Trick or Treat.......

Gorgeous night for Halloween..... nice and warm and no humidity. We've had bunches of little kids come to the door-- all in great costumes. There was a little girl with a Juice-Box costume, very nicely made, except the little girl was so small that the box overwhelmed her and it wasn't comfortable. So her mom carried the costume and held it up next to her while the little girl said Trick or Treat!

There was also Spiderman and more than three Batman costumes, a pretty red ladybug, a pink princess, a black and white princess, a Lemony Snicket character, a bunch of hippies, and four soldiers. The best were two brothers-- the older one was dressed up in a hot-dog costume, and the little one was a bag of fries. Most of the costumes were homemade and very well done.

When the trick-or-treating started, we had to put Gracie in the laundry room. She barked the first few times the bell rang, but then got tired of barking and just settled down to sleep. The cats are all in the screen-porch... I never trust them not to run out the door while we're holding it open and giving out candy and surprises. I had lots of Halloween pencils this year, and the kids love them. My husband couldn't believe how excited they got over pencils-- I think it's just the "surprise" factor that they're getting something besides candy.

All of the little kids came with parents-- our curfew laws don't allow kids to go trick-or-treating door to door without a parent. One of the fathers was dressed up in a "Whoopie Cushion" costume... he had a little buzzer in his hand and when he pressed the button, the costume let out the appropriate noises.

Trick-or-Treating starts at dark here, and goes on for just two hours. By nine o'clock, all the kids have to be back in their homes. My husband and I were talking about Halloween when we were kids.... you got into your costume right after you got home from school. Out you went for Trick-or-Treating, then you went home for a quick dinner and an empty shopping bag--- then out you went again to all the places you didn't get to the first time.

There are lots of Halloween parties here, with the ones for kids held on Halloween afternoon or Halloween night. Most of the parents don't even let their kids go door-to-door, except to neighbors right close to their own homes. Along with the fun of Halloween, there is a certain sadness that it isn't as carefree a holiday as it was years ago.

My husband and I went out to lunch to the Thai restaurant today, then stopped at the bank on the way home. Every bank employee was either dressed up in full costume, or dressed in a Halloween-themed shirt or blouse. I didn't stop at the supermarket today, or any of the other stores, but I'm sure every employee was in some sort of Halloween costume or outfit.

I'm guessing that the adults have as much fun as the kids with the costumes, which is proven every year at our own Halloween party. I was looking through old issues of Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion magazine---- lots of ideas for decorations and table settings that I can't wait to try next year.

Most of our Halloween decorations have already been put away. The only ones still out are on the front porch and in the living room. Before this weekend is over, those will be packed away...... and next week, the Christmas decorations will start to come out. It will take nearly a month to decorate this entire house and get ready for our big Christmas party in December.

This year is going by very quickly. Jingle bells......

All snapped out.

The early cold front has come and gone quickly, and now we're back to our normal weather-- in the 80s during the day and 60-something degrees at night. The leaves on the trees are bright green, with hardly any change at all. Depending on the trees, we usually don't get many autumn-colored leaves here. The oak trees are the ones that drop their leaves, but it seems to happen all at once in mid-January when the leaves get to be a light gold color. Within 30 to 45 days or so, the oaks are re-budding and soon covered with green leaves again.

All the roses are still in bloom, as well as the hibiscus and mostly all of the azaelas. They will all bloom again in December, as long as we don't get another frigid cold snap between now and then. Hate those cold snaps.

Speaking of December.... I read in The Chronicle this morning that Galveston Island is planning to have their usual "Dickens on The Strand" Christmas festival. The article said this year's celebration will be like the "Dickens" carnivals of many years ago, when there were just street-vendors all along the Strand area of the Island. That was before all the vintage buildings were turned into trendy and touristy shops, boutiques, and restaurants. All those vintage buildings are still there, but have sustained major damage (six to twelve feet of floodwater) because of Hurricane Ike. Mostly all of the shop owners have counted up their losses and cut the strings that tied them to Galveston. For this year's "Dickens," mostly all of the shops will be closed up and empty. The Island is determined to carry on with their Christmas traditions, with or without the shops.

"Dickens" certainly will be different this year, but if they do have the festival, I think we should go. Sooner or later (most likely later), the island of Galveston will once again be back to its beachy carefree self. Until then, we all need to rally round Galveston. Let's face it-- if no one crosses the bridge from the mainland to the island, Galveston will be just a thin strip of land floating in the Gulf.

An early cold snap.

Stupid weather. The temperature dropped to 49 degrees last night, and the high today is only going to be around 70. This usually doesn't happen till late November... the weather gods are not being kind. But on the bright side, the temperature will be back to normal by tomorrow... 60 degrees at night, 80 during the day. The trick-or-treaters will not have to wear sweaters after all.

The cats had to sleep inside last night... too cold on the screen porch. I don't know if it's cold for them, or cold for me, but my reasoning is that if I can't sit on that porch and be comfortable, then neither can the cats. When the cats sleep inside, my sleep is sporadic at best. AngelBoy was in the laundry room and he took a while to get used to that idea, not having slept in there since January or February. It usually goes like this-- I put him in there with his little bed and his food and water dishes, then I close the door. Within two minutes, he's banging against the door with his paws. Back in there I go.... and he gives me the sad blue-eyed kitty look. I'll be good, really... please let me out of here. I don't trust that blue-eyed cat. So we repeat the closing of the door and the banging of the paws on the door two more times before he settles down. That cat doesn't like closed doors, plus the laundry room has always been his "time-out room."

Mickey Kitty slept on my pillow and ShadowBaby slept near the bottom of the bed, twice walking straight up my body to put his nose next to my nose-- Are you sleeping? Don't you want to get up now? That cat weighs about 18 pounds... there's no describing how heavy he feels as he walks up my legs and up my chest and sits near my neck. And sometimes, if he's too tired himself to walk back to the foot of the bed, he plops himself down on top of my chest and buries his head into the side of my neck. I can see the headlines now: "Clear Lake Woman Dies of Suffocation by Cat."

The pet-voting signs are popular on our street. Not only do we have a Gracie For President sign in front of our house, but my husband made up a Vote For Ranger sign and a Vote For Astro sign for two of our dog-loving neighbors. One neighbor told my husband that her dog Astro now has five votes-- all from neighborhood kids. My husband was going to make signs for all the dogs we know, but it would have taken him way too much time.

Our neighbors are still talking about the Halloween party. It was the perfect way to celebrate the end of the hurricane season, for one thing, and all the neighbors got to see one another and talk about how lucky we all were to have escaped major damage from Ike. Out of all the parties we give during the year, the Halloween get-together is the most fun. I think it's the costumes-- people can be silly and outrageous, without consequences.

I have de-Halloweened most of the inside of the house, being that I had so many decorations up for the party. It still looks like Halloween in here, and I won't take anything else down till this weekend. All the pumpkins on the front porch are still fine, except that we had to replace one of the small pumpkins the day before the party. I had gone out there to get the mail that day and noticed that a swarm of flies were hovering above one of the pumpkins on the wrought iron sculpture-- that particular pumpkin was in direct sunlight and had started to bake in the heat. My husband went to Kroger and got another one, and I carefully lifted the squishy pumpkin off of the sculpture and put it in the trash. The flies weren't happy about that and followed me all the way down the driveway to the trash cans.

I guess the warmest part of the day will be around noon-time, so I will have to keep wrapped up in sweaters till then. We've turned on the heat in the house, the first time since February. I walked early yesterday, after lunch, because I thought it would be too cold after dinner, which it was. You get so spoiled with warm weather, I swear.

Dancing With The Stars--- if Cloris Leachman doesn't get voted off tonight, I swear I will just scream. She should have left a few weeks ago, but I'm guessing that all the senior citizens are calling up to vote for her every week. It surely isn't her great dancing that is keeping her on that show. One of the judges was very honest last night, telling Cloris that "We lost Toni Braxton last week so we could watch this!"-- and "this" was in reference to Cloris ridiculous Cha-Cha attempt. Give us all a blessed break. Tell Cloris to go home.

The day after...

Our Halloween party broke up around midnight last night, and what a party it was. We started at 6:00 -- because some of our friends live downtown and the later the party starts, the later it ends, so early is best for our group.

The costumes were amazing, but we say that every year. First place couple went to our friends C & L-- they dressed up as Gomez and Morticia from the Addams Family... C went all out with her knee-length black wig, black fingernail polish, white-white makeup, and the cut-fringe on the hem of her long black dress. Her husband L used spray-on black hair dye to cover his gray hair, plus he grew a mustache and sideburns and sprayed them black as well. They always go all out for our parties-- C's covered dish was a witch's cauldron filled with chili-- the black cauldron sat on a huge platter covered with spider-webbing, spiders, eyeballs that lit up, and tiny black bats. She also made cornbread fingers and buttermilk rolls in the shapes of bones.

Sexiest Costume went to D, who dressed up as Liza Minelli-- complete with black sequined short dress and black feather boa, black stockings and heels, false eyelashes trimmed with glitter, loads of rhinestone jewelry, plus she had her hair cut and styled like Liza's. We also gave a Sexiest 2nd place to L, who was dressed in a red flapper dress, black feather boa, flapper hat with a feather, and lots of faux jewels and pearls.

Miss C got a prize for the Funniest Costume-- she came dressed up as a bag of jelly beans. She took a huge clear plastic bag, made slits for her legs, arms, and her head, then filled up the bag with loads of multi-colored oval-shaped balloons. She wore a red sweatshirt and red slacks underneath all of that, but with so many balloons covering her, you could hardly even see the red clothing. She squished when she walked, and it was hard for her to sit down-- she had to keep re-adjusting all the jelly beans.

Our friend J from the antique shop came dressed up as Dracula... long black cape, white gloves, white shirt and black vest. J has had his heart surgery (pacemaker) up in Austin, which is where he was evacuated to just before Ike hit-- he had been in a hospital in Galveston, awaiting surgery, but found himself up in Austin when they had to evacuate the Island. Austin was the best thing that could have happened for J--- they did his surgery, didn't make him wait, and took such good care of him that he now looks better than he ever did.

Another friend came dressed up as a 1950s nurse.... complete with that triangle-shaped hat they used to wear (which she made herself) and a vintage nurse's dress that she found on the Internet. She bought a fake stethoscope and had an RN nameplate made up for herself-- so we gave her a prize for the most authentic costume.

L's husband came dressed as an astronaut; J was also Morticia, but not as elaborately dressed as C was; V was a witch (with her black and orange-feathered hat that she won here at last year's Halloween party); S came dressed up as a football referee and kept blowing his whistle to get everyone's attention. (V told S that she was going to "bury that dang whistle in the bayou" first chance she got.) Those were the more elaborate costumes... everyone else had on Halloween colors and/or Halloween-themed shirts or tops (holiday themes are big here in all of the clothing stores).

My husband's costume was an idea he got from the Internet..... he made himself a large horseshoe-shaped magnet-- cut out of poster board that was about 1/4" thick. Then he printed out the magnet-shape on his computer-- a red magnet with silver ends, just like those vintage magnets. He glued that colored shape onto the board... then glued about a dozen of those small yellow fuzzy Easter baby chicks to both ends of the magnet--- he was a "Chick Magnet." Great idea, very funny, and everyone laughed at the great costume.

When my husband decided to be a Chick Magnet, he asked me if I would consider dressing up like a little yellow chicken, to go with his costume. Are you out of your mind? That is definitely not me. But then I got to thinking.... no way would I dress up like a yellow chicken..... but I could dress up like a "chick" wearing yellow.

So off I went to all the thrift shops and resale shops in the area, looking for yellow clothes. I didn't want to try the department stores because I didn't want to spend a fortune on a yellow outfit, since I usually don't wear anything yellow and knew I wouldn't be wearing those clothes again. I did look on eBay, and found a beautiful yellow gown, but the bidding went up too high, plus I wasn't sure about the size.

In one consignment shop, I found a pair of yellow capris-- perfect. In a thrift shop, I found a cute yellow top. At another resale shop, I bought a yellow sweater, just in case the weather got cool-- which it didn't... it was 85 degrees yesterday. When I got home, I tried on the yellow top with the yellow capris, along with a pair of beige-y gold heels. Perfect.... except for my hair--- all those yellow clothes with my dark hair just wouldn't do. The next day, I went to the costume shop and bought a blonde wig..... long blonde waves, on sale for just $16. Plus, I found an orange/yellow feather boa-- more than perfect. Back home I went, to try on all the yellow clothes with the wig and the boa.... really chick. I added a long orange-beaded necklace, long dangling orange and gold earrings.... My idea of a little yellow chick.

I didn't tell my husband about the outfit, and surprised him yesterday afternoon when I got dressed up for the party. He laughed out loud, absolutely loved the costume.... and asked me "Where did you get that hair?" At the party, my husband went to the door every time our friends came, so after they laughed at his Chick Magnet costume, they laughed harder at me dressed up like a yellow chick. So of course they told him that his magnet really worked.

Half of our friends told me that the blonde hair just wasn't me (I agree).... the other half said I should wear the wig when Gary and I go out (not going to happen). Just about everyone said I should let my hair grow longer (I'm thinking about that one), but keep it my own color (most definitely). The wig is now in the plastic bin along with all the costume stuff we've collected over the years. I'm sure I will wear that wig again, but only for a costume party.

I told my husband that blondes really don't have more fun..... I still had to clean up after the party, even with the blonde wig. Our dog didn't seem to notice the change in my hair yesterday, but our cats surely did. Mickey Kitty wouldn't come near me when I had that wig on, and the two older cats just gave me wide-eyed looks that seemed to say She has really lost it this time.

The party was so much fun that it was worth all the work, all the decorating, all the attention to the countless details that go into such a large party. Last night felt like the real Halloween..... the 31st will feel like an after-thought, unless we get a lot of Trick-or-Treaters coming round. There were very few last year, and the number of trick-or-treating kids seems to decrease with every Halloween.

The day before...

This is always the day when I ask myself "Why are we having this party and why did we invite so many people?"

But that doesn't last too long.... as soon as the first few people get here, those pity-party feelings go away. This particular party has been a lot of work, but the house has never looked more Halloween-y. Orange and black crape paper swirls are in the living room, dining room, breakfast room and kitchen. And if I hadn't run out of crape paper, I probably would have hung up more.

I found a black and orange tablecloth on eBay.... orange silky background with black spiders and spider webs all over it. Magical on the dining room table, and the punch bowl sitting in the middle of it will be filled with an orange/pineapple punch tomorrow night.

We have a huge pumpkin for people to guess the weight of, plus a crystal vase filled with Hershey kisses (to guess the number of), and a tiny glass bottle filled with chocolate-covered sunflower seeds (also to guess the number of). Prizes for all three of those, plus ribbons and prizes for best costumes (one for a man, one for a woman), and a prize for the funniest costume, and most original costumes (both first and second place for that one).

There will also be a game with little plastic yellow ducks "dressed" in Halloween costumes. Each duck has a number on it, with its corresponding number in a pumpkin bowl. The first number picked gets to pick a gift out of a large basket. The second number called gets to chose either the first gift or pick a new gift from the basket. There are eight gifts in the basket, so that should make the trading/taking of the gifts interesting and fun. We will also play Charades after all of that, with all of the categories being connected to Halloween.

The living room looks like a restaurant, with three tables set up; the breakfast room is also set up with tables. Between sofas, tables and chairs in both rooms, we have seating for 28. The dining room table will be set up as the buffet, which is all decked out in black and orange as well. The whole house is decorated in black and orange, starting with the front porch, and ending in the guest bathroom.

As for me, I've been on my feet since breakfast. Lots of last minute things to do tomorrow morning, then I plan to be in my costume by the early afternoon. Last thing to do will be to polish my nails. Haven't had nail polish on since we got back from evacuating for Hurricane Ike. I'll relax tomorrow while my nails are drying, and sit down and put my feet up, before I put on my heels.

Between the hurricane and the elections, the conversations tomorrow night should be interesting, to say the least. Speaking of elections.... there is now a sign outside our house that says "Vote for Gracie for President." There is another that says "Vote for Dracula for Count," and yet another that says "Vote Green... Vote for Frankenstein." The Dracula and Frankenstein signs have great photos on them. My husband has also been very busy these last couple of days.

It's going to be a great party.........

Early Voting.

Yesterday was the first day of Early Voting, and the machines were set up in our local library. I got there around 10:30 in the morning and in less than half an hour, I was in the building and at the machine and casting my vote.

I had brought a book to read while I waited on line because I didn't want to get into any sort of "Who are you voting for?" discussion while I was waiting, nor did I want to take pamphlets from the campaigners for the local people running for office. I kept my nose in my book and didn't look up till I got into the community room of the library.

I was happy to have that done, and glad not to have to wait till Election Day, when I know the lines will be longer, the campaigners more aggressive, and there will be even more signs posted on the library lawns. There must be thousands of signs there now, popping up like dandelions all over the lawn. Should be a law against all those signs.... they're just a legal form of litter, in my opinion.

In our subdivision, according to the community association rules, we're not supposed to have signs of any sort stuck into our lawns or in front of our homes. The only exceptions are "For Sale" signs by registered real estate companies. Come election time, however, that no-sign rule goes out the window, and homeowners feel the need to tell the world who they're voting for and put not just one political sign on their lawn but sometimes two or three. And some signs do get stolen, for goodness sake, which surprises me, since we live in a subdivision where all sorts of pretty lawn ornaments are all over the front gardens of just about every house. No one ever touches any of those, but the political signs seem to be exempt from the "Thou shalt not steal" commandment. One of my neighbors put a red-lettered note on her political sign: Free speech is a wonderful thing. If y'all steal my sign again, I will just get another one.

I told my husband a couple of weeks ago (when the signs started going up on our street) that we should make our own red/white/blue sign that says "Vote For Gracie... dog biscuits for everyone!" If my husband hadn't been so busy, he probably would have gotten creative with his computer and made up such a sign.

As for me, I've been too busy getting ready for the Halloween party to be making up Vote For Gracie signs. The inside of this house looks as Halloween-y as it can possibly look. I've added so many Halloween decorations this year that I had to spend an afternoon rearranging my storage closets, so all of these pumpkins and black cats and little ghosts can be put away in one place when Halloween is over. The best decorations are the vintage ones, which I got for such a little amount of money in the thrift and resale shops.

This year is going by so quickly. Once these Halloween decorations go back into their closet, the Christmas things come out. It takes so long to decorate the whole house for Christmas that I just by-pass Thanksgiving, with just the dining room table getting Thanksgiving decorations. The rest of the house will be all Christmas-ed out before I even buy the turkey.

Turkey. I really don't like turkey. Couldn't the pilgrims have had more imagination for Thanksgiving? Like shrimp or lobster?

W.

We drove downtown yesterday to see the movie "W." with K and B. The "W" in this case stands for "What?!" -- as in How did we ever elect this idiot to not only one but two terms? And, I'm sorry to say, I was one of the fools who voted for Georgie W, as my husband likes to remind me. My only excuse for that vote was that I thought Georgie was the lesser of two idiots. After seeing this movie, I no longer believe that. Can we have a do-over on that vote?

After the movie, we all went to a Turkish cafe for dinner. Delicious food there-- all the best restaurants are now downtown, being that the waterfront restaurants here still aren't opened yet. And it will be a while till they're ready to open, I'm sure.

While we were waiting for dinner, K said "Name one good thing that W did for the country while he's been in office." I told K that he got the country ready to finally accept a black president.


I drove across town this afternoon, and what used to take no more than ten or fifteen minutes took nearly forty. The traffic on the main road was absolutely horrible-- and there was no road work going on, this was all just traffic, with most of the cars headed to the mall. I hate malls. Always have, and I don't think that's going to change anytime soon.

The traffic was so backed up, and the street lights were so out of sync, that I took the first left turn that I could and tried to get to where I was going by taking the back roads, driving through some of the shopping centers along the Gulf Freeway. Well, I wasn't the only one who had that idea, so the traffic going through the shopping centers was bumper to bumper as well.

This town has grown too large, too quickly, and it's filling up with ticky-tacky shopping centers and town home complexes. I love that phrase-- ticky-tacky. I wish I could take credit for that, but it's not mine... I read it in The Chronicle-- someone else was complaining about all the "ticky-tacky town homes" that are being built all over town. Happy to know that I'm not the only one who has taken note of that. My question now is "Do the Powers That Be realize how they are changing this town by letting in every builder who wants to stack up some bricks?"

On the bright side... I found a 25th anniversary edition of "Up the Down Staircase" by Bel Kaufman in the bookstore today-- just one dollar for this beautiful edition of that book. I can still remember taking that book out of the library when I was a teenager. I liked it so much that I read it once a year, for the four years that I was in high school. Reading habits never die, I guess. I'm still re-reading favorite books, as well as trying to keep up with the new ones. Never enough time to read everything, no matter how much you read. Especially when you're stuck in ticky-tacky traffic for forty minutes on such a beautiful day.

One woman's trash is the same woman's treasure...

The day before we had to evacuate because of Hurricane Ike, we walked around our front and back yards to collect all the "ornaments" I have found at garage sales over the years. With each tropical storm and hurricane, I have carried that stuff from the lawn to the garage, and each time, after the storm passes, fewer of those items find their way back to their original places.

With the threat of Ike, and the wind velocity and the storm surge we expected, I wasn't happy about carrying all those cute little things into the garage. I knew I couldn't leave them out there, because they would become missiles in the wind, and heaven only knew whose window they'd go flying through when the worst of the storm was over our house.

So into the garage went the wrought iron bird house that sits atop a flower and butterfly studded tree branch that's as tall as I am. Right next to it went the wrought iron sculpture that was once a vintage floor lamp but was spray-painted and used as a display for everything from Christmas ornaments to little wooden birdhouses. Next came my parade of ceramic ducks, all happy and smiling, my Quackernackle Choir, as I've always called them. Those little treasures were kept company by all the lawn furniture from the open deck and the back yard. Everything went into the garage, safe and sound and free from flying winds and pouring rains. All of that stuff filled up the half of the garage where I usually keep my car, which was empty because we took both cars with us when we left here.

When we came back to our (thankfully, blessedly, gratefully) un-touched-by-Ike home, before I could put my car back into the garage, I had to remove all those things that were taking up the car's space. Out came the lawn furniture, out came the happy little ducks. Three pieces of plastic lawn furniture went out to the curb-- they were just decorative, for the back lawn, never sat in by anyone other than a couple of raccoons passing through the yard in search of a midnight snack. The next day, my neighbor V carried those three plastic pieces into her yard, hosed them off and brought them to her college-student daughter who put them on the small balcony of her apartment. I told V that had I known she wanted them, she could have had them a long time ago. I also told her that they weren't sturdy enough for anyone over 78 pounds.

The wrought iron pieces (the tall birdhouse and the vintage sculpture) had been favorite treasures of mine from yard sales and flea markets. The birdhouse stands nearly as tall as I do, a simple little birdhouse complete with a wrought iron bird sitting on a perch, atop a tree branch that is embellished with leaves and butterflies. It stands upright because the bottom of the branch splits into three legs. I had found that at the flea market up in Winnie, and over the years I have spray-painted it green, ivory, gold, then ivory again. It has stood in our breakfast room, in the screen porch, in the front garden, and in the back yard. Did I want to put that out again-- it needed to be re-painted.... and then have to bring it into the garage again when the next storm comes along. Out to the curb it went, along with the tree branches that had fallen into our driveway.

The vintage wrought iron thing that I call a "sculpture" came from a yard sale. It had been a floor lamp (as tall as me) and after I bought it for just a few dollars, I had to cut out all the old wiring when I got it home. My husband had asked me what I was going to do "with that thing." At the time, I told him I didn't know, but it was pretty, and interesting, and it would look good just as it was, without it being a floor lamp. Out came the spray paint, and I painted it ivory, with splashes here and there of gold. It has all sorts of heart-shaped curlicues, and four round cup-like spots where the bulbs would have gone if it had still been a lamp. When I had my shop in the antique co-op years ago, I would use it to display vintage linens and doilies. I had to put a sign on the wrought iron "sculpture," telling one and all that it wasn't for sale-- everyone wanted to buy it because it was so unique.

No one knew what they would use it for, but everyone thought it was pretty and interesting and one-of-a-kind. After I left the shop, that sculpture has been in my sitting room, in the breakfast room, the front porch, the back porch. Its last place, pre-Ike, had been underneath the Live Oak in the back corner of the garden. I filled the little "cups" with birdseed and the squirrels and the birds just loved it. After Ike, I put it out on the curb, along with the other wrought iron piece and more tree branches that fell on the front lawn.

As our lawn guys cleaned up all the tree branches, those two wrought iron pieces got covered up so that you couldn't even see they were underneath. Two days before the debris removal trucks came on our street, one of our neighbors rang everyone's doorbells to tell us that the trucks were just taking tree branches, so if we had "any other broken or discarded junk" underneath the branches, we had to "get them all out from under there, dang it."

My neighbor told me this just as it was turning dark. I went out there and pulled out the two wrought iron pieces from underneath the branches. It wasn't an easy thing to do, but the neighbor helped me dig them out. "What the heck are these things anyway?" he wanted to know. "Junk, C, just junk...." is what I told him. I couldn't leave the wrought iron pieces out there on the sidewalk, so I carried them to the back of our driveway and left them laying down against the house. My plan was to toss them out on the curb again, once the regular trash trucks started their normal bi-weekly pick-ups.

Every time I drove my car into the driveway, or walked down the driveway towards the back door, I would look at those two wrought iron pieces. They both looked very sad, just laying there, and they both needed painting. I kept resisting the urge to rescue them again, and promised myself that I would carry them to the curb when the trash trucks came along. The more I saw those wrought iron pieces, the more I remembered how happy I was when I found them.

I lost the battle. I went to the hardware store one afternoon and bought some spray paint. The curlicued once-light fixture is now sitting in all its ivory and gold glory on our front porch. In each of the "cup" settings now sits a fresh pumpkin. I took some orange ribbon and purple bats and added even more Halloween-ish embellishments. It looks fabulous.

The birdcage sitting on the upright tree is now spray-painted black, and it's standing in a corner of the dining room. I hand-painted the butterflies with silver paint, and I put a touch of silver on the eye of the black bird that's sitting on the perch. I took some candy corn pieces and put those in the little cage with the bird, for a touch of Halloween. Then I took purple Mardi Gras beads and draped those over the top of the cage. It looks perfectly Halloween-y and looks better than it ever has. I will probably keep it a Halloween decoration, because of the black paint.

Unless, of course, I decide to spray it red and green for Christmas. "On the first day of Christmas... my true love gave to me... a little bird in a cage sitting in a tree...."

I'm walkin'.... yes indeed.... I'm walkin'.....

My husband was singing that old song this afternoon and now I can't get the tune out of my head. We couldn't remember all the words to the song, but we put da da da da in for the missing lyrics.

And after dinner tonight, I went walkin' with V next door. We usually walk around the path in the park-- from beginning to end, it's about two-and-a-half miles. So if you do it at a good pace, which we do, you can work up a sweat-- or an appetite, as V says.

Walking with V is always interesting. She says hello to every squirrel she sees-- her reason for this is that when squirrels take over the world, "because there's so dang many of 'em," she wants to be on their good side. That must make sense to her, because she's been talking to squirrels for years and she always gives the same reason. We don't break our pace for her quick little hello to every squirrel, but it does make for weird inserts into our conversations: "Did you see that dang McCain--- Helloooooo you cute little squirrelly-wruirrelly --- on the debate last night?"

When we were almost half-way through the path, we saw a woman sitting on one of the little bridges trying to keep two dogs by her side. We thought they were her own pets, and when one of the dogs started to follow us, we turned around and brought the dog back to her. It turned out that the dogs weren't hers-- she had called their owner (phone number on the dogs' tags) and she was waiting for the owner to get there with his car to pick them up.

V and I tried to walk away twice, but one of the dogs kept following us so we had to stay put for a few minutes. V looked at the tags on one of the dogs and saw that they lived at a house on the street behind ours. We (translation: V) offered to let the dogs follow us and we'd bring the dogs back to their house and put them into the backyard. The woman got on her cell phone and called the owner to tell him that, but he was just one street away from where we all were with his dogs, so we just started to walk towards the corner, with the dogs following us.

On the way to the end of the street, both V and I noticed that the nails on one of the dogs were way too long-- so long that some of them were curling under and the poor dog was limping because he couldn't put his paws down too hard because the nails were getting in the way. V wanted to take that dog right to her house, cut its nails, then bring it back to the owner. I told her there was no way she could do that, being that the owner had just pulled up with his car.

Then V looked at the dog's tag again, memorized the address, and vowed to just go on over there one day when the owner would be at work, and she'd cut the nails on this poor dog and no one would be the wiser. I asked her what she would do if she injured the dog's paw with the clipper? Or what if the dog bit her when she walked into that backyard? Details, she said.... too many details to think about. All she cared about was cutting those nails.

When the dogs saw their owner, they went straight to him-- the long-nailed dog limping instead of running. As the man was thanking us all for holding the dogs for him, the girl with the cell phone told him that she was the one who had called him, I told him that the female dog needed her nails cut, and V was telling the guy about a nail clipper that he could buy at PetCo. At that point, the guy opened up the door of his car, told his dogs to "Come on in, fellas!" and off they went.

We all stood there and watched. "Clueless." "Well, you're welcome!" "Why do people like that have dogs if they're not going to take care of them?" All of those comments were followed by a lot of "Tsk-tsks" and head-shaking, not to mention all three of us standing there with our hands on our hips and our toes tapping.

The guy drove away with his dogs, and we all got on with our walks. "Hellooooo little squirrelly-wruirrelly.... got yourself a little pine cone there?.... I'm gonna getcha!"

Costume changes.

After my husband decided on his costume for the Halloween party, I got to thinking that maybe I could coordinate my costume with his, so off to the stores I went today. Resale shops, thrift stores, and a costume shop.

I found everything I needed in the resale shops, so for less than $28, I'm all set with an entirely different costume than the one I had planned on a few weeks ago. I can't describe anything here till after the party, because I don't want to give away my husband's costume, and I don't want to give away the surprise I came up with for my own costume. Everyone will laugh out loud at my husband's costume idea, then when they look at me, my own get-up shouldn't need an explanation.

While I was in the resale shops, of course I found more Halloween decorations.... and how can you leave pretty Halloween plates there when they're less than fifty cents for each one? So many resale and thrift shops in this area, and they all have great stuff as long as you have the patience and the time to look for them.

The two Halloween stores in this area have lots of frightening things for a costume party. Everything from fake bodies in plastic body bags, ghouls and ghosts, headless witches, ugly pirates and bloody body parts. Not exactly my idea of a fun Halloween, and all of our friends must agree because for all the years we've had Halloween parties, no one has shown up in anything gruesome or ghastly.

All of the walking I've been doing these past few months has really paid off. The clothes I bought today for my costume are a size smaller than I usually wear. Certainly nothing ghastly about that nice little surprise in the dressing room. I was about to go out the door tonight for my walk, and the sky opened up with the third rainshower of the day. I turned on the television and exercised in the TV room while the third presidential debate was on. I watched as much of it as I could. They have both said it all before, and then some. Enough already. I wish they would just have the election so we can be done with all of this. When the signs go up for "Early Voting" in front of our local library, I swear I'm going to be one of the first on that line.

Spray-painting candles doesn't work.

I went to the local yard sales yesterday morning. Now that the tree debris is just about complete (except for the huge tree trunks that will need special cranes) life in the town is getting back to normal. And normal for Saturday morning means yard sales, every month of the year.

At the first yard sale I stopped at, young Miss C was there-- she beat me by three minutes, she said. C bought herself some arts and crafts supplies, then asked me if she could drive to the other sales with me. So we left her car parked where it was, and off we went to see what sales were in the neighborhood.

One of the local churches was having a huge outdoor sale, with scores of tables filled with all sorts of odds and ends, and it took us half an hour to wander around and look at everything. C found still more arts and crafts things, and I found two white wrought iron candlesticks. With a little spray-paint and imagination, I knew those candlesticks could be very Halloween-ish.

The candlesticks (each about 15" tall) are now spray-painted black, and with the flat-eraser tip of a pencil, I used orange paint to make happy polka-dots all over the black paint. They look very Mary Engelbreit-y. Now I have to find orange candles for them. I did find some in Pottery Ridge yesterday afternoon while we were out, but when I got to the front of the store to pay for them, there were 357 people on line, so I left the candles right there and walked out of the store. Do these stores realize that they are wasting your time when they don't hire enough help? (Or is there not enough help for them to hire?)

I have a box of ivory candles in my closet (from yet another yard sale) and I took my can of orange spray-paint this afternoon and tried to change two of those ivory candles into orange ones-- it doesn't work. The spray-paint doesn't stick to the candles and all you get is a gloppy mess. Into the trash they went. I refuse to wait 45 minutes on a line at Pottery Ridge for a three-dollar package of orange candles. I'll peek into Walgreens this week and see if they have some orange tapers.

C is still deciding on what kind of costume to make for the Halloween party. She came up with two very creative ideas, both of which would be fun to do, but she still has to decide which one she wants to wear for the whole night. In addition to coming to our Halloween party, C will be hosting her own party on Halloween night-- she has invited her friends to come to her house in costume, and they'll eat snacks and watch scary movies. C and her friends are all high school seniors, and it's nice that sweet snacks and scary movies are "frightful" enough for them on Halloween night.

Galveston

We drove over to Galveston yesterday, and even though we had seen pictures of the destruction in The Chronicle, seeing it with our own eyes was even more devastating. Even before we got all the way over the bridge, we could see the remains of the homes left on Tiki Island. Nearly every home there had some sort of damage, some worse than others, but Ike left his mark on all of them.

Once we got over the bridge, the first thing that welcomed us was the long row of palms along the esplanade on Broadway-- but they were all dead. Every one of them was still standing, but they were brown and brittle and salt-water soaked. Those palms were the crowns of Broadway for Galveston, and heaven only knows how many decades they've been there.

The two biggest Victorian mansions on Broadway (Moody Mansion and Ashton Villa) both had flooding in their first-floor rooms, but the caretakers were able to bring all the antique furniture to the second and third floors before the storm hit. Both mansions are closed to the public now, but will re-open when the main floors are safe to walk on again.

All of the shops, stores, and restaurants along Galveston's Strand are closed. Most of them now have "for lease" signs posted on their doors. Some were being repaired as we drove by, still others were boarded up and seemed not to have been opened since Ike passed through.

Driving along the seawall of Galveston, we could see what was left of the shops and restaurants that had dared to be built on stilts over the Gulf. We could see the stilts of a few, but nothing else was left. There was a restaurant there called The Ocean Grill that has just disappeared-- nothing left of it at all. A souvenir shop called "Murdocks" is mostly gone, with just some of its outer boards standing on what's left of its stilts. One good windstorm will bring the rest of it down into the waves.

We drove along the beach road where the seawall ends, and the only houses still standing on that side of the Island are the ones built within the last ten years. All of the older, wooden homes are gone. Just gone, as if they had not even been there at all. We didn't drive far along that side of the Island. It was just too sad to see, and we felt as if we shouldn't be there anyway, looking at the losses of the Islanders.

Nearer to the Strand area, there are homes still standing, just barely. Mostly all of the furnishings that were once inside those old houses are now piled up outside on the curb, all of it having been flooded by salt-water and damaged beyond repair. There are hand painted "No trespassing" signs on some of the houses. And on one large piece of property, in front of a very damaged ocean-facing home, there was a huge hand painted-on-sheetrock sign that said "Shooting to Kill."

All the Galveston activities and attractions have been cancelled and closed until further notice. Until the Island can get back on its feet. Until the shops and the restaurants can open, until all the streets have electricity again, until everyone (or mostly everyone) comes back to claim their part of this beachy, sandy, quirky little Island sitting next to the Gulf.

As we drove home, we again realized how very, very lucky we were not to have lost anything but a roof vent during Ike's rampage.

Pre-Halloween lunch.

Miss C came over for lunch today, inbetween her classes at school. Depending on her weekly schedule, she sometimes gets a lunch period and a study period back-to-back. Being that she's a senior now, C can sign herself out of the school and drive herself home, or to our house, then go back to school for the rest of her classes. C had called me on my cell phone yesterday, to ask if she could eat her lunch here yesterday, but I was at J's antique shop when she called and said You're not home! Where are you!?

So we arranged a lunch date today, and I surprised her with a Halloween lunch, being that part of her plan was to look through my Halloween magazines and books so we could decide what to cook and/or bake for the party. When C walked into our breakfast room, I had the table set with pumpkin plates and napkins, a witch centerpiece, yellow tea cups that matched the orange and yellow plates, plus I made the turkey and cheese biscuits that she likes.

And we can't have a lunch party if we don't have place cards and favors, so I made those too--- yellow place cards with orange and black pumpkins, plus little paper candy cups in orange and brown. I had found these candy/nut cups on eBay, and was surprised that they're still being made. I remember them from the 1950s-- my Aunt Dolly always had them for all the holidays, in all different colors. That was a little "favor" for everyone in the family, and it was my job to fill up the paper basket-cups with small candies or nuts. "Use that spoon now... don't touch the candy with your fingers.... but wash your hands first before you touch anything!"

Miss C hadn't ever seen these little paper baskets before and she thought they were just "too cute." I filled ours up with orange and yellow M&Ms, plus I put a white "Peep" ghost into each little basket. One thing about these Peeps-- no matter how many years go by, they always taste just the same as they did twenty, thirty or forty years ago. They must have very good quality control at those Peep factories. One half of one Peep is about all I can manage... they're very sweet, but they are cute.

We had our lunch, and our tea, then C paged through the Halloween books. I think she picked out seventeen recipes that she wants to try for the party. I told her she'll have to look again, and whittle those choices down to two or three. Everyone else will be bringing food for the potluck dinner, so I don't have to plan on feeding thirty people. C is also going to have a Halloween party at her house, on Halloween night, so I told her she could borrow my books and make some of those recipes for her friends. When she went back to school, she was carrying her little candy basket, and planning to tell her friends how Aunt Dolly used to give those to the family when I was a kid. C loves to hear all the Aunt Dolly stories, and she will ask me from time to time to take out the old pictures so she can see everyone.

The weather has changed just a tiny bit now. We're still having warm sunny days up in the high 90s, but the nights are cooling off some. Too cool for Mickey Kitty, who didn't want to sleep on the screen-porch last night. I opened the porch door for him and he raced into the house and down the hall to our bedroom. Up onto our bed he jumped, right between the pillows. He spent half the night literally wrapped around my husband's head, then he moved over and spent the other half of the night on top of my pillow.

I was paging through one of my "Autumn" books yesterday and I found that quote--- "There are only two way to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is." The person who said that.... Albert Einstein.

The Angels are Bowling.

We're having thunderstorms this morning-- the first raindrops to fall out of the sky since Hurricane Ike blasted through Galveston, Clear Lake and Houston, then marching further north. Ever since Ike, we've had picture-postcard weather-- blue sky, puffy clouds, tropical breezes that swayed the palm trees. Speaking of palm trees, not one palm fell during Ike. Same for the magnolia trees... they were all spared and they're as pretty as ever. Sadly, the oaks and the pecan trees perished during the storm and forever changed the landscape on the streets where they had stood for more decades than I could count.

But this morning, we are having pouring-down rain, thunder and lightning. And the angels are bowling.

When I was a kid, I was afraid of thunder. Lightning was tolerable... I had decided that it was sort of magical when my room lit up with the flicker of lightning. Sort of like the fireworks at the beginning of the Walt Disney programs on Sunday nights. But the thunder-- I didn't know what caused it, I didn't know why it was so loud, and when it thundered at night I would scream and hide under the blankets. My dad would come into my room with a pencil and a pad of paper, telling me: Listen! The angels are bowling and we have to keep score!

Daddy would draw ten bowling pins, in the formation that they'd be in at the end of the bowling alley. He would put numbers on each of them, and then at the bottom of the page, he would quickly sketch out the frames for a bowling score. As each clap of thunder rattled the house, we would point to the pins and decide which ones the angels knocked over-- sometimes just the 6 and the 10, other times it would be the 4, 7 and 8. There would be spares and strikes, depending on the loudness of the thunder. Before I knew it, I would be forgetting that I was afraid of the thunder and we'd be sitting on the bed, or on the floor near the windows, waiting for the next bowling bowl to hit the pins.

When the storm either settled down or moved off, daddy would add up the score and we would decide whether the angels were good enough to join the bowling team that he had with the other bus drivers at his depot. I remember going to sleep with that score-paper, waking up with it wrinkled and creased, and showing the other kids on the block how the angels were progressing with their bowling practice. None of those score-papers have survived.... but I can see them in my mind's eye.

Always, the morning after the angels' bowling game, I didn't think I would be afraid of the next thunderstorm. After all, it was just the angels up there, bowling and having a good time. Right? Wrong. The next time it thundered, I would be under the blankets and crying and screaming because the sky was falling down and the house was going to get smashed. Into my room came my dad..... paper and pencil in hand..... That was a spare! No, no... my mistake... they left the 7 and the 8. Listen to that one! That had to be a strike!

Bee Happy.

This story reminds me of the phrase I read a few weeks ago: There are just two types of people in this world-- those who don't believe in miracles and those who believe that everything is a miracle. Depending on which category you're in, you will either "get this" or not.

For many years, I would see an older gentleman walking along the streets of Clear Lake. I would almost always see him as he walked along El Camino Real, and I would be in my car as he waited to cross the street. It was easy to recognize this older man, for the simple reason that he wore a bee costume. Yellow and black stripes, complete with black tights (no matter what the temperature was), and he even had two little sparkling antennae on top of his head. He wore sunglasses, so I really couldn't see all of his facial features, but there was no mistaking his big smile. I judged him to be a senior citizen because of his posture, his pace, his yellowed teeth, and the gray hair underneath his bee cap was also a give-away of his age.

But he would walk, and walk, and walk, with a little sign that said Bee Happy. And while he walked up and down the streets of Clear Lake, he carried a little black trash bag and he picked up the papers, bottles and cans that a few sloppy people would just toss out of their cars along the roads. (Apparently, those people don't read the "Don't Mess With Texas" signs that are posted all over the place.)

As this gentleman picked up the trash and walked along the sidewalks, he would wave and smile at everyone who passed, and he would point to his little Bee Happy sign. No matter the weather, he was always smiling, always waving, always picking up the trash along his route. I would see him so much, especially along El Camino Real, that I started to look for him, just so I could smile at his bee costume and wave to him as I drove along.

I don't know when I stopped seeing him. I think I had started to drive along another street when they began repair work on the main roads here. When the road work was done, and I started driving those streets again, I didn't even think about the bee-man. With Halloween coming now, I've been paging through my Halloween books and magazines, and I saw a bee costume in one of the articles.... which got me to thinking about the Bee Happy man.

I asked my husband if he remembered that little man, but he told me that he had never seen him, and he doesn't remember me telling him about the man. He gave me one of those "Are you sure?" looks...... and I told him it wasn't a joke, that there really had been this little old man dressed in a bee costume, walking along El Camino Real just about every day that I drove down that way.

My best guess, of course, is that the old gentleman has passed away. Or maybe he's just gotten too old to be walking along El Camino Real, holding his little sign and carrying the trash bag. What I do know is that he made everyone smile when they saw him-- and I never saw anyone laughing at him in all those years, we all just smiled with him.

Bee Happy. A simple message from a little old man who walked around the community picking up trash here and there and making people smile. The bee-man definitely fits into the "everything is a miracle" category.

Toddville Road

We drove into the Kemah and Seabrook communities yesterday, which are right out there on Galveston Bay. Not a pretty sight, and within five minutes of driving down Toddville Road, I was sorry that we had gone there.

We've always loved that winding, tree-covered road. It's filled with homes overlooking the Bay-- mostly old ones that have been there for decades. Within the past five or six years, a lot of huge mansion-style houses have been built there, right inbetween all the older ones. In my opinion, the older homes always seemed to have more charisma, more character than the newer ones, which are mostly cement structures with straight lines.

However, since Hurricane Ike has come and gone, so have nearly all of those wonderful old homes. Most of them are completely gone; some that were spared have folded in on themselves like a house of cards. Still others have so much damage that you can't tell the pile of debris at the curb from the pile of debris sitting atop the foundation. It was so very sad to see, and I could have cried for every one of those houses that were lost.

The newer, cement and stucco houses that are supported by stilts are still standing. When the Ike-devastated homes get rebuilt, they will most likely be replaced by straight-line cement houses. When that happens, the history and the romance of Toddville Road will be gone.

We used to drive up and down Toddville Road looking at houses with "For Sale" signs tacked up out front. With their million-dollar views of the Bay, the newer, larger homes also had million-dollar price tags. But still, we drove up and down that road, picking out our favorite houses and saying how nice it would be to wake up to the sound of the Gulf every morning. Well, those home owners can still hear the sound of the Gulf at the crack of dawn, but they're certainly not resting peacefully in comfortable beds. Actually, mostly every home that was still standing had Gulf-flooded mattresses out on their lawns.

I doubt very much that they have electrical power out on Toddville Road yet. Come to think of it, even if they did have power, I would guess that the homeowners there have precious little left in their houses that would need power anyway.

All of the fish markets on the Bay are gone, along with all the jobs for the fishermen. As we drove by the fenced-off market streets, I didn't see even one shrimp boat. Could they have gotten their boats out of the Bay before the storm hit? And where would they put one of those boats-- they're huge... not something you could just take out of the water and put into dry-dock. Even the shrimp boats might have been lost to Ike.

When we drove as far as we could, and were just too sad for the losses of those waterfront communities, we turned around and started for home. My husband checked the mileage, and figured out that our house is less than eight miles from Toddville Road. We are closer to El Lago and Nassau Bay-- less than four miles -- and both of those communities suffered major losses from Ike.

Too close to the waterfront. Too close to the Bay. Too close for comfort.

My girly ghost.

With all the Halloween magazines and decorating books I've been looking through, I was inspired to make one of those ghosts from an old pillowcase. Just about every book and magazine has these cute ghosts, with instructions from simple third-grade suggestions to over-the-top sew-as-you-go diagrams. I am not much of a sewer... buttons and hems and extremely simple repairs is about all I can do, and I don't have a sewing machine. But I didn't let that stop me... I wanted one of those ghosts for our front door.

And now I have one-- a very girly-looking ghost, without a doubt. First, I took an old pillowcase that had been washed so many times that it split right down the side. I was not about to sew it up by hand, but I did save it because it had such pretty embroidery on it. I used that for the head and upper body of my girly ghost, but first I cut off all of the blue flowers and green leaves that had been embroidered on it, no doubt by a 1930s-era bride many years ago. (I always find these pretty vintage pillowcases at estate sales.)

For the head of the ghost, I balled up a bunch of white plastic bags, then wrapped an old white kitchen towel around it to make it firmer. I stuck the head into a corner of the pillowcase and made it really round and head-like, then used an old white lace tablecloth to make the flowing body--- the pillowcase and the tablecloth took just a strip of white cotton to tie it all together at the neck. Not too tight now... a girl has to breathe.

For the eyes of my ghost--- I cut out two of the blue embroidered flowers. The nose is a bit of the blue embroidered edging, and the smile of my ghost is two strips of the green leaves. I could have sewn all the facial features on, but the hot-glue gun is faster, so that's what I did. I attached a cord to the back of her head so I could hang her on the door, and she looks wonderfully graceful because I spread out the lace tablecloth to make it look like she has arms. In one arm, I tied a little orange-sequined Halloween purse.... a girl always needs accessories, even when she's a ghost. (Thumbtacks are holding her ballerina-like pose.)

She really looked cute on the door, but something was missing--- hair! I looked through my stash of doilies and found a white one that had multi-colored flowers crocheted all around the edge. I folded that in half, put it over the hairless head of my girly ghost and now she looks like a goddess. Between her flower-blue eyes and the sequined purse, she is the best-dressed ghost on the street. My next-door neighbor V came over to see if I was ready for our walk and when she saw my girly ghost she doubled up laughing. V said "Leave it to you to figure out how to make a girly ghost!"

In the Halloween spirit, I'm reading "Frankenstein," by Mary Shelley. Amazing, outstanding story. Beautifully written, with paragraphs so well-crafted that I've read them two and three times before moving down to the next.

Debris in.... debris out.

The huge piles of tree limbs and branches that covered both sides of our street are now gone. The trucks and their crews were here yesterday, and spent the better part of the morning shoveling everything into one huge pile at the end of our street. While they were picking up the tree limbs in front of our neighbor's house, they also plucked her mailbox right off its post by her driveway. That wasn't the first mailbox to be a casualty of the out-of-state trucks, and I'm sure it won't be the last.

I happened to be outside when that mailbox got picked up by the fork-lift truck, and the driver cradled it in his arms like a baby and brought it to me with profuse apologies. "I am deeply sorry, ma'am. If you'd like me to fix this for you, I can do that right soon after my shift ends here." I explained to him that it wasn't my mailbox, and told him that he had no way of even knowing that a mailbox was even underneath that massive pile of branches. I carried the mailbox to my neighbor's front door and told her what had happened to it. She didn't even care... she was just excited to get the pile of branches taken away so she could see to the other side of the street.

The fork-lift guys managed to get all of the massive branches and limbs, but left piles of leaves in front of everyone's house. I was going to get out there with a rake and some plastic bags yesterday, but then remembered that the lawn guys would be here today with their noisy leaf-blowing machines, and they will pick up all the leaves faster than I could rake and sweep them.

The debris trucks are still in the subdivision-- they came from other parts of Texas, from Florida and South Carolina, from Kentucky and Kansas, as well as other states, I'm sure. They seem to have a system worked out--- the fork-lifts come on the street first, lift up all the limbs and branches from the curb grass, toss them all into the street, then use the fork-lift thing to sweep them all into one massive mountain-style pile at one end of the street. Then they have to let someone "guard" their mountain of branches because workers have filled up their trucks with piles of debris that had been stacked up by other companies.
One of our neighbors told me that the men get paid according to the weight of debris that they bring to the landfill. (It's all being chopped up for mulch.) So if one crew takes two or three hours of their time to stack up all the branches at one end of the street, and another crew comes in and picks it all up in less than half an hour, that second crew is going to get the credit for the truck-load. Even in this kind of situation, with such a massive clean-up effort going on all over the area, some people find a way to take advantage of other people.

Our street looks more or less normal now, except for the piles of leaves. Within a few days, everyone's lawns will look green and pretty again, and Ike will be nothing but a memory for us here. Not so for those in Galveston, and in the waterfront areas. They are all still cleaning up, drying out, trying to salvage whatever they can from their wrecked and flooded homes. Over three hundred people are still missing, mostly from Galveston. Some bodies have washed up onto the shores, others have just plain disappeared. The fishing and shrimping industry here has come to a halt, leaving a lot of fishermen without work and without hope... and without shrimp, which is a big business here in the Gulf area.

Most of the traffic lights around the area are now up and working, making driving easier and saner. It's a wonder that we didn't hear stories of "road rage" these past couple of weeks, but drivers here tend to be gracious and patient, for the most part. The grocery stores seem to be back to their normal state-- the freezers are filled again with frozen foods and ice cream. During the days after Ike came in, the local stores couldn't keep ice cream in their freezers once their power got turned back on-- as soon as they stocked up on the BlueBell and the Ben & Jerry's and the Breyer's, everything got sold out. The Bird's Eye frozen vegetables were stacked up, but the ice cream freezers were flat-out empty.

I still think of Galveston, and the way it was, and I have to wonder if it will ever be the same again. Just like what happened after Katrina hit New Orleans a couple of years ago, The Powers That Be are now talking about not re-building certain parts of Galveston Island. Just as in New Orleans, where all of its citizens contribute to the flavor and the character of the city, the same can be said for Galveston, where every single person on every street in every single district brings their own uniqueness to the Island. Galveston lost more than imaginable after Ike tumbled it around and spit it out... it shouldn't have to lose its character as well.