Tag: photos

Out and About

Today I was thinking that I haven’t done much in the way of LJ posting this week. Just Runway Monday, Hump Day Happy, and Photo Friday. I can’t regret that it means life has settled down a notch or two after months of upheaval and turmoil. I like it when things at The Compound are serene (with the exception of Rex’s stitches, but that’s really Tim’s LJ domain). It has either rained or been sweltering all week, so I haven’t felt like getting out much, plus I don’t feel quite the same compulsion when my camera is with Nikon instead of with me.

Tonight, however, I had to run a couple of errands, including to Walgreen’s. As I pulled up, I noticed a pair of red high heels on the trunk of the car next to me. I really wished for my camera as I was walking inside. When I returned, they were still there. I remembered that I could use my cell phone camera, even though every photo I take with it is crap. Still, I snapped this photo.

Not entirely happy–it’s hard getting used to a new phone–I decided to take another. That’s when I spied a cute blonde walking out of Walgreen’s. She didn’t seem to be heading for that car, but I stepped back just in case. She clicked her key chain and the car lights flashed.

Here’s our conversation:

Me: Is this your car?
Her: (slowly) Yeeees. (starts to open door)
Me: (pointing to back of car) Are those your red high heels?
Her: (gasp) OHMYGOD, thank you! They’re not mine, but she’d have KILLED me if I lost them. (tosses shoes in back seat, then gets stricken look on her face) SHIT! I wonder what else I set on the back of the trunk?!? I gotta go!
Me: Good luck!

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

A birthday and some memories

On July 21, 1899, Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois. Several decades later, I would first “discover” him through The Sun Also Rises and develop a passion for every word he wrote, even those published posthumously, and for learning every thing I could about his life. Maybe I wouldn’t have been friends with him–I’m definitely not about big-game hunting in Africa, and his attitude toward women was often abysmal. But I fell in love with his language, his passion for the great outdoors, and the moral codes of his characters, and I’ll make no apologies for that.

In 1987, the year before Tom and I married, we took a vacation with friends to Florida that included a drive down to Key West. Since I was there, I opted out of some other group activity one morning so that I could spend time at Hemingway’s Key West home. It’s been too many years ago for me to remember details about where on the property I took some of these photos, but I offer them to anyone who’d like to enjoy them as a celebration of the birthday of one of our greatest American writers, Ernest Hemingway.

pictures are here

Runway Monday, Challenge 1

In the first Project Runway challenge, the designers had to take their materials from a grocery store and use innovation and creativity in their designs. The Runway Monday designers , , and I were allowed to use anything in our homes that came from a grocery store. My theme for my model, Summer, was Autumn: Less Goth, More Glamor, and the materials I used were wax paper, orange and brown markers, a chips bag, and parsley.

Everyone is encouraged to comment with snark or praise–your choice–and I will respond to all comments. The judges will make their decision on Marika’s journal sometime Monday. Thanks!

Judges: I have my design here!

in which Tim, EZ, and I have a mini adventure

This morning I was awakened by the baying of the hounds as UPS breached East Gate security to deliver a box. I lay in bed for a while, trying to remember anything I might have ordered. Maybe I accidentally won an ebay auction or bought books in an insomniatic stupor. With a sigh, I finally caved to my curiosity and retrieved the package.

It was my address all right, but it was to the name of a person who didn’t live here. I called information for Mr. MW’s number, but he isn’t listed. (Farewell, landlines, with your helpful operators.) Once I knew that Tim was up, too, I called and asked him if Mr. MW was one of his pseudonyms or aliases. He denied it. I tried to locate a number for the business in Brooklyn that shipped the package, but that didn’t pan out. So Tim leashed EZ and we walked down to the Abomination That Is The Ginormous Condo to see if anyone named MW lived there. No one was home in any of the units, but the name didn’t match their mail. (Yes, okay, we checked their mail, but we didn’t tamper with or steal anything, so leave us alone, USPS Police.)

I really didn’t want to take the box to UPS, because I know what it’s like to wait and wait for a package that never comes. So Tim, EZ, and I loaded up in the car and drove to a couple of Montrose businesses that might have more familiarity with the residents in the ‘hood than we do. One of those businesses is a florist. I spoke to the owner, J, outside his shop. He didn’t know MW, but since he thought it was sweet of us to go to such effort, he lured me inside to his cooler and presented me with an Augusta Louise rose, which is pictured here in a vase from The Brides’ wedding because I couldn’t bear to cut any of its elegant length. It smells DIVINE. If you ever need a Houston florist, just ask, and I’ll hook you up.

After J was introduced to Tim, we were on our way–this time to surrender the package to UPS. Sorry, Mr. MW; I hope it all works out for you. In the meantime, thanks to you and your mysterious address and especially to J for giving me such a lovely gift to share with my LJ friends and readers.

Craft Carnage

I can show you some photos from Craft Night now. We were all making cards to send with a surprise box of one-month-early birthday presents to Mark G. Harris. The presents have arrived at Mark Manor and are connected to an announcement Marika will make about a LJ challenge she issued. Only Mark can show you what his presents are, if he chooses, and Lindsey’ll have much better photos of the end results of our crafty labors. All I have is people. People in darkness. Darkness because MY FREAKING CAMERA is at Nikon, and the flash on my Kodak sucks.

By the way, I glued two fingers together because of a Super Glue malfunction.


Lindsey deftly wielded scissors.


Tom made a geek card–he and Mark speak the same language.


Tim knows that crafts require serious concentration and a cigarette.


Rhonda checks out everyone’s efforts.

Button Sunday and More

In July of last year, I posted about one of the best times I ever had at a booksigning when I saw Dean James, Carolyn Haines, and Mary Saums at Houston’s Murder By the Book.

I got to repeat that pleasure Saturday when they returned to the scene of the crime. Dean was signing his new Bridge Club mystery, The Unkindest Cut, written under the pseudonym Honor Hartman. Carolyn was signing her newest Sarah Booth mystery, Wishbones. And Mary Saums was signing her second Thistle and Twigg mystery, Mighty Old Bones.


Dean, Mary, and Carolyn

After last year’s post, Mark commented that I must have been in a good mood, but I attributed my high spirits to giddy exhaustion. Yesterday made me rethink that. There is just something about these three writers up close and in person that uplifts me. It was unexpectedly hard to tell Dean that my mother had died. He met her on several occasions, and as fellow Mississippi natives, she loved talking to him. Besides being funny, Dean is the soul of kindness. We promised to get together soon over dinner and just talk.

“Just talking” is a favorite Southern pastime, and I suppose that when I’m with these three, I feel a sense of kinship because we are all Southerners. Mary’s an Alabama native who now lives in Tennessee. Carolyn, like Dean, is from Mississippi and now lives in Alabama. I realize that technically, Texas is part of the South (it did fight, after all, on the right losing right side of the War Between the States), but perhaps because, as Lynne has pointed out to me, I live in such a multicultural city, Texas doesn’t feel like the South. When these three writers start talking, their accents are musical, and their stories crack me up. I told Carolyn I could listen to her all day, and she suggested that I might want to call her ex-husbands for another opinion.

For my readers who enjoy Dean’s work (including his Simon Kirby-Jones Mystery series), this is the last of the Bridge Club Mysteries. He will, however, have another offering from his Trailer Park Mysteries, written under the name Jimmie Ruth Evans, and I was allowed an advance peek at the new cover, which he said I could share with you.

Dean, Carolyn, and Mary made my day–and now I get to look forward to the pleasure of reading about murder and craziness at a bridge players’ retreat in the Hill Country of Texas, in the fictional town of Tullulah on the edge of Alabama’s Bankhead National Forest, and in the life of a scrappy P.I. with her own personal ghost as a new adventure takes her from fictional Zinnia, Mississippi, to Costa Rica via Hollywood. These are three writers who have certainly managed their caffeine properly.

Saturday in the park

On July 12, 1817, Henry David Thoreau was born. While I suspect Thoreau the man might have been a bit dour, I find that I turn to him often for his intellectual brilliance. To fulfill a promise I made earlier today, and to honor Thoreau’s love of nature, I shot photos of a few characters enjoying the great outdoors.

A little philosophy with your Barbie photos

All I’ve got

I’ve got no vacation plans coming up, no Jackie Collins stories, no dancing poodles, no gorgeous flower photos, no great shoes to show you. I’ve got crafts night photos, but those are top secret until next week. I don’t even have adventures with Rex at the drive-through to share.

However, I’ve got some signs.

First, I finished my copy edits about ten p.m. and you know what that means.

Yup, a trip out to the no-longer-at-the-airport post office. They have the BEST freaking postal workers out there late at night. Really, I think these people need to write Marika’s post office in NOLA and tell them to be nicer to her.

Since I was out that way and hadn’t had dinner, I went to Houston’s only location of the Little Burgers With the Big Heart(burn).

But when I was on my way to fill up with another kind of fuel, I saw my very favorite sign of all.

WhYYYYYYYYYY?

And another thing…

Last week sometime, Tom walked into the office holding something in his hand and said, “I just found this in the living room. Any ideas?” It was about a one-inch piece of cord with copper wires sticking out of it. He said he’d been all through the house and couldn’t find any cords that were white or that had been chewed. We decided one of the dogs had picked it up outside–something brought onto The Compound by a squirrel, cat, rat, possum–take your pick.

A few mornings ago, I called Margot onto the bed so I could pet her. I felt something on her collar and pulled off another bit of cord with tiny copper wires sticking out of it. Hmmmm. I carefully (bad back!) lowered myself to the floor, looked under the bed, and saw the dogs’ purple rat from Lisa, along with:

and

Then I pulled out:

WTF? No dog of ours has EVER chewed on an electrical cord before. After some thought, I realized these were special circumstances. During the early days of my back pain, I probably used my heating pad. Then I somehow overlooked it after I put it between the bed and the bedside cabinet, and eventually it ended up under the bed. This area is the Margot Fortress: the place where no other dog goes. Where she hides toys so no one else can play with them. Where she writes emotional diary entries about her days as a Dog of the Streets. In her head, this:


(pictured here as a remnant)

was some brilliant new toy for her to enjoy however she saw fit.

I’m glad I have a habit of unplugging things when they aren’t in use. Tim came over with the vacuum cleaner (it lives with him) and vacuumed up all the plastic and copper wire, saving my back and Margot’s stomach. Then, because no good deed goes unpunished, he had to run home in a torrential downpour. Thanks, Tim.