Thanksgiving 2019

Rollie, Suna, and Declan picked dead things for the table centerpiece. Omnia perit. Photo by Declan

Where’s Declan? Hint: he shows up twice. Photo by Suna

Easy lovin’, everyday’s Thanksgiving,

To count all my blessings,

I wouldn’t know where to start

— Freddie Hart (1926-2018)

I swear I’m not just writing so much about gratitude this week because it’s Thanksgiving in the US. That is a factor, but it’s not the only one. I am really feeling grateful for all that’s happening to me and that I’m accomplishing. But this post focuses specifically on Thanksgiving Day.

Using my new journaling system, I blocked off the whole day as Family Time. And that’s how I spent it. I watched my Cowboys lose again. I listened to someone cry about everyone treating her unfairly. We had friends and family over. And I finally went to bed having accomplished everything on my to-do list—specifically eating too much.

Someone on NPR today said that Thanksgiving is representative of America’s genius. You don’t need to have a specific ethnicity, creed, or religion to celebrate it. All you need is people and food. And to day we certainly had those in abundance. I really am grateful.

The dishes can wait for another day.

Father′s Day

Packaging for The Vampire Tarot Photo source: Cult of Personality

Father’s Day is one of those quaint traditions that I never paid that much attention to. I know it was important to Dad, so I always make a point of calling him some time during the day. Other than that, it′s always been yet another way for Hallmark to make money. No biggie.

This year, Tubaboy and Beccano chipped in and bought me The Vampire Tarot. It’s really cool—well thought out and beautifully illustrated. I’ll try to do a more thorough review either here or on Tarot Obsession soon.

Other than that, yard work in the Texas sun. It wasn’t that bad. It still hasn’t hit a hundred degrees yet. And once it does, the grass won’t grow enough to worry about mowing that often.

We Finally Won One…

Beccano mallets away at the competition. Aren’t their new uniforms great?

…and didn’t win another one.

The one we won (I’m getting too wrapped up in this homophone, right?) was the football game Friday night. McNeil usually wins all of the out-of-
district games and loses most of the in-district games. This year we started out the opposite way. One of the kids in the stand prophesied that this trend would continue.

I don’t really care. I’m there for the band.

And that brings us to the one we didn’t win. Saturday was the first marching contest of the season—and the only one I’m likely to see. McNeil sounded really good and look pretty good. I thought they had a serious chance, but the judges thought otherwise.

McNeil was the only band that we saw who performed their whole show. That should have counted for something. The other bands had worked on adding flash, but just stood in place for their third movement. We marched the whole damned thing! And sounded good doing it. But apparently flash is more important than knowing your show, and McNeil placed sixth out of a number that resembles a nine but is of lesser value.

Grrr.

Granted, the last three places were determined by only a few hundredths of a point. But still…

So this week, I am grateful to get to hang out with so many dedicated kids who work really hard to put on a show each Friday night. They deserve better than they got.

Port Aransas Retreat

Beccano and Suna Act Touristy

Suna, Beccano, and I took our first “vacation” since we went to North Carolina a couple of years ago. OK. “Vacation” may be a strong word for a weekend retreat to Port Aransas with a group of people from church.

We hadn’t planned on going, but there some kind of harmonic convergence that allowed us to. It started at the game Friday night when we learned that we had a by-week. Then Sunday at church, Janet mentioned that one of the rooms handn’t been taken. Those two things combined with a need to get away and destressify ourselves and then we were on our way.

Suna and I both worked extra hours so that we could take off
early on Friday. We decided to take the interstate to Corpus and the causeway to Port A. We made it to the condo shortly before sunset.

We spent most of Saturday wandering around the area. We started with a couple of walks on the beach taking numerous pictures of the local wildlife. At one point we saw a seabird feeding frenzy. The birds on the horizon we thick enough to be confused for smoke.

Just because it’s pretty. I don’t know what kind of flower it is.

Then we took the ferry to the mainland and wandered around looking at the sites. We got eaten alive by the mosquitoes at the estuary and headed back to the condo and the beach.

Saturday evening was taken up with a pot luck dinner. I improvised a sausage dish with pan fried Kielbasa in sauce of red wine and cheap mustard. It turned out to be delicious, and almost all of it disappeared.

This guy looks serious. You can what I mean by clicking on the image.

Then we went out to the beach again to play with tiny jelly fish that fluoresced when rubbed. These tiny blobs don’t sting, so you can pick them up in your hands. The hardest part was convincing our fellow beachcombers to turn off their flash lights. It seemed counterintuitive that you needed almost complete darkness to see very faint bioluminescence.

A walk this morning, packing our dirty clothes and then we hit the road for home. We saw another instance of the seabird feeding frenzy, this time up close.

More To Be Grateful For

Beccano in his brother’s dorm residence hall living-learning domicile

Last night Beccano told us that Junior Roundup—the day juniors at McNeil get their schedules and books—was this morning. Both he and Suna said that he had told us previously, and it had slipped all of our minds. So I got up early (for me) this morning to take him by school.

We had a nice talk on the way to school. About half way there, he said, “You know. You don’t have to go in with me. I’m just going to get my books. It shouldn’t take that long since I’m not getting a locker or anything. That’s what takes all the time.” So we planned put where and how I should pick him up when he was done.

I found a parking place in the lee of the PAC and started this blog about how proud I am of this young man. It was just a couple of years ago that he wouldn’t even ask a clerk at a game store about a game he really wanted. Now here he is going into a crowded room to deal with authority figures on his own—not wanting his peers to see him with a parental unit.

It also made me aware of how independent Trackgrease was and how I should have appreciated that more.

I am grateful to have had both of these fine young men in my life. I have learned so much from each of them that my paltry contributions to them are negligible in comparison. Mostly I am grateful to Trackgrease for surviving the vast number of parenting mistakes his mother and I made in raising him. I would do a much better job if I could have a do-over.

Mobile Blogging from here.

Convocation

Suna is talking to a neighbor we haven’t seen in a long time. We actually met a lot of people have known or should have known on campus this weekend.

The convocation was held in the gym. All us old folk had to sit in plastic bleachers or folding chairs for an hour or so before the event began— just long enough for ourbutts to go to sleep and our backs to ache.

A brass quintet started a few minutes before the students arrived. They played well, but the gathered families wouldn’t shut up enough to be able to hear the band. Some of us applauded any way.

While we were waiting, we met a nice family I’m San Antonio. We talked of traffic, the drought, and hail storms until the quintet started playing.

Of course, I had to go just before the students marched in, but I got to see Kynan and Nic precess anyway.

Kynan’s roommate and Beccano leaving the brunch.

The convocation itself sounded more Unitarian as it went on. The speech on integrity drove home both why we were today and what has gone wrong in this country since Reagan, maybe even Nixon or Johnson.

Afterward, the kids all gathered outside on a set of bleachers for a panoramic photo. We got a couple of shots or parts of Kynan’s face in the crowd. Then we gave him the last of the stuff from home (at least, until he comes home for the first time). The students still have a full day ahead and a busy week to follow.

Suna, Beccano, and I went home with a brief stop a Piranha Records, where I got a Stone Coyotes CD. Beccano, who inspired the stop, couldn’t find anything he wanted.

Mobile Blogging from here.

Life Is Hard But Good

OK. Suna blogged this one, too. But it’s such a nice picture. Photo by: Jon Montgomery

Well, I’m still not blogging with the consistency that I was earlier this year, but maybe that’s a good thing. Work is good, and it’s been taking most, if not all, of my writing energy lately. So I’ll keep this Grateful Monday short.

This week I’m grateful that our family economics are to the point where both Suna and I can start investing some of our energies outside the home. Tonight, Suna is leading a meeting at church. I cooked a nice sausage dinner—Suna and Beccano picked out the sausage yesterday—and had it ready when Suna got home.

Suna, the boys, and I sat down to dinner and conversation, something else to be grateful for. In spite of the dreadful manipulation of paranoid souls in which the Right continues to engage, I have some hope for the future. With Trackgrease, Tubaboy, and Beccano putting their energies into making the world a better place, how can we fail? Again.

I’m Back

I’m so glad to have this guy hang around for a little while longer.

I’ve been absent from the blogosphere for a while—neither writing nor doing much in the way of reading. I’m sorry. It’s been a couple of months where life just got in the way. So I thought it appropriate to resume this endeavor with Grateful Monday.

I have so much to be grateful for, and so much has happened since 22 May. I hope to back-post some of what has happened, not that I think anyone is all that interested. I just have a thing for completeness.

So here’s what I am grateful for:

• Dad is alive and well. He is going to keep farming for at least another year and has decided to buy a new tractor. All of that has been in question at one time or another since May.
• Suna’s position at the company with which she has been contracting seems secure. They may even bring her on as a real employee.
• My contract at the Fruit Company will end about a month earlier because I have accepted an offer to work there (albeit in another department) as a real employee. I’m looking forward to getting back into tech support training and working with some old friends.
• TrackGrease seems to have gotten married. I don’t think I was officially invited, but I am happy for him. And I’m proud of him. I don’t think I tell him that enough. I know I don’t call enough.
• TubaBoy has been getting ready to start his undergraduate education at Southwestern.
• Beccano is getting ready for his junior year of high school. He continues to play guitar really well. Getting better all the time.

That’s the short version.

Pick of the Picks

Beccano gave me this super-awesome guitar pick made from a peso. I’m told it is like the one Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top uses. The shape is perfect, and it plays with surprising speed and accuracy.

Check it out at Peso Picks.

Still More Music

I didn't get any pictures of the kids at church, so I'm recycling a picture from the Triskelion gig last month

Sunday was the annual youth service at church. It was all positive, focusing on service at all levels but starting with random acts of kindness. There were fewer partially thought-through ideas than last year, but the best part was the music. A cover of imagine made Suna get all weepy. There were a few other really good songs, too.

So this week am again grateful for music and for the passing of the torch. I find that music is in good hands with this next generation. I just wish I knew how to mentor them better. But to do that, I would have had to have accomplished something with my music. Maybe it’s not too late for that. Probably, but maybe not.

A Day for Music…

What I really wanted to do at this point was stop singing and listen to Bowman play, but I soldiered on with a smile. Photo by Jon Montgomery

Here we are at the Artz benefit enjoying some music we could hardly hear. Photo by Jon Montgomery (He was here, too.)

… and music of all kinds. We started this Sunday morning in church singing “Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine” to balance a rash of more traditional hymns. The choir director’s ubermusical son joined us on stage.

It was strange having someone else play bass, especially since he played so much better than I do. (But then I think he is majoring in performance—maybe composition—and will probably go on to grad school.) There were times I just wanted to listen to him play rather than concentrate on what I was supposed to be doing.

He played a Peavy bass that came with the frets filed down so that it occasionally gives that fretless moan but has the pitch stability of a fretted bass. I’d like to look into that for some of my own tunes.

The choir director played a really nice piece by Sate, which apparently sounds a lot like sauté, for the postlude. The piece was very lovely in its misleading simplicity. That is, it sounded simple but wasn’t.

Afterward we practiced with a Dixieland-ish—I can’t call it a Dixieland band because we have sheet music and we all mostly play what is written—band. We will perform in church and at a religious education dinner over the next couple of weeks—but I’m not sure in which order.

Later we went to a benefit to save Artz Rib House, a South Austin landmark that has fallen on hard times recently. We took Beccano’s band, Triskelion. We arrived in time to stand in a really long line and listen to Art’s band while we waited.

After Art, we listened to a local jazz duet featuring trumpet and piano. Suna got to hear her heartthrob Slaid Cleaves do a set that ended with a yodel. We left during a set by a really hot, young local fiddler. I had had about as much fun as I could handle in a day, and the kids were looking bored.

Spring Cleaning (of the Camera)

Beccano: just two years ago

Suna asked me to clean off the excess photos from the camera. Even with a 4GB card, we have to do that every couple of months.

Well, that’s never as easy as it sounds. First, I have to look at the pictures. Then I have to figure out what to do with them. Then I found out that Windows writes tags to the files to help search for them, so that meant I had to start looking at some of the older pictures.

One thing leads to another, and I found this shot of Beccano. I haven’t seen this little kid in a long time. He’s almost grown now.

Makes me wish there were more pictures of Trackgrease around. But we didn’t have digital cameras in those days, and we didn’t always remember to process the pictures we did take.

Does that mean I’m getting older, too? I hope not.

If…

The BtVS Scoobie Gang (from the first or second season)

Photo source: Hulu

Jo derived these five questions from Evelyn McFarlane’s The Book of If: Questions for the Games of Life and Love. Somehow, I think five is the perfect number for these question things.

If you could program the perfect evening of television shows, which ones would you select and in what order?

I assume in this mystical place, we would magically have new episodes of the shows, not just reruns. So I’m including a couple that are no longer on the air.

6:30-7:00: Friends—This is the exception to my general dislike of sitcoms. Even though I didn’t really like any of the characters, I enjoyed their foibles and felt as if I knew this collection of twenty-somethings stuck in early adolescence.

7:00-8:00: House—I don’t know what I like about this show so much. It is formulaic and filled with really dislikable characters, but they somehow seem real, if somewhat emotionally arrested.

8:00-9:00: Buffy the Vampire Slayer—This is the best show ever. I actually like most of the characters, even the bad guys. It has horror, humor, and character development. I also liked that the strongest characters (emotionally) were the ones without special powers.

9:00-10:00: Fringe—This is the most Buffy-like show on TV today: great writing that puts realistic characters in totally bizarre situations. Again, a good mixture of horror, humor, and character.

If you had to name the one area of your life that you are the least self-disciplined in, what would it be?

I’m really not very self-disciplined, even though I work at it. There are so many areas I could cite.

But I’ll have to agree with Jo and choose eating. I just love to eat. I love most of the flavors and textures of food. And as with most of life, even the icky stuff has value.

If you could enact one law that applied only to your own family, what would it be?

See I don’t think you can legislate family. Although the family has its power structures, what makes a family work is how we negotiate within those structures.You can’t force people to respect each other or be nice to each other or even take responsibility for themselves or each other.

Once you apply a power structure to those things, they tend to shatter. Even if you attain compliance, that attainment is temporal and breeds resentment.

If you could relive any single family outing in your life, what would it be?

I think it would be the trip I took to North Carolina to meet The Prince and Flo. I really enjoyed the time we spent there. It was totally stress-free and the weather was awesome.

The trip back with Suna and Beccano was fun, too. Even though we were pushing to get home, we stopped to have fun and see some of the sights.

If you could eliminate one hereditary characteristic from your family, what would it be?

I wouldn’t. We are what we are. If you change anything about us, you change something that made us what we are and, therefore, who we are.

Hitched

Beccano, Me, Suna, and TubaBoy

Photo by: Parker

Suna and I got married in the presence of more than a hundred of our favorite people. Rather than talk about it too much, here are links to various photo collections:

• A collection of pre-wedding photos in a Facebook album
• Jon Montgomery’s pictures collected in one of my Facebook albums
• Suna’s Flickr wedding album
• Some of the photos Rick Hendricks posted on Facebook
• Captain Flatulence’s MSN photo album of the wedding
• Emily’s Facebook album
• John Phelps posted his collection at johnphelps photography (Added 5 December)
• Chemical Pink posted her view of the wedding on Flickr (Added 6 December)
• Rick also posted Michelle’s photos on a Facebook album. (Added 9 December)
• Suna’s friend Janet posted photos on her Picasa album.

Another Manic Saturday

Suna models her wedding dress and an “up doo.” I thought the stylist might have missed a couple of spots, but she said they were on purpose.

I’ve not been a very faithful blogger this week. It’s not for lack of things happening. Rather it’s because of a lack of a lack of things happening.

I’ve been working diligently at my Fruit Company contract, and I think I’m making them happy. Then coming home after work and taking care of little things to get ready for the wedding, which is only a week away now.

So I’ll start with what we did today.

Suna and I got up early and drove to New Braunfels. She had an early appointment for the final fitting of her wedding dress. After that we went to a big box craft store to buy some beads for her current knitting project, but we ended up with lots more stuff: some fall garlands, a shell thingy that I want to turn into a ponytail holder, and such.

Then we headed back for Austin so she could make an appointment to get her hair died. We stopped on the way at Things Celtic to get me a lovely pair of Celtic cross ear studs. I got my ear pierced while Suna was getting her hair done. I also picked up a shirt and tie for TrackGrease to wear at the wedding.

I picked up Beccano from the house and went back to get Suna. I didn’t see her at the appointed place, but Beccano said, “Look. There’s Mom.”

Where? Right in front of me. She had gotten a trial doo, and I didn’t recognize her at first with her hair piled up on top of her head. I had been prepared for a new color, but not this. We spent some time discussing the pros and cons of the style. (As I write this, I have gotten used to it, but I don’t think Suna will wear her hair this way for the wedding.)

We then took Beccano shopping. He’s such an easy boy to buy clothes for. His favorite store is Good Will. He and I wandered Good Will while Suna gathered comments from her knitting friends. Beccano picked out one flannel shirt, and we came home.

So much excitement. So little time.

Gaming the Night Away

Beccano and I play Arkham Horror Photo by: Suna

Beccano helped Suna and KP prepare wedding decorations. We stayed out of the way and played Arkham Horroron the kitchen table while they worked in the media room.

I haven’t played AH since my friend from work moved up north. It is a fun game where a band of lunatics save the world (if they win) from an Elder One from HP Lovecraft’s Cthulu mythos. Of course, they are completely devoured if they lose, and all humanity suffers the consequences. No pressure there.

We were just playing to refamiliarize ourselves with the rules and game play. KP joined us just as we got started, and we played for a few hours.

What’s in a Dining Room?

The Pile

Suna was relieved recently when we turned the dining room back into a dining room for a church get-together. Alas, that is no more.

Tonight the boys and I took everything off the walls and stacked the furniture in the center of the room. Why? It’s all part of the remodeling project.

Since I am afraid of heights, I don’t feel comfortable painting the high walls in the entry hall and dining room. They are way up there. I don’t even own a latter tall enough to reach the top.

So we made ready for the contractors. It was fun working with the boys—even if they didn’t think so. Sigh.

Kids

Beccano in Disguise As Me

First, the good news! I probably have a contract with the Fruit Company. That contract should keep us solvent through the end of the year, and it could possibly be extended after that. And the hiring manager wanted to hire me as a real employee, but after month of interviews all hiring was frozen. Sigh!

That is really good news because kids are expensive—even kids as good and self-reliant as Suna’s. It seems that TubaBoy has been texting so much that the buttons fell off of his phone. Granted this is a phone he inherited from his father who upgraded to an iPhone. (This is a day after my phone decided to become a flash light and I decided to upgrade to an iPhone.)

So yesterday, we went to buy him a new phone. He chose a really sensible model. He doesn’t need the email or calendar functions of an iPhone, so he picked one that looks like a mirror when it’s turned off. It also has a really nice display and a good camera (for a cameraphone). He seemed really happy with it.

That eats up three of our four upgrades this year. Beccano can get a new phone (if he needs and wants one) in January—right after my contract could expire.

Afterward we went out to eat at a Chinese buffet. I thought it would be a treat for Beccano because that is usually his favorite type of restaurant. But last night, he said he wasn’t very hungery. He did eat a goodly amount, as did TubaBoy who usually complains about Chinese buffets. (Why is it that teenage brothers never want to eat at the same type of places?)

What Beccano was was entertaining. One of his favorite games to play when we go out to eat is “Look! I’m Lee!” It’s amusing. I always take off my glasses (and hat, if I’m wearing one) to eat. When he finishes eating, Beccano like to put on these items and say, “I’m Lee.” This is always followed by random amusing statements. These statements are totally weird—nothing like what I would say. Quiet, those who know me!

Thursday Blues

Even though Mesa Rosa means “red table,” I decided to use this photo of roses because the Spanish phrase always makes me think of roses on the table.

Today was a bluesy day. I was able to go through the new job listing in only a few minutes. Then I couldn’t get a lot done this morning because I didn’t want to wake up the kids. This is the last full week before school, and they deserve to sleep in. I always wanted to at their age.

Then I went to the home center to look for a band saw, and the only one they had was a lot more than I wanted to spend. I need the band saw to finish a project I started a couple of months ago, but I don’t need it $400 worth—not while I don’t have any income.

So that left me lolling around the house, doing laundry and cataloging books on LibraryThing. By the time Suna got home, I was hopelessly dumpy. But she cheered me up by offering to take the boys and me to Mesa Rosa for dinner. That meant that I didn’t have to perk up enough to cook, but the food and the company were so good that they did the trick. By the time we left, I was feeling human again.

So does this count as a Grateful Thursday?

Geranium Bloom

This lovely lives on our front porch.

After being overcast since Saturday, we finally got enough rain to settle the dust in the back yard—not enough to measure, but enough to settle the dust. Yesterday, it started to spit every time I went outside, and today seems to be following the pattern.

Since I have new cheap plants in the ground, I still had to water yesterday afternoon. We’ll see if I have to water today. I took a “state of the garden” set of photos after watering yesterday, and I have posted them all to Flickr, in case you’re interested.

The clouds have at least kept the highs in the mid-80s. It’s funny how cooler temperatures outside make the house seem warmer because the air conditioner runs less.

In other news, I took Beccano to the Sophomore Roundup this morning. (TubaBoy took himself to the Senior Roundup yesterday.) The Roundup is where they hand out locker assignments, if you’re willing to pay for one and core curriculum text books. It seems a bit cheesy to make kids pay for lockers, but neither Beccano nor TubaBoy want one, so maybe it makes sense. Since the school does give out textbooks to keep at home and others live in the classroom, I don’t see why anyone would want a locker these days.

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20 August Update: Well, we eventually got .2”, which was enough with the overcast skies to keep from having to water for two whole days—even though other parts of town got two full inches, enough to overflow their rain barrels. At least the aquifer was recharged a bit.