The Neighborhood

Does proximity of houses have something to do with how friendly you are with your neighbors? Or is it just that you have all chosen a neighborhood for the same reason and therefore have a common ground. I think about this quite a bit.

When we lived in a average neighborhood in South Austin, where the homes were about 20 feet from each other, we never really were social with our neighbors. We knew them enough to chat on the sidewalk at 11pm, let their cat play in our house, and knock on the door to ask why the hell they turned off our water from the main valve on the lawn. We did not know them well enough to ask them to watch the dog when we went away, to ask them to turn down the music so our walls would not vibrate or borrow a cup of anything. I did love

We moved to the country after four years of living in that 1300 sq foot home in south Austin. Our nearest neighbor for a long time was the one across the street, across the street and down a 500yard driveway, not so close. Basically neighbors are close for a walk but far enough away to not be heard in daily activities.

Last night I drove down the hill to Terri's. Dropped off the kiddo to play with her son. Her hubby was home to watch the boys so we talked horses for a bit and then went for a walk. A walk down the driveway, and across the street to Kellie's. We opened a bottle of wine, sat on the front porch, until the mosquitoes got the better of us, and chatted. We finished up the wine and headed back to Terri's. It was dark by then but we felt relaxed and happy. The boys were fed and happy as well.

This sort of thing happens all the time. I love it. We have impromptu pool parties, pot luck dinners, game night and you can always find someone to watch your kid for an hour or so if you need to get some work done. Then there are the planned events....wine and cheese parties, progressive dinners, food and toy drives, holiday parades and Halloween hayrides. Maybe it is because we all have our "space" from each other and maybe because of the isolation, we crave company. I have no idea. I do know when we were on top of our neighbors, we wanted nothing to do with them. Now I would not trade my neighbors and friends for all the money in the world. They make my life and my family's life infinitely better.

Smoking ghost

Last night...3am.... I woke up and smelled cigarette smoke. More like the kind of smell when it is on someone after they have been outside for a smoke than a fresh smell. It was a harsh smelling brand, like Camel or a hand rolled. It confused me. I don't smoke, my husband quit years ago and we don't live near anyone who smokes. As a matter of fact, we physically don't live near our neighbor's homes.

I got out of bed to see if maybe husband had fallen on old habits and was sneaking a smoke outside on the front porch. He was sound asleep in our son's room with him. Puzzled I decided not to go downstairs to check it out. I went back to bed. Then I heard to front door latch click. It sounded like the front door. Sometimes if the door is not locked or shut properly it blows open. I got up to see if that happened. Nope, the door was shut. Daisy, our border collie/coyote mix was sleeping in the hall by the door. Surely if someone was there, she would have barked up a storm.

Back to bed. I decided to meditate to clear my head. The smoker's odor still present. I tried to keep it out of my head. My mind started to form a picture of this spirit that I did not like. A man with an old felt hat and sneering, snarling grin, a nose that looked like it had been broken a few times, dark stubble from a day's old beard and eyes that had no real eyeball just a glow. Okay! No more meditation. Happy thoughts! My imagination is really too much sometimes.

I really an getting curious about this cigarette smell though. It has been inside my truck on many occasions. I thought a mechanic was an ass and left a cigarette butt in my AC unit or near a fan. Lately I have been noticing the smell in my car too. Only when I am alone though. There have been no smokers in my truck or car, not even as passengers.

Thinking back to smokers in my family and the only one I knew was my brother-in-law who died young. Why would he be hanging out with me? Why not my sister? Maybe it is someone I never met, maybe it is my imagination. I really have no idea but I really do not like the smell of stale cigarette smoke. That is part of the reason I don't like to go to places where folks will be smoking. I am open to all suggestions. Thoughts?

My Vision of Future Beauty Standards

If I were a BEAUTY fashionista, I would make some changes to make the average female, over 40 set, feel much better about themselves. First of all I would make laugh lines and forehead wrinkles cool. If you don't have them, you have no sense of humor and no life experience. Basically you are not cool, have no substance and live a vacant shallow life. The twenty something set would be clamouring for makeup to enhance their budding wrinkles, practice crinkling their nose when they smile and laugh at least 4 hours a day.

Next thing would be enhancing the black circle under eyes. Think of the possibilities, blue tones, purple tones, shades of gray. Under eye shadow I will call it. The average over 40 set will save a fortune on makeup because they have earned their circles trying to squeeze 50 hours of activities into 40 hours.

Lips will not be plumped. Thin lips will enhance the large eyes, that framed by the dark circles. Pillowy lips will not be a sign of youth and sexuality, more like a gross exaggeration. Thin lips, accented with a slash of red or plum lipstick. White teeth will still be vogue and with thinner lips, they can be seen much better.

Age spots will be known as freckles and be cute. That extra chin will be viewed as a sign of wealth and prosperity (much like olden times).

Now if you will excuse me, I am going to surf some plastic surgery websites....wonder how much Botox injections run....

The Beach Club part one

This past weekend I took my son to his Oma and Opa's house on Long Island. They live in a lovely town with large homes, old trees, manicured landscaping, the same ubiquitous floral wreath on every door and quaint shops in the village. Because it rarely gets hot, most older homes do not have central air, relying on window AC units when the mercury rises above 90 degrees.

This weekend the hydrangeas were in blooms in various shades of blue and purple. Black-eyed susans danced in the breeze and impatiens brightened shady nooks in flower beds.

We spent a good amount of time at the Lawrence Beach Club on Atlantic Beach this weekend. It is an old club that some families have been going to for years and years. There is a main dining room, an upstairs dining room and bar area forbidden to children, lockers with showers for changing and cleaning up, a pool, tennis courts, playground, shaded dining deck, and of course lovely beach access.

We attended a Family Dance Saturday night geared toward the kids. The boys wear blue blazers, or the occasional seersucker suit. Some have ties, most wear shorts and loafers. The girls are lovely in their Lilly Pulitzer dresses or other cute sundresses with jaunty bows in their shoulder length hair. All the children are bronzed by the sun and run wild with the confidence that this is a safe place to be. Younger boys wrestle in the sand in their blue blazers or climb the dunes. The older boys try to look cool on the dance floor in their madras shorts and aviator sun glasses. The girls, all the girls, are on the dance floor twirling their dresses or learning the latest line dance.

My son chose to stick close to momma. He made several trips to the buffet learning that there are several types of salami. At the dessert buffet, he learned that his eyes are bigger than his stomach,leaving one of his two scoops of ice cream to turn to a cold soup.

At the end of the evening he asked to leave, feeling exhausted from playing on the dunes and dancing next to his table. One the way home, he asked if he could take off his "costume". I tried hard not to laugh in the back seat of the car. I had spent quite a bit of time earlier explaining that kids in New York dress differently than kids in Texas. He was convinced he looked silly in his blazer. Later he referred to it as "the stupid jacket". Again, I had to suppress my laughter. I had tried to get him to wear the outfit his Oma had planned for him complete with sand dollar tie. He looked adorable. But like his father, he has definite ideas about what looks good and what does not. Maybe next year, he will remember that all the kids dress that way and he will submit. Somehow I doubt it.

What can I do?

My friend Kurt, one Rachel's helpers on the ranch, recently had surgery to remove a cancerous growth from his brain. He collapsed while doing some chores and had to be rushed to the hospital for a diagnosis. The news was not good. Cancer. The doctors found it when they went into his skull to see what the mysterious shadow on his brain was. They removed what they could and he was released a few days later.

He is a super mellow guy who is used to a physical lifestyle. He wears a Chicago-style handlebar mustache and frequently is shirtless when he is doing chores outside around the house. His horses are his pride and joy. He has 5 pure bred Andalusians. A stallion, 2 brood mares and 2 fillies. They are sweet and wonderful and give him so much joy. He is worried, I think, about what will become of them should he not survive the brain cancer. In this economy, not many are breeding or buying expensive horses no matter how stellar the bloodlines. There is talk of setting up a trust for the horses and creating a non-profit foundation to care for them and, in turn, promote the values of the Spanish Riding school here in Central Texas. This is all a new concept to the friends who surround and support him now. We are trying to figure out how to make his wish come true. We could develop our skills (horse and human)into a therapeutic riding center eventually.

I was taking photos of the horses last night and snapped a photo of Kurt playing with Espera his 3 month old filly. As I went through the edits last night, I fell in love with the photo. You can see the staples in his head from the surgery, his muscular arms from years of physical labor and the love he has for his horse.

This morning, I thought what if I started taking photographs, formal portraits or candid, of folks who are terminally ill. The families could donate the fee to the not yet created, but soon to be, foundation for the Andalusians and education. I could do short videos too. Having just dealt with my horse's death, the loss of the photos I had taken of him, and the comfort I get from the video of him, I thought the feeling may be double or triple for someone trying to struggle with the illness of a loved one.

I would love to have a wonderful photo shoot of someone I loved to remember them by. I plan to do formal portraits of Kurt very soon, while he still looks strong and healthy. If our prayers work and the cancer goes into remission, then we still have great pics of him. I feel like this is a way I can help both families and provide money honor Kurt's wish to have the bloodlines of his horses and the values they represent carried on.

cool manipulated pics

So I lost all my recent pics of Sahil when the hard drive crashed in April. I didn't want to spend 500 bucks to recover what was there because I thought I had most of it backed up. Well, not quite. I did some video frame grabs for my friend Marjorie Moore, She is a fabulous artist and said she would paint a picture of Sahil in the future for me. She needed stills with some life so I looked through the video and grabbed some frames. Since the quality was dicey, I didn't mind putting it through the Photoshop wringer. These are my first efforts.

Sadness

I had two dreams of Sahil, my small but graceful Egyptian Arabian, in the last 6 months. In one dream we were lying together in a beautiful hilly field bathed in golden light. His head was on my lap and we were so peaceful. I could feel the love and devotion he had for me. I think also in that dream we were cantering around the mountains, through fields of flowers up and down hills and we were so happy. There was not fear, only a togetherness and partnership that was filled with trust. The dream ended with us lying in the field together.

I took that dream to mean we had reach a new level in our partnership. After falling off him and suffering a serious injury, I was looking for a sign that things were getting better.

The other dream also took place in the mountains. We were climbing up hills through a mountain village with streets so narrow, cars were not allowed or perhaps did not exist. The homes were built into the hillside and steps to front doors came right off the street. Window boxes spilled of brightly colored flowers brightening the white and gray facades. Sahil and I rode through the street looking for something that I cannot remember. I got off him to go into a home for a visit and when I came out he was gone. I looked everywhere for him. I asked everyone but no one had seen him. I was not worried that he had been stolen, I just needed to find him. I woke up still searching.

Now I realize that maybe those dream were trying to let me know he would be leaving me soon.

Sahil died Sunday. It was fast. I barely had time to say goodbye. In fact looking back, I did not say goodbye like I would have liked to because while his body was on the ground engulfed in a seizure, his spirit was not there anymore. By the time the emergency vet answered the phone, by the time my neighbor got me a hose to cool him down, before the other horses realized what had happened, he was gone.

My last living memory of him is listening to him scream from the pasture to greet me and Bailey as we came back from our ride. This was not unusual, he was always screaming at me when I can out of the house in the morning to feed, when I drove in the driveway, or anytime I would say hello to him.

I rode down the driveway, untacked Bailey and started to give him a bath. That is when my neighborhood friend Amy came running down the driveway. "Sahil is down! Gary is with him. Call the vet." It was like my mind shut off. I could not think. What happened? Broken leg? heat stroke? I ran to Sahil and Gary as I was on the phone with Rachel trying to see which vet could get there the fastest. Sahil lay twitching on the ground, legs straight out. His eyes were rolling back in his head. I paged the emergency vet and got it wrong 4 times as I pet Sahil's neck begging him to hang in there. Amy and Gary drove to the neighbor across the street who is a vet. She was not home. I felt horrible bothering her but Sahil was dying in front of me and I was helpless. The emergency vet called me back as Sahil took his last breath. "What is the emergency?," he asked. " Well none now I think my horse just died., " I answered in shock. There was no pulse. I hung up and stood there in disbelief. I tried to shut his eyes but they would not shut. My neighbors came back and stood with me. One went to get a tarp, the other fly spray. I walked across the pasture to close the gate so the Bailey and Dewey wold not go near Sahil's body. Bailey was still in the cross ties where I had stopped, mid-shampoo. I rinsed him down and put him in with Dewey.

Slowly others came by. They saw the tarp and immediately knew something was wrong. A crowd was gathering. I felt like I should get refreshments. I felt numb (I still do). People called friends with back hoes so we could bury Sahil as soon as possible. Having a dead horse in your front yard with triple digit heat can make the property values plummet. I thought of this because there were red and white balloons bobbing up and down on an open house sign two houses down the hill from the pasture where Sahil lay. I went in the house with Rachel. The others put the hose out to wet the ground so we could dig a hole and they put my tack away. Gary and Amy came back from their errand with a plant and some horse treats, so sweet considering I had probably wrecked their morning plans. My friends were so wonderful to offer comfort and support. Jake was at Mark and Carol's across the street and they offered to keep him as long as I needed. Others offered to have Jake if they needed to get things done. I felt helpless, trying not to look at the blue tarp in the front pasture.

Lorre reached the man who buried her horse. He lived close by and was at our house in a half an hour. I told him where to bury Sahil and he began to dig. Rachel and Lorre took me to get something to eat and a margarita so I would not have to see the empty shell of Sahil being buried.

I wonder how many feedings I will go through before I don't cry anymore when I pass the wash rack where I fed him. I wonder how long it will take before I don't miss his scream hello when I come home from work. Sahil was sensitive, easily bored, a prankster and very loving. It was easy to forget that I needed to have boundaries when it came to handling him. He will be missed.