Friday, August 3, 2018

Rain, Houston Happenings, Sleep Deprivation, and Cake

The sound of raindrops greet me after a brief few moments of sunshine. Weather reports say we will get more rain than we did yesterday. We didn't get that much around here but it is enough from keeping me out of the yard to water the flowerbeds. For this, I am thankful. With the news of this being the year of the tick I am most aware. Last night I was looking at my legs, knowing the little red bumps were chigger bites but there for a moment I felt a bit like my father who declared with every cold, ache, sneeze, hangnail and chapped lips that his cancer was back. Scaring myself unnecessarily. I did have one little tick get on my arm and he was promptly dismissed with Dawn soap into tick heaven.

The Feral Fam had brunch today. They were later than usual to show up and it was just Cali, Riley and MJ came running in at the last second. Good thing they were served under a bit of covering today because the food would be getting soaked.

I don't think Buddy ate too much of her "doctored" food yesterday because somewhere around 2:00 am, she stirred and didn't settle until about 4:30 which means my sleep is not deep. Just as she settled and I turned to get comfortable...afib...kicked...in. Not bad or it could have been more of a flutter, I started doing some breathing exercises that I was told might help and they did. I did have a little sweet in the early evening and that might have helped trigger it. I have learned that and I keep forgetting so maybe I haven't learned that anything sweet other than fruit in the evenings is not helpful. Well, duh you might be thinking and I would chime right in with you.
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It is now Friday, thus the asterisks. I checked the rain gauge this afternoon and we are nearly at 5 inches. It was a constant rain yesterday and it let up a little in the evening but I could hear the rain overnight. Because it was so loud? No, because at 1:15 am, the electricity and WiFi went out for a nano second but coming back online Alex is talking and things are beeping and thus I found myself wide awake and had great difficulty getting back to sleep. About 2:30 am I was beginning to doze off when Buddy decided she was moving into her normal spot and once again, wide awake as neither one of us could settle. When we finally did, we heard a noise outside and both of us sat up and listened. She went to the window and looked out, I turned on lights. It was probably the Feral Fam Second Generation playing on the deck. Finally around 5:00 am I fell asleep and woke up at 8:30. It felt so good I went back to sleep and slept till 9:30. So in the midst of all the being awake, I could hear the rain.

I have been mesmerized by a story in Houston. On July 20th a prominent cardiologist was shot and killed in the middle of morning rush hour. He rode his bike to work and the killer also was on a bike. From the beginning the police felt it had been a targeted hit and began the work of figuring out who this guy was. They were given security tapes from buses and light rail. Home owners in the area checked their cameras and a pretty good likeness of the man was found. Clues began coming in and although they first thought it was a white or Hispanic man in his thirties, it turned out to be a man that was 62. Neighbors recognized the bike and backpack...the man lived in Westbury...which is the subdivision where I grew up. I began following the story on the alumni page on Facebook because this man went to Westbury High School. He was probably a sophomore my senior year and I didn't know him. But back in the day, the guy was very handsome. He never married or had children. They think he killed the doctor as a revenge killing because his mother died under the care of the doctor on the operating room table in 1997. He had been in law enforcement for about thirty years and moved back into his parent's home when his father died in 2010. It came out in the news that he had been bullied in high school and he told a friend he had a list of people who he was going to pay back for his pain. Suddenly people who had known him in school or had dated him were a little worried because the guy was still on the run. The police had searched his home and found tons of evidence that this was a revenge killing, years of planning and files kept. A false alarm last night when someone in his neighborhood thought they saw him go into his home. Many felt like he had committed suicide after texting a friend he was going to do that. This morning, through a series of events, they found him 3.5 miles from his home...over near the Jewish Retirement Home and was stopped because the park person who tries to keep graffiti at bay, confronted him from a distance. He apologized to the man stating that was what he thought the man was doing, but he looked down and their was the guy's wallet...it was the man all of Houston has been looking for. An officer showed up and confronted the man who would not show his right hand and only when a second unit showed up, the man took his own life. This all happened very close to the last home my parent's lived in. I have watched coverage on and off this morning. It seems unreal to be watching the computer and know exactly what everything is in the helicopter shots.

Nathan and Andrew came yesterday and made a major, major dent into the dense growth that had overtaken our backyard. It looks a little battle scared today but the pruning and trimming are just the beginning of this project. By doing this they can see what is out there exactly that has been covered up by the vine from h#ll. The butterflies aren't going to be too happy but they will be next year. The birds aren't too fazed by cut back.

I missed lunch today so I took the opportunity to go to Turkey Creek Cafe. I was going to get the fried fish but they had their NY strip steaks and that is what I got...along with a piece of coconut cake. Delicious. Now I need to do a few odds and ends and then call it an evening.

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