Ike, and a random hot air balloon

Just the tropical storm remnants of mighty Ike are left, now wandering through northwest Texas and Arkansas. I think most of Victoria and Lake Jackson evacuated. We just sold our house in Lake Jackson a week and a half ago. Good timing. Not that we don't feel bad for the people that just bought the place, but having to get a hurricane-damaged house repaired from this far away would be excruciating. Having to do it while you're living there would be bad enough.

From the short interview I heard on CNN.com with the mayor, it sounds like Lake Jackson fared pretty well. Lots of downed tree limbs, no power, and please don't come back until we can get things cleared up some more. We eagerly await to hear from our friends as they return. The community where we would go to the beach, Surfside, looked to be mostly underwater. We know a few people that live there, and I'm hoping the stilts held that all the houses are on, and kept the homes out of the water. We liked to eat at the Purple Cow - a hole in the wall burger joint. Really good burgers, and their seafood platters were tasty too. Andy asked if that was underwater. It's on ground level, so I imagine they will be rebuilding.

The first time we went to the Purple Cow, I believe Auntie Claire was with us, and after we had been seated at a table I left the boys with Claire and went to use the restroom. We had been at the beach for several hours and I wanted to freshen up and wash my hands. Well, there was a picture of a guy in the bathroom. Tanned with a nice physique, and a rectangular wooden flap over the groin area. Hmmmm, what to do. To lift or not to lift. I didn't give it much thought, really, and flipped it up. BUUUUUUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ...

The buzzer not only went off, much to the amusement of everyone in the restaurant who was clapping and laughing, but got stuck. So after roughly 15 seconds of standing frozen, wishing the stupid thing would stop, I stuck my head our the door and shrugged my shoulders at the waitress with an inquiring look. "Just push the flap down, it gets stuck sometimes!" she yelled back. So embarrassing! I was so flustered I don't even know what was under the flap - but I think it said something like "GOTCHA!". I got back to the table and told Claire why the buzzer had been going off, and she was quite amused. I guess everyone one else there were regulars and knew EXACTLY why the buzzer had been sounding.

And in other news, as I was doing the breakfast dishes this morning, I looked out the back windows to see this:
What the?!


Well, would ya' look at that, it's a hot air balloon! I don't know how common this is, but I'll let you know if I see it again.