Tag: houston

February Photo A Day: Entrance

Margot and Guinness are at the vet this morning, getting their semi-annual checkups. Since Pixie and Penny spent the night with us last night, they were snoozing with me on the bed when I was awakened by a strange and persistent clatter.

I jumped up, grabbed my camera, and opened the front door to shoot the sidewalk leading to the porch. Hail was falling fast and furious, clicking against all the windows and ripping dogs from their dreams.

Prompt from FMS Photo A Day.

February Photo A Day: Something Orange

Mine hasn’t yet bloomed, so here’s a shot of a neighbor’s orange gerbera daisy.

For my friends in the Northeast, I’m NOT adding bouquets of pink to be mean. I’m simply showing you what lies beyond your blizzard. Come August, when heat and mosquitos have enslaved me within my house, you can publish photos of balmy days in the garden, breezy times on the water, etc.


Hydrangea.


Lantana.


Impatiens.


Yellow jacket on redbud blooms.

Prompt from FMS Photo A Day.

Numbers Photo Series, No. 4

…if you were behind a closed door and I heard your voice, I would know it was you without seeing your face. But can you imagine if sound is that identifiable–more than your face–that’s fantastic, right?

When you put your sound or your idea into an arena mixed with other things–if what you’re saying has a valid place–it’s going to find its position in that total thing, and it’s going to make that thing much better. You don’t have to worry about being a number one, number two, or number three. Numbers don’t have anything to do with placement. Numbers only have something to do with repetition.

I think that every person, whether they play music or don’t play music, has a sound–their own sound, that thing that you’re talking about. You can’t destroy that. It’s like energy. Your sound, your voice, means more to everyone that knows you than how you look tomorrow. You might grow a beard or shave your hair. They say, “I can’t recognize you.” But as soon as you talk, “Oh yeah, it is you!” It’s the same thing. If it’s that distinctive, then there must be something there.


It’s amazing that everyone has their own sound.

Quote from legendary jazz musician Ornette Coleman, interview by Michael Jarrett, November 8, 1987, Atlanta, GA, published in Cadence magazine, October, 1995.

I started shooting photos for this series in late April of 2011. It’s my second post with this tag. Apparently, I became distracted. (And later, I retagged a lot of photos with the numbers tag, so this one became, by date, number 4.)

Legacy Writing 365:298

The Pappas brothers began building restaurants in Houston in 1945 with the Dot Coffee Shop downtown. Over the decades, they’ve developed more than eighty Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen, Pappasito’s Cantina, Pappas Seafood House, Pappas Bros. Steakhouse, Pappas Bar-B-Q, Yia Yia Mary’s, Pappas Burger, and Pappas Grill & Steakhouse locations in Houston, Dallas, Cincinnati, Austin, San Antonio, Beaumont, Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Albuquerque, and Phoenix.

Pappadeaux is known for its Cajun flavors, including various blackened entrees. One night in the early 1990s as I was driving home from work, I saw this sign in front of one of their restaurants.


The only John Mellencamp fan I knew more ardent than myself was Lynne, so I fetched my camera from home, went back, and shot this photo for her. ETA: No need to thank me for the ear worm.

A love connection: It was at the remaining Dot Coffee Shop location on the Gulf Freeway southwest of Houston where Lynne met Craig, the man who would become her husband and Jess’s father.

Pappadeaux was also the location of my first (and last) taste of alligator on an occasion when Tom’s parents visited Houston and took us out to eat there.