On the Road Home: Try Something French, and It’s Neither Fry Nor Poodle

Some days I’d like to write a post, but the evening is just too short.  I feel a bit guilty of neglecting my housekeeping duties around here.  Recently, I mentioned liking the station Latitude Franco from SiriusXM on my car radio.  Well, I’m still likin’ it even though I understand next to zero.  I tried looking at the French lyrics to this song “À pas de géant” by Alexandre Desilets.  I’ve always felt a bit sorry for those trying to learn English because of all the different vowel sounds and silent letter.  However, as I tried to match the sounds of the words I was hearing and those written in the lyrics, I very quickly began to respect those learners who have conquered French.  It doesn’t matter; I still really like this song from up Quebec way.

Heavy Storms Passing Through Houston Left Many Roadways Flooded

The garden rain gauge shows 1.8 inches, for a total of 2 inches in the past 24 hours (1/09/11).

Annie barked at the bumps of thunder as I showered for work this morning.  Then the .20 in the rain gauge gave evidence to some showers during the night which I hadn’t heard.  However, the weatherman’s predictions weren’t enough so that I was still surprised by such darkness that I could barely see the other downtown building across the bayou from my office window.  There was enough street flooding by 2:00 PM, and with the expectation of more rain to come that we were told to go home.  Once the traffic loosened up and I had passed through a stretch of I-45 that was passable only in one lane, the rest of the drive was easy.  Coming into my part of northwest Harris County, the grey clouds started to lighten and only intermittent drops hit the windshield.

My rain gauge showed about 1.8 inches, and with the .20 I had tossed from the glass tube in the morning–a total of 2 inches.  By looking around the yard and neighborhood, it seemed like we had gotten a good soaking rain–just what we need after the long dry spell of last year.  We were fortunate not to get the 5, 6, and in some places 7 inches (as reported by the TV) that helped flood the roads and even rise into houses and apartments in some parts of the metropolitan area.

Holiday Road Trip and Day Trips To Boot–All Made for a Great Winter Break

Wind turbines of the Smoky Hills Wind Farm line the wintery horizon in pastures along the Lincoln and Ellsworth county line, not far from Wilson Resevoir.

A wet, grey afternoon with some unexpected early hours off from work make it a good time to try out one of my Christmas gifts.  I received a set of silicon baking pans, so the square one is being used for brownies–mix-type–with a lot of goodies added.  We’ll see if I pack them up to share at work.

I can hardly remember a better Christmas since I was a kid back in the Santa Claus days.  I can’t put my finger on it exactly, maybe mostly because I was prepared and things went as planned.  I even enjoyed the shopping and wrapping gifts, which sometimes I find tedious.

With the car all loaded the night before, Annie hopped onto her place on the passenger seat, and we headed out the morning of the 23rd for Kansas.  Even at the more than 11 hours (mostly stops for gas and a dog walk here and there), the drive wasn’t that bad.  The weather was mild and putting the car on cruise for long stretches of the interstate made the drive almost easier than my two hours each week day of commuting to work.

Needless to say, it was one of those Christmases of too many presents and too much food, what with a table-filled buffet spread at my sister’s and her kids and families.  Then the next day we headed off to my brother’s, the second year in a row that I was together with my two brothers and sister for Christmas dinner.  Until last year, there were a good many years in between that for one reason or another we all hadn’t gotten together for the holiday.  I think we all realize that we are a pretty lucky group that have our health (yeah, we all have a prescription for high blood pressure, but, hey!) and get along well to boot.

I headed back to Houston on the first day of the new year, but before that I spent some relaxing day drives with my sister as part of what I would say was one of the best vacations for a long time.  One of my goals during the trip was to load a cooler with some Kansas cured meat.  I like to go back to the very store that I went to with my dad when I was a kid and pick up smoked sausage.  Back in my tag-along days, it was called Klema IGA; now it’s Wilson Family Foods, in Wilson, Kansas.  The store hasn’t changed all that much, but it’s still a good store for a small town.  I wish I could have broad back some of the fresh meat from the cooler because there’s no comparing  it to plastic, no-taste stuff I find in the big name super markets out here in the suburbs.

Another place we like to go is Brant’s Meat Market in Lucas, Kansas, about a 20-mile drive that passes by Wilson Resevoir, which is much more impressive to me these days than it was when I passed by it back when I was a college kid going to and from a summer job.

Locally, it's called Ralph's Ruts (Rice County, Kansas). This is one of the few places where you can still see the Santa Fe Trail, which was dug out by the thousands of teams of wagons that passed through in the 1800s.

Geese feeding in a field near Odin, Kansas. These are part of the large numbers of ducks and geese that stop annually at Cheyenne Bottoms Wildlife Area not far away.

The parking lot at Meridy's Restaurant in Russell, Kansas. The buffet is loaded with mounds of fried chicken, homemade mashed potatoes, and gravy that rival Mom's. It's basically a "have-to" on every Kansas trip. (It's right off I-70 if you're making a trip through western Kansas.)

Over the several day trips, we didn’t go but a county or two away from my sister’s house in Lyons, Kansas, but each outing held a new discovery or re-discovery in the central part of the state where I grew up.  My car brought back with it some dried Kansas mud from some of the few dirt roads that had not but a few days before been plowed clear of snow.  I can say that even though I’ved lived a good long time outside of Kansas, I’ve still got some of that same dirt in my blood.  (I’ve got other photos that I wanted to include, but WordPress is kicking my butt right now as I try to insert them.)

This old limestone schoolhouse has been empty and looked the same since I was a kid riding by on the school bus. This is one of the landmarks I was looking for on a day trip filled with memories. This was also the road that kicked up all the mud onto the sides of my car.

The train still passes by the local wheat elevator in my hometown of Dorrance, Kansas, pretty much the way it has for many years.

Happy Holidays to All from Trip to the Outhouse

All of the Christmas cactuses are blooming at the same time this year, giving me time to enjoy them before taking out on the road.

The year is quickly coming to an end.  I’ve got the car almost packed, and in the morning, I’ll add the last few items and stick Annie in the co-pilot seat for our annual Christmas road trip to Kansas.

Although the mostly interstate drive can get long and monotonous, I’m ready for a change of scenery and a break from work for almost two weeks.  I’ve even enjoyed getting out to the malls to do Christmas shopping this year.  Maybe it’s because I’ve been organized and know exactly what I want to get for people, so I don’t do that much wandering from store to store trying to figure out what I might be looking for.

I even washed and cleaned out the car today for its first long trip, and I’m anxious to see whether I can make it through Oklahoma without having to buy gas.  That is not one of my favorite states (you might guess why), and I don’t like to spend any more money there than I have to.

Oh, my.  Am I being a Grinch? 

I hope that I will be more inspired to write here in the coming year.  Somehow 2012 may be a better year.  I’m optimistic about it.

I know here in the last few months I haven’t given those who might pass through this blog much to read.  In a minute, I’m going to pack the camera in the car in its special corner; keep your fingers crossed that there will be road trip photos!

Merry Christmas and a Happy 2012!

On the Road Home: Those Sirius XM Channels Can Lead to a Place . . . Well, a Place where the Music Is “Musique”

How the 9 button got pre-set to 155 I don’t know, but luckily this mystery put me onto a kind of music I probably wouldn’t have tried.  My car came with 6 month’s worth of Sirius XM satellite radio on it, and I liked more than enough channels to renew it when the free time was over a couple months ago.

There are so many choices in music and talk that I only randomly switch over to a local Top 40 station these days.  Anyway, how many of the repetious songs about gettin’ drunk at the club or seein’ what’s hidin’in somebody’s CK briefs can a person listen to?

This Channel 155 was a refreshing change almost from the instant my fingertip hit the button.  And I couldn’t understand a word of the lyrics.  Latitude Franco is a French Canadian channel with just fun, pleasing-to-the-ear, mostly pop music.   I don’t know if all the songs are Canadian or not, but they are all in French.  I’m enjoying the music so much that I would almost start studying another language again.  I did say “almost”.
Un Jour Sur Deux by Stefie Shock

Québécois singer-songwriter, Stefie Shock

I can’t get the song above out of my head.  Of course, I could use a translator to get “Every Other Day” from “Un Jour Sur Deux”, but I’ve tried to find the full lyrics; so far no luck.  However, I’m almost certain this fun song by Stefie Shock doesn’t have much to do with getting trash-faced in the neighbor’s pool last summer. The sound and the voice do make me think of David Bowie, or even more, Miguel Bosé of Spain.

Give it a play and you might get hooked like I did.

Hurricane Irene Whets the Appetite for Tin Roof Ice Cream

Having participated in the snarl of freeway madness along with millions of other Houstonians to avoid Hurricane Rita in 2005 , three years later I decided not to evacuate during Hurricane Ike, thus, spending a mostlysleepless night listening to the winds and rain.  After the electricity went out, I was able to keep up with the local broadcasts with a small hand-held TV.  Therefore,  I feel fortunate now just to be glued to  the unfolding events of Hurricane Irene as it moves up the East Coast.  The AC is humming, but I’m comfortable and relaxed on the sofa.

Here in Houston, it may have been the hottest day of the year.  The thermometer on the back fence goes sky high out in the sun so is not very reliable, but I think the temperature may have been higher than the 105 that weather.com gave for my zip code.

It’s still in the high 90s here nearing 10 PM.  The heat was still suffocating when I went out to the super market in search of that summer treat–Blue Bell’s Tin Roof Ice Cream.  (Blue Bell ice cream is made in Brenham, Texas about 50 miles up the road from where I live.  Tin Roof is vanilla ice cream laced with chocolate covered peanuts and chocolate syrup.)

To my good fortune, Blue Bell was on sale if you bought $10 of groceries.  I had already picked up a few other items, never thinking that total would be less than even $15.  I guess I had a lot of bargains because when it came to the ice cream, the cashier said, “You have to buy $10 worth to get the ice cream.”  When I told her just to charge me the regular price (because that was my real reason for going to the super market), she seemed to be perplexed and had to call a manager over to finish out the transaction, charging me the sale price.

I exited the store out into the heat radiating from the parking lot, wondering what would have happened if I’d brought just the ice cream up to the counter.

Acer Aspire One Netbook–Let’s See How Well It Does For Writing a Blog Post

The Aspire One netbook makes a good accompaniment for multi-relaxing.

As an excuse for not posting for awhile, I could blame  the 100+ degree heat that seems go on without a reprieve.  I just haven’t been in the mood to do much posting lately.

Another reason might be that I’ve gotten myself a “new toy”–a netbook.  I had been thinking about getting one for a long time.  Aside from my very first computer–a Mac One–if I remember right (back in the day, even before Explorer and other browsers), my computers have all been desktops.  Now, here in the house, I have my computer upstairs, so it doesn’t seem very accessible.

After a bit of thinking and a little looking, I got this little Acer Aspire One (D255E).  The going price is about $250.  The one I bought comes with a battery that charges up to 8 hours, rather than the usual 4-hour battery, so I paid a bit more ($279) at the Micro Center here in Houston.

Do I like it?  So far so good.  I’m never going to be an I-Phone person, so this netbook gets me connected downstairs in front of the TV and is easy to slip into the glove compartment to take with me.  In the two weeks I’ve had it, I’ve found that the netbook is  what I was expecting.  It’s small, for the good, and a bit for the bad.  The smaller keyboard takes a bit of getting used to, and I have found the sensitivity of the mousepad difficult to work with.  Therefore, I got a wireless mouse.  (A CD box makes a nice mousepad when you’re sitting on the sofa.)

So this has been my first attempt at using the Edit Post page here on my WordPress blog.  With the small screen, it’s tedious.  In fact, the page squeezes up and at the right margin, I can’t see all the words I’m typing.  The cursor also jumps from a stopping point when I’m trying to compose.  It’s not really much fun.  (In fact, somehow I lost the last paragraph, so have ended up finishing this post on my reliable desktop.)

I doubt that I try to that much posting from the Aspire One.  I think it will be handy to use for basic internet use and will be good to use on short or long trips; however, for writing blog posts and doing most other composing, I’ll stick with my old standby desktop.

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Saturday Morning Bits and Pieces, But the Rain Gauge Is Back in Place (With Even Some Rain in It)

Another magnificent jungle cactus bloom--just the thing to spark up a drab July.

Here we are at the end of July, and this is only my second post of the month.  Blame it on the heat.  (“Don’t blame it on the bossa nova.“)  It’s been that kind of month; one that has seemed to drag on, maybe because it has days in six different weeks.

Our temps here in the Houston area haven’t been so far out of range, like in some places.  However, they have been about 5-6 degrees hotter on most days than the low 90s that we usually have most summer days.  Also, the spring and summer have been very dry this year.  Now, though, the spotty, summertime showers that come in from the gulf seem to have returned.  Here at my house, there has been some sort of shower each of the last four days.  How much Tropical Storm Don has played in this, I don’t know, for, in general, that storm has been pretty much of a bust.

Because of these recent showers, I finally remembered to replace my rain gauge.  The previous one fit into that category:  “they don’t make’m like they used to.”  With the new glass tube in place, I can report that here near Huffmeister and 529, we had .20 of an inch of rain early this morning.

Obviously, the plants respond to the rainwater much better than that out of the hose.  However, I’ve kept the tomato plants alive, and if August doesn’t burn them up, they might produce some fall fruit.  The plants in the flower beds and pots are holding their own for the most part.  The July highlight was the second bloom ever on one of the jungles cactuses (epiphyllum).  This time I saw the bud the evening before.  I looked before I went to bed, but it still had not opened, but there in the morning, when Annie and I went out to the yard just before daybreak, there it was, fully opened.  At that early hour, this bloom was still pristine, unlike the first one in June that was starting to wilt, as it was already becoming light when I discovered it.  It’s such a pity that the life of these beautiful blooms is so fleeting.

With all this heat, stay inside with the A.C. is about all one wants to do.  It’s kind of like what winter forces upon people in some places.  Anyway, it’s gotten me in the mood to start a new quilt, something I haven’t done in a long time.  I’m piecing it by hand.  I’ll do a bit of “show and tell” as it gets a bit further along.

Looking out further afield, I’m happy that the certification of the lifting of ”Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” has been done, pleased that marriage equality has come to New York (now to overturn DOMA), and dismayed that all those people who got elected to congress to help improve the jobs situation are so stubborn (no, “stubborn” is too mild of a word) that they would send the county on its way to ruin, rather than move one inch to compromise.  (They should have a lit M-80 stuck in their pieholes.  No, sorry, wrong hole.)

It’s Saturday morning.  The coffee in the cup is cold now.  Annie is happily chewing on a sparerib bone.  It’s not even nine quite yet.  Still a lot of the day to look forward to (Sometimes only fragments will do.)

A Saturday Morning Adventure To One of Houston’s Well-kept Secrets

Passion Flower--Is there anything other to say than "Wow"?

Because Houston is a city that has experienced most of its growth in the last several decades, it feels pretty much the same, no matter which part of the city that you find yourself in.  Despite the ubiquitous strip centers, fast food restaurants, and housing developments, tucked away here and there are a number of unique places that can make for a fun outing.

Part of the grounds of Jerry's Garden, ready for the 4th of July.

Yesterday morning, a friend and I took a Saturday morning adventure to one of Houston’s best-kept secret’s, Jerry’s Jungle.  No more appropriate name could have been given to this plant menagerie, which is open to the public just a few times a year.  This private garden-cum-nursery is about a 15-minute drive north of downtown off of I-45.  Taking the exit onto Gulf Bank, then Airline, and finally Hill Street, one might feel a bit like they are somewhere in Mexico (as my friend said).

The grounds, very densely covered with all types of flowering plants and trees, occupy, what seems to be, several lots.  Most of the plants are growing in the ground, but when Jerry’s Jungle is open, there are many varieties of unusual plants for sale.  (Check out the Jerry’s Jungle website for the calendar and other offerings.)

This red clerodendron is ahowy plant. There are many other varieties. I wonder if I will be able to recognize them.

I am not good at recognizing nor naming even the more common yard and garden foliage, so I was far out of my league with the myriad of plants yesterday.  However, the beauty and variety were amazing.  Seeing everything that Jerry grows, I realized that the range of plants that we can have in our yards and gardens here in Houston is far greater than I had ever imagined.

Some of the many hardy, acclimated plants available for sale at Jerry's Jungle.

I’ll go back in October when Jerry’s Jungle is open to the public again.  By that time, I will have a better idea about some new beds I want to make in my yard, and the relentless heat should be a bit more forgiving.

After a wonderful time of encountering many different plants, when the Saturday morning heat intensified, despite the shade, my friend and I decided to take a respite at another place she knew of:  My Dee Dee’s Pie Shoppe and Deli.   Just a few blocks from Jerry’s Jungle, this is another business that seems a bit out of place.  Located in an old Victorian house with antique decorations inside to match, My Dee Dee’s was an interesting stop to get inside from the sun.  The lemon chess pie had a nice citrus tang, but was so empalagoso, that a sliver would have been enough to satisfy a sweet tooth.

What a very pleasant way to spend the first morning of a 3-day weekend, a lot more fun than a trip to Lowe’s and stopping at McDonald’s afterward.

Seeing passion fruit actually growing--another first for me.

Like so many others, the name of this beautiful flower is unknown to me. That will be the challenge if I want one to put in my flower beds.

Houston Gay Pride Parade–Version 2011

Houston Gay Pride Parade 2011 is off and running!Jonathan Lovitz, from LogoTV's "Set Up Squad" was one of this year's honorary grand marshals.

The 2011version of the Houston LGBT Pride Celebration (commonly known as the Houston Gay Pride Parade) was attended by a large crowd.  (I’ll be interested in what the official count will be.) The parade was lead off by the traditional HPD cruiser and contingent, followed directly by Houston’s own gay mayor, Annise Parker, with her partner, Kathy Hubbard at her side.

The crowd gathering before the start of the parade, here in front of Tomo's.

A broad mix of people came to view the Pride Parade. A few of them entertaining themselves before the start.

The unexpected is always expected at the parade.

Jonathat Lovitz, of LogoTV's "Setup Squad", one of the honorary grand marshals.

There was no lack of other politicians riding in the parade, including many of the current city council, and council wannabees, as well as state representatives and congresspeople.  There were a large number of groups representing a wide variety of gay interests, many who have participated year after year.  However, every year there are new participants.

Many things have changed about the parade have changed over the years.  For one there is a lot less police “presence” along the parade route.  Maybe that’s due to having a gay mayor.  There are perhaps more straight people than gay people that attend these days.  Sometimes, I wonder if they are really interested in the groups, or just want to get the beads that are thrown.  I saw more drinking than I have seen before, as illustrated by a 50-something woman, who eased in next to me, and screamed at every float or group.  Her name was Julie.  Yes, that’s what she screamed, “Hey, it’s me Julie.”  I hope she enjoys all her loot.   Yes, the Gay Pride Parade has changed.

The colorful float of Bunnies on the Bayou.

Gay Asians & Friends--this group is uniquely costumed year after year.

The Texas Gay Rodeo Association's entry.

M.D. Anderson Cancer Center's entry illustrates the parade theme "Live, Love, Be."

A perennial favorite, the boys of South Beach.

One of the many colorful contingents in the parade–this one is Jenni’s Noodle House.

See story and photos of 2010 Pride Parade here.