AFC South Champs

Our Houston Texans ended up winning the AFC South, and will host Indianapolis next Saturday in the first wild card playoff game.  Anyone who says they expected them to win the division after starting out 0 and 3, is just lying.

 

64+54=18

Today, Honey and I celebrate our fifty-fourth anniversary. It was on this date in 1964 that we became husband and wife - easily the best decision of my life.

The secret of our long and successful union?  For my part it's - marry your best friend, someone who will be loving, supportive, forgiving, always in your corner - then don't die and don't do anything so outrageous it chases her off.

Thank you, Honey, for 54 wonderful years!

Living Up to Its Name

The old Boggy Thicket is living up to its name today. We had a little over an inch and a half of rain overnight, and its draining off really slowly.

2018

There is still one milestone to go - Honey and I celebrate our 54th wedding anniversary the day after tomorrow - but for all intents and purposes, 2018 is pretty well in the books. 

Looking back on the year, there were some very positive happenings and some that were very painful.  It probably balances out somewhere in the middle - for us, 2018 was probably a wash.

On the plus side - 

• Honey had successful cataract surgery last spring, and can see without glasses for the first time in over 60 years.
• We got a back porch and a pergola built, and we love it.
• I installed a shooting berm out by the woods, and really like that, too.
• We both made it through another year without any significant health issues.

Minuses -

• The Graffs, the best neighbors anyone could ever hope to have, moved to Ohio.
• All of the St Augustine grass we bought when we got the pergola is dead.  We followed the best advice we could find to the letter, and it's still as dead as if we'd sprayed it with Roundup.  
• We lost our black-and-tan dachshund, Tinker, on December third.

Here's hoping that your 2018 was at least as good, and that 2019 is better!

Christmas Camel(lias)

Our Camellias are blooming just in time for Christmas. The internet says that they can bloom anytime from fall to spring, but I don't remember them blooming for Christmas before.
Anyway, here are a couple of Christmas blooms to brighten your holiday....

Bonus

A lady named Barbara Beversdorf went to the Aransas Wildlife Refuge yesterday to try to get some pictures of Whooping Cranes.
She was at Lamar, Texas, bordering the reserve when she got this shot.

Tired

No post since Friday, but things have been happening.

The right front tire on our truck has had a very slow leak for the past month.  I'd inflate it to 45 lbs., and a week or ten days later, it would be at 28.  I pulled it off Thursday and inspected it for nails, etc. but found no punctures,  so I took it to NTB on Friday, and asked them to rotate the tires and check that one (suspected the valve).  They actually gave me a no-charge receipt, and said when they brought it back out I could just get in and go.

Then they called me back in to look at the tire.  

Soapy water revealed three tiny leaks - all in a row along the center line of the tire.  They said they could try to patch them, but the pattern indicated an internal failure that could prove catastrophic.

$250 later, with a new tire and a new receipt, I headed for the barber shop. At least my haircut didn't involve any unexpected expenses.

Safety Message

Window Dressing

We have a window box over the kitchen sink that houses three orchids and a couple of spider webs.  Lately, it has also had at least two, usually three, lizards hiding out between the screen and the glass.  I can only assume they catch enough to eat since they are always there.

Mnemonics

I was talking yesterday about things we learn and remember, even when we never use them in our lives.  
Here's another example for you - in tech school we were taught a mnemonic to help us remember the order and value of color bars on resistors.  I can still remember the mnemonic, but pulling up colors and their values takes some thought.  
The mnemonic was:
Bad Boys Rape Our Young Girls But Violet Gives Willingly (for) Gold (and) Silver, and the corresponding colors were Black, Brown, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Violet, Gray, White, Gold and Silver.

Memory

One of the answers (questions?) on Jeopardy yesterday mentioned the Boy Scouts in the clue.  The correct response, which nobody got, was Trustworthy.
Not only did I get the answer, I found myself reciting that a scout is

• Trustworthy,
• Loyal,
• Helpful,
• Friendly,
• Courteous,
• Kind,
• Obedient,
• Cheerful,
• Thrifty,
• Brave,
• Clean,
• and Reverent,

something I hadn't said out loud, or even consciously thought of, in over sixty years!

I guess there are some things you never unlearn.

Sort of a Christmas Cartoon

More Football

If you watched the Jets' first possession in yesterdays game, you probably thought it was all over, that the Texans could take this one to the bank.  The Jets not only went three and out, they lost yardage on all three plays - including J J Watt's first sack of the day.

Our home team did end up winning, 29-22, but it was a seriously ugly game - certainly not one for the weak of heart fan. Even though the Texans only trailed once (briefly) in the fourth quarter, somehow they made you feel they were right on the edge of losing the entire game.

Still it was a win, and even an ugly win looks good in the record books.

Football

The Liberty Hill Panthers won another football game last night, 44-41, in a game that came down to the final seconds. The win ended the Carthage Bulldogs' run at a third straight title and a seventh state championship.

My grandson, Nash Robinson, plays for Liberty Hill, and the championship game being played at AT&T Stadium next week will be icing on the cake.  He is a life long Cowboys fan (can't help it, it's his father's fault) and playing in their stadium has to be a dream come true.

They'll meet Waco La Vega in the state championship game, and it won't be easy.  La Vega won their semifinal game against Decatur by a score of 53 to nothing!  

Anniversary Dinner

Joined our old pals, the Sheltons, for dinner last night to celebrate our anniversaries.  We went to Shogun for the hibachi - the good  Shogun in Atascosita, not the poor imitation recently opened in Valley Ranch. Our cook last night was a Filipino of Chinese ancestry, but he cooked as fine a meal as any Japanese chef.
Travis and Cheryl were married on December 18, 1964, and Honey and I were married ten days later.  I was his Best Man, and he was mine.  
If we were being extremely picky, we would dine on December 23, but that day always seems to interfere with Christmas parties, preparations, etc.  Besides, after 54 years, we can pick any day in December and be off by about one half of one percent-  31 days divided by 54 years is 0.574, but if you divide by 648 months, it equals 0.0478.

Stop It!

I have absolutely no artistic ability myself, but have an inordinate number of highly talented Facebook Friends.  Most of them paint, but some also work in other media.
This is for all of them....

Unfriend

I decided to "unfriend" someone on Facebook today.  

Not because of political rants, but because he had become obsessive about posting all the details of every segment of his life - too much information posted much too often.  It had become impossible to open Facebook without seeing two or three posts from this person on every page.

I had never actually met this individual, but I had followed him through failing health, an almost fatal heart attack and a divorce - I actually worried about him, and wished him well.  I was pleased when he seemed to have recovered and appeared to be getting his life back on track, but somewhere along the way he seems to have lost his mind - or at least his appreciation for what might be appropriate to share with the rest of mankind on an hourly basis.

I still wish him well, but he is going to have to live his life without me in the grandstands.

East Fork

FM 1485 is closed at the East Fork of the San Jacinto River due to high water.  It is following a pretty typical pattern - a day or so after heavy rains, the river comes out of its banks and crosses the road.  It seems counterintuitive that the road doesn't flood until the rains are gone and the sky is blue, but it takes 24 hours for all the water upstream to make it to this point.

I've watched this happen for over 40 years, and every time it happens I wonder why they don't just build the road a foot and a half higher - maybe add a couple sets of culverts.

Another Holiday Post

Ugly Weather - Sweet Memories

Today is a windy, overcast day with a forecast high temperature in the 40s - generally speaking, it's just an ugly day with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
I started to say that I have always hated days like this, and then I remembered that one day....

The summer before, while installing air conditioning at the Chambers County Courthouse and Jail, my dad had become friends with the County Sheriff and the local Game Warden.  It was a day just like this when they took us out into the rice fields south of Anahuac to hunt geese.  
We all got our limit, and it is one of my fondest memories of time spent with my father.

Christmas Music

Every year I try to post a Christmas song to help you counteract the effects of hour upon hour of Little Drummer Boy.  
This year, I considered something from an album of Filipino Christmas favorites, but settled on Hey Sis, it's Christmas from RuPaul's Christmas album.

G H W Bush Funeral

This picture is just about the only view of the George H W Bush funeral that was not shown on TV.  It's a shot from inside the train car that carried his casket to Aggieland yesterday, and it shows a few of the thousands who lined the train tracks to pay their respects.

After days of around-the-clock coverage, I came away with two opposing feelings - I was impressed by the pomp, the precision of the military and the eloquence of those who eulogized the late president, and I am more convinced than ever that I do not want a funeral of any sort.

Honey and I agreed years ago that we did not want funeral services.  I had felt that way for quite a while, but I think she actually said it first. If we didn't include this in our wills, we should have - please consider this formal notice.

I realize that funerals are not actually for the dead, but for those left behind, and that's OK.  But - if you have something to say to or about me, I'd rather you say it now.

Farewell Sweet Girl

Last Tuesday , I wrote about our black and tan dachshund, Tinker, and how we were afraid she was about to leave us.  Unfortunately, our fears were justified.

In spite of several trips to the vet, she continued to go downhill.  We had another appointment scheduled for this morning, but after this past weekend decided she had suffered enough.  I took her in yesterday and had her euthanized.  Her passing was quiet and dignified, and I brought her home and buried her at the edge of our woods.

Tinker loved everyone, but she was Honey's dog from the day we got her -  her constant companion for over fourteen years. Now she is waiting at the Rainbow Bridge...