Saturday Morning Reflections

The past week was insane at the office, especially when a defective Windows download crashed my office computer network, basically leaving the firm dead in the water for most of Thursday. To add to the mix, my roommate advised me that he has decided to get out of the Navy early, so I will be going through the routine of finding a new roommate who is both responsible and compatible. So far the weekend is making up for it all. Last night the boyfriend and I spent a relaxing evening at his beautiful home over dinner and then watching a video. He continues to amaze me with his gentleness, sensitivity and beautiful heart. He truly is a sweetheart and I consider myself so very, very lucky to have found him. I am savoring getting to know him on a deeper and deeper basis. At times I still feel he's almost too good to be true and hope that our relationship becomes even deeper and enduring.

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Tonight we have a fundraiser to attend featuring Leslie Jordan who has starred in Sordid Lives and appeared on Will & Grace. His show is called My Trip Down the Pink Carpet and is reportedly hysterically funny. We will be going to a post-show event where we hopefully will get to meet Jordan as well. Tomorrow will likely be the last of the Sunday afternoon pool parties at the home of some friends in Virginia Beach.

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On a sad note, I have been watching the news coverage of the devastation in the Galveston-Houston area where I lived during my days as in-house counsel to Union Texas Petroleum, an independent international oil company. I was particularly saddened to see that Brennan's of Houston, Brennan's was totally destroyed by a fire. Brennan's was a favorite spot to take visiting out of town guests for the fabulous brunch that was one of its trademark offerings. It was among the first places my oldest daughter went out as a baby (a photo of the patio balcony - one of a number of elegant rooms - where we often sat is set out below). The restaurant also was the location of a scene in the movie Terms of Endearment. I suspect it will be one of many old haunts that will have been destroyed or severely damaged by Hurricane Ike. Here are some highlights from the Houston Chronicle:

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Brennan's Restaurant, a Midtown institution famous for its turtle soup and bananas foster and a time-honored eatery among local society, was ruined by the blaze. A 45-year-old man and his 4-year-old daughter, along with a third man who was not related to them, were taking refuge from the storm inside the brick structure. . . . Reached on his cellular phone, Alex Brennan-Martin, Brennan's co-owner and part of a family of famed New Orleans restaurateurs, declined to comment, apparently too emotional to speak.

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In 2005, Houston Chronicle restaurant reviewer Alison Cook included a personal note that rang true with many who grew up with Brennan's as a touchstone for a fancy night out. "I have a long and mostly happy history with this restaurant, which opened in the former Junior League building in 1967," Cook wrote. "Through my post-college jobs, Brennan's was a place where I got comfortable with fine dining, where I discovered the joys of Meursault wines, learned to eat grillade and grits, and decided that 'brunch' was a word to be welcomed instead of feared.

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Brennan's traces its history to a New Orleans restaurant of the same name opened in 1946 by Owen Edward Brennan. The son of a local shipyard worker, Brennan had already staked a claim on the local landscape when he acquired the Old Absinthe House on Bourbon Street three years earlier. The Absinthe House was built in 1798 and was known to be pirate Jean Lafitte's secret hangout, and after buying it, Brennan staged lifelike mannequins of the notorious Lafitte and Andrew Jackson in what he called the "Secret Room" — the room in which a pact was supposedly made to assist in New Orleans' defense against the British at the Battle of New Orleans.

Hurricane Ike Takes Aim at Houston

The AP and Virginian Pilot are reporting that Hurricane Ike may score a near direct hit on Galveston and Houston. I lived in Houston years ago and am familiar with Houston as well as Galveston - I have swam in the Gulf of Mexico and sunned on the beach beneath the seawall - which is protected by a 17 foot seawall (the photo at left shows spray from waves crashing against the seawall) which could be overwhelmed by a possible 20 foot storm surge. My thoughts and prayers go out to those in the path of the storm. As best I can determine, my Houston based clients and friends have joined the 1 million people who have evacuated. If the storm goes up the Houston ship channel, downtown Houston could flood and major damage occur to the oil refineries on the east side of the city. Here are some highlights:

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GALVESTON, Texas (AP) -- A massive Hurricane Ike sent white waves crashing over a seawall and tossed a disabled 584-foot freighter in rough water as it steamed toward Texas Friday, threatening to devastate coastal towns and batter America's fourth-largest city.

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Ike's eye was forecast to strike somewhere near Galveston late Friday or early Saturday then head inland for Houston, but the massive system was already buffeting Texas and Louisiana, causing flooding along the Louisiana coast still recovering from Labor Day's Hurricane Gustav.

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The National Weather Service warned residents of smaller structures on Galveston they could "face certain death" if they ignored an order to evacuate; most had complied, along with hundreds of thousands of fellow Texans in counties up and down the coastline. But in a move designed to avoid highway gridlock as the storm closed in, most of Houston's 2 million residents hunkered down and were ordered not to leave.

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White waves as tall as 15 feet were already crashing over Galveston's seawall. It was enough to scare away Tony Munoz and his wife, Jennifer, who went down to the water to take pictures, then decided that riding out the storm wasn't a good idea after all.

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Ike would be the first major hurricane to hit a U.S. metropolitan area since Katrina devastated New Orleans three years ago. For Houston - a city filled with gleaming skyscrapers, the nation's biggest refinery and NASA's Johnson Space Center - it would be the first major hurricane since Alicia in August 1983 came ashore on Galveston Island, killing 21 people and causing $2 billion in damage.

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Galveston, a barrier island and beach town about 10 feet above sea level and 50 miles southeast of downtown Houston, was the scene of the nation's deadliest hurricane, the great storm of 1900 that left at least 6,000 dead. But that also was before officials had the ability to warn residents that a hurricane was coming, and before the seawall was built to protect the community.

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If the storm stays on its projected path, it could head up the Houston ship channel and through Galveston Bay, which Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff called a nightmare scenario. . . . The oil and gas industry was closely watching the storm because it was headed straight for the nation's biggest complex of refineries and petrochemical plants. The upper Texas coast accounts for one-fifth of U.S. refining capacity, and many platforms were shut down. Wholesale gasoline prices jumped to around $4.85 a gallon for fear of vast shortages.