2004: One of Ed’s darts team teammates opened a bar with a backyard that had a great view of the Houston fireworks, which are great but really crowded. Watching from here solved that problem.

2005: We went to a party at Erica’s boyfriend’s dad’s law office west of the Galleria, which had a view of downtown and the west suburbs. Erica’s boyfriend was attending the Air Force Academy at the time, so he wasn’t actually there.

2006: Santa Barbara! We watched the fireworks from a sailboat belonging to someone Kevin knew in the harbor.

2007: We had just moved into an apartment in Dallas, and had no idea where to view fireworks (the city doesn’t have any!). We went to the top level of our parking garage and watched some distant suburbian displays from an abandoned power boat that looked like it was from “Some Like it Hot”.

2008: After a potluck at our across-the-street-neighbors’, the entire party walked over to Lakewood Country Club (about three blocks), which has a great display.

2009: The White Rock Boat Club had a party out on their pier, with a band and a keg and grilled meats. We could see both the Fair Park and Lakewood Country Club fireworks, plus some random suburbs’ and illegal lakeside displays.

Who knows where we’ll be next year? I think we need to make a point of trying something new.

I continue to get updates from friends. Peter, in Sugar Land, got power back Saturday night. He is the only one so far. Among the friends without power, some have gone to other cities, or to parts of the city with power.

Ray, who evacuated from Kemah, and learned the night before the storm that his FEMA flood insurance had expired, somehow made his way to his apartment yesterday to find that it had not flooded. Today he was able to get 50 pounds of FEMA ice and a few MREs. He sent me a picture of the boxes; I had to laugh because it lists a mint as part of the dinner. It’s the little things, I guess, but it bothers me that I have friends who are standing in line for FEMA supplies.

I talked to a few Houston friends today. One lost a 110-ft section of fence, but had no other damage. He said the noise from the storm was “awesome, just awesome”, that the rain was horizontal, and that small trees in his yard were bent so that their tops touched the ground. I talked to another friend in the wee hours of the morning when the storm was directly overhead. He also commented on the noise, which went on for hours, and the fierce red sunset the night before. Both talked about a creepy noise that sounded like a harmonica coming from their doors all night.

A third friend lives in Kemah, a tourist town near Galveston which has been on the news a lot because of the massive flooding and damage near its boardwalk. He evacuated before the storm, but is very anxious to get back see his first floor apartment.

In our old neighborhood, we have learned that the tree that shaded our porch blew over into the street. There are other big trees down on that street as well.

Hardest to see is the damage to Galveston. All of the piers are gone, the western part of the island is still flooded, and the Strand (the historic downtown district where the restaurants and shops are) flooded badly. While most of the old Victorian houses are still standing, they flooded and some even burned. I have not heard anything about the tall ship Elissa; hopefully that is a good thing.

I must admit that I am disappointed having missed the hurricane. When Rita skirted by us three years ago, most people who stayed in Houston felt let down, especially after all the hard preparation work. One of my friends admitted on Friday that he was excited to finally get a direct hit, and I completely understand that feeling. There was a “wow” in the voices of the people that I talked to today that I am envious of.

That said, I am glad I don’t have to deal with that tree.

On the other hand, I kind of wish I was there with them. It’s a cliche, but there is something appealing about hunkering down for a hurricane, getting supplies together, boarding up the house, having a party, and then closing the door and trying to sleep while the winds howl outside.

I put up our “Don’t Give Up the Ship” flag today. Good luck Galveston and Houston!

Sunday I used my free ticket. I enjoyed seeing the big mansions on Swiss Avenue, as well as an old house on our street that was saved from demolition last year and is being restored by Preservation Dallas. The weekend also included parties on Swiss, carriage rides, bands, art booths, etc.

As much as I liked having an event like this in the neighborhood, I was still sad to be missing the Art Car Parade in Houston on Saturday. So far I haven’t found anything in Dallas like the Art Car Parade / Museum, the Orange Show, the Beer Can House, Project Row Houses, etc.

And a sad note from Houston: Saturday night after the parade, the curator of the Art Car Museum was killed by a drunk driver while sitting on the curb in front of the museum on Heights Boulevard. He had driven one of the art cars in the parade that afternoon.  I’ve met him before, and it’s a shame.

This year’s MS150 was very, very hard-fought, but thankfully, hard-won!

As we watched the forecast last week, we were delighted to see that mild temperatures and dry weather were predicted for the route. Unfortunately, we soon learned that high winds from the north and northwest were also on the way! And the winds were indeed brutal. It’s pretty tough to keep yourself going for hours into a headwind. A lot of people didn’t even finish the first day, and among those that did, many chose not to ride the second, including a few on our team. And to add insult to injury, temperatures dropped into the forties overnight, which made the dawn start very uncomfortable. After waiting an hour in shiver-inducing cold, we started down several long hills, making the wind chill almost unbearable. My teeth were chattering uncontrollably, and it was hard to handle the brakes and shifters, my hands were so cold.

But did I have fun? Yes!!! Despite the weather challenges, there were several improvements over last year, along with the same satisfaction gained from doing the ride. One great thing this year was that Caprock hired two massage therapists to give free massages in our tent after the first day’s ride. This was wonderful, and really helped with the recovery.

This year Ed (yes, he rode this year) and I, along with one other woman from our team, took the “Challenge Route” on Day 2. This route goes through Buescher and Bastrop state parks. It is much more scenic than the “Express Route” that I took last year, but has some very challenging hills that scare a lot of people off. Living in Dallas now, Ed and I have been able to practice hills more than our Houston flatlander teammates, so we didn’t find this to be a problem at all. And the parks were beautiful to ride through.

I see I didn’t write about this last year, but one fun thing about the ride is the rural people that park at the end of their ranch roads and entertain the riders. There is one guy who plays fiddle all day on the back of a trailer, and there is a steel drum band out in the middle of Texas farm land (!), as well as lots of people with bells and noisemakers who sit in lawn chairs and yell and wave. This year with the alternate route I got to see another institution, the bagpiper in Buescher State Park. This made me tear up a little, though, as he played “Amazing Grace” as we rode up a hill and it reminded me of Kelly’s funeral. Still, it was a great touch.

So how did Ed like it, you ask? Well, despite being impatient, not liking crowds, the unknown, getting up early or roughing it, I think he was glad he did it. He won’t come out and say he liked it because he spent months saying he didn’t want to do it, but since we finished he has been talking about next year. There is something about this type of event that is a little addictive, and I saw it in other first-time riders on our team as they crossed the finish line, fists in the air, yelling “I did it!”. They’ll be back.

I have not been riding as much this year as last because we are far away from the structure of organized rides that has built in in Houston around this. Also, we are not yet familiar with all the good places to ride here. I still feel ready, though, and don’t think it will be a problem. More of an issue is the logistics of getting to Houston, getting back to Houston from Austin, and getting back to Dallas. Ironically, Dallas has an MS150, but it is much smaller and really just goes from the suburbs to Ft. Worth. Doesn’t seem as grand as riding with 13,000 from Houston to Austin.

1. Tropical Storm Allison – 2001 This was my first (and hopefully last) time waking up in a disaster area. The anxiety caused by watching the water rise during the night followed by the shear awe of the devastation the next day was almost overwhelming. We were very fortunate, others weren’t.
2. Hurricane Rita – 2005 I can still feel the fear triggered by the satellite images of this monstrous storm headed right toward Houston … the reports that the hurricane was a Cat 5 … the frenzy of boarding up the house … and the anticipated loss of Galveston, which looked to be a goner, fear intensified by the recent impact of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans. Rita made me appreciate the value of having good, close neighbors who will help each other in the face of bad things, be it nailing plywood, handing out popsicles, arming the neighbors or having drinks together after a long day’s labor. I kept that in mind while choosing a neighborhood in Dallas. Again, we were very fortunate, others weren’t.
3. Hurricane Katrina – 2005 More specifically, the influx of thousands of New Orleans residents into Houston, the response of Houstonians, and the continuing social impact (crime, the controversy of long-term financial support, and some really cool new “evacuee” friends).
4. 9-11 – 2001 Obviously this would have been on the list no matter where we were living, but it is a defining moment nevertheless. Elements specific to my experience in Houston were the fact that I was working in a prominent skyscraper at the time, and our proximity to a military airfield meant there were a lot of disconcerting warplanes flying around. Also, for months I couldn’t glance at the Houston skyline during my morning drive to work without scanning for planes or smoke.
5. Snow on Christmas Eve – 2004 In Houston! I still can’t believe this happened.
6. Home tour – 2002 When we met one of our new neighbors in Dallas, she said “Now you know, you’re going to be asked to be on the (Swiss Avenue Historic District) home tour.” If that happens, I don’t know how I’ll react. On the one hand, being on the Heights Home Tour was a lot of work. On the other hand, it motivated us to make a lot of improvements to our house which ultimately helped us sell it, and I am proud that we did it. We’ll see.
7. Erica moving in with us – 2004 This had a huge impact on all of us, not only in the year Erica actually lived in our house and attended high school, but also in leading to her choice of the University of Texas for college and spending more of her vacation time with us than she used to due to proximity. It has also significantly strengthened her relationship with Ed, an effect that will no doubt last a lifetime.
8. Williams Tower Climber – 2002 The tragic fall (or jump, depending on whom you talked to) of Ryan Hartley from the 26th floor of the Williams Tower made me feel differently about the beautiful building I worked in for nearly five of my years in Houston. I am glad I did not witness the fall, but I am sorry I saw the aftermath. This was also my first (and hopefully last) time meeting with a grief counselor, recommended for managers of employees who had witnessed the incident as one of mine had.
9. Space shuttle Columbia demise – 2003 One thing I miss about Houston is the steady stream of astronauts that were trotted out at events to wave, sign autographs, or just be. NASA is a big part of Houston, and the Columbia accident really brought that home. And to top it off, it happened near Houston.
10. Dewey and Lizzie – 2001, 2003 I am writing this with former resident of the Houston SPCA shelter Lizzie purring in my lap. Our little native Houstonians are welcome Houston souvenirs.

• 10. Skiing at Winter Park in Colorado It had been years since Ed and I had been skiing, so this partially work-funded trip was a real treat. It didn’t take long to get the legs back, and we really enjoyed this resort for the sheer size of it, and the fact that many of the slopes were groomed on one side only, leaving the other side to develop excellent mogul fields. This allowed us to ski together more (me on the mogul side, Ed on the smooth). A bonus event was when Ed put a pizza, still in box, in the oven of our condo and started a kitchen fire, then ran outside while I put the fire out.
• 9. Getting my road bike Ed has been riding roadies for years, but I had turned more toward mountain biking. I finally got a good bike, my first since my heavy Schwinn bought in about 1979. We started riding regularly in the countryside near Houston, and had an especially nice ride on rented bikes in the Santa Ynez valley while visiting Steeles. We also did our first race ride, a 55-miler called the Tour de Donut.
• 8. Riding Segways My first time on a Segway made my “Best of” list for 2003, but that was really just a short ride in a mall store. During our summer 2006 trip to Santa Barbara, Ed and I took the Old Santa Barbara Segway tour. I will just say here that riding Segways is really, really fun. We enjoyed it so much that the other day when Linda mentioned that this Segway dealership is for sale, Ed actually read through the details of the offer and was thinking about where he would work while I ran it, and where we would live.
• 7. Ed’s transfer to Dallas While the actual move didn’t take place until 2007, the event was set into motion in 2006 and occupied much of our mental and physical energy for the second half of the year.
• 6. Car chases At Caprock, one of our lunchtime haunts was a Tex-Mex dive which always seemed to be showing car chases on its big screen TV. I think it was Fox News; I don’t usually watch that channel, but they seem to have the car chase thing covered. One Friday afternoon back at the office, my friend John Robert IM’ed me from New York City that he was watching a car chase in Pearland (where our office was) on the screen in Times Square. I found a local news station covering the chase, and before long the entire office (plus John Robert in New York) was watching as a driver in a white pickup pulled stuntman moves past many familiar landmarks (including the aforementioned Tex-Mex dive) with dozens of helicopters and squad cars in tow. He drove through the golf course by the Vietnamese restaurant and headed to the intersection with the tollway that would take him past our building. We all crossed our fingers, but no, he passed through the intersection and headed toward downtown Houston. Somehow sensing his mistake, he drove through the massive median and U-turned back toward Pearland and … would he? would he? YES! he turned east on the tollway right toward Caprock. And the entire workforce ran to the front of the building to watch. Helicopters, motorcycles, cars, all chasing a lone Ford F150. After the show passed, we all went back to our desks and watched as spikes were thrown in the highway and the now tireless truck rode through several more towns, sometimes hopping curbs ON ITS RIMS, near-miss after near-miss, finally plopping into a bayou and sinking. The driver was rescued and miraculously no one was hurt in the whole 2-hour chase. Apparently the reason behind the whole thing was the guy had stopped taking his depression medication and held up a dry cleaner for a pittance. Now, you might think that was the end of the car chase entry for 2006, but no. This car chase ended on our block later in the year.
• 5. Dynamo soccer Houston got a major league soccer team in 2006, and it was wildly successful. Both the fan participation and the team’s performance were stellar. The games were the most fun professional sports games I’ve ever been to, due in part to the insane soccer fans with their drums, streamers, wigs, flags, brass instruments, cowbells and smoke bombs. The team made it to the MLS championship game in Dallas. Ed and I drove up to watch the Houston Dynamo beat the New England Revolution in overtime. And the 2007 update is that this year, the Dynamo beat the Revolution for the championship AGAIN, this time in Washington D.C. Attendance at the games in Houston remains strong and loud. Let’s Go Dynamo!
• 4. Meeting Kyle Chandler I met Ed’s cousin Kyle for the first time when he drove to Houston from Austin, where he was filming a TV show, to join his brothers and cousins for a Buffalo Bills game. What a nice guy! He climbed a grapefruit tree in his brother’s backyard in his socks to make me juice for a cocktail.
• 3. Getting a high-tech crown I did write about this when it happened, but here it is on my top 10 list; it was just that cool. On a sad note, my dentist of seven years who did the crown committed suicide a few months ago.
• 2. Jury Duty Well this is an odd choice for a top 10 list (not that the crown isn’t), and at number 2 no less! But serving on this jury is still one of the most fascinating things I’ve done. The dynamics of deliberations (including watching one woman have a meltdown under the pressure to come to a verdict), the interaction between the jurors (two of whom discovered that they had lived in the same house in different decades) and the case itself were all interesting. Best of all was having the judge, prosecutor and defense attorney visit the jury following the trial to answer questions and discuss evidence and testimony which was not admitted for the trial itself. I hope to get the chance to do this again (but not for traffic court, that is boring).
• 1. Two Gallants show at Walter’s on Washington Being a first-hand witness at the concert in Houston where an HPD officer stormed to the stage and knocked down the guitarist of a band while he was playing tops out my list. First of all, it was national news (well, national music news). I’ve talked to people here in Dallas who know all about it. Second, it definitely changed how I think about law enforcement. I still respect the police, but from the reading I’ve done since and the anecdotal evidence I’ve gathered from friends who are outside of my (somewhat privileged) demographic, I now realize how many problem officers there are. Third, it was a lesson in how the power of the internet. If not for the YouTube videos and the forums and the online coverage, the charges against the band members would not have been dropped. Fourth, I was able to contribute to the effort to see justice done by giving a statement to HPD Internal Affairs and by giving a statement to the bands’ defense lawyers. And finally fifth, because I was interviewed by the local alternative weekly, so I got to show my friends, but they spelled my name wrong, so future employers can’t Google it.