Asking Me To Remember is Just.Plain.Mean.

It's not fun to have a memory deficiency. I don't know if it's a sleep deprivation thing, or a pre-menopausal thing, or if it's just...

Wait a minute. What was I talking about?

That's what it's like now around the Wieber Ranch. I'm constantly walking into a room, stopping short, and saying (usually out loud) "Why did I come in here again?" It's not fun.

That's why our recent trip to San Antonio was so....memorable.

First, we had planned on staying at the Historic Menger hotel, right across from the Alamo. Except that I forgot to make the reservations right away...and by the time I did remember to look at the list that I keep on my blackberry to avoid such minor catastrophes, the price of the rooms had almost doubled.

Had I remembered to make reservations in time, I would have been staying here:

I would have had a lobby that looked like this:

I could have been sipping mai tai's in a courtyard that looked like this:

As it was,we stayed at the Historic St. Anthony...whose lobby looked like this, so I'm sure that no one is going to feel too sorry for me. But get out your hankerchiefs: Our room smelled a little funny, and it had a doorbell (cool) but no trash can (totally uncool). I suppose someone could have taken all of the trash receptacles out of the Menger as well--I didn't look in any of the rooms.

Then, in my second bone-headed move of the trip, I forgot to check the San Antonio website to see if there were any festivals or events in town that might impact my stay.

That was a biggie, because it happened to be Fiesta...the biggest party in San Antonio all year. Hundreds of thousands of people were in town...and all of them seemed to want to do exactly what I was doing. Unless you count what I wanted to do at midnight, which was to take a siesta...a time when the fiesta-ness of it all was just hitting full swing.

Fiesta is a historic event, starting with a weird parade and event called the Battle of the Flowers in 1891. The San Antonia-ites had so much fun throwing blooms at each other, they began adding more parades, a carnival, balls, and coronations of "royalty", from King Selamat (tamales spelled backwards) to King Omala (Alamo, natch) and King Antonio, as well as lots of princesses with sashes around their chests and tiaras.

Today, Fiesta seems like Spanish Mardi Gras, complete with weird outfits and plenty of decorations. It also seemed a little like a May Day event, with girls of every age putting flowers in their hair. And it seemed a lot like Freshman Hazing Week at a big university...with lots of 3-foot long beers on the Riverwalk and margaritas that came in a 10-gallon fishbowl instead of a glass (which seems a lot like Mardi Gras, too).

One of the things I was really looking forward to in San Antone (I have to say that at least once because my husband sang the Monkeys song "What Am I Doing Hanging Round?" all weekend. Obviously, his memory of obscure derivative songs is working just fine) was visiting the King William neighborhood which--according to the photos I saw--looked like a great little Victorian enclave.

We took San Antonio trolley to the King William stop, and got out...only to see thousands of people crowding the quaint streets.

Yes, the King William neighborhood has a special festival as part of Festival. I won't forget to check the website for events around town next time.

I did get to see a couple of the houses over the throngs of face-painted children, tiny little dogs (I'm still trying to remember why people like these things so much--if you have any insight please post your thoughts!), and big sweaty grown ups. They were lovely. The houses, that is. Not the big sweaty grown-ups. Lovely enough that I might go back.

When I do go back, I don't plan on visiting the Alamo. It was, ironically, not memorable at all. And frustrating, because--although the phrase Remember the Alamo stuck in my head--I didn't remember anything about it except the chorus to Davey, Davey Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier. And the old mission/fort/t-shirt stand didn't have a lot of easily accessible information. It did have a bunch of memorials spread around the perimeter of the main room, and that part was appropriately somber and peaceful...but it would have been nice to have some general information right there at the beginning so that I wouldn't have felt so dumb as I walked through.

Luckily, the Daughters of the Republic of Texas put together a brochure with all the pertinent details of the 13-day siege and subsequent assault on the Alamo (I found it in the third building that I walked into, back by the gardens).

Before Davey Crockett (who is referred to everywhere as David, so I suspect Davey was a Disney makeover) told everyone to remember the Alamo, it was a mission, home to missionaries and their Indian converts. By the early 1800's, the Spanish military had stationed a calvary unit there (Alamo is the Spanish word for "cottonwood", and these Spaniards named the place after their hometown of Alamo de Parras, Coahuila. I'm glad they didn't name it Coahuila--I would have never remembered that).

Things started getting memorable in December 1835, when Ben Milam led Texian (not a typo) and Tejano volunteers against the Mexican troops that were quartered in the city (so don't you think for a minute that all of this border patrol stuff started with Mexicans coming north--we started it by going south, In fact, there's a whole display in one of the back buildings that lists quotes from Mexican officials about their concern over white settlers moving in. They all seemed worried that the whites would take over their country, and snap up all of the good jobs for themselves. But that's another story).

There were no immigration attorneys back in 1835, so the men just fought it out hand-to-hand (house to house, according to the Daughters of the Texas Republic). After five days of fighting, the volunteers won.

Then the victors moved in--sitting the shade of the Alamo's tall walls, enjoying the butterflies in the back garden, eating burritos on the steps. Until two months later, in February, when the Mexican soldiers came back.

And killed everyone.

That's the part you're supposed to remember.

The brochure from the Daughters has a list of the names of men who were known to have died in the defense of the Alamo. The list includes David Crockett and Jim Bowie, who was known for his knife fighting, although it kind of let him down in March 1936.

My favorite part of the Alamo was the gardens, and the third building that listed all of the information on the spot. It was quiet back there, and less crowded, and you could really reflect on all of the people who had died in the old mission--on both sides. It gave me time to think about the women and the children who weren't killed, but who had to live with the memory of 13 brutal days.

That's the part I'll remember about my trip to San Antonio. The quiet couple of minutes that I spent in the back gardens of the Alamo.

And the fact that next time, I'll check the website to see if there are any festivals going on (http://www.visitsanantonio.com/).

God Made the Universe, But the Navy Made This Island

When HTG was just a G, she spent a couple of weeks in the Netherlands. While she was there, she spent some of those weeks with a boy named Rolf, with whom she spent some of that time...talking about international politics.

HTG didn't know much about international politics then, but Rolf was older and a little more versed in....international politics.

Anyway, we all know that talk of international politics between two youngsters can not last forever. So HTG eventually came back to the states, and Rolf most likely began talking about international politics with some cute young thing with blonde hair and hand-rolled cigarettes and truly exceptional bone structure.

For several years, HTG received letters from Rolf. In them, he went on and on about the Dutch's superiority in...everything. (See, now you're starting to think we really did talk about international politics, aren't you?)

In one letter, he sent a hand drawn map of the world. The United States was the size of a nickel, while Holland was the size of a separate piece of paper.

In another, he ended his letter with the following declaration (his capitalization, not mine): GOD MADE THE UNIVERSE, BUT THE DUTCH MADE HOLLAND.

I soon found other nice young men stateside who liked to talk international politics as much as I did, and I eventually forgot about Rolf and his quite appealing accent and less than appealing ego. But I never did forget the above slogan, which would fit nicely on the bumper of a Dutch-made Carver.

I thought of this slogan again when I visited Sunset Key, a pretty place previously known as Tank Island. It's a tiny place...just 27 acres, which is probably the perfect size to dart around in a brightly colored Carver (although the pale 60-something millionaires and their tan 20-something girlfriends there make due with much less sporty golf carts).

Tank Island is located about 500 yards off the coast of Key West (far enough that you can get away from the constant racket of annoying Buffet tunes). It was originally just a sandbar, but the Navy wanted to dredge a nearly harbor (the "Mole",  at the southwestern point of KW) to a depth of 36 feet so that the diesel subs patrolling the Southern Atlantic could float on through.

In 1965, they began dredging, first pumping the sand onto Wisteria Island, and then moving the pipes a bit south to a submerged sandbar. Soon they started thinking that that sandbar would be a nice outpost to hold their fuel tanks.

They pumped 10 million cubic feet of fill onto that sandbar, then presumably they created a commission to come up with a name for the new place. Fifteen thousand memos and fourteen thousand department meetings later (I'm just guessing, of course), some genius came up with Tank Island, and the military heavy weights--who oftentimes do not even have the right lobe of their brain, using that space instead to store knowledge about firearms and the best way to increase your chest size--nodded and said it sounded good. They then presumably created a committee to figure out what they should order for lunch.

Tank Island sounded good until 1994 when the the island was sold. The new owners, and their right-brained marketing geniuses, decided that "Tank Island" might not draw the tourists in the way they hoped. So they presumable got together for 4,000 billable hours, created a couple dozen focus groups, and did a trademark search before settling on the infinitely more romantic sounding Sunset Key. They then created a survey and direct mail piece to determine what cocktails they should order.

To be honest, the sunsets you'll see there are pretty much the same ones you can see on Mallory Square. 

But you'll be watching them with about 10,000 less people. And none of the people on Sunset Key will be swallowing swords for money or asking you if you want to pose for a photo with their pet iguana for just five bucks.

Sunset Key is pretty exclusive. In fact, you can't even get there unless you take the Westin's private water shuttle (you catch it at the Westin Marina which is behind their main hotel). It feels very rat-pack to hop into a sleek little boat and feel the wind in your hair as you're going to your destination. And you dock in the cutest pier I've ever seen.

But don't think that you can just take the boat over and roam around among the millionaires. You can't.

You can go to the island if you're staying there--the Westin has a couple of private cottages that you can rent, or you can spend hours online trying to become friends with someone who owns one of the 40-some private homes there.

For those of you with shallow pockets and too many scruples to ingratiate yourself with owners, the Westin does have a public restaurant called Latitudes. It's a great place, with lots of tables on the beach, but it's the type of restaurant that most people go to for their anniversary (ca-ching!). If your anniversary (or your sales commission check) is months away, try Latitudes for lunch. They've got a great grouper sandwich with Key West sauce (a mayonnaise-based spread with a hint of lime), for about ten bucks. It comes with an interesting sweet potato salad (which seems so much more special than regular potato salad) and a pickle. The view is free. And, if you like that kind of thing, you can take your bathing suit and hit the Westin beach. Having a real beach in the Keys is one huge advantage to being on a man-made island.

How did I slip past the crack security team on the island? The hub and I were lucky enough to find a homeowner who would rent their slice of paradise to us for a month. I didn't have the money or the time to take off a month, but I did have enough friends who were interested in hanging out at the island to split the cost and make it doable.

During our time on Sunset Key, we did catch some pretty nice sunsets. They were a great backdrop to a quiet swim, a fruity drink, and some very interesting discussions of international politics.

Trees of Life: The Passing Nature of Art

HTG's mother was an artist. She painted porcelain, which is a very Victorian lady thing to do.

One of the things I loved about her art was that it was beautiful, but exceptionally fragile. One rambunctious two-year-old could wipe out years of work in about 4.7 seconds. (Yes, I'm talking about you, Lukey!)

Porcelain painting has a tough aspect, too. The artist paints the piece, and then fires it in a kiln to about 1500 degrees. The glaze on the porcelain actually melts, and the paint becomes a part of it. The artist then goes through the process again: a little more paint, another firing, another melting and cooling process.

Each of her pieces required a minimum of three firings. To get a really dark color, she could paint and fire a piece 5 or 6 times.

Of course, push the piece too far, and it would melt in the kiln like a three dimensional Dali painting. It was always a sad day when Mom opened the kiln's lid to find a mess like that in the bottom of it.

All of that is to say that my favorite artists are those artists who know that their art will be fleeting, and that it is somehow fragile in time. Paintings fade, sculptures erode, glass and porcelain breaks.

Maybe that's why I love the tree carvings that are sprouting (pun intended) up all over Galveston, Texas.

Or maybe I love them because they're just cool.

A little background: in 2008, Hurricane Ike roared through Galveston (verbiage on a t-shirt I saw there last month: Hurricane Ike: Category Two, My Ass!), creating a huge storm surge in the island's historic East End. During its visit, it displaced about nine feet of salty water, which sat in the neighborhood for a day or two.

The 100-year old live oaks (ahh, the irony) didn't like the salt, and many of them ended up dying.

Rather than keep these skeletal reminders of the storm around, most people cut them down and ground the stumps into sawdust.

But some people left about six feet of stump and had them carved into beautiful, transient pieces of art. Because wood, like porcelain, is ultimately fragile, especially when left in the elements.

But transience only makes these pieces more awesome, because you know that you have a limited time to enjoy them. I don't know how long--maybe 30 years, maybe 5.

So, given the fleeting nature of both art (and life), let's check 'em out:

I'm going to start with my favorite. This is my boyfriend, Tinny. He is all decked out for Mardi Gras. If you'd like to visit him (don't even try to date him, lest I have to get all Angry Lion on you), you can find him at 1702 Winnie.

Why a tin man? Because King Vidor, an uncredited director of the Wizard of Oz, was born in the house. King directed all the Kansas scenes in the Wizard, which are some of my favorite. According to Wikipedia (and they're never wrong, right?) he also did a film on the Storm of 1900. If any of you have more information on that, I'd be very interested to hear more!

In the meantime, I visit Tinny as much as I can. And I plan to name my next child and/or fish King. Because I don't think he'd be teased that much in second grade, do you?




King is a great name for a dog, of course, particularly given the kind of treatment that many household pets today seem to enjoy. Here are a couple of dogs that even I could own: they're cute and they never bark at six in the morning.

The Great Dane on the left is at 1228 Sealy (he looks like a "King", doesn't he?). Some ne'er do well has stolen his left paw since I took this shot...I hope that a dog attacks that person and karma-cly gnaws off his arm as soon as possible.

Spotty, on the right, is in front of the firehouse at 25th and Sealy. He was one of the first carvings that I saw in town, and I still want to pet him when I see him.

If you're wondering what Spotty is looking at, it's probably this beauty next to him on the other side of the firehouse's lawn:

Here's one more cutie.  He's so realistic (and so realistically sized, unlike the five and six foot tall nuclear versions above), I almost biked right past him. You can find him at 1820 Winnie, unless he has taken off after a cat, which he looks like he might do any minute.

Like art itself, the subject gives you great insight into the artist (or, more likely, into the guy or gal who paid the artist). Like these three angels on the 1700 block of Ball Street. The owner of the house has three little granddaughters...and she's always called them her "little angels."

Go ahead, you can say it: "Awwww."

Before I introduce you to Mermy here, I should share a story of shopping for garden art with my husband several years ago. As he walked through the statuary, he threatened to ask the salesperson if there wasn't anything sexier. This come-hither carving is at 1428 Church, right around the corner from our house, and right up my husband's alley, as they say.

Incidentally, I'm not sure why she's holding a catcher's mitt above her head. But she combines two of the hub's favorite springtime pursuits--boobs and baseball. I'm guessing the artist may have similar interests, because I know the owner of the house, and she's never mentioned either of those topics.

Here are some other chicks that have recently moved into the neighborhood. The Geisha girl on Ball Street isn't quite moved in yet, but I already know she'll be a great addition to the historic district. I'm not sure why the owner chose this topic; if I find out (or if you know), post it in the comments.

This angel is holding a bunny because the owner of the yard used to be a Playboy model. At least that's the story that I've heard. You can go to 17th and Post Office and decide for yourself.

Galveston is an island, so, as you would expect, there are plenty of people who commemorated the island wildlife in their front yards (there may be many who commemorated it in their back yards as well, but HTG is simply not that nosy. Or that brave). Here are some of the ones I spotted:

(Visit these guys yourself at 1609 Post Office, 1610 Sealy, 902 Ball [post a new photo if you'd like...these guys were in process when I saw them], 1618 Church and 12th and Sealy).

These are the ones that I've found so far...but I know that there are more out there! If you spot them, please pass them on...I want to admire them while I can! They are a true monument to the storm, to art, and to the

importance of living in the moment. Enjoy! (And see this final one at 1028 Winnie).

March Sadness: The Last Guest to Leave the Pity Party

Okay, this is going to be the last one. I promise.

If you haven't already guessed, this is one more blog about the love of my life: my house in Cape May (with apologies to the hub). We got an email last night from the new owner; they said "we love the house."

I'm sure that was supposed to make me feel better. And I'm almost sure that I've uttered the exact same thing to previous owners of homes that I've bought.


And I'm absolutely positive that they wanted to rip my throat out when I said it.

Because no one will love the house like we did. Not even if the house stands for another 100 years (and since the hub and I just rebuilt the foundation, it should).

So, here are some more of my THE LAST ramblings on my baby:

People We Almost Killed. Hey, renovation isn't for sissies. My dad almost died the day we carried this solid wood television cabinet (otherwise known as the beast) up the front stairs of the porch All By Himself. The story was that the guys who were holding the other corners couldn't fit through the door, and Dad ended up carrying the whole thing for about three feet. I'll be glad when flat-screen televisions let us get rid of these widow-makers once and for all.

Our painter almost died when he didn't eat lunch, and passed out in his van from diabetes. Luckily, I had some orange juice handy and we revived him. He didn't give us a break on the paint job. I almost killed him myself four years later when we paid him to power wash the house, and he disappeared. We learned later that he was in jail. "For a long, long time," the sheriff told us. Hey, tack on a couple more years for skipping out with our powerwash money.

To hear our contractor friend Mr. Mark tell it, he almost died the day he was renovating the shed out at the pool. We knew that the floor was rotted, and we knew that something must have lived there at one time. Turns out, one time was just enough for Mr. Mark, who pulled up a floorboard and found a nasty looking possum looking back at him. Mr. Mark was dropped off at an orphanage by his mother when he was about 6, he almost died in a motorcycle accident years ago, and he just had emergency heart surgery in February. But if you ask him, he came closest to death in 2002, when he came face-to-face with those beady little eyes.

I could add the mother-in-law here, for dumping a gallon of paint on one of the only rugs in the house that we had planned on keeping. But I wasn't really mad for long...and the room looked much better with a painted floor, anyway.

Plants I loved. There is nothing like gardening at the beach. Planting a ton of flowers and then leaving for six weeks. Missing the peak season of almost everything. But here are some things I will miss: The several thousand muscari bulbs I planted (seriously...while I certainly am not above gross exaggeration in this blog, it really was about 2,000 bulbs over the years). The peonies, that looked so good in the garden but that were just one more vehicle for ants to come in the house. Hydrangeas, the official flower of Cape May, even if mine never did look awesome. The clematis my neighbor said would never grow, which did anyway.

(One of these statues is not like the others. Which one is different...do you know?)

Ghosts that Walked Among Us (allegedly).  When we first bought the house, and hired our first lawn guy (he would be one of a long string of guys who didn't seem to know what he was doing), he mentioned to us that a woman named Mrs. Undy lived in the house for a long, long time. He also mentioned that he and his brother were completely positive that she was a witch. (The meanness that society extends to single, older women will be another blog for another day).

Anyway, Grassy Eddy and his brother used to dare each other to run up on the house's front porch and touch the front door. And then they screamed like little girls when Mrs. Undy came out to yell.

When we bought the house, there was an old, scratchy, red wool cape in one of the closets (all of the closets were full--we threw out about 25 pairs of shoes). My FIL was sure that it was Mrs. Undy's. I was sure that she wore it to her grandmother's house, through the wolf-ridden hills of southern New Jersey.

Whether she was the inspiration for Little Red Riding Hood or not, Mrs. Undy and I became great friends through the past 10 years. I talked to her frequently when we were working on the house, asking her if she liked it, asking her to finish painting the trim while I was gone for the weekend (she never painted anything, as far as I could tell).

I talked to her again two weeks ago, when we left for the last time. I tried to smell some faint perfume, or see something out of the corner of my eye, but all I detected was the leftovers from Tony's that were smelling up the trash.

Goodbye, Mrs. Undy. I will be really pissed if you show yourself to the new owners!

People that we loved. Without fail, every time we had a big group of people at the house, my husband  would say to me at night "It's nice having the whole house full." And it was.

Okay, I need to stop. Right. Now. This is the last blog you'll see about this house. I've already overstayed my welcome as the last guest at the pity party.

To the new owners, Dave and Renee: I truly hope that you do have as many good memories in the house as we had.

To all our friends and family: we'll see you all at the NEXT house!!!!!!