pecans, bookcases, feeling invisible (not me but some people), and the October sky

Our week of lower temps and low humidity, mornings with the doors open, a little taste of fall, are over. Monday the humidity was back with temps climbing. Back to summer and still no rain. Until today. This morning was nice and cool, low humidity. Forecast is lows in the 60s, highs in the low 90s for the foreseeable future but still no rain. The low humidity has caused the pecan husks to start releasing the mature nuts. I’ve collected a small box worth this past week. I’ve also already dumped a 5 gallon bucket worth of bad ones on the burnpile and started filling it again so it remains to be seen how many good ones I’ll get.

Did some house cleaning across the street last weekend while Robin was out of town and finally moved the chair in my bedroom back over to that house and moved the bookcase I wanted over to my bedroom. I didn’t need the chair because Jade is storing her twin recliner loveseat, which seems to be permanent, in my bedroom. I have three bookcases in the in house studio/office, one has books and our LP collection and some miscellaneous stuff. Another had books and CDs on the top three shelves, miscellaneous hardware and collected seeds and other stuff on the bottom three. The third bookcase held my art supplies and sketchbook, sewing stuff and sewing machine, a box of glues and tapes, and a box of miscellaneous repair stuff, all very crowded and messy, and now much more organized with room to spare.

So the books and CDs got moved from the one to the bedroom, 

old seeds and other stuff cleared out from the same and the stuff from the third is now spread out between the two. 

Something I see on SM is older women feel like they've become socially invisible. Some women are just fine with that but I guess others feel isolated. I’m 75 and I have never felt invisible. I think maybe part of that is that those who feel that way stop engaging, waiting to be noticed. If I want to be noticed I speak up, make eye contact, exchange pleasantries even if it’s only offering the nod of ‘I see you’ as you pass. People regardless of age or sex respond. If I’m feeling anti-social, which happens, it’s my choice to not engage and they are invisible to me. Anyway, what got me thinking about this is that yesterday evening when I was trundling the trash can over to the shop drive which is the address the trash service has for pick-up (an arrangement made when Pam was alive and the water to her house came off the same meter as the shop so we paid the water bill and she paid for trash service that we both used; now of course we pay it but haven’t changed the address) a blue pickup turned the corner onto my street and when the driver came abreast of me he stopped. I stopped and looked at this very attractive younger man (late 30s early 40s I guess), longish blond hair kind of windblown, gorgeous ice blue eyes (I mean swoon worthy), big smile, elbow resting on the open window kind of leaning out asked me how I was. Fine and yourself, doing well. Then I asked, do I know you because I couldn’t place him. He says he did some work in the neighborhood. OK, now I know who he is, he did the work on Montreal’s old house that the woman who bought it now rents out. Sam, right? I asked. Yes. We chatted a bit. You live around here I asked. No he lives in Beasley a small town between here and Rosenberg, was coming back from a job in Blessing, a very small town about a half hour from Wharton in the other direction. We wished each other well and off he went.

I found this whole thing a little unusual for two reasons. One, he had no reason to be driving down my street because Hwy 59 would take him from the cut off to Blessing bypassing Wharton and on to his exit for Beasley so I figure he wanted a drive by to see how the work he did was holding up or maybe the woman who bought the house, who also lives in Beasley, asked him to just get a look see. The other thing was that he remembered me and stopped to chat instead of just driving on by. We only had two face to face encounters that I remember. The first when he and the woman were at the house right after she bought it and he introduced themselves after I crossed the street from the shop, eyeing strangers there before I knew Montreal had sold the house. The second time was when Sam came to our door to ask if he could get a bucket of two of water to prime the pump for the well and septic. Maybe waved to each other a couple of times. So yeah, put a big smile on my face that this good looking younger man who I had had a minor encounter with well over a year ago stopped to chat a bit when he saw me walking down the street.

I’ve been taking pictures of the sky every day this month. It can change dramatically during the day and depending on how many pictures I take on any particular day, sometimes hard to choose just one. Here are the first six days. I only took one picture Oct. 5 and it’s not in great focus but you get the idea.