I have perfected a homemade anchovy/garlic salad dressing. The recipe is really quite simple. Slowly stir olive oil into a mixture of minced anchovy fillets, microplaned garlic, red pepper flakes, fresh squeezed lemon juice and Kosher salt. The notable ingredient is the anchovy fillets. I selected a can of “flat” anchovies for my first attempt at my friend’s recipe. As I drained the little fish, I noticed bones in my strainer, akin to slivers of glass. These were not the soft bones found in canned salmon. These were choke-at-the-dining-room-table fish bones. And then there was the indescribable aroma of the tiny canned fish. I was convinced the anchovies had spoiled. While sharing my disappointing anchovy experience with friends, I was informed that anchovies could, indeed, have an unpleasant aroma. Between the bones and the smell, these little fish were deemed an unworthy ingredient and thrown into the trash. Even without the anchovies, the lemon/garlic salad dressing was quite tasty. I have now discovered that packed in glass “fillet” anchovies is the better choice for a crowd pleasing salad dressing.

Kicking a can down the road is a mindless act. The only requirement is a can – usually empty. I never kicked a can barefooted. Reckon you could tear off a piece of your foot or shear off a toenail if you weren’t careful. So, a sturdy or at least closed toe shoe is suggested. I haven’t kicked a can down the road in a very long time. I’ve got more free time of late. Perhaps I will dig through the recycle bin and pick out an appropriate sized can to kick. My sister and I in our younger days would crush aluminum cans with our hard sole shoes and clunk and dance down the sidewalk as long as the cans held tight. But that’s another story.

There’s an asphalt path that runs along the right-of-way for the electric transmission lines at the end of my street. It might be the perfect avenue to refresh my can kicking skills. I can’t say for sure who decided to kick a can down a road. Maybe a worn down, bone weary grandma, watching kids in the summer, having answered the question “what can we do?” for the last time, offered up the activity. Can’t you hear it? “Why don’t you kick that can down the road? Make a game of it. See who can kick it the farthest, the highest. See who can make it spin. Take turns. And don’t kick it at each other.”

Kicking a can accomplishes one thing. It gets you down the road. That’s it. I’ve watched social injustice, bigotry, prejudice, hate and all kinds of ugly kicked down the road during my life. While it appears that some progress has been made, I have witnessed in recent weeks that many of these same issues were only pushed down the road.

“When we fill the glass with water, we notice right away that it can go over the brim of the glass without spilling. This is because of surface tension. Surface tension holds the water together and acts against what would normally cause the water to fall – gravity – because each molecule of water is attracted to the other water molecules around it. This attraction causes the molecules to stick together and avoid spilling down the side of the glass like gravity would like them to.

Unfortunately, the attraction between the water molecules is only so strong. As we add coins, the amount of water spilling over the edges is getting larger and larger until the water just can’t take it anymore! Gravity is pulling on too many of the molecules for their attraction to keep them up, and the water spills down the side of the glass.” – American Physical Society ©2020

Been thinking quite a bit about “surface tension.” I had my molecules spill down the side of my glass last week. I had driven the long way to the grocery store. I was looking for a spot at the far end of the parking lot, when “Life Line” by Harry Nilsson began to play. It was all I could do to park my car. Tears streamed down my face as I listened to the plea to “please send down a life line.” The gravity of life had become too much. The surface tension was no longer strong enough to hold us together.

I was overwhelmed with information – real and imaginary. I was disappointed in people in positions of power and authority who refused to act on behalf of the sick, the poor, the disabled, the elderly, the children and the list goes on. I was weary of trying to sort out the facts. I was saddened by the loss of life which I believe was facilitated and hastened by incompetence, greed and political ambitions.

The onion died. I may have over watered it. Over watering is a common occurrence in Houston. I purchased four little ornamental cabbages and a lavender about a month ago. As of this morning, the plants are thriving on the back porch. While the cabbages need a moist soil and the lavender prefers drier conditions, they are peacefully existing on the same porch, enjoying the sunrise and ending their day by the light of the moon. You ought not eat an ornamental cabbage. While eating it won’t kill you (or so I’ve been told), I hear the leaves are bitter. There isn’t enough salt pork in Texas to make that right.

Just because you give something a name, doesn’t mean that’s what it is. There’s a lot of name calling going on these days. You can read the vilification of men and woman on all social media platforms and hear it spewed from radio and tv stations, read it on websites and so-called experts’ Facebook and Twitter pages. And if you look a bit further, you’ll be informed by no one in particular who is to blame for your troubles.

I suspect many people do NOT comprehend what they read. I suspect many people do NOT understand what they hear. I know many people refuse to question the reliability or accuracy of information, whether in a headline or a stay-tuned breaking news teaser.

This about sums up Houston weather from May to October. Hail exploded in the Spring Branch area on May 9th. As we drove home from a theatre fundraiser, the skies darkened the further west we traveled. Pea size hail began to fall after we turned north. In another block, the pea size turned into marble size and then golf ball size hail. There was no running from the icy onslaught. It felt and sounded like we were in a rock storm. The windshield cracked before I  could pull into the driveway. The roof on the house didn’t fare any better. A new windshield and body work repair fixed up the car. A new roof took care of the hail damaged shingles.
September 19th brought flooding to my subdivision. Streets became impassable. The rain was eerily unrelenting.  The water rose quickly. There was nothing to do and no place to go. Within an hour water had reached the middle of the front yard. Neighbors on the low side of the street held their breath as the water climbed into their driveways and, in some cases, flooded their homes. I watched the lightning explode and felt the thunder rattle the house. Once again, Houston “flooding” made the news and once again, lives were up ended by the uncertainty of tropical Texas weather.