Current Photo Friday theme: Mirrors
She smiles at a face that smiles through leaves from the mirror.
She breathes the fragrance; her dark eyes close . . .
Time is dissolved, it blows like a little dust…
It’s all about where the dogs sleep
This was our living room sofa at The Compound. It was a sofa bed, so we could accommodate guests. Besides the master bedroom, we had only one bedroom with twin beds for guests. This sofa opened to a queen-sized mattress, and it was used when family and friends visited and our guest bedroom spilled over.
Mother lived in the garage apartment (the Dollhouse), and she used the space upstairs for her bedroom and living area, and the downstairs had her dining room table in the open space that included the kitchen.
After Mother moved (several times, to many places in three states), and Timothy moved to Houston, the Dollhouse became his. That’s when couches began moving around. I’d given the twin beds and the hutch that matched them to Lynne, and moved an off-white sofa (that my mother left) into that bedroom.
There were also two workspaces in that room, turning it into an office for Tim and me (we were at that time writing books together, and it was very efficient for us to office in the same space).
Tim bought a leather sofa from Amy for the Dollhouse living room. And we eventually got rid of Mother’s off white sofa and bought a smaller blue sleeper sofa to put in The Compound’s second bedroom. It, too, was used a lot, so it was very convenient.
We didn’t NEED any more couches. They were everywhere. But one day, shopping for something else, I found an antique love seat and chair. IMPULSE BUY.
The big brown sofa bed went downstairs in Tim’s apartment. And then Tim got a sectional sofa group from a friend, and Amy’s old leather couch came to The Compound, and damn if I remember where we put the antique love seat and chair.
AND THEN WE ALL MOVED TO HOUNDSTOOTH HALL in 2015, where there was so much more room, inside and out, for dogs. And for the sofas they sleep on!
The little blue sleeper sofa was in our library along with the antique love seat and chair. Amy’s leather sofa was in our living room. And the big brown sofa bed was in the spacious office.
Tim had his sectional in Fox Den; Debby brought her furniture from Ohio when she moved into Fairy Cottage; and all was well. Until…. the 2017 flood. Goodbye, Debby’s chair and couch. Goodbye, Tim’s sectional. Goodbye, Becky and Tom’s brown sofa bed and little blue sleeper sofa. And thank goodness for flood insurance!
Amy’s leather sofa was undamaged in our living room. Then we had the antique love seat and chair reupholstered (along with a chair Lynne had given us and a chair Sarah had given us years ago that were also flood damaged). We were in no hurry to replace the brown sofa bed.
Debby and Tim replaced their furniture first. Then Tim decided that his replacement sofa (almost the same color blue as our old sleeper sofa) wasn’t durable enough for his large dogs, so we took it and he got something a little tougher.
The blue sofa worked, but look where Jack is.
And look where Anime is.
Those two and Delta always wanted to sleep on those back cushions, often all three of them at the same time, which I knew would gradually break the cushions down. I was constantly plumping them and making the dogs move. Finally, I made a decision. Years ago, Tom and I had a daybed in one of our guest rooms (pre-Compound), and I’ve always missed it. I decided I wanted another daybed in the office, and we could donate the blue sofa while it was still in very good condition.
Pollock is one of the reasons I wanted something that could be slept on in the office. Back in the old days, before the flood, Pollock and his sisters would hang out in our house while I worked from home and Tom and Tim worked elsewhere. But all the dogs were apart for a month after the flood, and when Tim and his dogs returned, Delta and Jack didn’t like Pollock coming over anymore. It was fine. Pollock, Pixie, and Penny were cool in Fox Den, and Debby was nearby with Harley and Stewie.
In the seven years since, a lot of things changed because of aging dogs. Harley went to the Rainbow Bridge. Then Penny. Then Pixie. Then Stewie.
After pandemic restrictions eased, Tim’s work schedule got very busy, requiring him to be away occasionally several nights in a row. After Stewie was gone, Pollock would hang out with Debby. When Debby scheduled a couple of months away on her current trip, I decided if I went ahead and got a daybed for the office, Pollock and I could sleep back there. The Dutch door would keep him and our dogs apart and avoid any drama. (It’s not bad drama. There’s no fighting. But there’s a lot of trash talking, and Tom and I both like to sleep.)
After a suggestion from Lynne, I checked Ikea’s site for daybeds and found exactly what I wanted, and they had it in stock. Tom went to get it. The idea was that he’d put it together weekend before last, and he and Tim would take the blue sofa in Tim’s new truck to Goodwill.
Oh. Did you know Tim has a new truck? His ten-year-old car had served him well, but it had a LOT of miles and was at the point where repairs would be needed.
He’s happy with his purchase, but neither man nor beast will be sleeping in the truck.
Then I read that rain was forecast last Wednesday and Thursday, and since Tim was pressed for time, he and Tom packed the blue sofa into my SUV and Tom took it to Goodwill on Tuesday. That evening, he decided to assemble the bed instead of waiting for the weekend. (He’s one of those people who likes to put things together from diagrams, and they always turn out right. This is not a skill I understand at all.)
So. Daybed was in place. I had plenty of time to get linens and maybe some new dog-friendly throw pillows, and change the room around a little before Debby left and Tim would be away at night, leaving Pollock free to come over for slumber parties with me.
Except as we all know now, we got that rain that was forecast and WAY more drama from wind than dogs ever cause. Without electricity, I ended up sleeping on that daybed days before intended. It was right by windows that let a breeze into the room. Our four dogs could go between sleeping with Tom and with me; there wouldn’t be four hot dogs and two hot humans in any one bed.
When the power came back Wednesday, I was finally better able to ready the new setup for when Pollock sleeps over.
See ya later, Pollock!
Holding out for a hero…
These are things that might have been posted on Tuesday, May 21, when we still had no power, and then Wednesday, May 22.
When I woke up Tuesday, I knew two things. We probably wouldn’t be getting our power restored today, and yet I still felt better than I had the day before. An appointment Debby had on Monday was canceled because the building had just gotten their power back, so they rescheduled her for this morning. Tom took her; he’d scheduled a vacation day for this appointment and because the two of them would be leaving sometime after noon to go to the airport. A couple of months ago, she booked a trip to see her kids and grandkids. Two of the grandkids are graduating from high school, and one graduated from college. What a perfect time to be leaving town (if she’d known we were going to be without power, she’d have preferred to leave last week!).
There are a couple of other good things I haven’t mentioned. First, is that unlike when we have power outages in winter and our pipes freeze, this outage doesn’t steal the joy of running water (also, our hot water heater is gas, so a lack of electricity doesn’t affect it). Taking a shower every day (maybe even two, especially when there’s no air conditioning), helps my morale a lot. Also, our stove is gas, as are Tim’s and Debby’s, so we can continue to use our stovetops. Even though we lost the food in our refrigerators and freezers (except for some of our food that Rhonda and Lindsey are keeping in their freezer), we have canned food, pasta, crackers, etc., in our cabinets (or pantry, here at the Hall). Once many of the nearby businesses had power restored, we supplemented what we have on hand with breakfasts or light evening meals. This also means we can get coffee (not Starbucks, the closest of which are closed). Tom drinks a lot more coffee than I do, though I never turn down an iced mocha from anywhere. Because we were buying ice every day, Debby could still brew tea and drink it cold over ice. One of my meds that requires refrigeration was stored by one of Tim’s clients in their home until Monday. When Tim brought it home, I took the last dose, and the refill is safe at the pharmacy until I pick it up after our power’s restored. I’m so grateful for people who help.
When I think of the deprivations being experienced in other places torn apart by war, revolution, and climate disasters, I recognize how minor this incident is by comparison. I have better details now: Two confirmed tornados struck Houston last Thursday: one with winds of around 100 mph, the other 110 mpg; the path lengths were .71 and .77 miles; path widths were both 100 yards. Damage was to homes or other structures, and trees, with no fatalities reported. That feels like a miracle. They’re also saying now that the area experienced a derecho, a term I’d never even heard until one a couple of years back in the Midwest affected the area where our friend Nurse Lisa lives. I’m not about to attempt to explain the science, but it’s basically a long path of surface wind that causes a lot of damage.
I saw some of that damage when I left the house for the first time on Tuesday while Tom and Debby were at the airport. The road near us where Lynne used to live, once you get out of the heavily residential section, is lined with dense, majestic trees–you almost feel like you’re in the country for part of it. As I drove that road, I finally understood why I’ve heard the constant sound of chainsaws for almost a week. The curb is thick with the remains of downed trees and branches. I’m glad I didn’t have my camera with me; I’ve taken too many photos of damaged and felled trees after past disasters. Tom said the sight is the same on one of the other roads (opposite direction) we frequently travel. That mid-century neighborhood is beautiful with gracious old trees. I’m not eager to see it now.
After taking care of my errands, I came home, hugged my dogs, and felt nothing but gratitude for our house, with or without electricity. I started coloring again to help manage my thoughts, beginning with this one.
From the Uplifting Inspirations book, with the quote that went with this page:
We can complain because the rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.–Abraham Lincoln
Then I really cheered myself up by coloring this horse.
I gave her a name: Sunflower, out of Daisy, by Sheridan. Sunflower’s sire is a horse in the Neverending Saga, and her dam is connected to horses briefly mentioned a book or so previous to the one I’m writing now. My newly imagined Sunflower is a gift made to one of my major characters. Even though I’m not writing at the moment, my characters are always busy somewhere in my brain, so Sunflower is also a gift to me.
Sunflower came from this book. Though my dreams might have been a little random and crazy, and it was really hot, I managed to get a few hours of sleep Tuesday night.
Tom was back in the office for a half-day Wednesday, and Tim was home with Pollock between dogwalking and housesitting gigs. I’ve been cleaning the house as I could with no power–we have this dust mop kind of thing that really helps grab dust and dog hair, with an easy-to-clean attachment, and I’ve been relentlessly mopping our tile floors in the library (also known as Eva’s favorite place to leave wee puddles). After I cleaned, I looked for a coloring page that would make me happy. This one, with an affectionate couple, animals silhouetted in the distance, fit my requirement. I couldn’t understand what all that was at the bottom of the page. Whenever I looked at it, I heard Sebastian singing “Under The Sea” from The Little Mermaid. It made no sense, but I decided the couple is standing between a sea-themed fountain and nature’s panorama of sky and wildlife, and went with that idea.
The page came from this book.
Then, IT HAPPENED. The sounds I’d hoped to hear for six nights and five days. It began with men’s voices, calling to each other. I looked up from the desk where I was coloring, then through the office windows, and I saw this.
Visible over the roof of Fox Den, at the condos behind our house: THAT is a bucket truck, or cherry picker, used by utility companies to repair power lines.
I went to my group text with Tom and Tim, telling them what I overheard: “See them wires laying on the ground over yonder from those trees? Them wires need to come up.” You may question the grammar, but that is the language of the two regions where I’ve spent my life, and it was pure music to my ears. Especially when Tom texted, “Only wires they’d be talking about are from our poles,” because he’d actually gone over and surveyed that area in the days before. Tim said, yep, they’d just moved the truck to directly behind Fairy Cottage, so I joined him at Debby’s and we watched the worker, in the bucket poised over her fence, as he lifted those two power lines out of her garden. At one point, he yelled something about the poles they were handing him being like frog-gigging, and I asked aloud, “Did I used to be married to you?” to make Tim laugh.
They then shifted the bucket to approximately the mid-point of our back fence, where he reconnected those two wires to the two lying in our backyard, and began lifting them toward the sky and their poles.
After more time, all those wires were straight and taut, back in their right places. We didn’t have power yet, but we knew there was hope.
Best of all, Anime, Delta, and Jack, along with Pollock, could run outside to explore their yard, UNLEASHED, without fear of downed wires, using the bathroom wherever they wanted, and Eva got to lie on the patio and bake for the first time in days. (It is the way of chihuahuas; we call it her pizza oven.)
Tom finished his half day of work and came home with Starbucks. I’d known he was bringing coffee, so the next (and final!) page of the No Electricity Coloring Frenzy was this one.
From a coloring book Marika gave me long ago.
I’m not as strong as I used to be, but neither is my coffee. It all evens out somehow. Tom talked to the guys as the utility trucks in front of the house were leaving, sometime around three, and they said they hoped power would be back tonight. Then, around 4:15, Tom and I were sitting in the living room talking when lights began to flicker on, then off. This repeated a few times, then they came on and stayed on. THE ELECTRICITY WAS BACK. We started texting family and friends to let them know–now that the phones’ battery power was no longer too precious to squander. Tim went through Debby’s and turned off everything that had been on when the power went out last week, and closed her windows, because the air conditioner was back in business.
Then, I took on my first project and got this ready to refill.
I think that refrigerator’s cleaner than it’s been since it was new back in 2007. It has been in two homes and known some crazy times, and the light in the refrigerator part hasn’t functioned in years, but like the rest of us, this Frigidaire’s still humming.
For dinner, Tom got us takeout from our favorite restaurant because I’d have a way to refrigerate half of the huge salad I can never eat in one sitting and its extra Ranch dressing. The edges of normalcy had returned…
We interrupt this litany of weather and household matters…
Thank you so very much, Mark, for asking if I’d pull a random card from the Haunted Cat Tarot that I posted about in January. I’m delighted to do something fun to kick off the weekend!
I shuffled the deck, kept my citrine point and a bracelet of rainbow stones nearby, and randomly pulled this card from the face-down deck.
The Three of Chalices! I’ve taken the following information from the deck’s guidebook, compiled by creators J Edward & Heather Neill.
Celebrate! The Three of Chalices is about gathering with people who love and support you. You might be looking forward to a big social gathering with family and friends, such as a wedding or a reunion. You could soon find yourself collaborating on a creative project with others who inspire you and bring out your creativity. The Three of Chalices reminds you to relax and spend time with those you love.
Great card, right? Seems on point considering recent activities. Keep up those interactions and feed your creative spirit.
Thinking and waiting and waiting…
These are things that might have been posted on Saturday, May 18 through Monday, May 20.
Here are some of the good things that happened after the storm and tornado on Thursday night. The skies cleared as if nothing had ever happened, and it was still quite a while until sunset. The streets drained. We did what our neighbors did; we went outside to check on each other and know we were all okay. We started clearing tree debris and branches from our yards and the yards of others. We talked and laughed and wondered when we’d get our electricity back.
I realized the beautiful flowers and blossoms from our magnolia tree were strewn up and down the street and into our neighbors’ yards. On one side of Houndstooth, where lives Carl the dog, the wind had blown little branches from our driveway tree and lots and lots of magnolia flowers into their yard. I wasn’t sure if Carl and family were home (I did hear their generator the second night, so they were home at some point), but that first night I moved the mess our trees had made in their yard to the curb. Then Tom and I began picking up the mess in our yard, and he helped neighbors coming from the side streets deal with some of the larger limbs and tree debris in the yards on our street. In this way, we learned we were one of at least three houses with power lines down in our back yards. We figured eventually, we’d be keeping a utility crew very busy.
As we all talked and cleaned up what we could, neighbors often brought tools to help saw off hanging limbs. We know our neighbor on our other side (not Carl’s), though she doesn’t live in the house now, one of her family members does. We got to meet her and apologize for our little dogs trying to fence fight her big dog and her big dog’s friend who sometimes visits. She apologized for the frenzy her dogs cause by barking at ours. We realized that we both felt to blame for dogs just being dogs, as dogs will. Now we can feel better in the future that we all get it and aren’t upset with each other about it.
Neighbors across the street, who had a lot of tree damage, including a big limb on their roof, were out in force cleaning up their yard and helping others. A couple of doors down, they found two fledgling blue jays in a nest in a huge fallen limb. By keeping close watch, they finally spotted the mama, who seemed to be injured but really wanted us all to stay away from her babies. Over the following days, we could see that she was able to fly again and was taking care of her family. A couple of days later, I would spot a bird (to me, it looked like a corvid, but Tom said it wasn’t) that hadn’t made it through the storm. Tom wrapped him up and made his goodbye gentler than his death.
Because of no AC, we kept our windows open at night. The storm left behind one gift: cooler weather. It was pleasant to sleep with those breezes flowing through the house. Once it got dark, there really was no reason not to go to bed early. We split up, Tom in the master bedroom, and me in the office, to give the dogs choices so no bed would have six of us in it at a time. Staying cool and comfortable enough to sleep was the goal. (In a future post, I’ll explain changes we made in the office/craft room in the two or three days before the storm surprised us.)
We had to figure out creative ways to get our devices recharged. We didn’t waste battery power or try to get enough signal to find out what else was going on in the city or the country or the world. As we’ve learned from past weather events, our families and friends who don’t live here know more from their news than we do about what’s going on in Houston. We find out from them when we start getting worried texts, calls, and emails. We’re fine. The dogs are fine. The house is all good. We just want these power lines removed from our back yard so the dogs have freedom to burn off energy.
I would wake up in the mornings before dawn, a dog or two sleeping next to me, appreciating the cool air and listening with happiness to the mourning doves. As the sky lightened, the other birds joined the choir.
In the day, with our windows open, mostly what we heard were tree crews and their chainsaws dealing with all the fallen trees and tree limbs, and the noise of people’s generators. And always, always, we listened for the sounds of utility trucks and the voices of workers who would make life normal by restoring our electricity.
When there was only silence were the hardest times. We marked the twenty-four hours without power with an acknowledgment that everything in the refrigerator was garbage. Maybe tomorrow the crew would arrive and prevent the same fate for the freezer’s contents. Businesses were closed. Some stations had ice but no gasoline. We ended up buying two bags of ice a day, but the time came when we accepted that the freezer contents were garbage, too.
We bagged it and Tom made a trip to RubinSmo Manor, home of The Brides, who heard the storm that night (terrifying to poor Pepper), but didn’t get its full impact and kept power. They offered us whatever we needed: beds, bathrooms, power for phones, washer/dryer, anything. We have a history of opening our homes to one another during these kinds of events, but this time, other than just knowing they were there, we only wanted to put the trash from three kitchens (we weren’t sure if our garbage day would be on time) in the dumpster used by their condo.
I missed my characters and writing. I missed keeping up with family and friends on social media. I colored because that is my calming, good thinking time, always. I think I did two pages on Friday. This one:
From this book.
And this one:
From this book.
On Saturday:
From this book:
Sunday became a hard day. We’d received a message that our power should be restored by end of day. It didn’t happen.
Because Anime always lifts my spirits, I colored this dog who looks a little like her.
From this book.
I started another coloring page on Monday that I’ll share in a different post. My mood was the flattest it had been since the tornado/storm. There was still no power. I used the daylight to read the two Michael Thomas Ford novels (one a re-read; the other its sequel) that I had mentioned in this post. It was a very good sequel, and because of the number of years between Ford’s writing of the books, he was able to make his characters more current and therefore more relevant, even though only a few days had passed in the novels’ timeline. I have never once been disappointed in anything written by him, and having had the chance to get to know him through the years, he’s one of my favorite humans. Can definitely give all the stars to Every Star That Falls.
Photo Friday, No. 909
This is the post that would have been published on Friday, May 17.
Current Photo Friday theme: In My Back Yard
This is what I saw when I opened my back door on Friday morning.
I’m very glad we had a tree crew at Houndstooth Hall last fall. Back then, the tree this limb fell from had so many lower-lying branches that it’s likely it would have done damage to our roof, also possibly breaking out windows, as well as taking out at least part of our fence and maybe done some roofing damage to our neighbor. Two limbs fell from the tree during the high winds of Thursday. The other limb is smaller; the photo is somewhat deceptive on this one–this is its leafy top and doesn’t show the length or circumference of the branch. Regardless, no harm done to any structures, and we were able to hire the neighbor’s tree crew on Friday to get both branches out of our back yard and taken away.
These are messed up power lines at the back of the yard. Two of them snapped, and each left their two ends hanging from power poles to the ground on opposite sides of our property. We were advised to stay 35 feet from all lines until Houston’s utility company could get to us. This meant every dog on the property had to be walked one at a time on leash, and one exit/entrance couldn’t be used at all.
We had a very short warning (less than five minutes) on Thursday evening. There were giant, fallen trees blocking nearby streets and resting on residential roofs. We were very fortunate.
More photos to come.
Photo Shoot! and… A tornado!
This is a post that would have been available on Thursday, May 16.
Here’s the most recent coloring book I randomly pulled from the shelf to pick a page to color. This one always makes me laugh because one of our nephews ruthlessly jokes about the “live, love, laugh” art that people put in their homes (including his mother), so I’ve probably told him at least once that I have and use this book.
Since The Musician is my current POV in the Neverending Saga, I picked this page to color.
You’ve seen that character doll on this site several times. He’s a piano prodigy, but for many reasons, and like many, many other musicians through the decades, a streak of rebellion and an instinct led him to the guitar. While I colored that page, I thought a lot about him, and where he’s been in his life so far. I got a fun (for me, at least!) idea for a photo shoot, an appearance at a record store circa 1974, where he signs photos and 45 records before a performance (in either a small town or a small venue).
Here are some of the photos I shot on Thursday afternoon. I don’t have many 1:6 scale props, so I do a lot of improvising.
I got all this done on Wednesday while Tom took Debby to an appointment at the end of his work day. They got home as I was putting the props in the guest bedroom, and I’d just uploaded the photos to my laptop when a tornado warning alert blared from my phone. I called into Tom and said, “A tornado? WHERE in Houston is a tornado?” I lived in an area of the South once known as a tornado “alley,” and I know a warning means a tornado has been spotted, but Houston isn’t just a city with a high population, it sprawls, much like Los Angeles. One area of the city may be impacted by something, while the rest of it is mostly unaffected.
Seconds later, I knew exactly where the tornado was–somewhere near or over us. As we moved through the house, we could see the impact of the wind on the trees and the sky was turning black, almost two hours before sunset. We grabbed the dogs and sat in the library with them. There was a lot of noise, a crash, four very frightened dogs, more banging noises. [ETA: We later realized two pictures were knocked off one of the walls in the office near where a large tree limb came down.] The power flickered on and off a few times, and then we were in near darkness as we lost electricity.
When that part was over, it was check-in time. Tom, dogs, and I were safe. Debby and Pollock were safe at her place. Tim was across town and safe. Lindsey and Rhonda texted to let us know they were okay and to check on us.
The impact of the tornado was only beginning for the city… and for us.
Please hold
Due to the tornado that impacted Houston and our neighborhood, we’ve been without power and only sporadic phone access since Thursday around 6 pm. I have posts for every day, and will back-date them when I can. We’re fine and the weather is wonderfully cool as of Saturday morning, so the lack of A/C doesn’t have its usual impact. Thanks for checking on us! I hope our Houston friends are doing okay.
Hump Day Vexation
Had I known, when this day began, that it would be a lot of “hurry up and wait,” a lot of “herding cats,” and a lot of other things that seemed particularly designed to vex a person who was trying to get through an eighteen-hour day on five hours of sleep, I’d have taken this book with me.
I read Michael Thomas Ford’s novel Suicide Notes in the spring of 2019, but I want to read it again for a great reason (other than that it was a very good novel in the first place). MTF has written the sequel, which I’ve eagerly anticipated. Before I read it, I want to refresh my memory with a visit back to that world and its inhabitants.
I’d have loved to have either of the novels with me today, and by the time things settled down, my brain was too exhausted to read anything. Certainly something to look forward to, along with more serene days ahead.
Tiny Tuesday!
Mountain Man, acrylic on canvas, 2023/24
Another of my tiny bottle cap paintings. This cap is from the Wasatch Brewing Company and features the state shape of Utah. It’s the only one I have, likely given to me by David and/or Geri.
Today’s my brother David’s birthday. He has spent many decades of his life hiking, climbing, camping, and living among the mountain ranges of Colorado, Utah, and Nevada.
Happy birthday, David! Much love from all the humans and canines at Houndstooth Hall. Come see us–there’s always a brew in the fridge for you. (And birthday cake. Banana pudding. Or all of the above. Maybe not at the same time.)