Setting sail. Sad hearts.

2007

Early post-Ike, my parents and family are safe. (Tho' we don't yet know the condition of their island home, but we're hopeful.) My extended family is safe. (Without power and in possession of lots of hot beer and thawing deer sausage and dove "meat.") And our loved ones up and down the Gulf Coast have scattered carefully to safe places all over our state. But, our hearts are heavy tonight at the sight of our new coastline without our favorite piers. Four in all -- fixtures for generations jutting into the surf from the seawall -- were destroyed in the storm. But this one was "ours."

2008

It was originally built in 1910, and If I dug through enough family photo albums tonight, you'd see generations of us and others like us in front of these shells. We've bought big shells and tiny shells and hot pink shells, and treasure chests, and plastic pirate swords, and swirly cold drinks, and shark tooth necklaces, and decorations for our Crocs, and "no you CAN NOT ride the toy horse for real, just sit on it and use your imagination!", and toy tractors, and just wandered and wandered thru trinkets and "plastic junk" and always thought that front corner w/ the hermit crabs and sea sponges was a little bit stinky. And sometimes we didn't buy anything. We would "save our money for next time."

2007

"Mommy, just think of all those little plastic boats ... alllll those boats that I never bought ... sailing out in the ocean."

Sadly ... or maybe not. That idea makes me happy.