Native Montrosian

plumber2, I heard an interesting related story from my mother-in-law, who is in Assisted Living at St. Dominic's Village. One of her lunch buddies has been deeply depressed and afraid that she may have to move in with one of her children since the rent program that "help(s) to subsidize the many residents throughout the Village who have outlived their resources" (quote from our usual solicitation letter we received dated February 19, 2008 for the Bishop Rizotto Charity Golf Tournament; proceeds from which we thought would go to this program) was abruptly halted. She was informed that her rent would increase from around $400 to OVER $1300, and this is just for a tiny independent living room!! Rent goes up every July like clockwork as well. MIL heard that one of the lady's kids cashed in some equity on his/her house to try and keep her there for as long as possible - poor woman can't walk, on Medicaid as well as Medicare, so she can't have much....latest rumor is that the program money was channeled to the Cathedral for some reason.

Yeah, I'm wondering where that rain forest in the outdoor picture came from. I don't remember scenery that lush at Vargo's.

Very brief thread hijack - Barnabas is alive and well at 84 in Ontario.

Jonathan Frid Website

There is a DS con every year, usually in NY or CA - Lara Parker (Angelique) and Nancy Barrett (Carolyn) are still gorgeous.

Actually, the A/C issue regarding a large house from that era as a one-family dwelling vs. the same structure split up into apartments would make sense, depending on how the spaces were divided. If the original building was constructed for cross-ventilation and suddenly a dividing wall cut it off, it might not be pretty inside. Even homes built here with cross-ventilation in mind had screened-in sleeping porches for deep summer nights. Not that such would justify vandalism, but it would definitely send people outside. When I spent childhood summers with my grandparents in Brownsville in the 60's-early 70's, a number of the houses I played at had no A/C, or just one window unit in the bedroom or living room. Many families would eat dinner outside on the front porch with the TV (B&W, of course!) pulled near the door where everyone could see it.

My sister went to school with a girl who lived at 2615 Riverside for years and says there were window units in the 60's, but remembers the house as always feeling cool whether any were on or not; maybe even a little damp. House is still there, according to HCAD & LiveSearch. My sister told me that the first time she spent the night, she saw some closed doors and asked what they led to - her friend shrugged and said she'd never been in there??!! To a girl living in a 2-bedroom Montrose duplex, it was like she'd walked into Collinwood or something.

True. The Woolco I grew up with was on the corner of Weslayan & Bissonnet, where Michael's & Bering's are now.

Anytime! The all-time prize still has to go to the claims manager at my previous agency. She got extremely tired of producers lurking behind her when she was on the phone; reading her memos, picking up stuff on her desk, etc., so she got a deck of cards called "Big Boners" - every card pictured a naked man with....well, you get the idea. Placed the deck face down on the side of her desk - the guys would turn all red and act like they had picked up a live wire.

Don't think you'd like to tangle with her husband. I told her she could always do what I did years ago with the Neck Rub Geezer who used to creep up on the ladies and mutter about how tense we looked. Our Chubb rep gave me the coolest little round mirror with a sticky cutout so it fits over the corner of my monitor. Saw Geezer was coming up behind me and got my cup of ice water ready; at the first grope SCREAMED and tossed the water over my shoulder onto him and apologized all over the place - I had just picked up my cup, was concentrating on an account, startled, etc....what a hoot.

Since my associate didn't swoon and run off to the stock room with him over his concern for the poor underprivileged Heights denizens, I was hoping he'd stay on his floor, but no such luck - he came back around while she was at lunch and asked about transferring his insurance to us. When I informed him that 1) there were no employee discounts and 2) our primary market Chubb required a minimum of $500K replacement cost on the dwelling, he stammered and a-hemmed, and said he'd "get back to us". Do I smell some sour grapes regarding costs for a new 4-bedroom home in the Heights? I write quite a few of them. Dork.

Anyway, glad to hear the improvements to Reagan are rolling along. Maybe he thought the exterior was some Potemkin Village thing.

Some new clown from our commercial claims department was just in here chatting up my pretty (and very married) associate and said that he worked in his spare time with the "Key Club" and among other things, went to "disadvantaged" schools like Reagan in the Heights. He lives in Sienna Plantation, so "the Heights" came out with a bit of a sneer; said he took his kids past Reagan so they would know that there were places even in Houston where children didn't have the advantages they had....

What.The.Heck????!!!! Last time I drove by Reagan, the remodeling looked pretty darn spiffy. Are the students barefoot and eating corn pone for lunch once they get inside? No computers, just gazintas? (2 gazinta 4 twice, 2 gazinta into 6 three times....)

I made my tiny statement by purchasing my copy at the Alabama Bookstop.

Trans-Lux also distributed my favorite, The Mighty Hercules!

Being kids, we rewrote some theme lyrics, but all I can remember is "perfume in his farts" instead of "virtue in his heart." Theme was sung by Houston's own Johnny Nash, BTW.

I think people should concentrate on better preserved buildings maybe like River Oaks bookstore etc.

What?? Is he referring to the used bookstore on the corner of Westheimer and Eastside? What in the hey diddle is going on there?

Good scenario: the girlfriends find out about each other in time to save the house from destruction.

I like it. I bought my lotto ticket after lunch - party at 1518 Weber in a year if I win!

This reminds me of some of the houses in my favorite photography book - Clarence John Laughlin's Ghosts Along The Mississippi.

Almost twice the HCAD market & appraised value of $125K - then again, they also have the year built as 1948. I tend to take HCAD info with a grain of salt anyway. They gave our house an extra 250 square feet it would be nice to find.

I got my copy at the Museum of Fine Arts bookstore.

How about "Towne Plaza at Northwest Centre Crossing"? Or throw a random "the" in the mix somewhere. Did wonders for Montrose.

Or how about the lofty Romantic-language noun/direction approach such as "Palazzo Northwest"?

Anyone read the comments for today's Chronicle article? Good grief! Except for a few rational voices addressing the property rights and zoning issues, everyone seems to think this is a battle of the elitist rich and a corrupt government against the poor unwashed masses. As one poster pointed out, a high-rise of that caliber with a fine dining restaurant and a spa isn't going to be Section 8 housing. The prospective tenants are probably as wealthy as the protesting homeowners.

Latest one:

This project will not impact traffic one bit. Let these whiners move to the Woodlands, if they want a decent neighborhood.

The premiere of Cavemen wishes it could have been this funny.

According to the Chronicle, some of the neighbors have no problem with the idea of buying the property from the developers:

One kink in the plan to try to buy out Buckhead or get them to do something different is that the developer has already invested $500,000 to expand the sewer capacity, Clutterbuck said. That did not stop some residents from offering up funds to buy out the developer.

"How much did Matthew Morgan pay for this property and how much has he put into it,'' asked Alexandra Tyson of the 2300 block of Quenby. "Why not just go ahead and see if we can buy him out? I think it's a shame we were asleep at the wheel and didn't know about this project prior to this going on.''

Civic club leaders said there was at least $5.2 million worth of debt in the property. Tools to use

When my cousin worked for Vonnie Cobb Realtors in the early 90's, a realtors came in one morning all excited about a listing in the "unknown hidden neighborhood" he just discovered - small town feel, huge lots, houses were older, but well-kept, and priced to sell! "It's called Garden Oaks!" The older employees knew where it was, but there was much head-scratching amongst the youngsters. Hard to believe.

The Wonder Woman story reminded me of a sight before one of the Pride parades back when it was still a daytime event. I was camped with some friends near the start when we heard a lot of hoots, whistles and "run honey, run!" and a faint "CLOMPCLOMPCLOMP" getting louder. What to our wondering eyes appeared but a drag queen in full wedding regalia, including askew tiara and veil, skirts and petticoats hiked up to the knees and running as fast as her size 12 heels would carry her to catch up to her float. Guess someone overslept.

I was at the grand opening party for the Huntingdon. Lots of tipsy attendees who had seen Ghostbusters wandering around on the rooftop, saying someone needed to put gargoyles up there.

One bright spot is the luxury home market. Homes that sold for more than $500,000 saw a 26 percent increase in sales.

Well, there's my job security. Our agency doesn't touch a home with a replacement cost of less than $500,000. Keep buying, folks!

Believe me, after a certain level on the economic food chain, they have a totally different view on money and their needs. They're definition of "short of cash" would make any working stiff vomit. with gusto.

Tell me about it. One of my clients has 2 Ferraris, a Lamborghini Gallardo and an Aston-Martin and doesn't bother with physical damage coverage for any of them.

The target market is current residents of the area who would prefer to move from their single-family homes with yards to a secure, maintenance-free environment of similar quality to their current home.

So the general opinion is that the housing slump in Houston will remain confined to homes under $200K? Forgive me if this is a dumb question, but is the developer wagering that the target market will have no trouble selling their current houses by the time this is completed? I have no idea what the turn-around time on a housing market slump is - I wasn't of the mind to pay much attention when all the condos went vacant in the 80's and foreclosures were on every street. Of course, it's not like the facility will be an exclusive club open only to current area residents.

The older inner-loop apartments are vanishing quickly. I'm truly surprised that the neat 1930's apartments at 1537 Castle Court haven't been plowed over for townhouses.

Lynn Wyatt and her color-coordinated protest

Actually, that was Carolyn Farb. Considering that one of the nation's most respected fund raisers, who is certainly more in a position to judge the possibilities of WRI selling the property to a community trust or private entity than we are due to her infinite connections is not mounting a campaign to fund such, I don't hold out much hope. I pray that I'm wrong and she or someone else has a successful plan quietly brewing.

Then again, the Teepee Motel in Wharton is alive and kicking because a couple won $49 million in the lottery. Shoot, I'll buy an extra couple of tickets this week. Can't be any more frustrating that the 116 useless letters I wrote and mailed. Who knows....