I'm out here on the deck waiting....

... for Ike! It was very still when I first came out around 7am. Just a slight breeze and VERY muggy. Now the wind is picking up out of the southeast and the temp has actually gone down a bit. (I had half this post already done and lost it when I turned my CD off. Arrrr.)

I turned the weather channel on before I came out. JIM said the winds were pounding Houston at 92 mph and blowing the windows out of the high rise buildings. One part of town had 4 feet of water in the houses. My sister Nita lives on the Northwest side of Houston. She had put her furniture up on blocks in case the carpet gets wet (I hope not, she just moved in 8 mos. ago and had put in new carpet and painted), then she went to stay with her friend in Cypress, which is a little farther west. I can't wait until she calls tonight, I want to hear how she liked 92 mph wind! We didn't get wind like that where we grew up. Well... we'd have a tornado from time to time. But that's gone in a flash... you barely have time to think about how hard the wind is blowing when you are dodging trees and lawn furniture. With a hurricane a person gets to sit there and listen to it howl for awhile and wonder "how long is this going to take?"

I heard from my Aunt this morning, she said my cousin and her husband, who live in Galveston evacuated to his family's home in Alabama. They figured traffic east would not be as bad as the brunt of the flow moved north toward Dallas or west toward San Antonio and Austin. Good thinking.

Would you look at what the wonder-girl put in my Bento Thursday night after I went to sleep! Remember how I had somewhat stated that in Texas it would be common to see onigiri made from squished white bread? Yeah... that's squished white bread formed into a little onigiri with wasabi furitake eyes and a nori mouth. Doesn't he look rather glum, or maybe he's just gum.... She's so funny.

My sister and I used to do things like this when we were in high school. Only we didn't use white bread or a Bento box.... We used a half eaten Corn-dog! This was back in the late 70's when everyone carried those feedbag looking purses. So one of us (probably Nita, because she's just evil like that...) slipped the half eaten corn-dog into the other person's purse. Only for the 'victim' to find it all dried up and gross a few days later. We did this for I would say at least a year or more... I know what you are thinking... the stick was gone from the beginning, and after awhile the corny coating fell apart in someone's purse, only to leave the doggie. The object of the game was to NOT let on that you had found it when you did, and then to plant it back in the other person's purse without them knowing. Just imagine finding half a wiener in your purse when you are franticly looking for your keys. Now if by chance you found it in the presence of one of your other friends and you screamed or let the 'dog' out of the bag, then that friend could then become a possible future Corn-dog Tag Team victim. There were only maybe 4 or 5 of us on the tag team. Too many members and someone is bound to tell "she put a wiennie in your purse!!!" You know how girls can be. Needless to say, we had to make our own fun back in the old days on the West Texas prairie. No I-pods, cell-phones, texting, or laptops for us. Just cruising the streets of Odessa all night in Mom's war-wagon with a tank full of 75 cent a gallon gas, waiting for the day when we'd be old enough to get in the dance-halls. Those were the good old days!!!

I wanted to show Lyvvie and Jacki my newest purchase for the Bento collection. Lunch bags... cute huh? They are insulated. I also got some of those anti-bacterial sheets that you put in your bento so that things like chicken salad or tuna salad don't go bad if not refrigerated... I'm not really sure how they work and may have to email Biggie on that one. You can also see one of the new straps I got also. I bought 3, they are green like my Bentos. Jolea was so sad that I didn't get an egg mold. I guess I'll have to get some of those in my next purchase so she can play with boiled eggs the next time she is here.

Speaking of Jolea, she went out with friends last night and the last time I looked at the clock it was 1:30 and she still wasn't home. Her door was closed this morning, so who knows when she wandered in during the wee hours. I'll probably get her up in a bit to go to the bank. It's a momma thing to torture your children when they go out drinking all night.

Jody had treatment #4 yesterday. He was a little 'up in arms' last night. Seems one of the nurses told him he would be having 10 treatments instead of 8! That probably made him fighting mad. He's going to have a PET scan on Monday at 5:30 to see if the cancer is gone. He was hoping they would be announcing that the cancer is gone, we'll do two more treatments and you may begin Radiation. Then he would probably ask the Radiologist to cut those back from 3 weeks of everyday zapping to two weeks. He's just so ready to get back to work... as soon as the Chemo is over he will be released to return to work.

Jolea had gotten an email from Jeff a few days ago, they had left Estonia for Stockholm and were headed back to England. Last night she said they were in Venice going to Paris and back to London. Sounds exciting. I hope they are getting pictures of more than just the inside of airports. I can just see them standing there gazing up at the departure screen saying to each other "there's one going to such and such in an hour, let's try to get on it." Jolea is starting to get jealous that he's been to more foreign lands than she has. She's so competitive.

Sometimes I feel like I'm preaching to the choir when I write about local things in the blog, but for those of you who are local, please remember I have readers who live in far off lands and exotic places like Japan, Scotland and Mexico. So they like reading about the on the spot action. And they comment... unlike the locals (Dawn, Judi, Davia, Carol, Amalia...), I know you can type... I get email from you. Don't be scared to comment.

I'm done... my brother is waiting to read today's news.... I'll let you know if we get any wind, I don't think Ike is going to make it up here. North Texas Home Depots are all happy, they unloaded a bunch of generators. Jody says it's all done for the ratings.