the middle, hanging down straight on either side of my face, length from mid-back to waist. But I’d finally decided that I wanted bangs to be cut and feathered back. Lynne offered to do that for me. It didn’t exactly work out that way, and it seemed like forever that I had those two stupid hanks of hair that hung without any style at all on each side of my forehead. Blech.

So it’s all there: the comforting familiarity of home, my parents’ way of offering food, a newspaper, a place to relax. My way of hiding behind a camera; Lynne’s way with flowers. This is how I want people to feel in my home–like they’re home, in a place where they can relax and be themselves.

And I continue to have a complicated relationship with my hair.

In and Out

IN.

A week or so ago–that day I made biscuits–I decided to embark on another culinary adventure. There were only two of us for dinner and three chicken legs in the freezer–just enough for two people (Tom ate two; I wanted only one). Even though I’m not the biggest fan of barbecue, I decided to make my own sauce using half this recipe.

Do you guys save all your extra condiments when you get fast food or takeout? ‘Cause that’s what all these packets are about–I used packets of butter, ketchup, and mustard for my sauce.

After letting it simmer for twenty minutes, I brushed it on the chicken legs after I removed their skin.

Tom’s plate with a garden salad, fresh corn on the cob, and a couple of those biscuits.

He liked the sauce. I think I might use a little less vinegar next time. But we had enough left over that we used it on some ribs we grilled a couple of days later.

and OUT.


Then last week, I went to Kimberly Frost’s signing at Murder By The Book. As usual, she was a crowd pleaser. She was there to sign her new release, All That Falls, the second in her Etherlin series. I’ve been reading it all this week…who can resist a sexy fallen angel?

Kimberly does a lot of world building in the paranormal Etherlin novels, which present serious struggles between Muses, Demons, Angels, and mutated Vampires that could affect all of humanity. But when she was asked about creating the town of Duvall, Texas, for her other series, the Southern Witch novels, I had to laugh. As soon as Kimberly began talking about Tammy Jo Trask’s world, her voice and accent changed dramatically. It was easy to see the affection and connection she feels for and with her main character.

All three Southern Witch books, as well as the novella and first two novels of the Etherlin series, are available from your favorite booksellers.

30 Days of Creativity 2012: Day 18

Today’s theme from 30 Days of Creativity is “Yellow.” At first, I vaguely mentioned doing something based on the movie I Am Curious (Yellow), even though I was way too young to see that one. I probably still am.

However, Lindsey gave me a [figurative] thunk on the head and said, “HELLO? Beatles fan? Yellow Submarine?”

Of course. And as I mentioned earlier, today is Sir Paul McCartney’s birthday.


The Ram directs a scene from Yellow Submarine. Monster High’s Abbey, Cleo, Frankie, and Operetta can’t really fill out the Fab Four’s suits; but then again, who ever could?