Grateful Monday

I am always grateful for these two cute dogs—even when they eat my shoes.

I got to give Milam Touch of Love a check to cover buying materials for the new dog run at the City of Cameron pound. Photo by Suna

Harvey and Suna both love to sing, and I enjoy listening to them.

A big black dog

Little too much gray around the muzzle

A big black dog

Why she ended up at the pound is a puzzle

—Emmylou Harris and Will Jennings

This week is another of those that prove the need to cherish the things that don’t go to plan as much as those that do. Everything you experience goes how you want it to, benefits you or your community in unexpected ways, or teaches you something that will make you a better person going forward.

Sarita snags … again.

The Sarita sale keeps hitting snag after snag. On Friday, the title company called for payoff so they could complete the settlement statement. The mortgage company “couldn’t find the loan.” By the time this snag was resolved, it was too late to finish the statement today. They can finish it on Monday, but FHA requires three days to review it. That would put closing on Thanksgiving Day. Looks like next Monday will be the earliest we can close.

The incompetence of title companies and mortgage companies is outside of my control. I’m doing better at accepting this reality. The Realtor® helping us with the sale thanked me for “being so patient.”

Better living through chemistry. Right? Not so much. I’m grateful to be learning to focus on what I can affect.

Cars are expensive!

Through a series of decisions, we now own three cars that need to be inspected, licensed, and maintained in November. This year, I failed to set up a reserve to handle this expense. So of course, my car needed thousands of dollars in repairs.

The timing is set and can’t be changed unless I trade vehicles. The lack of reserves is something I can correct, and I will.

I am grateful I had more than enough set back in the family’s general reserve account to cover the combined expense.

Tractor Supply rocks!

Suna and I went to the Herne Tractor Supply to buy things for the horses. While we were there, we got to talking with a really nice guy who turned out to be the store manager … at least, until January sometime.

He helped us find all the materials we need to build a big dog run for the City of Cameron’s pound. Now that we know where to find all the materials, Hearts, Homes, and Hands cut a check to Milam Touch of Love, the charity that supports pounds and animal rescues in Milam County, to cover the expense. Next week, we will go pick up all the materials, and my nephew Chris has promised to help put the run together over the Thanksgiving weekend.

I am so grateful we could help further the work of MToL and help take care of the lovely animals who end up in the Cameron pound.

Sponsorships Available

If you do business in the Cameron area, here's a chance to do good and spread the word about your business at the same time. Image by: Cameron Rotary Club

This post originally appeared on the Hermit Haus Redevelopment website on 2019-11-06 and on the Hearts, Homes, and Hands website on 2019-11-06.

Every year, the Cameron Rotary Club hosts a casino night fund raiser. Last year, the Rotary Club raised about $8-thousand for various charities and scholarships.

This fiscal year, Casino Night is 18 January 2020.

Why am I talking about this so early?

Now is the time for the corporate sponsors to sign up. Each year, Hermit Haus parent company Hermits’ Rest Enterprises, which is based in Cameron, sponsors the activity. Hermits’ Rest Enterprises will be joined by its sister company Heart, Homes, and Hands this year.

If you would like to sponsor this fun fundraiser, you can contact me or any other Cameron Rotarian.

What do companies get out of it?

Well, that depends on sponsorship level.

Level	Donation	Tickets	Recognition
Individual	$50	-	Thank you!
Silver	$150	1	Looping slide at the event Show advertisement
Gold	$300	2	Table sponsorship Looping slide at the event Show advertisement

What do individuals ticket holders get?

Each $20 ticket (you can get those from me, too.) entitles you to:

• A night of fun at the charity casino with slot machines and other games
• Dinner
• Drinks—and we are talking adult beverages here

For more information:

• Here is the Rotary Club’s page. You can buy tickets online from the page.
• And here is the Chamber of Commerce’s page on last year’s event. Note the significant drop in the cost of tickets.

NAMI Walk

Suna and I participated in NAMI Walks in Austin this morning. It involved waking up. Early. For us.

This morning, Suna and I joined friends from Live Oak, Wildflower, and First Unitarian Universalist churches to help raise money for NAMI, the National Aliance on Mental Illness. Although we knew it was a good cause and a good walk, we were’t exactly clear on what the acronym stood for. Was it the National Association for or against Mental Illness. Neither one sounded right because both were wrong.

We met some friends at Starbucks in Round Rock, and they drove us in to the event.

The walk was too much for some of the participants. Here two volunteers try to resuscitate a poor feller who collapsed en route.

We parked across the street from the walk, which was to take us from Ladybird Lake up Congress Avenue, around the Capitol, and back again. As with many of these health-conscious events, a large part of the preparation involved eating donuts and standing around with friends. I got to take a lot of pictures of dogs, people, and the city.

“Move over there! You! Jeez, it’s easier to herd cats!

NAMI organized team pictures. I hope our captain can obtain a copy for us. It was something of an ordeal for the photographer-in-the-sky, and I want him to know his efforts are appreciated. After several attempts to get our group to move back far enough to get us all in frame, he gave up and moved his ladder. Even so, he had a little more trouble getting some of us to move to the right until he pointed out that it was his left.

Two valid points: 1) Corporatism does not equate to capitalism. 2) Corporations are not people.

One of my favorite parts of the walk was when we passed the Occupy Austin protesters who, like the Occupy Wall Street gang, are still trying to figure out what they want to replace the egregious corporate greed of our financial sector with. The UUs cheered them, and they cheered us back. (Neither group cheered as loudly on the return trip. I think we were tired.) They seem to be nice people, even if I can’t figure out what they want from their media presence. Maybe that’s because they seem to be a clearinghouse for disparate leftist agendas…like what the Democratic Party was before they were assimilated into the Wall Street Continuum. Sorry for the Star Trek mashup, but it seemed appropriate.

There was even a visitor from another planet.

Tent for Darfur

A tent for Darfur

There was a regional sleep-in at the church this weekend. More than a hundred teenagers from as far away as Louisianan participated. Ours did not. They were too busy this weekend with band and debate.

One of the things they did was to decorate a Tent for Darfur. The kids at Live Oak had raised money over they summer to buy the tent. Everyone that participated in the gathering this weekend helped with the decoration. It is a large tent that they hope will be used as a classroom.

I hope it’s not too scary with all the smiley faces and religious symbols.

Hands on Housing

The Happy Homeowners

Photo by: Jon Montgomery

Yesterday while Suna took the kids to the UIL competition, more than 100 volunteers and I participated in Hands on Housing (HoH)—a project of Austin Area Interreligious Ministries (AAIM).

Twice each year, AAIM organizes a massive number of volunteers to repair up to 35 substandard homes. Beneficiaries are typically elderly persons who own their homes but who are financially unable to maintain them. Often, physical handicaps prevent the beneficiaries from helping on the projects, but the beneficiary from the Spring project was among the volunteers on Saturday. This time we worked on two houses in the same neighborhood.

We do a lot of what both Presidential candidates would call, “putting lipstick on a pig,” but the beneficiaries appreciate any improvement. Besides, the lipstick will probably last as long as many of them do, even if we don’t or can’t fix the underlying problems.

More than 100 people helped. These are some of them. I’m in the red hat, helping hold up the Live Oak banner.

Photo by: Jon Montgomery

Among the projects I helped with are:

• Putting siding and trim on the back of one of the houses
• Covering up a water-damaged ceiling on the front porch of the other house
• Putting 1x4 trim in one kitchen to inconvenience the rodents that had eaten through the walls
• Rebuilding and hanging a weather-damaged door

And as proof that no good deed goes unpunished:

• I gave my knee a good twist, and it bothered me most of the evening.
• Rev. Kathleen’s car was rear-ended, incurring fairly significant damage.
• I know of a couple of other minor injuries.

I only hope that the combination of these negative occurrences with good intentions pays double on any karmic debt we have or will accrue.

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28 October Update: If you’re interested in more pictures of the even. Jon posted some on Picasa.

Back in the USSR

A mixed review for American Airlines’ customer service: exceptionally bad followed by extraordinarily good.

Photo source: American Airlines

Flew in from Miami Beach BOAC

Didn’t get to bed last night

Oh, the way the paper bag was on my knee

Man, I had a dreadful flight

John Lennon & Paul McCartney

Suna’s dad arrived late this evening after a long day fighting the airlines. We picked up The Prince at the airport. He had a long day of it. His wonderful flight that would have had him here at 11:30 AM was canceled because the plane never left Dallas for NC the previous day. We knew that ahead of time, and he had called American Airlines to have them make a change.

Unfortunately, he got a trainee who completely screwed up. Apparently, instead of rerouting him as she had said, she just canceled everything. To their credit, AA took care of him today. They paid for a limo to take him half-way across NC to catch another flight and a cab to take him from one Dallas airport to the other for the connection to Austin. Even that extraordinary measure left him in airports or on a plane for almost 15 hours. He may never want to visit us again.

After picking him up, we took him to Mesa Rosa, which has almost become a second dining room for us. A good meal and a few beers later, we were all in a much better frame of mind—ready to come home and go to bed.

Friday’s Feast

Appetizer: If you could be any current celebrity for one whole week, who would you want to be?

If I could, I would want to be Al Stewart, I guess. I’ve always wanted to write as well as he does. And it might be nice to have his wine cellar.

Soup: On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being highest), how much do you enjoy talking on the phone?

-1.

Salad: Name a charitable organization to which you have donated (or would like to).

The church.

Main Course: What is a food you like so much you could eat it every single day for a month?

There isn’t one I would want to eat every day. Variety is the spice of life.

Dessert: Have you or anyone in your family had the flu this year?

I did. It wasn’t that bad, but the pneumonia that followed on its heels was a killer.