I’m having one of THOSE days. Not that I can really complain. The weather’s pleasant, I’ve got my open mic tonight, my featured artist is someone that I particularly adore… I had lunch with a friend and my Loving fiancé is thinking about coming out with me to Teavolve tonight… however, I’m feeling kind of slow and under the weather and this is somewhat amplified with the knowledge that my brother is having a really, really, really BAD day.
My brother Lives in Houston. His house isn’t too far from a gentrified bayou that’s been turned into a really Lovely, but watery, linear park. Buffalo Bayou is beautiful. It’s a haven for wildlife. There’s interesting art and fine public works that are part watering stations and part sculpture. There’s a bat habitat. But it’s also a fucking BAYOU and so when there are heavy rains or, to pull an example out of the air (the warm moist air of the Atlantic, specifically) it floods. And if floods up to and around my brother’s house. You know, like they worry about alligators in the yard. That coupled with the fact that they’ve got some big old trees overhanging the house mean that they thought they’d beat Harvey by moving inland to the in-laws’ house and this is what they’ve done.
And unfortunately my mother had also chosen this time for a visit. So they’ve got company to boot.
Well, they left a webcam up and running at their house just so they could see how their home is faring, and apparently it’s faring just fine. Unfortunately, the spot to which they’ve sought refuge is surrounded by and slowly succumbing to encroaching water. Like, there are fish downstairs and though the stove works, you have to stand in knee-deep water to use it. I think I’m beginning to worry about this. I think I had half-remembered nightmares about it and that’s why I’m feeling kind of slow and under the weather.
I have more faith in my brother than I have in most people. I’m not sure how I’D be faring, especially with a wife, two tiny kids and my mother in tow (the in-laws, I believe, are wise in that they are completely out of town) – but my brother’s like, really really fit, his wife is really really fit, and they’re both obscenely smart. I’m not sure how much of their smarts translate into flood-survival skills, but they’ve got power for the moment and they have communication with the outside world, if not actual access to it.
You know, George can fish and they can still Google recipes for fish caught in the Living room to be made with the camp stove they’ve set up in the bedroom. So there’s that.
Oh. And apparently the photo he sent to me of an alligator coming up to the car on a flooded street was nabbed from a 3 year-old news article, so at the moment I’m a little less sympathetic cause that scared the Hell out of me.
And so – if you pray, pray for Houston. And if you don’t, send them good thoughts. And if you’re an evil person and only have evil thoughts, send those unto the clouds covering the city and see if you can’t convince them to move along, move along… cause they are not welcome there.
