Month: June 2026

In a day and age of apps, AI, services, and whatever the hell else people throw money at to make their lives “easier” and “more efficient” and “informed” I’ll be damned if I don’t have three weather apps on my phone and each one has a different story about the current temperature and forecast. I rarely use weather apps anymore. Fool me once, shame on you…

I was doing a two-day overdue cleaning of the kitchen sink and stove area this evening and, while I was on a tear, I thought I might go ahead and clean out the French press. I was about to fill it with water, spin the contents into a vortex, and take the vessel outside to throw its contents out into the yard. I do this exercise daily, execpt it’s always very early in the morning, when I’m waiting for the water to boil so I can make my coffee. Used coffee ground are good for the lawn. I’ve been doing this for years. It’s part of my daily ritual.

I didn’t take the coffee grounds out this evening because it’s a breach of my ritual and thus impedes my really, really good weather app, which is me walking outside, into the fresh air in the morning to experience, first hand, what the weather is like. Granted, it doesn’t really matter in the Summer in Texas because it’s hot and humid. It could be raining, but that usually doesn’t happen between June and September.

I like to know what the weather, specifically the temperature, is like outside because I run in the mornings and I need to know how to dress. Again, in the Summer it doesn’t really matter. During the Summer it’s shorts and shoes. Sometimes a shirt. In the Winter it depends. It can get really cold here. And it can be bone-chillingly humid. If I’m going out for a jog or a slow long run, I’ll need to bundle up more. Sometimes I need gloves and a hat. Sometimes I don’t. I don’t know unless I go outside and check the weather before I lace up and head out. I’m not relying on an app or a weather service.

I don’t know why I wrote all this. I guess it’s to say that when I need to know what the weather’s doing, I go outside, into the weather. And my lush St. Augustine yard and earthworms like coffee grounds and the nitrogen and phosphorus it provides.

The coffee grounds from early this morning are still in there in the press. I’ll fill it halfway with water and swirl it around tomorrow morning, just like I always do. It’ll be hot and humid at 4-something a.m. tomorrow. I know it. But I’ll still verify it. It’s what I do.

It’s almost July and I’m thinking about Christmas. I just had a nice thought. I remember when I was a tween or a young teen, my parents and I had been living in Cat Spring for a few years. I think it was Christmastime and both of my older sisters had come to stay with us. We lived in a big 3-bedroom house. My parents had their room. I had mine. And there was the guest room, next to mine. My sisters shared the guest room. I think we all went to bed around the same time that night, which I guess might’ve been Christmas Eve. And it was probably late because we were all almost 40 years younger back then. And dad was still alive. Man.

I remember lying in my bed with my door closed and hearing my sisters chatting and giggling and banging around in the bathroom and unpacking bags and suitcases. This carries on for a bit, but begins to quiet down. I guess they’re brushing teeth and turning out lights. Now I think it’s quiet enough to where I can close my eyes and fall asleep.

Then I guess they both get into bed and the chatting and giggling start again. There are also many moments of roaring laughter.

I’d think that 11 or 12 year-old me might be inclined to become angry and frustrated with the chatter from my sisters in the room over. I didn’t. I closed my eyes and smiled and reveled in it. It was the sound of laughter from the rooms of children on Christmas Eve. I was actually the only child in the house. My sisters were already adults, living on their own, living adult lives. But we were and are always children of the family. And we were all there together for Christmas. The family was happy. There was always laughter.

I never wrote it on a to-do list. But it’s been stored away, in the back of my mind for a decade. Maybe two.

The lion head door knocker conveyed with the house when we bought it in 2004. If memory serves, the knocker was fully functional when we took ownership, and for some years thereafter. Elise might remember. I haven’t asked her yet.

Again, if memory serves, he served as our door guardian for years sans the knocker ring gripped in his jaw. So, some years ago, I bent a piece of solid steel tubing in as close to a circle as I could get it. My temporary knocker design satisfied the form, but not the function. And he hung there for more years with his “functioning aesthetic.”

I could never bring myself to get rid of the lion. He’s unique. He came with the very first house we bought; it’s the same house we live in right now. He’s seen a million faces come and go through that front door. He remembers them all so I don’t have to. I can’t get rid of him. I look at him and I smile because I know he has seen those million faces come and go through that front door.

I’ve owed him a strong and sturdy striker.

I’ll defer to Elise on motif. For now, I’ve brought him back to fuction over form.