'Tis a New Year: Welcome, 2015

What will this year bring? As always, we have no idea, but whatever it is, it will be interesting.

Some of our activities from the last few weeks:

Welcoming the New Year

Enjoying Debbie and Randy's most-excellent hospitality on New Year's Eve.

Reminiscing with Susan
Years ago, when we lived in our dream house on our seven-acre spread in Fannett, we frequently boated or drove over to LaBelle Road and Pine Tree Lodge, where we'd grab a hamburger and a beer, maybe play shuffleboard, try to stay out of the way of any wayward local drunks, and admire the dogs-playing-poker tapestry over the bar. (Each dog was labeled, by the way, with a local patron; we were nowhere near frequent or redneck or local enough to qualify for a label.) And for the last year or so, Susan, who had attended high school in Hamshire and accompanied us to the fine establishment more than once back then, had encouraged us to meet her at the newly-refurbished, relatively-upscale restaurant for a meal and a trip down memory lane.

And so we did, though it was hard to make the new PTL jibe with our memories of a dive.  (Dive-y enough that, when, 30+ years ago, we took my parents for a meal there, my mother, before we could order, stalked out carrying her new infant granddaughter, Elizabeth, stating unequivocally that it was no place for a baby.) Now it's perfectly respectable, more's the pity, but it was fun seeing it and seeing Susan and Beau, our almost-21-year-old grandson.

 Susan is rightly proud.

 Before this nice new outside area was built, we used to dock here in our Boston Whaler and clamber ashore for our PTL fix. This was also where Elizabeth, as a child, stepped out of the boat onto a lily pad and got totally soaked, a memory she recently reminded us of. Dear child, she laughs about such indignities now, for which we are grateful. Apparently, we took her right in to the place anyway. Yes, I am appropriately chagrined.

Tom always claimed that it was Sam Gwynn's Texas Monthly restaurant review that ruined the place,  by the way.

Other Doings
1. We visited Marian, Katy, and Heather on Christmas Day, exchanging gifts, admiring Marian's new apartment and her paintings, and enjoying one another. Sorry to say that I didn't get any pictures.

2. Tom and I finally* tried our hand at a pork osso bucco, with garlic mashed potatoes and julienned zucchini and yellow squash, and were pleased with the result. It's a good thing, since it is not easy to find pork shanks; we finally found some at Joe V's Grocery, a rather low-rent grocery store in Baytown. We've also started, under Elizabeth's guidance, using the microplaner and fresh spices that Tom gave to me at Christmas. Fresh grated nutmeg in coffee: sweet.

3. But we are generally trying to ease out our Christmas-season cravings and get back to reasonably-healthy eating and living in general. It ain't easy.

4.. Tom has started physical therapy again, going three times a week, working on strength and stretching out muscles.

5. We are enduring Texas's version of a cold winter. Our heater has died, but help is on the way this very afternoon. As on the boat, a good space heater helps, and we are tough and know how to wear heavy clothes and sleep on flannel sheets. Nonetheless, it will be good to have central heating again. And since I wrote that, the help has come, helped, and gone. We have heat, and life is good. It will be a good year!

*We'd been talking about doing so since our last year's Valentine's Day dinner in Little River, South Carolina. A week-earlier attempt ended when I realized, having finally hunted down pork shanks at Mi Tienda Grocery, an establishment as close to one in Mexico as any I've seen in this area, that I had left my billfold at home. I had checks but no ID and no cash, and so couldn't pay the $9.00 bill after having consulted with a butcher and stood in a long line. Annoying, yes. Embarrassing, yes. Funny, yes.

Gatherings: Family

Despite not making it to Gilhooley's and despite the lack of boudain egg rolls at Thibodeaux's (Will they ever visit again, now that we've disappointed them like this?), Elizabeth and Nathan's visit from California was great. A trip to the Bayway El Toro was always a part of any visit when we lived a few blocks away, but substituting the nearby El Brisa worked just fine. And Tom and I reestablished ourselves as the Sanders/Bell family shuffleboard champions at Jackie's Brickhouse, keeping our cool and breaking through at the end despite our poor showing early. Shows character, no? Now, now Nathan, . . . something about sour grapes?

We saw few friends while they were here (Steve and Ellen were the delightful exception), but did get visits from family, Marian and nephew Eric. Both visits were great. Thank you both for driving from Katy/Houston, a pain of a drive when you take I-45, which they both did.*

When the futon that we had ordered** arrived, Elizabeth and Marian jumped to, putting it together with some help from Nathan. What fun it was to sit and watch! 

And Nathan hung my brass rubbing, risking life and limb on the expandable ladder. Thank you, all.

*Tom and I agree that the relative difficulty of getting to/from Houston from here is the only negative factor in the move from Baytown to Clear Lake Shores. We could get to downtown Houston in an easy half hour from our old neighborhood on I-10, a luxury only those on the unfashionable east side of the city enjoy. 

**In dire need of more seating, aware that one double bed for guests may not be enough, and not yet ready to buy new living room furniture, we went the futon route. It's big and fairly unattractive despite our best efforts, but when hosting a small group now no one will need to sit on the floor. And when we do spring for some good furniture, it can go upstairs.