Local critters, neighbors, and Newt Gingrich

Having finally settled into the new house in the greater metropolitan Onalaska, TX area, I've had a chance to meet some neighbors, both human and critter, and to get a sense of what it will be like to live here.

On the human-neighbor front, everyone seems very friendly in these parts, which is what I expected. We've met the neighbors on both sides of us, as well as one or two other people who strolled over to introduce themselves and to say "howdy," including one little old lady who came in and made no bones about "checking us out."  I'm not sure if what she was doing would be termed "creeping," or "trolling," as  my daughters say.  It was really kind of funny.

On the critter-neighbor side, we've become fast friends with Ruby, the neighborhood dog.  She belongs to no one, best that we can figure, but people take her to get shots every year, and from what I can tell, she doesn't lack for people to feed her.  My wife has jumped on that particular band wagon, and made it a quick priority to get some dog food to keep Ruby in chow.  She's a good dog, doesn't bark, and will follow you around, including out onto the boat dock.

There are also all manner of birds, also now being fed by the wife, and at least two squirrels.  Squirrel 1 seems to go about his business in a frenzy of activity, and appears to want to have some sort of relationship, partnership or friendship with Squirrel 2.  Squirrel 2 isn't having any of it, though.  He seems to be rather ornery and spends a lot of time yelling both at Squirrel 1 and whatever birds happen to be wandering by.

The neighbors have warned us of water moccasins, which I do not have much experience with (they not being  found in overabundance in the Fort Worth-Dallas area), rattlesnakes (which I have no problem with).  Water moccasins, though, have a reputation for Newt Gingrich-like aggressiveness and foul temperament.

The little old lady next door said that she keeps a pump action .22 loaded and on safety just in case.  She said that she's had to dispatch one Sssss already that was lurking in her garage.

Of alligators I have no concern.  Gators are common to the I-35 corridor east, so I've shared common diggings with them all my life, though I've never knowingly been around one in the wild.  Gators and rattle snakes share a common "live and let live" mentality which I'm fond of.  On the other hand they are quick to strike and rather vicious when riled, sort of like Rick Perry.

All in all it's been a good  move.  The biggest traumas have been an antique curio cabinet that suffered a bit of broken glass, and a key that's gone missing from an armoire.  But all in all that's tolerable.

More to come...

Back on the grid, fighting those lesbian/communist girl scouts

After much driving up and down Interstate 45 between Huntsville and Arlington, TX, we are now safely and completely moved.  Thank God.

After finally settling in last night when we got home I thought that I'd review the news.  Imagine my surprise when I ran across this story on MSNBC.com: Lesbian/communist Girl Scouts.

I rarely comment on idiotic things that politicians say.  There are people far more qualified than I who can do that.  Rep. Bob Morris takes the cake, though.  This guy apparently doesn't keep up with the news at all.  There are no more communists in power, anymore; not even the Cubans and Chinese are communists.

The only redeeming thing about Rep. Morris is that the publication of his comments serves to deflect attention away from  Texas' own Governor Goodhair.  Keep up the good work, Bob!

No longer here, but not really there, either.

We are in the process of moving, finally.  As a result we have some clothes and items in the new house, and some clothes and other items in the old house.

For instance...we have a TV and new satellite dish, but no furniture, in the new house, while in the old house we have furniture, but no TV.  That makes for odd living.  After having changed locks, cleaned carpets and made notes of what we want to do to the new house to really move in, we spent a lot of time just strolling through the new house and sitting on the patio staring at the lake.  That would have been fine, except that it was cold and rainy.

So, we drove back to the old house yesterday to do some tidying up and getting ready for THE BIG MOVE this weekend, but with no TV we mostly strolled around the house and just chatted.

On top of that my cell phone died.  To make matters worse the phone that I was using was the family spare, my usual cell  phone having bit the dust in Lubbock some weeks ago.  A helpful hint...if you are staying in a hotel do not let the room key card slide between the components of your cell phone (I had a slide phone).  They don't like that and they will go on permanent strike.

Needless to say, the wife and I are ready for this move to be over with.

More to come...

The deed is done...

Greetings, fellow conspirators!


Just a brief check-in this morning, reporting from the friendly confines of Madisonville, TX, more specifically, from K1 (and fiance of K1) and K2's house.


The deed is done; we closed on the house in Onalaska, TX (on the beautiful shores of Lake Livingston) yesterday. I had forgotten how many different papers one has to sign to buy a house, which makes me even more in favor of the "suitcase of cash" method of real estate purpose that some European countries have.


I was proud of myself for stumping the title people with a question. We were presented with two different monthly mortgage payment amounts on two different papers. "What's the story?" says I. "Ah," says the title lady. "One of these is an estimate."


Moving day starts today, and since we have our current house rented until the end of the month, continues on for a while yet. Today is just doing a bit of cleaning, and hopefully a bit of fishing off the dock.


More to come...

Do you have conversations like this?

My wife and I were diving home from lunch Friday, having taken my mother in law out to celebrate her finishing up some medical treatments. 

We were stopped at a stop light in our town (which has grown over 300 percent in the last few years, thanks to an unchecked flood of Yankees and other uninvited misfits), and my wife happened to see a car emblazoned with a Jimmy Johns signboard.  This is a sandwich shop outfit that claims to have, "world class sandwiches."  I've never had one, so cannot dispute or agree to that assertion.  With no evidence to the contrary, though, I'm willing to concede their point.  In any case that has no bearing on the conversation with my wife, which went along the lines of:

Wife (pointing at the car):  Jimmy Johns...didn't we get their cups at the game?  They had those papers in them?

Me:     Who's cups?  (I was looking the other direction and didn't see her pointing at the car)  What papers?

Wife (still pointing):   Those cups; from Jimmy Johns!

Me (seeing the car, but still asking):    What are you talking about?

Wife:     Those Jimmy John's cups; we have a whole cupboard full of them!   The girls got them at the stadium! They came stuffed with coupons.

Me:     I know we have cups from Jimmy Johns in our cupboard, but I have no idea where they came from; I just figured the girls brought them home from somewhere.

Wife (frustrated sigh):  Just shut up; you're gonna make me have to pee.

The interesting question, here, is how can two people who have been in a 30 year relationship have a conversation that is so totally disjointed?  We were in the same car, in the same traffic, and in the end were looking at the same object of discussion, yet for the entire conversation we seemed to be talking about two different things.  

Now, if you were to ask my wife (and I imagine any wife would concur with this), she would say that I just wasn't paying attention to what she said.

This might have been true, at first, as I was looking in another direction, but as the conversation went on I knew what we were talking about, but I am still, 48 hours later, not sure why we were talking about it.  

On the other hand, though, if two people were completely in sync 100 percent of the time, how boring would that be?

Just Another Season (the new book) is available!

After a little wrestling and wrangling with Amazon.com, Just Another Season, my second novel, is now up and available on Amazon.com.  The delay is entirely my own fault; I had a bit of a difficult time finding a cover picture that I liked.  Also, as related before, I had much grief coming up with a title.

Just Another Season is the best I could come up with, and I think it's actually appropriate to the story.

I should thank Kid 2 for the cover photograph.  I needed a small high school football stadium, of which we have very few, here in the DFW Dirtyplex, so she volunteered to skulk around the local stadium where she lives in East Texas and take some pictures.

I still have the long term goal of seeing these books published by traditional means, but it's dream that's fading, thanks in large part to Amazon.com and it's incredibly user-friendly method of self publishing.

I did send Carlos Came Home to a whole slew o'agents and publishers some years ago, but was largely ignored by the mainstream publishing industry (objectively speaking, I can't say that I blame them), but publishing something electronically these days is really easy, so I find that I spend less and less time thinking of  the traditional route to publishing success.

Inspiration from the story came largely from my wife and I following our daughters all over Texas while they were in high school marching bands and playing on various teams.  Just sitting and quietly listening to teenagers will be an inspirational exercise to anyone.

Anyway, here's the link...Just Another Season.  You can read a few chapters for free.  I'd love some feedback, friends!