Quiet Neighborhood

A couple of hours ago we took the dog for a walk in a very quiet neighborhood. The sun was shining and the sky mostly blue, with only high wispy clouds. A couple of joggers passed us by, and another lady walking her dog (our small dog walks without a leash, trained to walked along/atop the curb, like a doggie-sidewalk). A dozen or so houses have taped their windows (why not more?) and three have used plywood to board the windows. Many are still flying their American flags from porch flagpoles (which look like flying-projectiles-in-waiting to my eyes; patriotic, but inopportune).

It’s just after nine a.m. and we’ve finished emptying the yard of our own projectiles-to-be, and super-chlorinating the pool (the Chronicle had a pretty good piece on storm preparation yesterday: “Stock Up for the Storm”). The neighborhood is still very quiet, but the birds are making more noise (more than usual? do they sense something? I probably just imagine that they do, but our dog definitely knows SOMETHING is weird – she watches and follows us constantly). There’s the sound of occasional distant hammers.

Walking at 7 am, we saw the half-moon almost directly overhead and commented on it. It was full Saturday night when leaving the Astros game; almost full Sunday night outside the Houston-to-Amsterdam flight; again, Monday night outside the Amsterdam-to-Kuwait flight; an eighth gone Tuesday night (OK, it was actually Wednesday morning, at 2 am) on the Kuwait-to-Paris flight. I’ve been watching it, watching me. (Also eerie: almost no jet lag. What’s with that?!?)