Monday Meanderings - June 21

I'm catching some grief from a certain family member about the paucity of my blogging recently, but let me tell you that it's hard to watch three 90-minute soccer games an evening and have time for anything else! Okay, truth be told, I've cut back on the viewing somewhat. I'm willing to skip the grinders that end up nil/nil, as the announcers would say.There's a trade-off there, however. I have to know the scores and read the news reports of the games I've recorded in order to know which ones to watch. Oh, well.

Outdoor gardening-type trauma this week. Went out one morning and found one of the taller-than-the-house fig trees fallen onto the neighbor's house. There's a history of our trees falling on this neighbor, so I got out quickly with my little chain saw and de-limbed this fallen tree so that I could stack the remains on our side yard. Then all I has to do was to figure out what to do with a couple of truck-loads of branches and logs - and just a short time after our quarterly large brush pickup. I found that the city would come do a pick-up just for you -- for $100, and that's after you saw everything to length and stack it on the curb.

However, in a couple of days my new best friend Sheila, who is in charge of a lawn and tree service that was working across the street knocked on the door and said they would haul everything off for $45. Done. And they would cut back the Pecan tree branches that were scraping on the roof and haul them away for a similar sum. Double done. They even took down a large limb that was hanging high up in the tree, waiting to fall on someone. So all is well tree-wise at the moment.

We enjoyed having Jason with us this weekend (briefly) and last. He got to meet many of our friends who are waitstaff at the various restaurants we frequent. Too bad he wasn't around for Sunday lunch - he could have met Julian, our friend at Red Lobster, and learned, as we did, all about Julian's current bout with chronic hiccups. He's had these attacks before, and usually he ends up in the emergency room because they are so bad. Unfortunately, the current meds have not arrested the hiccups, though they have made him a bit loopy. We really felt sorry for him. "May I (hic) take your order (hic)."

Colt and Rachel's shower was this weekend. I didn't attend the shower, but earlier in the week it was announced that Colt had asked to address the members of the congregation so I was there to provide sound. Actually what Colt said was, "Rachel told me a few days ago that it would be nice for me to say something to ya'll." Glad to see that the relationship is off to a good start.  It was nice; he thanked us for welcoming him, his family and Rachel and he hoped that he was able to be a good example and serve as a role model to the youth of the congregation. He said they would be in Austin during the off-season and that they considered Westover their home congregation.

I don't know why we haven't noticed them in previous years, but the Crepe Myrtles have certainly made a big showing this Spring. They are everywhere you look and really stand out with all the colorful varieties. Makes me want to cut down the remaining fig trees and plant Crepe Myrtles. Maybe I better talk to my gardener, Sheila..

And welcome to Summer.