On Fourth of July, we managed to see our covid bubble family friends, the McKee-Starling clan, for the first time in a long time. We had purchased a few inoffensive little fireworks that the kids could mess with in the yard. Thankfully, it had rained, so we felt safe doing so. In fact, I had intended to grill, and was a little sad to see that those plans were likely thwarted by the weather. Turns out I didn’t know the half of it.
When our friends came over, they asked if we’d read the news. I had been bustling around the house and kitchen all day, and honestly hadn’t read anything local. Catastrophic flooding was happening around the Texas Hill Country area. We were getting a lot of rain, and since we don’t have a lot of ground for the rain to soak into, when it does bother to rain, it tends to flood easily. That morning, at a time when most people aren’t awake, the Guadalupe River in the Kerrville area rose something like 25-30 feet in under an hour. And it kept rising. A whole children’s camp, Camp Mystic, was washed away. We were half-glued to the news from then on. The phrase was uttered, “they’re not going to find those kids alive.” And by and large, they didn’t.
So with our mind half on the news, local and otherwise, we enjoyed some oven-baked jerk chicken. The kids played together and messed with fireworks in the yard. And we celebrated an America that may or may not still exist after the current administration is through with it.
We had been cooking a few of the French foods that we had enjoyed while we were in France, to extend our vacation joy a bit. Maya was especially enamored with the Parisian baguettes, so we tried to make a passable version at home without any special equipment. Sean and I really enjoy this YouTube chef named Brian Lagerstrom. Maya and I have been making his simple baguette recipe off and on since we’ve been back from France. It is particularly lovely slathered with European butter and served as ham sandwich.
When we came back from France in late June, we were delighted to find a fruit on Ian’s yellow watermelon plant. Then over the next couple weeks, we were astonished at how quickly it managed to grow. In fact, it had gotten to something near its fully grown size, and I had just learned that it should be harvested when the exterior yellows. The very next day after I looked that up, we were dismayed to find that the watermelon was no longer on its vine. Instead pieces of very well-scraped rind were strewn about the area. Some animal or set of animals enjoyed a feast. Luckily, Ian wasn’t too torn up and seemed content that at least *somebody* got to enjoy the melon.
In late July, early August, we started noticing bunches of Queen butterflies. For the first time this year, I successfully established some Gregg’s Mistflower plants, and wow do those butterflies love them. We have had inconsistent luck trying to attract Monarch butterflies to the yard, and so this year, I mostly didn’t bother. While I didin’t notice any caterpillars anywhere, the adult Queens absolutely flock to those mist flower plants. (Here’s a handy link explaining how to tell Queens from Monarchs.)
In trying to figure out what kind of butterflies they were, I stumbled across interesting information about the role of this particular plant to this particular butterfly. Nearly all the Queen butterflies you’ll see on a Gregg’s Mistflower plant are males. The flowers provide a chemical, a toxin to other animals, that the male butterflies need to produce pheromones to attract mates. Then the male transfers some of this chemical to the female it mates with, and in turn, that chemical transfers to the eggs, making them toxic to predators.
Also in early August, we were delighted to find a gray fox conked out in our yard. Sean and I both had the same, “awwww, it feels safe here!” reaction.
Around the same time, I harvested all the viable chili peppers Ian and I had grown, chopped them up, and made a fermented chili sauce. It turned out nicely, but the predominant flavor is “hot,” so I’m thinking next time I try this out, I really do need to strain out the seeds and solids and see if I wind up with a more rounded flavor.
In the middle of August, Lolli and Pop drove out to see us for a couple days. We didn’t really do much other than spend time together. We all went to watch Ian play guitar at a farmer’s market concert on Saturday, they drove the kids over a couple times to let them partake of their hotel room, but otherwise, we mostly just hung out. We played Kids Against Maturity, which Maya and Ian seem to now associate with Lolli-Pop visits, ate vegan food, and relaxed.
We needed things to be low key because the next week was an absolute mother. A few weeks prior, I had received a jury summons. Everyone I talked to either told me *they* hadn’t been chosen when it was their turn or offered advice for how to get out of it.
There’s a call-in system where I could check to see if I was still needed for the jury. I tried multiple times through the morning, just in case. Yep, still needed. I drove downtown for my 1p jury selection. After a lengthy voir dire wherein I was potential juror 26 and used my trusty paddle to answer yes or no questions asked by either the plaintiff attorney or the defense attorney, I waited some more while the attorneys made their choices. Since I was number 26 and they only needed 12, I still managed to be hopeful as they trotted us back *into* the courtroom to let us know who had been chosen. I almost didn’t notice at first, because they had truncated the s in my last name when they called it out, but sure enough, I was picked. We waited while our unchosen compatriots gleefully left the room and then we were shown the jury room and given instructions for the remainder of the trial. We were warned that it could last the full week.
And so I drove all the way to north Austin from downtown in rush hour traffic, defeated and deflated. I intended to do my best as a juror of course, but it was a rough week for it. The kids were starting back to school the next day, Sean’s car was having issues that rendered it un-drivable, and the company I work for had just been acquired earlier in the month and I really didn’t want to miss any of the happenings. Alas.
Since we were down to one car, we dropped the kids off a little early at school that first day and headed over to the rental car place to pick up a car for Sean. Then I headed downtown in the thick of traffic. I only *thought* I was in rush hour on Monday. Tuesday morning on AISD’s first day back to school when every stupid highway in the city is under some kind of construction was absolute madness.
The trial was interesting. Since it was a civil trial, the standard we were held to was “a preponderance of the evidence” rather than “beyond reasonable doubt.” This means the evidence had to lead us to believe it was more likely true than untrue, so in that regard the pressure was less. Ultimately, we finished by Thursday, but those three and a half days were enough for me to firmly believe that if I ever have to drive downtown again, it will be too soon.
We had a number of cooking successes this month. Ian’s thing that he wanted to make from our France trip was meringues, and we had made a simple batch a while back, exactly as written in the recipe. This time, he wanted to color the meringues and also draw his own shapes. He attempted to go with a Pac-Man theme, but the fluffy meringue proved to be a little tough to shape. We also made some al pastor chicken earlier in the month that was pretty solid. And even though I hate the mess and waste of deep frying, I made a General Tso’s chicken that we will absolutely be having again. Not only was it crispy and flavorful on day 1, it maintained its crispiness upon reheat. It was amazing.
During covid lockdown in 2020, we had purchased inexpensive laptops for the kids so they could hang out in different parts of the house and “attend class” and do their homework, with the added bonus of starting to get familiar with computer use. Those inexpensive computers are showing the effects of age and rough treatment by young kids; Ian’s fell apart entirely leading to the fun of taking it apart and checking out fancy laptop innards.
We ended the month with computer replacements. We had budgeted a certain amount of money for kids’ summer camps and wound up underspending that budget. Maya simply wanted an updated laptop, which Sean found for her. Ian on the other hand wanted a proper gaming machine. He wanted it so badly that he pitched in his own allowance money to get the upgraded peripherals he so desired. And then he and Sean set about building it.
As with all projects like that, it didn’t necessarily go smoothly, but Ian maybe learned a little about computer assembly and software installation, and poor Sean had to sit on the floor and spend literal hours dorking with computer parts, for which his knees and back roundly punished him. In the end, two kids are happily upgraded and have promised to treat their hardware more kindly from now on.
