Tag: photos

Happy Valentine’s Day

In honor of the day, I painted my fingernails with a coat of OPI’s “Gettin’ Miss Piggy With It” over a base coat of OPI’s Peru-B-Ruby. This is not the norm, because I usually keep my nails cut very short and unpolished. I buy polishes because I love to get or give myself pedicures and paint my toenails. However, I seem to always end up with the same colors. So the Miss Piggy polish, along with some gold and green glittery polishes, are my attempt at variety.

The painted fingernails will last about two days before I succumb to frenzied cleaning and clipping. Maybe the green will make an appearance on March 17.

Legacy Writing 365:44

I never pay attention to what’s in our medicine cabinet until I need something. So today when I opened it to get a piece of gauze, I began to wonder how many of the things in there were really used or even could be used. I found around ten medications–liquids and pills–that were expired. In fact, one nearly-full bottle of cough medicine expired in 2002. As I disposed of it all, I speculated on how many people may have taken a peek inside that cabinet over the years. Are you one of those people who can’t resist a little snooping when you’re inside someone’s bathroom?

I’ve never been that interested in the contents of anyone’s medicine cabinet. There are things I don’t particularly want to know. However, I do have my own ways of trying to assess people.


Do they have art?


Living things–animals? Plants?


And mostly, I check out their books.

If they don’t have books, I feel like I can probably never really know them at all, though I do have one friend who’s an exception to this.

These photos are of rooms in two different apartments my friend Steve R lived in. I wonder if they were ever so full again as they were when they were his, even when he wasn’t in them. When I look at these photos, I remember being in his apartment with different people, the music that played, the discussions we had, the food we ate. I don’t see empty rooms. I see life, love, friendship.

I mentally compare them to photos taken in the house of another friend who I met through Steve. Those pictures show people and parties and so many beautiful objects, yet in my memory they are the emptiest and saddest rooms.

I think of a favorite title: author Edmund White borrowed it from a letter written by Kafka about the inability of people to connect: The Beautiful Room Is Empty.

The memories that cause my heart to ache have no expiration date. They can’t be disposed of.

The rooms are always there–but all the rooms. They make the home that is my life.

Runway Monday All Stars: Fashion Face Off


On the most recent episode of Lifetime’s Project Runway All Stars, the All Stars drew seasons and competed in teams of two for high and low scores for a sportswear look appropriate on a weekend getaway. Since I don’t have a competitor, I had to figure out a way to let someone else control elements of this challenge for me. I asked my friend Johnnie to give me a season, and he assigned me “Winter,” with the beautiful Cleo De Nile as my model.


Using Cleo’s makeup as my guide, I chose an argyle fabric of teal and blue. I pictured Cleo joining friends for dinner out after a day of playing in the snow on a weekend in the country.


I was fortunate enough to have the perfect pair of Mattel shoes for her to wear.


The dress has an off-the-shoulder cowl neckline, is form fitting in the torso, and flares to an A-line hem.


I added a little drama with a silver link belt to compliment the silver strands in Cleo’s hair.


A fun design to keep Cleo warm while giving her a relaxed, feminine look.


See you next time on the runway!

This season’s previous looks:
Week 5: Clothes Off Your Back
Week 4: Good Taste Tastes Good
Week 3: Patterning for Piggy
Week 2: A Night at the Opera
Week 1: Unconventional Challenge

Legacy Writing 365:43

Sunday I ran some errands and ended up at Green Acres because I haven’t had any Lynne time in a while. We had fun catching up, plus Lynne put together a great dinner on a moment’s notice. This is not surprising because, unlike me, Lynne has what I call “Mom Kitchen.” I’ve never mastered this phenomenon, but if you ever decide you want to cook or bake at Lynne’s, whatever ingredient you need will be in the pantry or the refrigerator or the freezer. My mother’s kitchen was this way, too. They don’t run out of stuff. Or when they do run out of stuff–presto! A replacement appears from the Mom Stash.

I came home with a couple of albums of Lynne’s photos that I plan to scan–either because I want copies of them or to use in future Legacy Writing entries. This one melts my heart. Jess is nineteen months old here. It’s taken in the kitchen of the house where Lynne grew up. If you were the photographer, you’d be standing next to a high bar that separated the kitchen from the den. I’ve eaten countless meals at that bar, or sat around it talking to Lynne, her sisters, and her mother. The phone’s on the wall at the end of the bar (and yep, I still remember the phone number).

I saw a similar scene countless times in my mother’s kitchen when my siblings began giving her grandbabies. Certain cabinets were kept available for small hands to open so they could drag out pots and pans and bang the lids to their hearts’ content. And just as shown here, a wooden spoon or two would be handed down from above to join the wild rumpus.

It astounds me–I won’t even let the dogs walk through the kitchen when I’m cooking without ordering them out. Guess that’s one more reason I don’t have “Mom Kitchen.”

Legacy Writing 365:42

I believe my nephew Josh came into the world performing. He loved being the center of attention and could talk a blue streak to keep our focus on him. He also loved money, so occasionally we’d say, “Josh, if you can be quiet for five minutes, you’ll get five bucks.” He never lasted that long.

He loved music from birth and began playing the drums and being in talent shows when he was still in elementary school (his father is also a drummer). However, it was about that time that he stopped letting me take endless photos of him.

So I got a lot of grumpy:

and goofy:

Fortunately, he outgrew that phase and began letting me shoot him again. When I used to wonder if he’d remember his doting old aunt when he became rich and famous, he said he’d send me an autograph. He even autographed the leather patch from a pair of jeans to get in practice:

I don’t know if he’s rich and famous, but he’s recorded CDs with his bands, played several years at the Chicago Blues Festival, and shared the stage with some pretty impressive talent. I think he’s still okay with being related to me, but I haven’t received a recent autograph to prove it.

Legacy Writing 365:41

When she was four and her mother told her that Tom and I lost both of our dachshunds within five days of each other, she wanted to do something to make us feel better. Her mother went online and found dachshund illustrations to print so she could color and send them to us. She came up with the stained glass effect on her own. The coloring she used on the dogs makes them look very much like our pups, and these drawings have been displayed in our house ever since.

When she was twelve, after my mother’s memorial service, more than 30 adults and 12 kids gathered at a restaurant. The restaurant had set up a long table for the kids, and without being asked, she and my nephew Aaron (who was 14) took charge of the kids’ table, keeping them occupied with colors and conversation so the grown-ups could talk. They probably never knew that I noticed, but I did, and appreciated their thoughtfulness so much.

When she was fourteen and Tom and I got to spend a week with family in the mountains of Arkansas, I had the best time teasing her in the pool and having long conversations with her about books and school and whatever stuff popped into our heads.

She makes great grades. She donates her time to help other people. She’ll stand up for someone who’s being picked on. She has tons of friends. She loves to ride horses. She loves her dogs. She’s a kind, smart, beautiful young lady. Anyone would be proud to have her as a daughter, and Tom and I are blessed to have her as a niece.

We love her very much, and today she turns sixteen. Happy birthday, Toni!

Legacy Writing 365:40


In our small town there was a women’s dress shop owned and run by a group of elderly ladies. In the days before Lynne and I would spend Saturdays on the town square going from store to store trying to figure out what we could buy with our limited funds (and my limited funds often came from her father, because if she hit him up for a few dollars, he seemed to think he needed to give me money, too–THANKS, I.J.!), I’d wander in and out of stores on my own while my parents were shopping.

In the back of this particular dress shop was a vanity where women could sit and retouch their lipstick, powder their noses, and add another coat of hairspray to their helmet hair. I remember once testing some perfume and hairspray and hearing the old ladies in front whispering about my shameless use of their resources. My mother would have been mortified, but she and my father were long-accustomed to my wandering ways–plus I always told them all the gossip I learned on my excursions. I don’t think they gave a rat’s ass about the gossip, but since I could go days without speaking from behind a book, my voice reassured them I was still alive.

We didn’t purchase things from this shop. For one thing, we could shop at the PX. For another, the clothes were too old for my sister and me and too expensive for my mother. Mother had a friend named Nancy who had contacts all over the Southeast from whom she could buy clothes that hadn’t sold or clothes with small flaws at deep discounts (there were no “outlet malls” in those days). Nancy sold her clothes in a couple of shops, so buying from Nancy, along with being able to sew, enabled Mother to furnish me a season’s worth of clothes for a frugal sum. Even high-ranking NCOs didn’t make a lot of money, and we all know schoolteachers didn’t/don’t.

At some point when I was a little older, my mother and I were walking down the sidewalk, and she stopped to look at a blouse in this store’s window. I could tell she wanted it, so I talked her into going in and trying it on. She balked at the price tag: EIGHTEEN DOLLARS! Doesn’t that seem ridiculous now? But she could feed us for two weeks on eighteen dollars, and she rarely spent money on herself. The blouse went back on the hanger, and we left the store.

BUT… It wasn’t long before her birthday, and I was finally old enough to realize that most husbands are clueless about buying gifts. So I told my father, and we made a secret shopping trip of our own. Looking back, I wonder if I was so excited about the blouse that I gave it away long before she opened it. If so, she sure acted surprised, and my father knew he was off the hook until April (anniversary) and December.


The brown and orange striped blouse in the photo above is THE blouse. She could wear it alone, buttoned up, or over other shirts or shells, with orange pants and brown pants. She had it for years, and sometimes I wore it, too: as seen in this tenth-grade yearbook photo (hi, Vic! hi, Nick!), under my brown suede, fringed jacket that I just recently discovered my sister still has in her closet.

I think we got our, i.e., my father’s, money’s worth out of the birthday blouse. Now if I could only fit into that suede jacket again.

ETA: Original photo of my mother in the blouse was replaced because I found a better one.

Legacy Writing 365:39


Looking east from Neartown to Downtown Houston

This is a photo I took in 1999, one of many I’ve taken of Houston’s multiple skylines (Downtown, Uptown, Medical District) from different angles over the decades I’ve lived here. I’ve had two opportunities to work in skyscrapers downtown, and both of them were so miserable that all the magic of working there became lost on me, but I still love the buildings.

The first was a temp job requiring someone with Mac experience. This was during a time when those skills were difficult to find. Since I’d come to Houston from an industry in which Macs had been used and had my own Mac, I was proficient in all its major software. Though I was in the middle of a miserable cold, I needed the money, so off I went on a Monday morning to report at 8 a.m. It was an hour-plus drive into downtown from where we lived (about twenty-five miles). I had to pay to park. I went to some ridiculously high floor–maybe in the 50s–and the person who’d requested a temp wasn’t there. I was taken to a department and put at a desk near where two young women were talking about their wild weekends. Now and then, they’d glance at me out of the corners of their eyes, and it was clear they had no idea why I was there. Neither did I, and my head felt heavier and heavier. All I wanted to do was put it on the desk and go to sleep.

By 9:30, neither of the Party Girls had done one bit of work, but they’d had lots of visits from other employees. That’s when my contact person arrived. I began to understand, even through my stuffed-up head, what was going on. She was an admin manager and had no use for the Party Girls. She took the work from both their desks, making a comment about how overloaded they were, and handed it to me. As I worked, the Party Girls finally sat down, but they were obviously on the phone whispering to each other.

I worked until noon, when the manager came and told me where I could find places to eat and encouraged me to get some lunch. We rode down in the elevator together, then she went her way, and I found a place to eat soup. When I went back to the office, the Party Girls were huddled with some man I hadn’t seen before. They faded away, and he came to my desk and told me I was being released for the day because there wasn’t enough work to keep me busy.

I was delighted to leave. I drove to the bookstore where my former manager had been transferred to croak out the story to him. From his office, I called the temp agency that had sent me there and was told the reason the company gave for releasing me was because I’d lied about my Mac skills. I’m glad my head didn’t explode all over Tim W’s office. The next time that agency called me with an assignment, I declined. They mailed me a check for my four hours of torture, but I was probably in the hole after gas, parking, and lunch.

I think that was the only bad temp experience I ever had.* However, my future Tale From Working Downtown is worse than this one.

*ETA: I am wrong. I remembered another bad temp experience. But all the rest of them were pretty awesome.

In and Around The Compound


I know you’ll all be glad to hear that both my watches have been re-batteried and are up and running. The one on the right, by the way, is the one whose dead battery all those years ago prompted the purchase of the one on the left, as described in my previous post. I had the new batteries put in at Silverlust, one of my favorite shops in Montrose. I have a ring from there that Tom bought me, and another ring that my mother and parents-in-law jointly gave me one birthday. Not only does Herschel custom-make some incredible jewelry, but he’s a longtime donator of merchandise for Scout’s Honor’s silent auction fundraisers. I was lucky enough to win a silver pendant with a citrine stone (LOVE citrine) in 2010.

Several years ago when I took in the watch on the right (it was a Christmas present from Tom about twenty years ago) for a battery, Herschel also replaced some of the marcasite. He takes great care of his customers.

Another Houston place I’ve been meaning to talk about is Happy Fatz Cafe in The Heights. If you love hotdogs, you HAVE to visit this place. And if you don’t love hotdogs, be aware that one of the owners originally got into the food industry by making some TO-DIE-FOR desserts. You can visit their Facebook page for more information and to see their menu. They will substitute veggie dogs for their Hebrew National Kosher Beef dogs. Kathy S has treated me to great lunches there twice.


A sample of their delicious desserts.


Walking in to order at the counter.


Kathy S’s Lotus Blossom.


I like my dogs basic (mustard and ketchup); their scrumptious bread makes this a real treat.


Happy Fatz also supports local artists; I’m working on a series that I hope to hang there later this year.

Just off of Heights Boulevard on White Oak, Happy Fatz is the place for desserts and dogs.

Speaking of dogs, when my sister was here in November, we had a talk about foster dog Penny. As those of you with dogs and cats know, the annual cost of caring for a companion animal can be a little daunting. Tom and I budget for Margot and Guinness, and Tim budgets for Rex and Pixie, and it didn’t seem possible that we could make sure another dog would always have the care s/he needs. My sister told me that if we decided to adopt Penny, she would pay dog support. That was generous, but I still wasn’t sure we were Penny’s best option. All of The Compound foster dogs have gone to what I think were the perfect forever homes for their needs and personalities.

Then a few nights ago, Tom, Tim, and I were talking, and I said, “Seriously, who can offer Penny a better home than the one she has here?” She adores Pixie and Rex, and their level of play is just what she needs. She and Guinness are good napping buddies, and even Margot has almost played with her on occasion, which is HUGE. She has come a long way from being a dog of the streets, skittish around people and reluctant to accept affection, to being a full member of the pack at The Compound. She even plays with Sugar when she visits, lets Jim, Lynne, Rhonda, and Lindsey (her original rescuer!) give her affection, and happily curls up next to Kathy S for a good scratching.

So really, Tim’s post today just made it official.

And now Pixie has a true forever sister to cuddle with.


Pixie P. Lambert and Penny D. Lambert.