Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Central Texas

A quiet night in central Texas. El Jefe and family, plus assorted and sundry friends, relatives and hangers-on, are staying at the El Jefe country Schloss between Sealy and Columbus, Texas. I sat out by the pond this afternoon with my dull book (so SWMBO assures me), quietly reading, and soon forgot all about the French and the Germans and whatever was going on in the book and fell fast asleep. No noise but a cow mooing occasionally someplace to the south. Perfectly clear sky.
The leaves are coming down, and there is plenty of dry wood all over the place, a good deal of which we gathered up today. We made a big fire this evening, which has only just now died down a bit. Saw no snakes: presumably they are holed up wherever snakes go, no doubt plotting the spring offensive.
Internet is a recent innovation out here, and I'm not sure I like it so much. It enables me to make this post, and to keep up, but is that a good thing ? I rather liked being able to come out here for a few days and be out of the loop for a few days. I have this funny idea that most of us in this world would be much happier if we were not all wired so tightly into each other's business.
Terrible news out of Lebanon about the assassination of the Industry Minister, Pierre Gemayel. Not the first tragedy in that very influential family by any means: some may remember Mr. Gemayel's uncle, Bashir Gemayel, president-elect of Lebanon, assassinated (probably by Syrian intelligence) before he could take office in 1982.
This most recent murder also has Syrian military intelligence written all over it. The Syrians have just served notice on the Lebanese that they are coming back. It astonishes me (1) that this murder has received so little press here; and (2) that there are people seriously suggesting the government look to Iran and Syria for help finding solutions in Iraq. We're in the process of folding -- why would those governments possibly give us anything, other than laughter and a list of demands ?
Gee, I'm just making my point from a few paragraphs back. . .that I'd probably be happier without the Internet here, because getting diverted from my main point: how gorgeous it is away from the city. There must be a billion stars up there tonight, and it's dark enough to see all of them. I still remember a few constellations, and lots of them were visible tonight.
All kinds of places to go out in those stars -- I hope somebody makes it someday. I don't get the atheists: the universe is so huge. Who or what made all that ? How does anybody think there could not be a God ?
Yeah, I'm all over the map, aren't I ? Probably a sign it's time to end this post and wish everybody a Happy Thanksgiving.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...


Yeah, I'm all over the map, aren't I ?


no, i'm not a Frasier fanatic.
your posting reminds me of that dream sequence episode. all that fresh air.
of course the posting makes sense to me, and i'm stuck in tulsa. you know, the working class.
speaking of bad news out of a certain area of the marble, the guy in charge of security for a certain houston based international contruction company, not KBR/halli, was in my store on wednesday. we spoke for about 15 minutes. nothing of any import or of a sensitive nature, but depressing for sure to hear someone so close to the eye say what he did.

Candidly Caroline said...

Sounds like you are having a wonderful time in what sounds like a wonderful place.
Enjoy yourself!

LouieLouie: You kind of left us hanging there. ;)

Anonymous said...

cc,
didn't mean to do that.
simply put, he said flat out we aren't going to win this.
by this he means terrorist activity around the world.
what we see going on in baghdad right now will be dearbornistan, MI or NYC 50 years hence.
he said that by not having the politcal will to go into iran and to not put an end to the whahabbi(sp) sect in saudi arabia we are allowing legalization of criminal activity. i'm sure el jefe could speak more/better to that than i.
these were his opinions he was expressing, but left me depressed nonetheless.
he also said things are so bad, that the saudi royal family is considering an alliance with israel.