Tag: houston

Cool Stuff About Wednesday

For the third day in a row, I’ve been at the gym and in the pool by 5:30 a.m. (I love getting to and leaving the gym before daylight.) I really like Clarence, who teaches the water aerobics class. He’s a swimmer and a runner and he’s in great shape. I’d get a photo for you, but we’re not allowed to take photos inside the gym. He’s been there all the years I’ve been a member, and he leaves the gym every day and goes to his full-time job. WHERE do people get that kind of energy?

A few days ago, in the pool, I met Trish, who owns a 1926-bungalow in Montrose (but on the opposite side of Westheimer from our 1928-bungalow). Today I met Jerry, who owns a 1920-bungalow in the Heights. We bungalow people like to stick together and badmouth the McMansions and STUPID FREAKING CONDOS that are hurting the character of our neighborhoods and driving up our taxes.

Today, there was an aerobics move that Jerry just could not do. In a flash of inspiration, I gave him something to visualize and suddenly he could do it. It’s nice to be part of the whole spirit of people at the gym in the morning. Everyone is a little quiet but helpful and pleasant. These are morning people, but they aren’t perky. No one should be perky before dawn.

I came home ravenous, ate a good breakfast, did some stuff, then headed for the Galleria. I HATE SHOPPING. But I had things to do, like getting a present to send to one of our nieces. Done. Then there was some other cool stuff.
you knew there’d be photos, right?

Stupid good intentions

I haven’t been to the gym since April. I promised myself I would start back to the gym on January 15. I didn’t. I can always find excuses. One of them has been that my tennis shoes were falling apart. Even though I generally only swim at the gym, and that doesn’t require shoes, it made a good excuse. I kept telling myself that in addition to swimming, I was going to get on the treadmill. So I needed shoes.

I’ve been shopping for tennis shoes twice now. (I call them tennis shoes. You may call them sneakers. I never play tennis in them. I don’t even buy tennis shoes; I buy cross trainers. Usually. But in BeckSpeak, they are all tennis shoes.) I hate every pair I’ve seen. The problem is, I only buy Nike. I don’t want to buy Nikes that are going to have the same problem as the falling-apart Nikes, but they are the only Nikes I like the look of.

So today I went to Target and refurbished my gym supplies (I shower there, too, so I always have to have a full supply of products) and got a new backpack, because my old one just wasn’t working. (I mean, you know, back in April, when I actually went to the gym. Whatever.)

Then I went to Academy to try again with the shoes. I sort of wanted black tennis shoes (as a backup pair), which means Reebok (don’t ask me why, but if they’re black, they have to be Reebok, not Nike). So I tried on shoe after shoe of white leather Nikes and black Reeboks.

And finally, I bought Nike hiking shoes because I STILL hated every pair of tennis shoes.

Then I went to my gym, which is downtown. We have access to a parking garage, and the gym validates parking so it’s cheap. But then I saw that there was some open metered parking right in front of the gym. I parked there. When I went to insert coins in the meter, it was jammed and out of order. So then I wondered… if you park at a defective meter, will you get a ticket? Deciding not to chance it, I drove another half block and parked in a different metered spot. I only had enough quarters for an hour and a half. So I could either swim and shower, do the treadmill and shower, or do the treadmill and swim then go home to shower. I figured I’d decide once I got inside and checked on how busy the pool was.

Then I walked up to the gym door and saw the sign. The gym was closed today because of weather and icy roads.

I took myself to lunch.

The best combination: art, friends, and coffee

Today’s coffee cup is actually Tim’s. He left it over here a couple of days ago, Tom washed it, and I grabbed it this morning because it’s big and I NEED COFFEE.

On one of Jim’s visits to Houston, we went to a jewelry exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts. Afterward, in the museum’s gift shop, Jim bought this cup for Tim.

Bingo!

Have you ever gone to one of those bingo halls located in some unfamiliar suburban location? A big utilitarian building with fluorescent lighting that makes everyone look ten years older? Where the non-smokers are put into a separate, smaller room because the majority of the bingo players are smokers?

My sister loves bingo and she wins. A lot. She’s been able to take vacations with her bingo winnings. She buys those little pull tabs at the bingo hall and wins with them, too. When she comes to Houston, I generally find one of those bingo halls and go with her. I do not win. But that’s okay. I’m not there for the bingo. I like to watch the people.

For one thing, this is the ONLY place in Houston where people gather quietly. We truly have the noisiest restaurants and stores of any city I’ve ever been in. But the bingo hall is hushed. Players are concentrating on their bingo sheets and the caller’s voice.

I enjoy checking out the good luck totems people bring and set up around their bingo sheets. It reminds me of when I travel. I like to carry favorite stones and crystals with me and set them up in my hotel room or condo. I usually have nag champa incense with me, too, and if I get a chance to buy cut flowers, I’ll add those. I don’t know why I started doing this, but it always makes me feel safer and happier in an unfamiliar place. When I did it on my first visit to New York, it made the hotel housekeepers smile at me and ask me questions. In countries like Bali, my friend Tandy tells me, hoteliers and innkeepers actually do this for their guests–leave little iconic gifts with fresh flowers in their rooms.

So I totally get why bingo players like to arrange their little space with their lucky charms, their dabbers, their ashtray–everything just so. I was sitting at my computer today when I suddenly realized that in my busy-ness, I’ve kind of let things collect on my desk. Though these things have no particular significance to me, I told Tom I feel like a bingo player.

I hope I win.


Stress ball from Tom, Happy Meal doll, champagne cork from New Year’s Eve, bookmark from our niece.

Murder! Mayhem!

Today I took a writing break and went to Houston’s Murder By the Book bookstore to support a good friend and meet a new (to me!) author.

Dean James, who used to manage the store, has been a true friend to my writing career, giving me encouragement to be a little braver about writing and submitting. Dean has written several mysteries under his own name, but his latest is under his pen name Jimmie Ruth Evans. As Evans, Dean’s first two Trailer Park Mysteries, Flamingo Fatale and Murder Over Easy, gave us feisty, independent Wanda Nell Culpepper of Tullahoma, Mississippi. Wanda Nell has a bad habit of getting involved in murders, and her new misadventure is Best Served Cold. I picked up a copy today at Dean’s signing. It’ll probably be the first book I read when I can take a mini writing vacation after March 1.

Also signing today was author Leann Sweeney. Leann’s Yellow Rose Mystery series, based around Texas heiress Abby Rose, is set in Houston. I have to admit that since I haven’t read them, I splurged today and bought all four: Pick Your Poison, A Wedding to Die For, Dead Giveaway, and the newest, Shoot from the Lip.

Reading mysteries is one of those not-guilty pleasures that I can simply enjoy without thinking, Damn! I wish I’d written that! since I don’t write mysteries. Of course, if I came up with a really good plot and an engaging sleuth as my favorite mystery writers do….


Houston-area writers Dean James and Leann Sweeney.

The Day After

Having spent several weeks talking about World AIDS Day, it seems right that I share how I spent my time on December 1.

One of the things I will always admire about Houston is that it responded early and forcefully to the AIDS pandemic. Our city, like NYC, LA, and San Francisco, lost many of its most passionate activists to AIDS. Our city, like those cities, struggles against indifference, carelessness, fear, prejudice, and a false sense of security among groups at highest risk for HIV infection. Yet Houstonians still keep fighting the fight, speaking for the marginalized, caring for the ill, and memorializing the dead.

Yesterday, I was privleged to spend time with some of these Houstonians or see the things they’re doing to make a difference.

read more–with photos!