New Stuff

I bought some new stuff for the house. Internet shopping is GREAT! I found a rug for the entry way, and it was immediately taken over by the cats. Connor found out that he couldn't replace Bodhi on the rug.

Bodhi is especially fond of the rug. While I am on the computer, I can look over and see his eyes glowing out at me from the darkened entry way, as he sits in the middle of the rug, like it's his throne.

I also got a wicker window seat for my room. I had a little window ledge for the cats, but only two of them could get on it at the same time, and it seemed like it would buckle under their weight.

Now all three of them fit in the window, where they can watch the birds and squirrels all day long. I love the seat because it holds my linens, but I think the cats may love it more than I do.

Memphis Belle

We arrived home today from our wonderful trip to Memphis. We flew out last Thursday to meet Ada face to face. Seeing Gina and Steve was the icing on our Ada cake. We went to the Bolton High School production of It's A Wonderful Life, in which Gina's niece, Emily, played the part of Zuzu.
She is a GREAT baby! In addition to being beautiful and good natured, she is going to be an astronaut - her daddy says so (so I'm sure it's true).

It got pretty chilly in Memphis, so I got some great shots of Gina, Steve, and Connor in the steam of the hot tub this morning. Con and Stevo made a pretty good team this weekend when they cleaned the leaves off the deck and the hot tub cover.
You have to click on this picture to see the great expressions on their faces. Biscuit the wonder-schnauzer impatiently waited for someone to brave the cold and throw the tennis ball for her to fetch. Needless to say, her wait was in vain - it was just too cold to stand up and throw the ball.
Marilyn had a strange and wonderful effect on Ada. It seems that whenever Ada gazes up into Marilyn's lovely hazel eyes, she gets the urge to evacuate her bowels. Before leaving, Marilyn was given a new nickname, Auntiepoo.

Funeral for a Friend

We attended the funeral of Karim's mother, Nadia, today. She had a lovely service and eulogy. Nadia was a great lady

Here is her obituary:

NADIA WASSEF passed from this life on Monday November 6, 2006, following a courageous battle with cancer. Nadia was born on July 2, 1943, in Cairo, Egypt. She immigrated to the US in 1980. Nadia ran a successful real estate business in Houston, Texas. She saw real estate as a wonderful investment and started her own brokerage company, Imperial Properties. Nadia enjoyed painting, creating stained glass, and repairing heirloom crystal and porcelain. Her greatest love was spending time with family and close friends. Her son, Karim, whom she loved dearly, brought great joy to her life. Nadia has so many friends that have been touched in some way by her smile, her great wisdom, caring spirit and gentle touch. We know she will be greatly missed by all who knew her. Preceded in death by parents, her mother Saniya and her father Fahmy, she leaves to cherish her memory her devoted son Karim, her husband Samir and her great aunt Afifa. She will be sadly missed and lovingly remembered by several other close family relatives in the U.S. and Egypt. A celebration of Nadia's life will be held in a closed casket service on Wednesday, November 8th, at 2 O'clock P.M. at St Anne's Catholic Church, located at 2140 Westheimer, Houston, Texas, 77098 The Family wishes to thank Wilfred Smith, Cordelia Cockrell, Nedira Abdowaise, Pam Clift and especially J. Nicole Rogers for their unconditional love, care and devotion throughout Nadia's fight with cancer. In lieu of flowers, the family requests memorial contributions are made to the Houston Arboretum & Nature Center. Because of Nadia's great love for nature and birds, arrangements have been made to plant a tree and place a bench in Nadia's name. You may send your donation to the Houston Aboretum located at 4501 Woodway Dr, Houston, TX 77024. Interment will follow the service at Glenwood Cemetery, located at 2525 Washington Ave, Houston, Texas 77007.

Published in the Houston Chronicle on 11/8/2006.

Woody Wants to Die

Today Mikey sent me a link to a funny site. One of Mike's coworkers is deliciously twisted. It seems that Woody is oh so bored at work, and he just can't take it anymore. Woody tries to off himself again and again - he's the hapless Harold of the toothpick set.

You have to visit the site to see the rest of Woody's failed suicide attempts. His real life tormentor has a wonderfully vivid imagination and a wicked sense of humor. I give this site two severed thumbs up.

Eleanor Rigby

The last book I read was just prior to our move. I started to blog it, but didn't get the chance to finish it before everything became too hectic.

After reading this book, I still have to say Douglas Coupland is still one of my favorite authors. In Eleanor Rigby, Coupland tells the story of a woman in her 40's who is not married, lives alone, and has only her work as a source of social activity. She doesn't particularly like her work, but she is good at her job. As her life goes on the same, day in and day out until one day something unexpected changes her life and her world forever. She receives a call from a hospital, where a young man has listed her as his emergency contact. The young man listed her as his mother.

Whenever I read Douglas Coupland's books, I feel like I know the characters. The people he writes about seem like people I've met or worked with before, so his stories always feel familiar and somehow comforting. Douglas Coupland has a knack for telling stories about ordinary people living ordinary lives, but as Coupland develops his characters, it become apparent that they are more complex than they seem at first glance. His characters become strange and extraordinary, after the reader discovers unusual events in their history. Coupland's characters are proof that life story of every person is profound when viewed in the context of what circumstances they have survived.

Moon Cake

Moon Cake - Red Lotus Paste with Two Egg.



I went to Chinatown a couple of weeks ago and saw a table piled high with these beautiful red tins. The lady behind the counter informed me that they were for the Moon Festival, which fell on October 6th this year.

I was feeling adventurous, so I bought one of the tins of moon cakes and took them home. Unfortunately, I forgot that I bought them, so they have been sitting in the pantry until today.

There are four moon cakes to a tin and I was told by the lady behind the counter that they are to be cut in quarters, and each person is only supposed to eat one of the quarters because they are very filling. I was also told that I should eat them with a cup of green tea.

I bought the Red Lotus with Two Egg variety, because I was told they are the "most beautiful." They are definitely the most interesting. I like the lotus paste, but I am not sold on the egg yoke, and they are more than a little oily. I don't think I am going to crave moon cakes in the future, but I'm glad I tried them. Now, who do I make a gift of the remaining moon cakes to?

Entirely Too Much Cat for One Basket

This is a relatively small basket and about 25 lbs worth of cat spilling out of it. Lena is resting her soft little cheek against Bodhi's soft little cheek.

Welcome to the World Ada!

I love this little girl!Introducing: Ada Isabel Dukes, the newest member of our motley clan.

This is Gina, Ada's happy, glowing mommy.

Ada and her Daddy in peaceful repose. You can't tell it from looking at this picture, but she already owns him - he never stood a chance.

You can find more pictures of our darling Adabel at: http://stephendukes.com/adafamily/

Casa Mantequilla

This is Casa Mantequilla. The focus of much of my distraction for the last couple of months.
Casa Mantequilla from another angle. Two weeks after La Loca made her final exit, we moved into our first house.
The previous owner loved to garden, so the back yard is quite lovely. The patio is now full of my plants, but I will probably put most of them in the ground before long.
This is a view from the living room out into the back yard. We have more birds, butterflies, and squirrels than I would have guessed could fit into a back yard in the city. Yesterday we saw nine little birds having a grand time in the bird bath.

This is Connor sitting in the living room floor during our inspection of the house. He's playing his PSP and oblivious to all that is going on around him.

This is a view of my desk, the same view as the picture above, but with furniture.
This is the view from my desk. The couch is in front of the desk, but you can get a really good view of the TV, as long as Marilyn's unusually large noggin is not centered on the horizon.
I will post a daytime view through the windows from the computer soon - it is one of the best things about having the computer in the livingroom.
This is Saffie sprawling across the kitchen floor. It took her a week, but she is finally acting like she's at home in her new house.

Champagne Lip Balm

Stewart and Heidi gave me this fabulous champagne flavored lip balm for my birthday. It really feels good, so I took it to my office when the lip balm I kept in my desk drawer ran out last week. What I didn't anticipate was that it would so realistically smell like alcohol. It took me the better part of a day to figure out that all of my clients were not relapsing (although I still have my doubts about one of them). I replaced my champagne lip balm at the office with a non-alcoholic variety - now I just hope I don't get pulled over by the police when I'm wearing it. I wonder how it will test on a breathalyzer...

Ender's Game

Marilyn read Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card and raved about it, so I picked it up and was immediately caught up in the fantastic story of a boy genius who is destined to save the world from an alien race called buggers. Ender's Game is touted as one of the best sci-fi books ever written, and it may be. I was amazed at how a book originally written in 1977 could so accurately portray so many things that have come to pass, like the use of things like video games to train soldiers and the use of the Internet to disseminate political messages. The story of Ender Wiggins, the 6 year old genius who goes to Battle School to learn how to become a great commander, is both wrenching and exhilarating. It is difficult to read about a 6 year old who is isolated and alienated by adults who are trying to mold him into a killing machine. Overall, I enjoyed Ender's Game, but I found the sequences in which the adults in Battle School talked about Ender's treatment rang false to me. I would still recommend it and I plan to read the sequels and go see the movie when it is released in 2008.

Creepy La Loca Update

I got this e-mail from my landlady today:

Karen-

Thank you for taking the time Tuesday to go into court and testify against Tina. I understand that you were particularly articulate and largely
responsible for our getting the judgment.

It turns out that Tina is even crazier and more desperate than we had realized. Last week she spent so much time trying to get the FBI to charge Mary Katherine and our management company with hate crimes that she is now banned from the FBI building.

Yesterday she apparently called the Secret Service Field office in Houston and said that if she was evicted next Tuesday she will kill someone.

Please be very careful. We have been advised that the Houston Police have been notified and if you do need to call them they will respond.

Isabel

She is so creepy. I am still glad I testified, but I am dreading having to deal with her until she moves. I am dreading dealing with her after she moves, too. I don't think this will be over until we move out. What a mess.

Crazy Court

I testified for the management company today at La Loca's eviction trial. It was a rotten experience. Mary Catherine, the neighbor with MS, is a ghoul. When I arrived at the courtroom, she pointed to the front two rows of seats and grinned saying, "These two are ours." I just nodded affirmatively. She really was taking a sick kind of delight in trying to get La Loca thrown out of her apartment. Mary Catherine and I were the only neighbors to show up, and midway through the trial, I told her to be quiet. She kept saying things out loud, like white trash at the Jerry Springer Show.

Court opened at 9:00 AM, and several cases were thrown out because neither the apartment management or the defendant showed up for the trial. Three cases had one party show up, so the judge knocked those out in about 10 minutes each. Then our trial came up, and it went on for two and a half hours. The management company vice-president was first to speak. Apparently, they had been confiscating her signs, so they had her Wookin' Por Nub sign and her Laptop for Sale sign. The short of it is that I told the judge that I was sure there would be retaliation on her part, but that I felt I owed it to Connor to come to court and tell them about her bizarre behavior. She accused me of being a liar, whipped out a sealed envelop and chucked it at the judge telling him, "There is a thousand dollars in that envelope, I want her to take a lie detector test." She brought up a lot of irrelevant issues, mostly "violations" she feels the management company has committed. She even tried to claim my plants were "trash" and cluttering up the courtyard. Her arguments were wild, varied, and even inappropriate. She brought up an argument that Mary Catherine's boyfriend was having sex with Mommy Dearest. There was an e-mail introduced into evidence in which La Loca proclaimed her lust for a tenant who moved out of her residence after only living here for 3 months to avoid the unwanted advances of La Loca.

The judge sided with the management company and told her that she needed to leave the courtroom and not accost any of the witnesses as we left. She has 5 days to file an appeal, or vacate the premises. My guess is she will be filing an appeal. I parked my car in the Medical Center and took the train into downtown this morning.

On my way back to train, La Loca pulled up to the intersection just as I was about to cross. She was stopped at a red light, but I was going to have to walk directly in front of her to get to the train. It was reflex, I waited until another pedestrian stepped out in front of her car before high tailing it across the road. She yelled at me as I crossed, "God is going to get you for this." I'm pretty sure that the only one who will try to get me is her. Before I got home, I got a call from the attorney who thanked me for my bravery. I don't feel particularly brave, but I am glad that there is a good chance she will be moving...at some point, anyway.

Dilemma

On Notice by MEG

Marilyn doctored the "On Notice" list from the Colbert Report. It fits this blog entry because I got a call from the management of my apartment complex asking me to go to court and testify against La Loca for them next week. They are working on throwing her out of her apartment and they want me to be a character witness against her. On the one hand, I can see why they are taking her to court, and I agree that she needs to go. On the other hand, I am not looking forward to living in the building she burns to the ground after they throw her out. I am also not looking forward to having my tires slashed after I testify against her and she's thrown out. I don't relish being responsible for her homelessness, and I do not think I want to see her on the elevator where I work heading to the homeless program. I told them I would call them today with a decision either for or against testifying against her, but I absolutely blocked it. I didn't remember to call them until after 7:00 PM.

Vandalism

The latest incident/straw - Mommy Dearest got her tires slashed. Connor's money is on La Loca. I don't doubt it, but Mommy Dearest seems to have the ability to piss people off, so who knows?