Tag: meal

A Tim update

In 2007, when Tim was in the hospital, he let me take a few photos. When I was in his room Thursday night, going through a bag he usually hauls around with him, I found his camera. When my eyes lit up, he said, “NO.” But if you ever think I’m a wonderful friend, let me dispel that with what I did when he was helpless while phoning home yesterday:

His room looks over the entrance to the Houston Zoo. If anything escapes, we’ll be in the perfect spot to watch the drama unfold. He also has a view of the downtown skyline. At least he does if he sits up, scoots down, and can focus through the pain (pausing for groan at the pun):

Apparently, X-rays show that his lung keeps trying to collapse again. This is the reason for surgery, which has now been rescheduled for Monday afternoon. They are removing scarred parts of his lung and assure him he won’t even miss them. Then they are attaching his lung to his chest wall so it won’t collapse again. It sounds like a good time to me!

I spent the afternoon with him yesterday and am about to see him again before Greg’s signing. Friday evening, Rhonda and Lindsey arrived at the hospital with Greg and a care package containing movies, gum, magazines, and an electronic device with some word games (which he told me on the phone last night he likes). After he received the wrong dinner (all liquids), they finally delivered a cheeseburger and fries. I don’t know if it was any good, but he scarfed it down. We left him in good spirits, considering. I know it was nice for him to see something other than hospital walls and my old face for a change.

Note to Tim stalkers: There’s a policeman stationed outside Tim’s room 24/7. We suspect one of his roommates may be entangled with the law in some way. Tim really should write a group of short stories detailing the colorful cast of characters he’s met on his two stays in this hospital.

I arrived home last night to the best evening ever. Greg had spent the afternoon making his fantastic potato and leek soup. Rhonda and Lindsay and Tom made a big salad. All the dogs were fed and happy. We ate, watched Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, and Lindsey baked cookie brownies which she and Tom served up hot with scoops of Blue Bell vanilla ice cream. I suspect we had a better night than Tim. Well, most of us did. Then there were the ones who don’t understand why he doesn’t come home:

Sad Rex curling up next to Greg.

Tyson ignoring toys.

For those who asked, you can send cards to Timothy J. Lambert, P.O. Box 131845, Houston, TX, 77219. Thank you again to everyone who’s been checking on him.

These are a few of my favorite things…

You want to hurt me for the ear worm that is my title, don’t you?

A few nights ago, The Brides, Tom, and I went to one of my favorite-memory restaurants, the Ambassador. I first went there with my friend John and some of his friends back in the mid nineties, and ever since, I always order the soup he introduced me to. It’s called “sizzling rice” soup. The server combines the crispy rice table-side with a bowl of steaming soup, and the resulting crackle is as fun to hear as the soup is comforting to eat.


Bad me, for letting the shadow of my camera strap fall on my bowl.
I didn’t want to reshoot it because Lindsey pointed out that the waitstaff was
lined up watching and laughing at me.
But the soup–it’s so good!

On the way to the restaurant, we passed some office buildings in Greenway Plaza that had the most alluring lights twinkling in their massive windows. Lindsey and I talked about going out night-shooting sometime. The next night, I was awake and bored. Since it was the middle of the night, I didn’t think Lindsey would appreciate a call. So I took a solitary drive around. That late, the lights were off in the Greenway Plaza building, but I got a lot of shots downtown. Word: Even if one possesses minimal photography skills, with a good camera and a tripod, great photos are possible UNLESS you are a woman alone in the middle of the night. Then you think, Am I INSANE? and get your not-so-great shots on the fly. Still, I’m pleased with several of them and will probably share them over time. This is not my most favorite, but ranks right up there because I love that I was able to capture the movement of the only two people visible in a radius of several blocks.

Since Tim’s stocking is not yet hung by the chimney with care (my fault, not his–I haven’t asked for it), I’ll delay tree photos. Plus I keep finding more ornaments to hang. However, you know it’s Christmas at The Compound when the sleighbells appear. Since I didn’t decorate last year, I didn’t realize that the 2007 and 2008 additions, which upped my total to eighteen, would be two too many for my little tree. I placed those two randomly next to others. Next year, I’ll have to find another way to display them. (There is a precedent: In 2006 they looked like this.) This year, they look like this:


I added the tiny ornaments to give them some color, because I remember 2005, too.

Bountiful table, cool kid

I got a call from a friend this week who was in London a couple of days after our election. When people found out he was from the U.S., they cautiously asked, “What did you think about the election?” When he told them he was ecstatic about the outcome, their reserve turned to enthusiasm for Obama in particular and the States in general. He was surrounded by goodwill and optimism during his entire visit, and he said it felt wonderful.

Contrast that to an early post-election article I recently read by a British columnist who thinks Obama’s election means we have now begun our relentless slide into decay and our eventual demise. Apparently the mixture of hope and skepticism are not confined to our side of the Atlantic.

Timmy noted in a post the other day something that I’ve noticed, too: His errand-running and such have presented to him a public that is hurting financially and unsure what’s next, yet they’re smiling, shopping (maybe for bargains or with a more practical eye), and talking to one another with an attitude of “We’ll be fine. We’ll figure it out.” That’s what some people call our arrogance, and maybe it is. But it’s also the determination, strength, and sheer refusal to be not fine that we’ve brought with us from many other shores and lands and drawn on for several hundred years. It’s not surprising when we bicker and separate and distrust, because we bring our differences from everywhere and always have.

But we also get together. We get together in our stores and our churches and our workplaces. We get together in our schools and our election polls and our restaurants. We get together in our bars and our sporting arenas and our museums. And in person, we very rarely talk to each other the way anonymous people insult each other in comments to any article or story on the Internet (and I highly advise not reading those, or you’ll lose all faith in humanity’s decency and literacy). Oh, you can see us on youtube and in the news behaving very badly, but there’s no excitement in watching people behave well, so that perspective is skewed.

I know many of the differences between me and the people I spent my day with yesterday, and I also know those differences don’t matter. I don’t think there was a person in the house who hasn’t reached out in kindness to help others and who wouldn’t do it again. Our views on politics and religion and government and some of the big hot-button issues are widely divergent. And most of us have been hurt by the economy in our jobs and our savings. We have things to worry about…and so what? There will always be things to worry about.

There will also be days like this:


A table overflowing because we all contributed the turkey and stuffing, cornbread dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, green beans, sweet potato casserole, deviled eggs, cranberry sauce, rolls, cakes, pies, and sweetened and unsweetened ice tea.

But if all any of us had to bring was bread and water, we’d still be there laughing and reminiscing and brushing away the occasional tear for the ones who won’t be there again. And if we sometimes disagree on the best course for the future, at least we all know what we’re working toward:

All the trusting faces and beautiful eyes, and the soft little feet that will wear the coolest shoes as they learn to walk through a world that we’re determined to make better for them.

I hope your Thanksgiving had good moments like that, too.

My sister and Bobo

Thursday night, I was hoping that Lynne was going to spend the evening at The Compound and visit with my sister, but she wasn’t able to come. I’d bought a family-sized pack of chicken breasts, and when I actually opened the package, those things must have come off a group of Victoria’s Henhouse models. I quickly called Rhonda and Lindsey to see if they’d made plans, and since they hadn’t, they agreed to join us for dinner–which turned out pretty good for one of those last-minute, thrown-together meals.

Debby let us in on a little-known facet of Rex’s personality. Apparently, they’ve formed a fast bond of friendship, and he likes for her to call him Bobo. Here’s Bobo sitting next to his new best friend and showing Rhonda some love.

Also, I didn’t know that Lindsey, like Debby, is a big fan of coconut cake. She proves it here.

This evening, my nephew Aaron is coming to Houston so he can see his high school in a football playoff game tomorrow. I don’t know if Bobo is jealous that he’ll have to share Debby’s attention with someone else, but he looks a little worried today.

Gorgeous Day

The Brides invited us to the Bayou City Art Festival today. I was doing some editing that was interrupted by the migraine last week, and I wanted to get back to it, so Tom went without me. But the day was so beautiful that I didn’t want to be stuck inside. First, I spent some time outside with Margot, Guinness, Rex, and Sugar. I got a photo of Margot sunbathing that I really like:

Then I took my work to one of my favorite restaurants, Baba Yega, where I haven’t been in a long time. This was the view from my table:

After eating and working, I did a tiny bit of Christmas shopping, then got a call from the art-gazers, who invited me to meet them for ice cream at the Marble Slab Creamery. It was a lovely way to spend an afternoon.

Hump Day Happy

It’s Wednesday, I know, and I’ll get to your bit of happiness. First, I want to share some of the good things about my week. I don’t have pictures of the sight that makes me smile from ear to ear, and that is Rexford G. Lambert and EZ running The Compound grounds together. They don’t play with each other yet, but they are able to enjoy being outside, unleashed within the fence, acting like dogs who’ve become part of the same pack.

click here for more about being happy

Stuff

I suppose this could be one of the highlights of my week:

Hushpuppies are a reason, like grits, that I’m glad my parents had the good sense to be Alabama and Mississippi natives.

What was one of the low points of my week? I finally forced myself to take my beloved camera back to Houston Camera Co-op so they could send it to Nikon for repair. Lindsey picked me up Thursday (for a different and more fun errand), and I sucked up my courage and asked her if she’d take me to the camera store first. She did–and was GREAT moral support. Afterward, because she said I was A Very Brave Girl, she bought me a Starbucks Venti Mocha Frappuccino. Heaven! Then she, Rhonda, Tom, Tim, and I got some sandwiches from Jason’s Deli before working on a project, the details of which can’t be revealed for a few days.

I’m already missing the camera. I have a Photo Friday challenge to do, and I keep looking at my Kodak point-and-shoot and saying, “It’s just you and me, kid.” And it keeps replying, “Remember how you loved me when I was new? REMEMBER THAT FIRST PHOTO SHOOT and how everyone enjoyed the results?” I do remember it well. I’m sure Mr. Kodak and I will be fine for a few weeks, as long as I don’t have to shoot in low light.

I’ve been rewriting parts of A COVENTRY WEDDING based on editorial comments from Kensington. Nothing severe, just trying to smooth out some awkward transitions between chapters. Sometimes I feel that I was really off my game when I was writing this novel, but I have to give myself a break because of the past year’s turmoil. I’ve had so many good times with friends and family and had such fantastic visits from out-of-town friends as well as wonderful visits to New Orleans (twice!), that it’s almost impossible to believe that over the last year while writing, I took two contract assignments for major corporations, had home remodeling done, had a seriously ill/hospitalized writing partner/soul mate, lost a lifelong friend in January, helped close up my mother’s apartment and disburse all her belongings, helped take care of my mother through two hospitalizations and two hospice visits before her death–and did much of this with two fractured vertebrae and a slipped disk that required numerous visits to doctors and physical therapists.

The thing is, I don’t think my life is that different from most people’s. These are our realities–good, bad, stressful, wonderful, full of events that uplift us and devastate us. Yet we go on, hopefully with a bit of grace and dignity, and if we’re smart, with a willingness to let those who love us bear our burdens with us. My life is rich with the love of good people–and I’m grateful for you every day.

I just can’t take a decent photo of you for a while–hey! Don’t think I can’t hear the sarcasm in those “sympathetic” comments from some of you.

“The shopping was all for her.”

People sometimes do strange things when they grieve. The stories I could tell–but I won’t, because I save the really juicy stuff about my friends for novels.

I think I’ve said on here before that I began adding Barbies to my collection after my friend Steve R died in 1992. It made perfect sense–I even KNEW what I was doing and why I was doing it. When politics and faith and hate and love and injustice and death all collide, and you lose the last shred of your innocence, it’s not so crazy to start spending your money on something that harks back to a simpler, better, less complicated time–and Barbies were a perfect symbol of that for me. A few years and a few losses later, grief finally loosened its grip on me, and the Barbie-buying compulsion stopped just as suddenly as it began.

I’m grieving now, but I’m aware of other friends who are grieving (you know who you are; call me when you’re ready), including Lynne. Monday marked the second anniversary of her husband’s death, and I’ve always contended that seconds are harder than firsts. We mentally prepare ourselves for firsts. We know they’re coming long before they get here, and we’re probably still a little numb. By seconds, we’ve stopped constantly guarding ourselves against the shocks and jolts of memory–so when those anniversaries come, not only are our defenses down, but we’re back in full-on feeling mode. Hopefully, if we’ve allowed ourselves to grieve, and we’ve channeled some of our grief into positive outlets, thirds are not as sharply felt–that doesn’t mean the sense of loss isn’t still there, but it’s not as cruel to our emotional systems three years later. As the years go by, time softens our memories, taking the edge off the painful ones and shining more light on the happier ones. This is all part of healing.

Some people actually say grief is about a two- to four-week process. I think these people may be alien life forms, but that’s not the point of this discussion. I’m not big on judging how and for how long people grieve. We do what we need to do. In my own life, I’ve found that when I emerge from my first haze of stunned loss and start feeling things more intensely, I feel ALL things more intensely. If I’m prone to cry more, I’m also inclined to laugh more. The lines between mourning and celebrating become blurred. Fortunately, although my friends are as diverse a group as I can imagine, they all have one thing in common: a sense of humor. Laughter is one of the best healing forces of all.

After Lynne took me to Mark’s on Monday night (which seems backward, as most people would have treated her; just call us rogue mourners), when I said, “I need to go Barbie shopping,” I caught her raised eyebrow and added, “No, no. It’s not like before. I want them for a wedding photo shoot, and I’ve already got plans for all the other bride-and-groom dolls I’ve shot.” Then she said, “Well, at least you’ve already had your kitchen remodeled,” and we both started giggling. That was her big pricey project after Craig’s death–though I contend that putting money into updating a home is a more sensible reaction to loss than, for example, buying a 1970ish Datsun 240z. Not that I’m saying anyone did that.

Behind the cut you can see a bit of our Monday night in photos.

for foodies and architecture admirers and doll people

Headache, Day 3

I just took medication for my headache because I thought it would be wonderful to crawl back into bed in my darkened, cool room and sleep all day. Then I realized it’s June 5, and I was supposed to get my car inspected in May.

I have to leave the house.

I hate wasting a good pill like that.

Subject change: My sister thinks my dogs are too thin. I just think in the never-too-rich-or-too-thin department, my dogs chose looking fabulous over accruing wealth–much like my writing partner. However, I approved Debby’s promise to take them to Wendy’s for a cheeseburger even though the meat would be cooked, not raw.

In the end, she actually brought Wendy’s bacon cheeseburgers (hold the onions!) to them. This is what happened.

cheeseburger in paradise