RAIN!!!!!

It's a good thing we sleep with our windows open, because there's nothing like waking up in the middle of the night with the sound of rain and thunder roaring in your ears, the smell of petrichor wafting through the room, the feel of a fresh breeze blowing on your skin, and the coolness of raindrops plopping on your face. In the middle of the drought of the century.

YESSSSSS!!!!!!

HOWDY From HELL

It's bad when Satan comes around and has to go back because it is too hot out here. That's what it's been like around here all flaming summer long.

Record hot temperatures. Record number of days over 100 degrees. Record number of consecutive days over 100 degrees. Record hot highs. Record hot lows. And how about this: we have even had the case of our low temperature being higher than the reigning record high temperature on a given date. I don't even know what kind of record to call that?

Oh, and did I mention that, according to our friendly neighborhood weatherman, we are in the middle of a 7-year drought? AAAGGGHHHH!!!!!

Well into September, after day after day of a blazing season, we finally got a cool front! Though when "cool" means "down in the 90's," it doesn't mean much. But, we get what we get, and in this case, we were glad to get it.

We turned off the a/c, we opened the windows, and I even psyched myself up to fire up the oven and cook, for the first time since April. We loved this for almost a whole week! But then Monday came along, and suddenly GOTCHA!! Back over 100 degrees, and a new record: fully one-quarter of this year has been given over to the infernity of 100-degree days.

Are there any records left? I'm afraid to know.

One of my favorite pieces of Texana trivia is the parting speech given by Davy Crockett to his once-constituents after losing his bid for re-election to the Tennessee State House of Representatives: "You all can go to hell, I'm going to Texas."

Well, Davy, after sweating through this steaming, screaming, searing, swearing, simmering, sweltering, sizzling, scorching summer season, I am beginning to wonder if you didn't get the two mixed up...

Worthy Winter

So much for Wispy Western Winters. This wet and wild and windy one has hung on longer and colder than any in recent memory.

Winter Weather isn't just Weather. It is a whole other entity, demanding to be consulted and considered multiple times every day, beginning as soon as I get up.

Actually, it begins before that...Am I even sure I want to get up? Trade in the cozy comfort of my warm bed to do battle with the frigid air waiting right outside the covers? Shiver into a wooly bathrobe to make my way to the bathroom so I can splash icy water onto my sleepy face?

What's the menu today? Forget salad or sandwiches. I better dig out the crockpot and load up some chili or some bean soup or some other warming, comforting thing.

How early do I need to leave to allow for windshield-scraping, road-icing, traffic-jamming, and still get there on time? And WHERE is the ice scraper?!

Will a jacket be enough? Do I need a serious coat? Gloves? What about some layers? And don't forget the scarf!

Outside? Can I take a walk? Maybe I better stay in and chase down the exercise videos. Can I plant my garden? Or do I need to unearth the peat pots and play in the garage?

The nerve. Coming in here to micromanage every minute of my day. But here you are, and what can't be cured must be endured. So, to the third member of our little two-person family ~ Welcome, W/interloper.

BRRR!

Not even three weeks into winter, and It's Snowtime! Winter in this part of the country never really begins until well into January, and then it's basically in name only. Nothing really to write home about. But this year...!!!

• *Snow* on Xmas Eve!!! True, just a slight dusting, but in central Texas snow is snow, and on Xmas morning, there was some still left in the shady places. Almost-White Almost-Xmas. UNHEARD OF!!!
  
• Just a few days later, it happened again! Two snows in less than one week's time! Now, according to M, in New York these would barely qualify as flurries, but in Texas we take what we can get.
• Yesterday, after scraping and de-icing, my Man took off for work one hour later than his usual 5:30 am departure time, only to return in half an hour with this report: "I barely got as far as Walgreen's. My windshield kept icing up, and I had to pull over four times to scrape the ice. So I turned around and came home, and I am going to call in."
• According to the news yesterday: "Anchorage, Alaska; Someplace in Antarctica (I really should take better notes.); and Another Anonymous Place (I really should take better notes!). Q: What do these three places have in common? A: They are all warmer than Austin, Texas today.
• We are going for our third night of record-breaking cold, as in overnight temperatures of 8-10º. Previous record is 15º. In 1913. That is almost a century!
• No frozen pipes for us, thank goodness, unless you count the outside faucet connected to the dog-waterer. But, we did have a friend over for a shower today, due to frozen pipes at his house.
• And it isn't just Texas. From the wastelands of Kansas, D reports that it took three city trucks and a monster tow truck six hours to free the garbage truck from the snowdrift in front of her house.

Somebody call Al Gore! This Global Warming simply has to stop!

The Thing About Moms...

...is that once you are the mom, you are never not the mom.

It doesn't matter that your kidlets are grown up:

• C is a competent, capable SAHM with four little kidlets of her own;
• While I once patrolled the halls at night checking on all the kidlets sleeping safely in their little beds, now S, a police officer, is on the prowl out there making the world safe for me to sleep in;
• D, mom of two, is halfway acroxx the country in Kansas of all places, making the most of what comes and the least of what goes;
  
• And halfway acroxx the country in another direction, M is becoming a soldier who will have my back on another front.

That's it. They're all grown up. They are adults. They are all responsible, contributing citizens. And they are still my kidlets. I am still the mom. They still check in. We communicate. We visit, we txt, we email, we fb, we im, we talk on the phone.

And it was while I wandered around the house last night, talking on my cordless phone to one of the dd's, that I had my latest epiphany: Phones may have become cordless, but mothers never will.

Awesome Autumn!

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

The air is crisp and snappy this morning. The sky is clear and brilliant beyond blue. I'm not a big fan of the sun, but the sunshine this morning is positively inspiring. It's not the heavy sun of summer. It is thin and airy and yellow and it promises a perfect day. A perfectly warm day. Not one of those hot summer days. This day is going to be perfectly pleasant! Warm enough ~and cool enough ~ to sit outside on the swing and enjoy it. No bugs buzzing around. No sweat running down my skin inside my clothes.

Today makes me want to DO!!! Forget about spring cleaning. Something about spring cleaning, besides the work factor, just doesn't appeal to me. But fall cleaning...that's a whole 'nother thing. Mow the yard one last time; put the outside things in the shed; winterize the cars; get out the winter clothes; harvest the last of the summer garden; plan holiday family times. Close down the work of this year and begin regrouping and preparing for the next one.

Well, not really. We don't live that way anymore, and it's our loss. But it's what we're wired for. To live by the calendar. To savor and enjoy every thing in its own turn. To take the time to make each thing special. Year-around, all-season living has taken something from us. We no longer recognize the uniqueness of any given thing. Something along the lines of "a feast every day is no feast."

Sure, it's great that anything that we want, we can have, any time we want it. Sorta. But it dulls our appreciation for the thing. It turns it into one more piece of clutter in a sea of too many choices.

So, I am for the simplicity of living for the day, one season at a time. And especially I am for simple living at this time of the year, when Nature gives her accounting and shows off her best.

What could be better than Fall? My deFinite Favorite!

Finally! Fabulous! Fall!

Beginning with last May's triple-digit temperatures, we have just lived through one of the longest, hottest, driest summers on record.

Several days ago it began to rain with a vengeance. Flash floods. Washed out roads. Roaring-river streets. Closed schools. Canceled jobs.

Now the rain has stopped, but the clouds linger. We are having one dreary, grey, dark, cloudy day after another ~ my very favorite weather! We haven't seen the sun in about a week now, but I'd say we've had our share, and more, of the sun and summer ~ enough to last the rest of the year if you ask me ~ so it is definitely time for a break.

I've lived in Texas long enough to know it's not going to last. Any day now, I expect the sun will break through for a blazing round of Indian Summer. But for now it is Fabulous Fall. Time to live again!

Stunning September

Today is September in every way:

• School traffic running up and down the street,
• Dove hunting season,
• Cool temperatures,
  
• Cloudy skies.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So who needs all the extra traffic jamming up the road.

What in the world am I going to do with the doves besides clog up the freezer.

And "cool" is sorta relative, isn't it. The best I can say about that is this is still summer in Texas, so any temperature that falls short of three digits is a temperature to celebrate.

But the cloudy sky really is something to write home about at this point.

So, one out of four...Ok, not really stunning. Not yet, anyway. But, it has potential: It is September, even in Texas, and after one of the hottest, longest summers on record, we are on the home stretch!

The Proof Is In The Pudding

Is this an empty-nested world or what? I suppose technically so, since M left over a year ago, but what with the frequent presence of the Blue-Eyed Boy, and then having D and the two little girls living with us for a few months, it was easy to disabuse ourselves of the notion.

Well, the Blue-Eyed Boy has started school :-( so we do not see him as frequently as we used to; and D and the girls have long gone to Kansas, to be seen only on very special occasions. So "home alone" is now pretty much the norm around here.

Some things stubbornly remain the same: the grass still grows just as fast, dust collects just the same, the cars still need the same amount of washing. But other things relentlessly emphasize the empty nest:

• There is no more sleeping with one eye open waiting for the squeak of the door that announces the last kidlet's return home for the night;
• Laundry, once done at the rate of 2-3 loads every day, is now done 2-3x a week;
• Cooking has dropped from 2+ times a day down to once every day or two;
• Even dishwashing, the once-upon-a-time, 3x-a-day dreaded chore now happens maybe once a day.

But the other day something happened that well and truly struck home, reinforcing once-and-for-all, that the empty nest is official. It was a simple thing, really, as turning points often are, recognizable only in retrospect. It happened like this:

The other day, somewhat desperately wondering "What's for dinner?" I decided to make an omelet. My mother taught me growing up to keep two dozen eggs on duty at all times, and this I have done faithfully for the last 30+ years, though over the past year, it has pretty much gone to one dozen. Well, this particular evening, I reached for the one lonely dozen in the refrigerator only to notice the *expiration date* of August 6th. Hm... only three weeks out of date.

And that's when it hit me: We not only don't need two dozen eggs on hand, one dozen is even too much. I have always pitied those blue-haired little old ladies in the grocery store buying their little six-packs of eggs to stock their little kitchens. And now . . . NOOOOOOO . . . I am just like them!!!! Well, not quite. I don't have blue hair. But other than that . . . I am, sadly, too much like one of them.

Eggs . . . or the lack thereof . . . an apt measure, indeed, of an empty nest.

Senses Of Summer

A feast for the senses! The scents and sights and sounds from deep in the heart of summer...

• Newly mown grass
• Petrichor after a welcome, surprise thunderstorm
  
• Cool mint, mowed down right along with the grass
• Fresh dirt clinging to garden bounty
  
• BBQ grills fired up all over the neighborhood
• Fresh air and sunshine on line-dried laundry

• Sheet lightning in the distant nighttime sky
• Rainbows in the spray of the hose
• Neighborhood kids running through the shimmer of the lawn sprinkler
• Red and white striped tents at the farmers' market
• Piles of fresh veggies straight from the earth
• Fresh laundry billowing in the breeze
• Fireflies blinking their presence in the evening

• The crackle and sizzle of summer lightning
• The rumble of thunder early in the morning
• The plop of heavy drops on the sidewalk when the rain finally comes
• The trill of crickets and cicadas in the heat of the day
• Marching band music wafting up the hill from the high school
  
• The whirring of window fans, tower fans, box fans, ceiling fans...
• Kids splashing in the pool next door l-a-t-e into the night
• The snapping of sheets on the clothesline
• And did I mention the wind chimes on the front porch? Great in any season!
  

Ok, it looks like I'm enjoying summer a little too much. Don't forget, it is still August in Texas. It is still Africa-hot. It is too hot to escape the sweat running down inside your clothes. It is too hot to cook anything in the oven. It is too hot to sleep under a cover, even just a light sheet. So, on the other side...

• A hot dog, languishing in the sun
• The overpowering scent stench emanating from the too-infrequently-picked-up dumpster
• The rotting of the compost pile (although eventually this changes to rich chocolate-brown dirt, see #3 above)
• Mildew odors on wet towels
• Chlorine smells evaporating from swimming pools
• Sweaty clothes
• The acrid smoke from a grass fire

• Overweight women in if-this-size-fits-you-have-no-business-wearing-it bikinis at the public pool
  
• In any public place, the skimpiest of clothing leaving bra straps hanging out on the top, butt cheeks hanging out on the bottom, and nothing to the imagination
• Old men in short shorts exposing their hairy white legs and knobby knees
  
• Yards full of sad yellow grass
• Parched, wilted, saggy, droopy gardens

• LOUD crap rap music blaring from passing cars with their windows rolled down
• Air conditioners working overtime
• The ice cream truck coming down the street (The Princess calls it "the music truck.")
• The increased traffic of the comings and goings gearing up to start school (We live in a Bermuda Triangle amid three schools.)
• The screeched protest of an overworked fan
• Crispy, dead grass crackling underfoot
• Gangs of motorcycles revving up to hit the road
  

So. For better or for worse: Summer. In all its glory/misery.

Already August?

Can it be? This year, which started out like all the other years, fresh and new, is now, like all the other years, more than halfway wasted spent, and it didn't take that long to get that way. So. Time to get a grip before the rest of it slips right through our fingers, and the next thing we know, the whole thing is lost and, like all the other years, no more than a memory.

August. Quite emphatically my very least-favored month of the year. August in Texas is Africa-hot, sultry, and humid. Absolutely nothing to redeem it. August doesn't even have a holiday to its name. Wait! I take that back. August is the month of BB3's and Gi's birthdays, so there is that.

In a transparent effort to ingratiate itself, this August came sneaking in on the heels of yesterday's most welcome thunderstorm, capitalizing on the happy mood and cooler temperatures (and tempers) left in its wake.

So today we have the windows open, filling our ears with the sounds of summer...the buzz of cicadas, the whir of fans, the melodies of wind chimes, against the backdrop of the sun less its sizzle.

Can autumn be far behind? Well, yes actually. Autumn is nowhere in sight. Not even close. But, it's absolutely worth waiting for!

A(nother) Random Weather Report

Here we go again. Another "cool" day in the hottest summer of the century. This morning is cloudy ~ no promise whatever of rain though (more like an empty threat) ~ and coooool. Well, I suppose it's cool. It feels cool. But it's all relative, isn't it. It could be 98 degrees, and at this point we would find even that cool.

By late morning, we have reached a whopping 86 degrees, with a heat index of 89! But not to worry. There is plenty more where that came from, and long before the end of the day we should be well beyond our usual 100-degree mark.

In the words of our local weatherman, our area averages 21 days of 100 (or higher)-degree days in a year, so, going as we are, into our 23rd day of 100+ temperatures in a summer that is less than 23 days old, those days are behind us, and we are well due for some Hope and Change in the weather department. In fact, according to the non-prophets of The Weather Channel, this weekend will have "an almost fall-like feel," and the highs in August will fluctuate between 92 and 95. It's hard to place any confidence in their predictions, but...I want to believe them!

Well, regardless, in the meantime, it's a welcome relief for the chimney sweep, who has curtailed his $-making activities to early morning and late evening hours until further notice.

This perfectly pleasant morning doesn't fool me, though. It may masquerade as spring, or fall, but I know that it's really only the mask of a hotter-than-Phoenix summer in disguise.

Summer Morning

It's a cool cool summer morning. Every cool morning is cool in Texas, especially in the summertime. But today... :-D

• The air is pleasantly cool and clean.
  
• The sun is peeping up over the horizon. That is, the house across the street...cool horizon, huh? But, for better or for worse, it's my horizon...
• My windows are open wide, and there is a cool breeze blowing in!
• The birds are still happily chirping out there. Later in the day comes only silence.
  
• Today, unbelievably, I have been a grandmother for ten years! Happy Birthday, BB1!
• I get to stay home today. That is a cherished rarity. Could only be better if the phone would stop ringing.
• No updates on MJ's funeral yet this morning! That's a biggie.
  
• Temperature-wise, this morning was so cool, my Man put on a jacket when he went off to work at 5:30. I know it isn't going to last, but for right now...can't beat it. Well, I take that back, because
• I hear the phone beeping now. It's a text message from M, off in the wilds of Camp Buckner, with the latest land nav report.
  

Can't get any better now. This morning is maxed out. Cool on so many levels!

And The Heat Goes On...

107 today, the 11th day of 100+ temps. Since we "average" 21 days a year of 100-degree days, I'm hoping that this means we are getting them all out of the way right up front, but I'm not holding my breath on that one.

Good news for the weekend, though: Temperatures are going down. Should be no more than 101 by Sunday.

This is getting boring, isn't it.

Summermore!

I learned a few things today:

• The last time it came close to this hot was on this date in 1943, when the record-breaking temperature of the day was 104. Today it was 106 degrees, a new tongue-hanging-out record. A dubious distinction indeed.
• According to the local weatherman, in this neck of the woods we have, on average, 21 days of 100-degree temperatures. In a whole year. So far this year we have had nine such days already. And summer is only four days old... AGH! This can't be good.

So far, this is shaping up to be A Summer To Remember, a summer on steroids. All I know is it's a darn good thing I have decided not to care about the summer heat anymore.

Happy Summer!

Not. It is Summer in Texas. With a vengeance. Actually, it has been summer for days already, it just hasn't been official summer yet. Well, it is now, and it is already 100+ degrees with humidity to match, and there's nothing quite like a hot breeze blowing in through the open window. I know a lot of people love their fun in the sun, but I am not one of them. To be honest, I have never understood anything fun about baking and sweating and burning to a crisp...? I just don't get it.

Shortly after I moved to Texas waaaay back during the last century, it was one Africa-hot summertime. My mom and I were "downtown" in SmallTown, Texas and had wandered into the "variety store" where we overheard part of a conversation between two little old ladies. One of them said to the other, "Hasn't it been a nice, cool summer." My mom and I looked at each other, eyes incredulous and mouths gasping open. Nice? COOOOL????? Had they seen the thermometer at the bank? The one that registered 112 degrees at 6 PM? Had they been outside? Were we even on the same planet? "Hasn't it been a nice, cool summer" has become a family joke over the years ~ The hotter it gets, the more it is invoked, complete with the rolling of eyes and the shaking of heads.

So now here we are, hotter than Phoenix, and I have a True Confession: As much as I ha-a-a-te to admit it, after aaalllllll this time of actively despising the good ol' summertime...I'm not saying I like it, but...so what. So what that it's 100 degrees by mid-morning. So what that I am out here with the sun pounding on my head. So what that I am melting into a puddle, or that there is sweat pouring down between my eyes and running down inside my clothes. So what that the heat of summer shimmers up off the road in waves, and the pavement is so hot it is actually oozing. So what that you can bake cookies in the trunk of your car, or put a pot of rice and water out in the sun and it will be cooked by lunchtime. So what that you can get a third-degree burn from the steering wheel or the seat belt buckle when you get in your car. So what....

So it's summertime in Texas, that's what, and I'm starting to worry about myself, because after 30+ years, I have just decided not to care anymore. I can't afford the effort or the energy. Hmmmm....Maybe those little old ladies were on to something...??? Whatever...

By the way, Mom, wish you were here. We sure are having a nice, cool summer.

Today

M has been home for a week today. Well, sorta. Last night, and the night before, he spent at C's, so it was like the old folks' home here once again. Well, it would have been had not M's friend, Ko, dropped in with Oreo cookies and Blue Bell ice cream. The night before that he spent at Ko's, and tonight S is on the schedule.

A short trip to visit Little Granny in the nursing home in Kerrville is on the agenda today. I may or may not go with him, depending on if he gets a better offer. I will be perfectly happy to go with him. And I will be perfectly happy to stay home.

D and the little girls will be here from Kansas this weekend, just to be sure they get a glimpse of M before he is off to Israel on his first step into the world of International Travel; Monday the plan is for a mini family reunion/group birthday party. There just isn't enough M to go around, and we have to share.

Now the early morning sun is coming up. The windows are open, the birds are singing, and my Man is off to work. Summer is coming on, with the same dreadful anticipation as always, but right now...it's the perfect springtime day in central Texas.

It's Slingtime!

...as the Blue-Eyed Boy would say.

You know it's springtime outside when:

• the world is turning green;
• the grass goes from freshly mowed to ankle-deep overnight;
• the birds are chirping and twittering incessantly (outside the window, fortunately, at my house; but in other houses the chirps come from inside the chimney);
• dense fog at dawn; raging, roaring, rolling thunderstorms in the morning; a steaming sauna by mid-afternoon;
• sweat happens :-(
  

You know it's springtime inside when:

• the table is served with fresh green food;
• the refrigerator and the pantry get a cleanout in the same week;
• the windows stay open day and night;
• the closets go from flannel and long sleeves to shorts and t-shirts;
• the two-shower day is making a comeback.

Definitely Sling!

Notes From the Chimney Sweep

The song doesn't say, does it? But in case you have ever wondered what happened to that crazed Mississippi squirrel that brought on the revival in that sleepy little town of Pascagoula, wonder no more. I think I may have cleared up that little mystery.

Spring is often a busy season for a chimney sweep, but not for the reasons one might expect. Gone are the winter requests to cure a smoking fireplace or to inspect or rebuild a chimney after a fire, and we get a few calls from those organized souls who want to get a jump on next fall’s heating season by cleaning their chimneys ahead of time, but a lot of our spring calls come from people who have discovered animals and/or their nests in the chimney: usually an assortment of birds or squirrels, less frequently a raccoon, or perhaps a possum. At least on one occasion, we were called by a homeowner whose house was suddenly infested with flies; and then there was the time this chimney sweep was called upon to ascertain that the stench in one house was caused, not by a dead animal in the chimney as surmised by the owner, but by a package of fish rotting on the coffee table in the living room. Really. The chimney sweep seems to be the go-to guy when people just don’t know where to go, and, as I say, spring ends up being fairly busy.

So when the phone rang a few days ago I wasn’t entirely surprised to hear, “I saw you on the computer. I know you get birds and things out of chimneys, but I have something much worse than a bird!” followed by a tale of woe, poured out, if you can imagine, in a frantic voice with a serious Southern d-r-a-w-l.

This poor young woman’s house reeked so badly with the odor of something dead and decaying that they could barely stand to stay in it, and after looking everywhere they could possibly think of to look, they concluded that a squirrel had died in the chimney, a not at all unheard-of event in the world of chimneys and fireplaces. She had called to see if we, or anyone we knew, could take care of such a problem for her, going on to tell me that she had called the “wildlife people” who had someone that took care of such things, but, alas, they were unable to locate him.

Even in her misery, she was so very polite, as Southern belles are wont to be, and I found myself wanting to help her. Almost. Such a job is always distasteful, to say the least. I started to ask where she was located, but before I could get the question out, she asked me if the job could be done for free… That made me laugh and I told her that there would certainly be a charge. If anyone could be found to do it.

And then, “Are you in Alabama?” Alabama? Uh…no. She explained that our area code was only one number off from an area code that she knew of in Alabama, so she thought maybe we were there, close enough to come to her rescue in…. Pascagoula, Mississippi.

Relief! I no longer felt bad for not figuring out how to help her. Being in central Texas ~ the part she missed when she found us on the computer ~ I couldn’t if I wanted to. So, I wished her well, expressing hope that she would find someone to take care of that for her. And in that lovely, lively, eager Southern voice she assured me, “Oh, I will! Even if I have to pay them!”

Ah…

Well, in any event…one Squirrel of Mississippi Revival fame: Found! And now you know...the rest of the story.

Back to Business

The world conspires to keep me running ragged with NOTHING to show for it. My life has been deadline-driven for the last...how long...with the next/last one coming right up: TEA Party Day. Am I ready? I am not. The dining room is overrun with piles of papers and receipts and calendars, planners, work orders, and proposals. I am feverishly trying to sort it all out before the taxman cometh. Hmmm...exactly one week to go, and things don't look promising.

I miss writing, but my brain is too full to think. All sorts of things are running around in it. So many that I can barely sort them out. So I don't. Instead, I escape. You know what they say ~ When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Well, I'm going as fast as I can! Not that it's getting me anywhere.

Facebook is always good for an easy escape. Lots of fun and not much thinking required. AGH! How I look down on those lessers forever in escape mode. Now I am one of them. :-/ Well...what goes around comes around, and the time has come.

It's officially late and getting later by the minute. It might even be tomorrow.

So. Back to business? I hope so, soon. Right after garden club, a tax day TEA party, politics as usual, Dave Ramsey's Town Hall for Hope, helping C and De move their household, the annual Cherokee fish fry... Yep, by next month I should be able to start minding my own business. Unless, of course, someone/thing else is lying in wait.

Stay tuned.