Sheep Guarding Llama

Today we got up late and started the day going out for a very late breakfast at Denny’s up on Frankford.

This afternoon we went for a walk to both do a Pokewalk and to go vote.  Our local voting location is right in our neighborhood and was a very short walk.  It is at the local elementary school.  We were able to just go through the greenway to get there, very convenient.

I cast my vote for Jill Stein.  I know that there isn’t any chance for her to win, I’m just trying to get my voice heard in some small way.  Voting is a pointless exercise in America, it affects nothing in reality.  Even the popular vote is meaningless.

Later today we heard of a few cases of voter fraud in our own district.  First hand, some from people who had been involved in it directly and some who had had it done to them (someone voted using their ID!)  The amount that we heard of first hand fraud is terrifying, definitely to a point where the fraud makes up for vastly more than the difference between votes from the small cross section that we have access to information about.  It’s crazy that voter fraud is so open and common in Texas!  And no system for addressing it, the people who had their votes stolen, for example, just lost them – no recourse for them to actually get to vote.  Literally, no democratic process at all, not even the attempt to make it look like one.  This is what we hear is supposed to be the problem in the third world, but right here in the US it is happening and no one is talking about it or doing anything!

Tried to go to Quiz Night tonight as it is Tuesday and that is our thing on Tuesdays, but the bar had the election on instead of Quiz Night so we got stuck watching the election results come in all evening which was incredibly depressing.  Not only did Trump surprisingly “win” the presidency but he did not win the vote.  So, once again we have a president that was not elected by the American people but used “the system” to take control of the nation without the people having voted for him.  Just showing how corrupt America is, how little Americans care about it and how non-democratic we are as a country.  The system is rigged to give power to the minority and not to let the people have even power.  But that is how it has always been; a blight on humanity since the very beginning.  A horrible system designed for oppression.  Our only hope now is that the electoral college steps in in December and does its sole job and protects us from gerrymandering.

It was a very sombre and sad night as we went to bed tonight.

Had heavy rain this morning.  Then some friends came over for coffee in the late morning.  By noon we had a huge storm roll in, there was tons of lightning and thunder.  Really heavy storm.

I was in my office and looked out into the atrium and noticed that the rain did not appear to be falling onto the rubber mats that are normally out there but it looked like rain falling directly onto standing water; and that means that the atrium was flooding.  Thankfully Rachel and Shawn had warned us about this and we knew that this could happen.

I grabbed a broom and stood by the atrium door monitoring the situation.  The rain was coming down so heavily that the water in the atrium was rising at about one inch every minute.  It was incredible.

I gave it two minutes but I could see that the water was just about to make it to the top of the foundation and would soon be flowing into the kitchen through the open door and we know that it went into the bedrooms through the windows previously when it flooded a year ago.  So once there was no sign of it stopping, I had to just jump in.  I was bare foot because what do you wear when going into nasty black atrium water.

I jumped in and the water was up to my calf and very cold.  The rain was coming down so hard, I was drenched in a second.  There were fire ants and muck and everything in the black water, it was kind of awful.  Luciana stood at the door watching me as I waded deep to the back of the atrium and worked on clearly the drain.

I used the broom and a dust pan to try to bail water from around the drain.  All of the muck and leaves was filling the drain so that the water would not stop flowing.  I was out there for a long time trying to get things clear.  Finally got the water flowing, but it took forever.  The tarpaulin that was out there from the grill and that was blocking the water flowing and made the water back up even more.

In the end I managed to keep the place from flooding, but it was a near thing.  What a pain.  We have to get that figured out in the atrium, the drainage is a real problem.

I made myself a tuna salad sandwich for lunch today.

This evening we finally got the queen bed that we have for the girls set up in their bedroom (Luciana’s back bedroom) so that they don’t have to sleep on the floor any more.  They like sleeping on the floor and don’t really care, but it looks a lot more normal to have a bed in there.  And sometimes they ask me to sleep with them (okay, all of the time) and I just can’t take how hard the floor is back there any longer.  So this is more for me than for them.  Plus is will make it possible to walk around their room now.

Rachel made mac and cheese for dinner tonight.

It’s Sunday and today is all about resting.  So exhausted from this past week.  There has just been so much going on, it has been insane.

I went to bed early last night and was up around nine this morning.  A good night of sleep.  I felt good getting up but was relatively tired for much of the day.

Rachel made French toast for lunch today.  That was very cool.

For dinner this evening we got Panda Express.

Went out this evening for a four kilometer Pokewalk with the girls.  We went way over to Josey on the greenway and it went really well.  We found a gym and a couple of stops. We had a nice time together.

We slept in as much as we could and did not leave the Hyatt Place until noon.  We were all very tired.  I ate some cold pizza that was left over in the room before we took off.

On our way north we stopped off at Round Rock Donuts and picked up two dozen to take back with us.  It has been way too long since we have managed to have donuts from there.  So yummy!

We got food for the kids from McDonald’s to feed them in the car as they did not want donuts.  They are crazy.

We got home at five thirty in the afternoon.  Glad to be back to the house.  Watson came over this evening and hung out for a while.  My new iPhone 7+ arrived today and I have it set up.  Loving it so far.  This is the 128GB model which is so nice after I have put up with being limited to just 16GB for the last ~5 years.

I got Liesl set up with her “new” iPhone 5S and she is loving it.  She is the first seven year old that she knows with her own iPhone.

Liesl was so excited to have her new phone, we went out and did a quick Pokewalk.

Five hours of sleep last night, a very slight recovery from the night before with no sleep at all.

Breakfast this morning…

We walked with the girls down to IHOP this morning to fortify ourselves with a big breakfast and hot chocolate.  They have the best toasted marshmallow hot chocolate there.

Back around lunch we met up with Lauren and Tony at the local creperie  in the basement of the Hampton Inn next door and hung out having coffee and crepes on the street for a while until it was time to think about getting ready for the wedding cruise on the river this evening.  Mario ended up stopping by and joining us as well.

We had some errands to run, just looking for a pharmacy and such.  So we walked around town with the kids for a little bit.

We ran into Katie and Ivan while running our errands.  Then it was time to get ready for the wedding.

We walked to the Radisson because Lauren had said that we should meet her and Tony there.  We spent some time searching for them before finding out that she had meant to meet them at a different hotel that had never been mentioned.  So we were very confused.

We went to the boat launch and found a bunch of people waiting for the boat at a hotel there so hung out there for maybe fifteen minutes.  Then it was time to board the boat.

The wedding was a lovely affairs with loads of friends and family out on a boozy river cruise in Austin. We had a great time, it was loads of fun and Dominica was so happy that she was able to make it which did not look likely until more or less the last minute.

More after cruise drinking around Austin. Dominica went back to the hotel and relieved the babysitter.  I went out for the “reception” out in Austin.  We had a good turn out there.  Huw was not much to be seen, he was pretty drunk by that point.  Gabrielle was out with us, though, and active – as was some of her family including her grandmother who hung with us until pretty late.

I dropped the last of the people, Rob, Bud and Simon, off at their hotel and headed for the Hyatt Place and called it a night.