We took the kids to see the Basquiat exhibit at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. Ford validated my anticipation, eagerly counting recurring symbols and remarking that “he uses crayons!” I knew the portfolio would captivate Ford, with the cartoony anatomy and cars and expressive style. But I didn’t realize how much it would synchronize with Ford’s interests. And I enjoyed it, too! Even if I couldn’t really stop and breathe much throughout the show. Our tour was characteristically whirlwinded; we bounced around the gallery, cross-referencing to find the ties that bind the work, punctuated with requests to go to the bathroom, get a drink, go home, no stay, go to Austin. Chas, for his part, snoozed in the stroller.

On the walk to dinner, oak boughs bounce with Christmas lights to the sound of rush hour traffic. Lights, everywhere, confuse us all along the way, awakening us: sodium, mercury, halogen, fluorescent, neon. The dark silhouettes of two live oaks frame the facade of ArtHouse like a shadowbox, their branches alive with a congregation of grackles, cackling and cracking.

The morning was crisp and the breeze tickled the Juniper Cedar boughs, and berries littered the patio before we swept and painted:

Later, while Chas napped, Ford and I sat down at the foot of the flower bed and tended the plants. I drilled him on the names of each plant and he was, not surprisingly, correct most of the time. He showed me where the Christmas cactus is growing new leaves, I told him that people used to make paper with the papyrus plant.

Damon buzzed and whirred in the garage, building his amp as fast as possible before the rain came. And soon, it came. Gusts of cold air lifted the new Fall foliage and tiny drops ushered a long rainfall. Ford and I watched as Damon scrambled his welder back into the garage, shouting expletives into the bustling front.

We have a wonderful wool rug in our living room. We bought it in May about three hours before our renters signed a year contract on our home in McKinney, and I somehow believe that it was because of the rug. Being inviting and cozy, it softened our concrete floors and probably made an otherwise cold and cloudy Spring day a little warmer.

There were 3 designs we were deciding among when Damon sold me on the one now own. He told me that it looked like a kelp forest, and with those two words I was sold. He literally had me at “kelp forest.” And every time I catch myself staring at the rug, I get warm fuzzies thinking about happy creatures like sea lions sea otters and encrusting bryozoans. And sometimes ice cream and bubble gum. Because they’re made with carageenan. Which is made of kelp. You know.

Anyway, this rug is very special to me and I decided it’s time to make a napping quilt in it honor, for the cooler month or two ahead. I’ve been on the fence about joining the Modern Quilt-Along but I figured I could do a me-version of the Redwork pattern in turquoise and dark olive. Maybe take a little creative license and use variegated and hand-painted solids with hand-painted floss? Maybe a little trapunto?

We explored another nursery in town today: The Natural Gardener. It blew me away, I think it is an attraction on many levels. The prices are fair, they have a tremendous variety, endorse organic gardening, have an abundant and helpful staff, numerous display gardens and a few barn animals. I could and will take the kids there on a weekday and kill an hour easily. And maybe a coupla twenties. Easily.

For the kids garden I selected:
Lamb’s Ear
Texas Rock Rose
Pineapple Sage
Texas Fall Aster
Purple Oxalis
some feathery-purple-flowered perennial that attracts throngs of Viceroy butterflies that I can’t remember the name of and I’m too tired to go outside and look on the plant tag to find out what it’s called
Round-leaf eucalyptus
and Damon’s pick:
Squid Agave.
(They were out of Pony Foot and I dutifully denied myself the Smoke Plant, but I’ll be back for both soon enough)

We had terrible cupcake cravings today and I didn’t fight the urge to bake two dozen vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting. Magnolia Bakery recipe. The frosting became a pale pink and Damon insisted I forego the sprinkles (which I will never forgive him for; he believes that sprinkles ruin cupcakes but I will fight this argument to the grave–who WOULDN’T?!). The icing called for one entire bag of confectioner’s sugar. That’s right. Ultimately, they tasted like Krispy Kreme donuts with the same pleasurable guilt. One can only eat perhaps, well, one. So I boxed them up immediately and marked them “BARBEQUE” for tomorrow’s potluck at Damon’s colleague’s home. Why bother taking a photograph when you can imagine what they look like, without the sprinkles.

Every family should have a village to help it grow. Every single one, yours and mine.

Austin awoke and fell back to sleep again tonight under the clouds; it was invigorating. It was the first noticeable cold front of the season. Please do not notice that I was taking this picture while driving.

Ford has a new piece of jewelry, the hydroxide molecule ring. Actually, it’s a small keyring with, oh, I don’t know, some sort of ball attached to it. Something like that. And I wasn’t driving when I took this picture, I was at a stoplight. Anyway, he removed it from a little chotchkie that Damon brought home, put it on his finger, and asked me what kind of molecule it looked like. Ford is into molecular models, atomic models, skeletal models. I can thank Bill Nye. Thank you, Bill Nye! You rock! Except when Ford is bouncing off the furniture at 4pm, when I am so very tired in the afternoon, proclaiming (no, shouting) that he is an electron. But it was very cute when he dissected his birthday balloons into protons and neutrons. Of course, the whole bunch of them was the nucleus. Thank you, Bill Nye!

The last of the Gayfeather is in bloom, but most has gone to seed and left to drape the new stars:…

the grasses.

The Muscadines are ripe,

and the Beautyberries are shouting.