Class of 1965 - Alumni Luncheon

(L-R) Roy Threlkeld, Kay Nealy Kempken, Forrest Steagall, Joy Norris Vyoral, Joan Wood Samuelson, Charles Hardage, Naomi Henderson Curry, Cherie Hornback Austin

Eight members of my high school graduating class met at noon, Saturday, June 14 for lunch at the Humble City Cafe on Main Street in Humble, Texas. This has become a tradition with our class and some folks who can't make it to the alumni banquet on Saturday manage to make it to this get-together. This is the first year Joan Wood Samuelson has been with us.

We had a great time visiting and catching up. We'll be there again next year!

Pompeii-The Exhibit at MFA Houston

On August 24, 79 A.D. the world´s most famous volcano, Vesuvius, erupted with pyroclastic fury, burying the city of Pompeii in a mountain of hardened ash. In the only eye witness account, the Roman Historian Pliny the Younger, described the event:

"A fearful black cloud was rent by forked and quivering bursts of flame, and parted to reveal great tongues of fire. You could hear the shrieks of women, the wailing of infants, and the shouting of men… Many besought the aid of the gods, but still more imagined there were no gods left and that the universe was plunged into eternal darkness."

Fortunately for us, the darkness proved not to be eternal. In the late 1500s workers digging a canal uncovered slabs of marble and painted fresco walls. In the 1600s more ruins were unearthed. In 1763 an inscription was found that identified the town as the Pompeii written about by Pliny. The eruption of Mt. Vesuvius preserved an unprecedented number of works of art and objects from daily life, as well as remains of about two thousand residents who had not fled at the first signs of trouble.

The above text is from the program of the Pompeii: Tales from an Eruption currently an exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts-Houston. The exhibit closes June 22 so Mishaelle, Haden and I went down to the museum district last Friday to see it. I've never been disappointed when I made whatever arrangements necessary to have the time for an exhibit at MFAH and this occasion was no different.

My earliest memory of the history of the Pompeii eruption came in grade school via the Weekly Reader. I don't remember much more from that early introduction other than being horrified and, at the same time mesmerized by the whole event. It was much later that I was again exposed to the information and appreciated the loss of life and the historical opportunity the study of the sites offered.

The exhibit at the MFAH consists of casts of the cavities formed when the ash covered the victims. When the bodies rotted away, the pockets were left. From the time of the first discovery, the techniques for casting these pockets and the materials used became more sophisticated. The first display on entering the exhibition is a grouping of several dozen victims who were huddled in a boat shelter waiting evacuation from the city. The casting is so realistic as to shock the visitor with the desperation the victims must have experienced.

The remainder of the exhibit consists of other castings, artifacts, including gold and silver jewelry, precious household items and other objects the people took with them when they fled the eruption.

The exhibition is made more enjoyable by the audio tour aids enabling visitors to enter a number corresponding to a particular display into a small digital player to hear about that display. I recommend it.

Rhett, My Furry Grandson

We've had many cats in the past. Some were just strangers passing through, having seen our "SUCKER FOR CATS" sign (the sort visible only to the feline kingdom), and some came to be part of our family and still dwell in our hearts long after their passing.

My daughter, Mishaelle, has two cats in her home. They were woefully neglected and starved when a friend from Mishaelle's work rescued them more than six years ago. As is typically the case with people who rescue cats, the work friend already had a house full of critters and Mishaelle took in the babies.

I want to share photos I took this afternoon of Mishaelle and her furry son, Rhett. There's also a photo of Haden and Rhett. Haden is my human grandson and Rhett is my furry grandson.The cute thing about these photos is that Rhett is getting his armpits scratched which is just about his most favorite kind of attention.

Photo 1: Mishaelle and Rhett... the one armpit scratch. Photo 2: Haden and Rhett... the double I'm-SO-into-this armpit scratch. The look on Rhett's face is pure ecstasy!

The Hurricane Humberto Refugee

"Grandbaby"

In my office this afternoon...

Hurricane Humberto.... SURPRISE !

Okie-dokie.... I want to thank all you folks who, indeed, followed directions from last evening's blog entry and crossed your fingers.... I asked for your digit intervention so that here in Liberty County... and, what the heck, big, bad old Houston nearby... wouldn't see a repeat of Tropical Storm Allison's 2001 devistation in the form of rainfall from Tropical Storm Humberto. Great news! It worked!

But, I woke up this morning thinking it odd that I hadn't been awakened in the night by the sound of horrendous rainfall.... promptly turned on the tv to catch the 6:00 am news.... and saw that TS Humberto had upgraded to a cat 1 hurricane, taken a hard easterly track and slammed into Beaumont, Texas, about 50 miles east of here.

Holy SH**, Sherlock !!!

MY GRANDBABY IS IN COLLEGE IN BEAUMONT!!!!!

Fortunately, before I could get worked up into a serious case of Granny fit-throwin', my daughter called to tell me she'd just talked to aforementioned grandbaby and he was doing fine... none too happy his mom had awakened him, but fine all the same.

Yesterday, the college had cancelled classes for today, told the students to move all automobiles to the south end of the large dorm complex (higher ground) and to stay inside. The college has a very proactive severe weather plan, having suffered heavy damage in the landfall of Hurricane Rita two years ago. Grandbaby felt his truck was high enough that it would be okay parked in the higher center of his dorm parking lot. His dorm building and others around his suffered minor damage... loss of rain gutters, shingles here and there, downed trees and the like. The worst problem being no electricity, and none expected through the weekend, classes were also cancelled for Friday. Grandbaby is at home early this weekend.

Here on the upper Texas Gulf Coast, we have again dodged the bullet. Whew............

Humberto, the Rainmaker

Okay, folks.... here he is..... Tropical Storm Humberto.... it's about 9:25pm, Wednesday night. Here in Liberty County (see "Liberty" on the radar map) we are warned we will get 5-10 inches of rain in about a 8 hour period tonight starting at midnight. We could get as much as 15 inches. It's a slow moving storm and will do its worst damage to the Liberty County, Texas area with the rainfall.

Through my employment with the county, I have access to early emergency management planning AND I have to go to work, even if the county shuts down. Ahem.... Of course, If I can't get there, I can't get there.... a day off to sit on the sofa and write would be lovely.

Cross your fingers that we don't get a repeat of Tropical Storm Allison which, in 2001 brought the greater Houston area to its knees. If you're not familiar with Allison and the flooding she caused in Houston.... Google her..... the photos were awesome.

*TS Storm Humberto radar photo from KPRC-TV (Houston) weather radar

At Goal Weight Watchers Member

At my weekly Weight Watchers meeting yesterday morning, I realized that, since I became an at goal lifetime member, six months have gone by. I only realized this because I'd just gotten the last weigh in sticker on my WW book. There are 24 such spots for weigh in stickers so.... 24 divided by 4 is 6..... therefore, I've been lifetime for six months.

Six months is significant to me because it's the six month mark where, in the past when I'd managed to lose a significant amount of weight (but not all I needed to lose), that I began to slip away from the method, diet or otherwise, that had been responsible for me losing the weight. I've said all along... I'm pleased beyond words to have lost 83 pounds, but I'll be MORE impressed when, at six months or a year out, I've managed to KEEP it off. And here I am... six months out and I'm still at goal weight! Woooooooo-hoooooooooo!

Endurance, Toning and Cardio Workouts

I have no firm measurements to back up my belief that the endurance and toning exercises and the cardio workouts have helped with "firming" but the fit of my slacks seems to confirm that the workouts have helped tighten up my tummy muscles. I've been at it for almost three months. Beyond the fact that I am able to do more and the workouts are helping keep my weight under control, I do believe it's working. I don't see any difference yet in the "wings" on my upper arms, but hopefully that will come in time. I'm not anything if I'm not patient.

Cardio Training Commences NOW...

After about eight weeks of endurance and toning work outs, I've moved to the next step in my exercise program. I'm into cardio training now. The basic difference, Rick the center trainer tells me is that I was using the machines with no negative resistence before now. This was to build up my endurance. I suspect it was also to make sure I wouldn't drop dead from the new activity before I move on to the harder stuff. The cardio training is done on machines that offer negative resistence and therefore build muscle. I need to build muscle now in order to tighten some of my saggy areas... abdomen, arms and legs.

I need to build chest muscles too, hopefully restoring my bustline somewhat. There's no delicate way to say it: the loss of 83 pounds over all took a serious toll on my bust measurement. Even when I weighed 114 pounds as a young adult, I was reasonably "endowed". It's a sad state of affairs when among the other necessities of life one buys at WalMart, one resorts to purchasing "bust enhancement" as well. I don't think it's that I'm all that vain about it; it just helps clothing to fit better. Okay... whatever you want to call it... I'm now into building chest muscles!

Beginning today, I am to alternate the endurance and toning workout with the cardio training. This is to also keep me from getting bored with the workout. The immediate result today is the workout totally kicked my butt! Toward the end of the third round of machines, my muscles were quivering and I was slowing between machines to catch my breath. When I got home, I stretched out on the bed for awhile then transferred to the sofa and took a short nap. Even three hours later, I can feel my muscles, especially in my arms, quivering slightly. This is bound to be good for me... god, I certainly hope so!

Que Sera, Sera

A conversation this evening with a friend having to do with the merits of just relaxing and enjoying life instead of continuing to push the same old boulders uphill, had me using the phrase "Que Sera, Sera". That led to the discussion of the song Que Sera, Sera made famous in the fifties by Doris Day and THAT led to the discussion of Academy Award winning songs and the movies in which the songs appeared.

Now, if you don’t have this type of discussion you probably don’t end up doing as much totally useless research by web surfing as I do. My tendency to get caught up in ever-widening ripple-affect and off-the-subject research is probably the reason I excel at Trivial Pursuit and it’s likely the reason the only time my family and friends will play my favorite game with me is on my birthday! But I digress.

My friend accurately remembered the song to be from a movie starring James Stewart. I suggested the movie might be Rear Window but my friend remembered it to be set in a foreign location. I looked it up. The movie was called The Man Who Knew Too Much and was set in Morocco. Stewart’s co-star was Doris Day.

In 1956 when it won the Academy Award for Best Song, Que Sera, Sera was played on the radio all the time and as an entire nation we sang along. I thought myself quite smart as a ten year old when I could sing in a foreign language! (That was to remain my only second-language sing-along ability until Don Ho made Tiny Bubbles popular in the 1960s.)

Just for fun, I’ve included a short list of historical events, dated by the song title that won the Academy Award that year.

Bombing of Pearl Harbor - The Last Time I Saw Paris (film: Lady Be Good)
Eisenhower Elected President – High Noon (film: High Noon)
JFK Assassination - Call Me Irresponsible (film: Papa’s Delicate Condition)
The First Super Bowl – Born Free (film: Born Free)
America’s Bicentennial – Evergreen (film: A Star Is Born)