Everything old is new again! At least the pipes...

Our house is 50+ years old, almost as old as we are. Now and then it requires some major maintenance. Most recently, we had noted excessive rust coming out the water pipes. After some investigation, it was clear that we needed to consider repiping the house. An expensive repair and one that can be disruptive, if not destructive. With a remodelled kitchen and a newly redecorated bath, we didn't wish to tear into the walls. Earlier this month TDT Plumbing used the ACE DuraFlo system to "make everything old, new again." It was an interesting project.

I documented the project on my website:

http://evelynwhitakerlibrary.org/id54.html

More information from TDT Plumbing, Houston, TX

http://tdtplumbing.com/whyaceduraflo.html

The clear pipe demo of the epoxy fill:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftMec3HW5Xw

Note the importance of capitalization in the title of this post:

the pipes are new; the Pipes are just another day older.

A poet and a one-man band...

I spent the last couple of weeks driving across Texas to visit my parents, to take them to see doctors, to meet David so he could bring Mandy, our sheltie, home with him while I made a long drive back "home." Actually, Houston has been "home" for decades but the home of my childhood was on the south plains of the Texas Panhandle. Floyd County. Once there, there were other drives:

• to Plainview to visit with my mother's nephew, James, and his family
• to South Plains, the farming community where I grew up for the Calahan family (my paternal grandmother, Oma's family) reunion, to the church where my great grandmother was a charter member and where I worshipped for my first 18 years
• to "down below the Cap" a long circle drive from Floydada through South Plains to Quitique and Turkey and back via the Flomot cut and Cedar Hill
• to Lockney to see the shell of the high school that burned
• to the cemetery to visit graves of family & friends

The country was green but most of the crops are very, very late. Saw lots of birds and a couple of cotton-tailed rabbits. And a rainbow. Got to see a summer "norther" and smell rain and see lightening. Didn't take many pictures. This one is from the real estate agent's site where the Pigg Ranch is listed for sale. It's the part of the world where we used to cut our "cedars" for Christmas when I was a child.

We had planned to eat supper at the Sportman's Cafe in Quitaque (once owned by the Pigg family) but when we got there it was not like we remembered. New owners. Passing years. So we drove to Turkey past the Midway theater (which I think is a still operational drive-in movie theater) and ate some of the best authentic Mexican food ever at Galvan's restaurant. (Thank you, cousin Dee, for the suggestion.)


When driving alone, I listened to The Best of Simon & Garfunkel who have only improved with the passing years. Great poetry and songs that the voices shared. Hence the title of this post.


But the other band I remembered is Bob Wills and the Light Crust Dough Boys. When my mother was a very small child, they stopped at the place in Leon County late one night for "coffee with Mama & Papa Wieland." Bob woke up the sleeping girl and said, "See, didn't I tell ya' baby Dorthy has the bluest eyes in the world." Many decades later in the late 1950s or 60s, I heard his brothers, Johnnie Lee and Luther J., pick guitar, fiddle and sing at a family gathering on a Sunday afternoon. As nearly as I can remember "Mammy Wills" was sister to the mother of Thomas Wilson who married Ellen, my mother's older sister.

"Deep in the heart of Texas, Bob Wills if still the king."

A link with more info: http://www.turkeytexas.net/

The other part of the trip was the baptism on Father's Day of our little Joy. She wore the dress her mother had worn but her feet were too big for the shoes. So her mother painted her toenails. Such pretty little pink toenails and when any one said "toes" she kicked and kicked.


My mother has always loved to hold a baby's feet.
















Four generations:

Great Granddaddy Kendall,

Grandmother "Tweetie" Zacha,

Daddy Josh,

brother & sister, TNT

What I'm reading...

Information:

I've begun working on the annual review of medical literature re. scleroderma.

Still reading gardening books as I plan new plantings along the back fence. I rather like the trumpet vine that has come back and the hummingbirds and butterflies love it so I think it stays even if it is orange. Yes, it may eventually destroy the fence but the last one lasted more than 20 years vines and all. Since the gas company is putting in a new remote readable electronic meter I may even let part of the jungle return. Right now I'm feeling blue: plumbago, aganpanthus, wax myrtle... But I can't plant in a drought so I'll wait until Fall.

Fiction:

Novik, Naomi: His Majeysty's Dragon. 2006
Novik, Naomi: Throne of Jade. 2006
Novik, Naomi: Black Powder War. 2006
Novik, Naomi: Empire of Ivory. 2007
Novik, Naomi: Victory of Eagles. 2008
The Temeraire Series. New York: Ballantine Books. Kindle. It was a huge mistake to download the free copy of what proved to be the first of series. I got hooked on this story about dragons and the Napoleonic Wars. The writing is superb and the story is compelling. Novik speaks to lots of social conditions and philosophical ideas. I was reminded of David's favorites--the Horatio Hornblower books by C.S. Forester and the Richard Sharp novels by Bernard Cornwell. Kinda fun but really a complete waste of time that I could have spent more productively. FICTION FANTASY BRITISH NAVY DRAGONS 21st Century

Bedside Book:

Andreach, Robert J.: Studies in Structure: Stages in the spiritural life in four modern authors: Gerarad Manley Hopkins, James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, Hart Crane. London: Burns & Oates, 1964, Fordham University Press. Now I understand why I never liked James Joyce. This is an exceedingly odd book. It is less literary cricticism and more an analysis of stages in spirituality.

Chairside Nibbles:

catching up on newspapers and periodicals


Patten, Robert L.: George Cruikshank's Life, Times, and Art. Volume1: 1792-1835. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1992. Kindle BIOGRAPHY ARTIST ILLUSTRATOR 18th Century 19th Century 20th Century This award winning biography by one of my English literature professors from Rice University is proving a most enjoyable re-read. One of Patten's strong points as a professor was rooting the literature in the history, the sociology, and the culture of the time, He offers rich details in a very readable frame. With my new interest in book illustration it is even more interesting to me now than it was on my first reading some years ago.

SEASONS:

Linn, Dennis; Linn, Sheila Fabricant; Linn, Matthew: Good Goats: helaing our image of God. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1994. vi, 101 p. FEMINITY OF GOD JUDGEMENT DAY HELL DOCTRINE 20th Century

What I'm reading...

Information:

I've done a review of information about frontal temporal lobe dementia.

I'm reading gardening books as I plan new plantings along the back fence. The overgrown ligustrum hedge was cut down to facilitate the replacement of the fence blown down by Hurricane Ike. I've removed the jungle of honeysuckle, bramble, elderberry, trumpet vine and who knows what else. I'm also spending a lot of time watering grass.

Fiction:

Sansom C. J.: Dissolution: a novel of Tudor England. New York: Penguin Press, 2003. Introducing Mathew Shardlake and featuring a cameo appearanced by Thomas Cromwell. This book came highly recommended by the staff at Houston's Murder by the Book which is the perfect bookstore. I don't read mysteries but since I'd read and enjoyed Ellis Peters' Cadfael series, the staff assured me I'd want to read Dissolution and since David already owned it the book, I read it. Mathew Shardlake is a hunchback and I heard echos of John Halifax, Gentleman. An interesting book, reasonably well written but much darker than the Peters books. FICTION MYSTERY 21st Century

Cram, Mildred: Forever. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1944. Original copyright 1934. I found this novella at an estate sale. The book jacket notes "a love that was stronger than life and stronger than death." The author was a popular novelist and movie writer. Among her credits is An Affair to Remember. Notes on her extensive film career may be found at the internet movie data base: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0186118/
This writer is not listed in Wikkipedia nor at U. Penn's Celebration of Women Writers. So someone has some work to do. Maybe me on a less busy day. FICTION ROMANCE MOVIES LIFE&DEATH 20th Century

Bedside Book:

Andreach, Robert J.: Studies in Structure: Stages in the spiritural life in four modern authors: Gerarad Manley Hopkins, James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, Hart Crane. London: Burns & Oates, 1964, Fordham University Press. Now I understand why I never liked James Joyce.

Chairside Nibbles:

Yonge, Charolotte M. (ed.): Gold Dust: a collection of golden counsels for the santification of daily life. New York: Thomas Whittkaer n.d.. 165 p. DEVOTION 19th Century

Kindle:

Patten, Robert L.: George Cruikshank's Life, Times, and Art. Volume1: 1792-1835. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1992. BIOGRAPHY ARTIST ILLUSTRATOR 18th Century 19th Century 20th Century This award winning biography by one of my English literature professors from Rice University is proving a most enjoyable re-read. One of Patten's strong points as a professor was rooting the literature in the history, the sociology, and the culture of the time, He offers rich details in a very readable frame. With my new interest in book illustration it is even more interesting to me now than it was on my first reading some years ago.


SEASONS:

Linn, Dennis; Linn, Sheila Fabricant; Linn, Matthew: Good Goats: helaing our image of God. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1994. vi, 101 p. FEMINITY OF GOD JUDGEMENT DAY HELL DOCTRINE 20th Century

Of course... even when I'm not reading...

I'm reading. I always read the newspaper, The Houston Chronicle. How I still miss the long-gone Houston Post. Oh, how I miss the Chronicle from the time when it was a real newspaper instead of a mournful shadow of itself.

The mail periodically brings, well, periodicals: The Economist, Reader's Digest, National Geographic, Consumer Reports, Texas Highways, Texas Parks and Wildlife, a plethora of home decorating mags, and the public relations publications of Adubon Society, Houston Zoo, Houston Museum of Natural Science, Nature Conservancy and para-church pubs.

The latest addition to this list is our Christmas gift from our god-daughter, Holly: Mental Floss where knowledge junkies get their fix, an entertaining, kooky, fun, and thoroughly delightful read which David and I both enjoy and highly recommend:
http://www.mentalfloss.com/

And, of course, I seldom miss my daily devotions.

"Of course," just as my great grandmother, Mama Calahan, said to my sister and me, "Of course, I know you girls completed your morning devotions long ago, but Mrs. M_ and I enjoyed a late start to our morning and hoped you wouldn't mind joining us for ours. It's so nice to have good, young voices to read and sing for us."

Of course, neither of us had given a single thought to ever doing any morning devotions although I think we have often done so since. For me morning devotions are now an "of course" just as they were for my great grandmother. This year my devotional readings are coming from two sources:

1. Jowett, John Henry: My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year. New York Chicago: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1924. Project Gutenberg. Kindle. Each day's reading is a short commentary on a scripture reference which I'm incongruously reading in the Amplified Bible, the Lockman Foundation's Kindle edition.
2. For a number of years now, my daily Bible readings have been taken from a lectoinary. This year I'm using the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops with readings from the New American Bible. I'm posting a link to today's reading. http://www.usccb.org/nab/today.shtml

Now, that LadyBird is happily jumping up on Cathey's kitchen counters and that Rice Owls Baseball's hiatus was followed by an out-of-town series before returning to Reckling Park and that most of my post-funeral correspondence has been attended to... I had time for a Fiction Binge:

Braeme, Charolotte M.: Dora Thorne. Project Gutenberg. Kindle. Braeme's (1836-1884) last name is correctly spelled "Brame" but often spelled variously including "Braem" and her pseudonym for U.S. published books is Bertha C. Clay. She was the author of Grandma Wieland's "now that's a story" Married in Name Only. Grandma's other book for which I'm still searching was titled, Wed and Parted. I read Dora Thorne because it is the best known book of an author associated with Miss Toosey's Mission as part of evelynwhitakerlibrary.org. I recently had an email from her great great great niece. FICTION ROMANCE 19th Century

Whyte-Melville, G. J.: Kate Coventry. An autobiography. T. Nelson and Sons, 1909. Project Gutenberg. Kindle. I read this book about a year ago but somehow never noted it in my journal so this is a second reading. An amusing story and an excellent depiction of "the new woman." There is a good deal on horsemanship (or horsewomanship) and fox and stag hunting. FICTION ROMANCE 19th Century HORSE HUNTING WOMEN'S FRIENDSHIPS COUSINS FAMILY NOTE CALAHAN WIELAND

Bye-Bye, Birdie

Lady Bird, the border collie puppy, came to visit on Good Friday and went home on April 30th. She grew from a 12-week old puppy (terrible two's in human years) to almost 16-weeks (a tweenager) and was either terribly sweet or horrid most of the time. It was an experience for all of us. Her last couple of days were near perfect. Mandy was willing to play with the pup and it was fun to watch them play herding games but I'm the only one who misses her at all. Mandy's reaction was to show me the kennel and ask if she could have the uneaten puppy chow. Cathey had a lovely trip to Ireland and I can tell I'm going to have to follow in her footsteps one day.