We’re here, we’re okay- no flooding issues for us, really. Gonna talk about the flooding below though, so skip if you don’t want a local take on it. Just fyi.

What a fucking nightmare upstream on the Guadalupe river.

In the 1998 flood in New Braunfels three people lost their lives from the Guadalupe river flooding. Afterwards, the city paid for insanely state of the art flood sirens and alert systems and they’ve had them well funded and maintained ever since. This town also is on the other side of the lake and dam- so the river here is more controlled than upstream. I am thankful for those sirens though EVERY Tuesday morning when they are tested. The entire town can hear the sirens and alerts. The local officials in New Braunfels are many things, but on top of flood safety is the best of it.

The local officials in Kerrville, who were not on top of such things, are who are to blame here. Never spending funds for similar systems, but I bet the highschool has a great stadium and scoreboard. And the warnings did go out over cell phone alerts… but they didn’t have the systems in place to properly get that info to people not getting those alerts or who didn’t have their phones on them.

And whoever, and I mean WHOEVER let a summer camp build in a dry arm of the river should be in jail. Can’t build a house there because it’s in a flood plain, but a summer camp is okay?

Those poor fucking kids. Those poor fucking families.

And flooding… it isn’t about the water really. It’s the debris and the mud. You can’t just be a good swimmer to survive stuff like that.

It’s all so fucking awful.

My work has been really quiet this week (I sell construction materials). You’d think it’d be because of the rain slowing down jobsites, but no. There is a part to the industry that doesn’t get seen much. No, it’s quiet because all possible crews and as much construction equipment as possible, from all over the state, picked up IMMEDIATELY and flocked to Kerrville to help with recovery efforts. Without being asked, without being paid… construction crews just showed up to help the day after it happened. It is the beautiful things humans do, that. It really is.

I just am kinda numb to it, honestly. And it’s my biggest fear, floodwater, so that is some high degree numbness going on. I had nightmare after nightmare when I was a younger mom- about getting swept away with my kids in carseats.

I made my girls get glass breaker key chains and keep them in their purses. I have one in my own purse. I taught them that the back windows of cars are designed to be kicked out in ways all other windows are not. And all our cars have glass hammers in the glove boxes. We’ve gone over and over and over low water crossing safety.

But still.

It feels like a very Mayan human sacrifice way to get out of drought, I tell you what.

In summation- it’s all so fucking awful its honestly hard to look even out of the periphery of my eyes at this tragedy or to think about.

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Anyway.

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In other news my daughter’s boyfriend is in town visiting from Maryland and he and his mom got an Airbnb in town. They got a super cute little farmhouse, painted bright pink, in a sleepy little neighborhood in town. A cute little place… THAT WAS MY CHILDHOOD HOME UNTIL I WAS FIVE.

Out of all the AirBnBs available… they rented one of the two houses in this town that I lived in as a kid.

What are the chances? I am legitimately stunned… so were they.

I remember that house so weirdly vividly.

Here’s me in 1983 standing in front of the woodstove… and there is the same spot that now holds the microwave and fridge in 2025. The brick is the same. The floorplan is the same. The leaded windows in the living room are the same.

The big pecans in the back with the highest swing known to man and the treehouse are gone, which is sad. I liked those trees.

I was wandering around and going: the black ceramic doorknobs are the same! The windows are the same! The closets we were put in for timeout are the same! Oh wait… that’s actually not an okay thing to have happened to little kids now that I think about it.

There were, I’ll have you know, no ghosts of any kind.

Thankfully.

It was just a house.

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In other news… my mother in law passed away last night.

Life goes on until it doesn’t, don’t we all well know, now.

The flashback to my mom’s passing at hearing the death rattle when my brother in law called me from the bedside at the end there was unexpected and I could have done without. And the PTSD from those surreal moments in early grief and all the decisions required is making my heart hurt for my brothers in law who are in the thick of it right now.

She did, at the end, make just about all the funeral arrangements herself. But there are many forms to sign and dates to set and calls to make and all the rest.

I don’t have to do anything for it, but will support wherever and however I can.

A couple of weeks ago, when I knew this was coming sooner rather than later, I ordered a bunch of sandalwood fans for the funeral. Summer in south Texas is hot. This way I can hand them out to her sisters and other tias at the service, as it was for sure going to happen in the summer and so I knew the graveside is gonna be HOT.

I think she would have liked that, she had a flare for the dramatic, after all. Though I have my own antique sandlewood fan I take to all funerals anyway- so like… I know how useful they are, too.

I don’t know, man.

Sometimes it just be like that, I guess.

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Good night, this post. Sorry guys, sorry sorry.

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How about some plant pics?

This thing is MASSIVE- my goodness. It stands over 5′ tall and that flower pannicle is over 2′ wide.

Like… is this what heroin feels like? Because I’m pretty sure I’ll be chasing this dragon FOREVER.

10 outta 10 Hot Biscuits Amaranth. 10 outta 10.

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And my floors are done finally. I know that before shot makes them look decent. They were not. You will just have to take my word at it.

Lucas repainted and sealed the walls after his dad passed. What is this human need to do projects after loss? Just a way to turn off the brain and keep the hands busy? Order out of chaos I guess, maybe. It is nice to have accomplished a thing.

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I did my writing night yesterday, regardless of having people in town and things to do. I had skipped a couple of weeks and its shocking how quickly the muscle memory wears off. I need to get back on and stay in the saddle, I tell you what, because last night did not feel like flying. It was hardscrabble and I’m not really pleased with anything I wrote. it didn’t feel honest, honestly. I’ll let it sit for a few days and try to suss out why.

And I also… need to wrap it up, this whatever project this is. What I’m going to do with all this grief writing I don’t know. But that I have poured grief into those 239 pages means the grief poured out of me by an equal amount. I feel healed in a way that makes it weird to continue to write, as it’s such a contrast from when I started. Also- what kinda advice could I give? Make sure your ghost husband sticks around and write over 200 pages about grief and call me in the morning (mourning, snort).

Not sure I’m one to be handing out advice or that the memoir parts are anything but excruciating. Who knows what it will be… not I, and I’m the one that wrote it, you know?!

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And my hurt knee is alllllll better. It got worse and worse and worse and worse over the week so I hobbled around with a brace and made a doctor’s appointment and was just all around pretty miserable.

I then just decided, screw it. I am going to have to attend a funeral for my mother in law (she hadn’t passed yet but I knew it was this week) and as my shoes are open toed and I can’t turn my leg enough to do it at home… I’m going for a pedicure.

It was very uncomfortable to hold my leg in that position; whole thing was not very “Calgon take me away”.

I forgot to bring my sandals to wear afterwards, and it started pouring right as I was done and had to pay. They had given me those fake disposable sandals to wear out (lovely)- and perhaps they will warn the next person after me not to wear them in the rain because I fell SO HARD on the first step I took outside. I’m talking cartoon character on a banana peel levels of eating it.

As I was falling I thought to myself that they are going to have to call an ambulance because my knee was going to be sooo much worse.

I don’t remember the moment of impact at all. All I remember is standing up. Checking myself and I wasn’t scraped up or bleeding. I didn’t have any bruises or broken bones. My phone in my back pocket was fine. All I had was one tiny chip on my shockingly red toenails.

When I reached down to pick up both of my disposable sandals (they flew off my feet- I’m telling you this fall was BAD) I realized my knee was fine. I prodded it a bit, but as I was actively getting poured on I just ran through the rain to my car after I’d picked up the sandals.

I RAN TO MY CAR.

My knee was fine.

Somehow.

Maybe it was out of joint this whole time? I don’t know. I still haven’t bruised anywhere… I really am fine now and didn’t get hurt in the fall.

As the next day was my doctor’s appointment I still went- just to get advice on how to prevent it from reoccurring.

I tell the doctor what happened and she just goes: “Yeah that can’t happen. It was probably slowly getting better and you just realized it was better after the fall.”

One: fuck you. And two: It hurt right before that?

She also says: “You said you were gardening before it was hurt- you probably just irritated it from kneeling.” And I say: “Who gardens kneeling? Do you garden kneeling? I use a pitchfork and was standing.”

She tells me I must have been kneeling and just not realized it.

This is a BANANAS thing to say to a person.

I press her about ALL of it and she sighed and ordered an x-ray “because you insist” and yet… what would it show? My knee IS fine now so I bet it’ll just show that. She gives me no advice on how to prevent it from reoccurring outside of getting a Gardner’s cart so I stop kneeling when I’m working outside. Which just… absolute throat punch to you, Doc, you know?

So that wasn’t great.

I have no explanation on the knee pain. Part of me wants to shrug my shoulders and part of me wants to implore the sky to tell me what it’s all about and have Mufasa show up and clue me the fuck in.

But instead I just add it to the pile of weird and unexplainable things.

If there is one thing I hold to, in all of this, it’s that weird things happen.

Old Bill had the right of it, I guess.