Dog days of summer

  

It's hot.  The weather doesn't change from day to day; well, unless there is a hurricane.  It cools off to 80 degrees at night, then it's back to about a hundred again by afternoon.  I still walk every day, but I'm only good for about a mile in this heat.

 

Especially with the Coronavirus distancing, each day seems about the same as the last.  Morning coffee on the deck (always a delight), watch the morning birds while enjoying the coffee ritual.  Work, errands, chores, Spanish, trip report, dinner, television, rub feet, and we're done.  Don't get me wrong.  It doesn't suck at all.

 

We think about taking a driveabout in the bus, just because we can, and the bus is ready, but at a hundred degrees outside, the house air conditioning can handle the heat better than the motorhome air conditioning can.  We'll wait a few more weeks before we go anywhere.  Then we can visit a few State Parks.  There are plenty here in Texas we haven't been to yet if we get a couple hundred miles away from home.  A State Park tour shouldn't compromise our dedication to the distancing regimen.

 

Saw a rufous hummingbird at our feeder this morning.

 

 

 

I miss this

  

 

We never drizzled lemon sauce on it like in the advertisement.  We just ate it right from the wrapper, as the text says.  In fact, the part of the cake that stuck to the thin piece of cardboard it was sitting on; a person could scrape that off by dragging their teeth across it.  A Coke and a Boston Pie; as much flavor, and as many food groups, as a kid in the fifties needed.  Hostess cupcakes continued on, but we haven't encountered a Boston Pie since.

 

We remember the flavors from our youth.  The most notable ones for me are hot pastrami sandwiches and Boston Pies.  It requires a trip to Angelo's in Oceanside California, but I can still get something very close to the hot pastrami sandwiches I remember.  The bread is different now, and not quite as good, but the pastrami flavor is the same.  The Boston Pies are unattainable.  Long gone.

 

 

 

ZVOX Voice-Clarifying Sound Bar

  

Old sound bar.

 

New sound bar.

 

Preliminary report.  The new sound bar doesn't sound as full as the previous system.  Race cars don't sound as throaty, in fact it's kind of tinny, but we can understand what the announcers are saying, even though they're talking in British!  We watched an entire episode of Elementary without once saying "huh?".  We even made it through an episode of Poirot and understood what happened at the end!  (British with a Belgian/French accent.)  Promising.

 

Several days later update:  Beyond promising, in fact.  I turn the sound bar to the highest voice setting (which is the tinniest sound), set the sound just as loud as it needs to be (which is not as loud as before), then add some normal sound from the television on top of that for a fuller sound, but not enough to distract from the voice-clarifying of the sound bar.  If we get stuck on a word or phrase, which is not nearly as often as it used to be, we can mute the TV sound and play the scene back with just the clarity of the new sound bar.  Brilliant!  We're declaring this purchase a roaring success!  Just the invention we needed!

 

 

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DD16FVX/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

 

 

 

Morning update

  

Marilyn, beyond all expectations, is awake and responsive.  The breathing tube is out.  Of course, Buddy can't go see her in the hospital because of Covid.  When he checked her in, they let him stay in a waiting room by himself until they got her through surgery, then he had to leave.  That was better than nothing.  Today, they held a phone up so Buddy could face-time with her.  They haven't let her talk yet, but she is alert.  Amazing.

 

Hurricane Laura missed us and pummeled Louisiana.

 

Afternoon update.  Marilyn talked on the phone with Buddy.  Just a few words.  Yesterday it seemed hopeless, totally nonresponsive, and today she's talking on the phone!  Still critical.  Still in ICU.  Not out of the woods, but continuing amazing.

 

And now Laura is on top of Arkansas.

 

 

 

 

 

Wow

  

A major hurricane heading for the Western Louisiana shore, with 150 mph winds and a 10 to 20-foot storm surge.  Rough stuff.  We still have the pandemic and so much more going on; but for our next-door neighbors Buddy and Marilyn, Marilyn played water volleyball today, like she does every day, then collapsed this afternoon from what the doctors are describing as a massive brain bleed (for no apparent reason).  Buddy followed the ambulance to the hospital, she went into surgery, he got to see her briefly as they took her from recovery to ICU, then they sent him home tonight with no idea of what to expect from here.  As of this writing, she has survived surgery, but that's all we know. 

 

The hurricane isn't going to hit us, so far so good with the pandemic, and you just never know what's next.

 

 

 

 

 

Hurricane Marco is gone

  

Hurricane Laura is still projected to stay well north of us.

 

We're way down in the south tip of Texas dodging the bullet.  Laura is supposed to make landfall as a Category 3 hurricane at the Texas Louisiana border tomorrow night; a direct hit on Beaumont and Lake Charles.  That's four hundred miles away from us.  It sucks that anybody has to get hit by this, especially an area that just got saturated by Marco.  They're going to get a lot more water.

 

 

 

The drive to Tiocano Lake

  

The one we took a while back to see the wood storks.  The road there doesn't usually look like this.

 

 

And it's really not supposed to look like this!

 

You can see where the road continues underwater by tracing the curve of the tops of fence posts on the right to the bank on the other side.

 

Again.  Darn low spots.

 

 

 

Laura formed first

  

But now she's lagging behind.  Marco, the one that we thought was going to hit us, is now headed toward New Orleans on Monday.

 

Then Laura, who was supposed to hit New Orleans, is now projected to come ashore further west, by Houston, on Wednesday.

 

The land between Houston and New Orleans is going to get hit by two hurricanes two days apart.  Ouch.  Now we, way south in the Valley, are not expecting anything more than spotty showers.  The bus is still locked and loaded though, just in case.

 

 

 

Judy and I

  

Are keeping our eyes to the east.  Right now, we see two tropical systems, both of which might become hurricanes, headed for the Gulf of Mexico at the same time.  I think two at once makes the path of each less predictable.

 

We're packing more stuff into the bus.

 

 

 

And a new look for the park

  

 

It's dry enough to mow again.  And they've cut up and collected all the old broken trees

 

 

 

 

A new arrival

  

 

 

 

 

Randy and Sue have been here in their RV for years.  Their house just arrived.

 

 

 

 

 

And another cotton field

  

Looking good.

 

A little wet for harvest.  Hope it dries out in time.

 

 

 

Update

  

The flooded house from a couple weeks ago

 

…is now less so.

 

 

Not exactly high and dry, but much better, and the boat has been retired.

 

 

 

A record low count

  

We don't go out much this year.  We record birds we see from the deck, but we've made no effort to go out and identify all the birds we can, like we usually do.  Thinking about it today, I looked up our progress on eBird.  Middle of August, we're at 164 species for the year.  This time last year we were at 411.

 

Wood storks are only here in the Valley in the summer.  We decided to drive to Tiocano Lake, not far, and see if we could spot one before they leave in the fall.  Success.  We found one off in the distance with some roseate spoonbills.

 

 

 

 

We need another invention

  

I can hear just fine.  Plenty of volume.  I can listen to music.  I can hear the news.  But put dialog in a movie with action and sound effects and I can't pick out the dialog!  We tried a couple different soundbars a few years ago.  They changed the sound from one mode to another, but none helped clarify the dialog.  We turn up the sound to make the conversation louder, but that turns everything up and blows us out of the room.  We can put on headphones, and that helps, but that isolates us from each other.  We need a soundbar with a dialog mode that clarifies the sound range that includes speech and turns down everything else.

 

Oh.  Wait.  I just googled "clarify dialog soundbar".  There are a bunch of them now.  I wonder which is best…

 

 

 

A thousand people a day dead from Coronavirus

  

How do we put that number in perspective?

 

Here in The Valley, one small part of Texas, we're losing 40 people a day, that didn't otherwise need to die now.  40 people.  That's the equivalent of a very bad mass shooting.  Every day.  For weeks and months.  Right here, in this little community around us.  I submit that our response would be completely different if these deaths were from mass shootings every day, yet the number of people is the same, regardless the cause.  And either way, it didn't need to happen.

 

Our current national death toll from Coronavirus of over 1,000 people a day, every day, is the equivalent of a September 11^th attack every three days.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Early August

  

And the cotton is high.

 

 

 

 

Let the migration begin!

  

Our morning coffee-on-the-deck entertainment.

 

Seventy-five anhingas rising in a kettle and then gliding off south! 

 

 

Anhingas don't really have a big north-south range, but they do move farther south in the fall.

 

Then, later, a kettle of black vultures forms before heading south as well.

 

They have a bigger range than the anhingas.  On the range map it doesn't even appear that they migrate, but some move north and south within their range anyway.  Or maybe they were just inspired by the anhingas and had to mimic them.

 

And a single crested caracara come up to look.

 

I know, it's only August, but Fall migration, for big soaring birds anyway, is on!

 

 

 

Kamala Harris

  

I wasn't expecting any reaction to the vice-presidential candidate pick; there were so many options to choose from that weren't wrong; but when I heard Kamala Harris, I was surprised by the emotion I felt.  Yes.  A smart, strong, well-spoken vice-presidential pick, and a ticket that looks like America.  I felt unexpectedly happy, the happiest I've felt about a political event since Barak Obama's 2008 presidential win.

 

 

 

 

 

Not far away

  

A house in a low spot.

 

It's not supposed to be in a lake, but still, it is.  And how do the people who live here get back and forth to the road, which incidentally, is still flooded too?

 

Water taxi.

 

 

 

 

I guess my hair’s not that bad

  

 

As long as I leave my hat on.  :)

 

 

 

 

 

  

I found a free online game.  It's called Duolingo.  It's an easy game; not too taxing.  A series of simple language puzzles in the language of your choice.  Short challenges that only take a few seconds, grouped into short lessons, each only taking a few minutes.  There is scoring so you know how you're doing, and recognition for continuous streaks of correct answers.  We're separated into groups of 50 at an equal level for a week at a time, and ranking among each group is reflected in real time.  Once a week, the final ranking is reported and that group is dissolved.  A new group of 50 is formed the next time you log on.  (I was surprised at how fast a new group of 50 formed with each weekly restart so I googled how many people are using Duolingo at any one time.  The answer was an astounding 30 million!)  Success in one group advances a player to the next higher group; a powerful incentive.  Being a laggard in a group results in demotion to a lower group; a powerful incentive.  There are periodic triggers to go back and review sections you haven't seen lately.  Set your own goals, then the number of consecutive days you achieve meeting that goal is reported.  If a person waits too long during the day before they play, they'll get an email reminder that their streak is in jeopardy.  There are additional incentives like crowns, lingots, and other rewards that I don't intuitively understand because I'm not otherwise a gamer.

 

A nicely designed game; an easy diversion that has just enough interest for short bursts.  (It's not something I'd want to do for 8 hours straight, but maybe that's just me.)  It's a lot like sudoku; a simple way to sit down and zone out for 10 or 20 minutes.  Just like Sudoku, a light distraction, with the exception that over a period of time one might absorb a little bit of a different language as well.

 

 

 

 

Why did I ever

  

Why did I ever want hair long enough it got in my face?  My hair was last cut to be short.  As Judy and I stay home to stay safe, my hair has grown too long for the cut.  It's not straight hair.  It won't go where it's supposed to.  It goes wherever it wants.  It's not long enough to hang with any symmetry.  Help!  We need this to be over.  I need to get out.  I need a haircut!

 

#FreeSteve.

 

 

 

 

Time lapse

  

From a lake.

 

 

 

To a wetlands

 

 

 

To a park again.

 

A soggy park, but a park.

 

Manning the pumps 24/7.  2-inch lines.  5 pumps.  They need to be refilled with fuel every hour.  Everybody pitches in.  Getting us down to the point where we're only draining our 22 acre park, and not the agricultural fields around us as well, was critical.  The pace picked up once we got down to where the water was not flowing in anymore.

 

I walked the perimeter of the park today, on the road inside the park, and my feet only got wet a couple of times.  We're almost there!  A sprinkle of rain today, but not enough to set us back.

 

 

 

We need a plan

  

It's still early in hurricane season.  If/when the next hurricane comes, we may not want to ride it out.  The bus is parked in storage, put away for the summer and for who knows how long after.  There is no date established for the next bus trip.

 

But we decided maybe we should pack the bus up as a go-bag; our getaway plan.  We should put enough stuff back in it, so that if we get more than a day's warning, we could pack up and blow town before the storm hit.  We could ride out the next hurricane off in a desert somewhere.

 

We drove over to see how the bus weathered the storm and it looks just fine.

 

It'll be fun putting some stuff back in it.  We've been in one spot so long, even though we're not going anywhere yet, we'll enjoy perfecting our disaster plan.

 

 

 

Judy and I have owned a number of cars

  

Plymouth, VW, Volvo, Honda, Chrysler, Dodge, Toyota, Jeep, Mazda.  We liked the Mazda RX7 so much we had two of them.  We like the Jeep so much we've had three, and still have one.  There is only one other car we've liked so much that we had three of them; the VW Bus.

 

1966,

 

1972,

 

and 1978 versions.  The 1978 one was a pop-up camper van.

 

(None of these are my photos.  They're just photos I grabbed from the internet, but that's how each one looked.  Even that charming shade of green!)  None of the engines ever lasted more than 50,000 miles, and we drove that much every two years, but engines could be replaced with rebuilt ones for a few hundred dollars.

 

Now however, there is something new on the horizon.  The electric VW Bus!

 

http://newsroom.vw.com/vehicles/future-cars/official-the-vw-bus-is-back-and-its-electric/

 

Horsepower and traction to spare, and a 300-mile range.  Coming to a dealer and road near you in 2022.  Judy and I may need to get out some spray paint and flower stencils!

 

 

 

Know what pisses Judy off?

  

When the kids were little, she had a heck of a time getting them to listen.  I'd come home, she'd tell me what she wanted, I'd tell the kids, and they'd hop to it.  She got what she wanted, but only in a way.  What she really wanted was for the kids to listen to her.  It was all about the Daddy Voice.  She thought it terribly unfair that she had to wait for me to come home and use the Daddy Voice.

 

That was then.  This is now.  Kind of.  She'll tell Alexa what to do.  Alexa will respond with the same question over and over, about what time Judy wants the reminder, or what the reminder is for.  I'll suggest Judy try the Daddy Voice.  She'll make her best impression of a Daddy Voice and it works first try every time!  Some of us in the house think that's pretty funny, but not all of us do.  Judy accuses me of cracking myself up.  She's right. And then I get The Look.

 

 

 

 

The best I can do

  

With last night's view.

 

The pumps ran all night.  The water is down enough that we can make out a high-tide line in front of our house.

 

I remember how important the high tide line was when Judy and I went wilderness sea-kayaking a lifetime ago.  There were ten-foot tides in the Pacific Northwest.  We'd land on an island and immediately begin the search for the most recent high tide line; the line of debris left where the water had last reached its highest.  It was important to pitch the tents above the most recent high tide.  There were subtleties to this because there were often two high tides a day, the high high and the low high.  Didn't want to get fooled pitching tents while paying attention to the wrong high tide line.

 

So, we've found the most recent high tide line at Sandpipers.  We're well above it so we must be okay, but we're a long way to go until we're dry.