Opinion

This past week we attended the memorial for my husband Peter’s oldest sister, Shelley. Shelley went through a long battle with cancer, and Peter lost his second sister in two years.

My husband, Peter, and I are spending time “up north” with my parents at their cabin by the lake. Fall is late this year.

After Winter Storm Uri caused mass power outages, widespread misery, and humiliation for our state and our grid, I tasked my team with creating a comprehensive plan to help inform the public and lawmakers about the scope of the challenge and the breadth of the potential solutions.

Here’s the thing: I’m not superstitious. It all started when I was still in Mexico, visiting a gallery, and I saw a painting across the room. The composition was striking. The bottom third was black and the top two-thirds were filled with a deep blue sky and great white clouds rising from the horizon. There was a bare tree on the right side and on the left was a full moon. I felt pulled into the gallery and across the room to see the picture, and that’s when the figures in the foreground became clear.

September. Our month of change.

“Idon’t remember you at all!” the portly man informed my husband, Peter. Peter smiled, introduced himself, and reminded the gentleman where they might have met half a century ago.

Steve, the cowboy on the board of directors of the Mule Barn truck stop’s philosophy counter and world dilemma think tank, swears on his coffee it happened. “Tourist guy got off the train the other day when I was down there picking up a friend,” Steve said.

Biologists with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department are predicting a moderate season for deer hunters, with archery season kicking off on Oct. 1.

The evening was one of those that come back to you time after time, year after long year. It comes back and whispers of how good life can be when you’re well fed, enjoying life, and a good friend shares the front porch with you on a summer’s evening.