Greetings from Houston

"Houston, we have a problem."

No one dared use that old line last week. Houston and Corpus Christi and Rockport and Victoria and Kingwood and Beaumont and Port Arthur all had big problems thanks to Mother Nature's bad seed cousin, Harvey.

We are fine. My family and, for the most part, friends and family of friends are okay. It rained for a solid four days, often with unrelenting intensity. We watched as water pounded us and ran down the street, but thank goodness it kept running. We didn't lose power, water or gas. We were (and are) incredibly lucky. We didn't dodge a bullet, we dodged a cannonball.

Houston is HUGE. There are no suburbs. It's all "Houston" and goes on for miles. Some of the flooded areas are far from us. Houston has many "bayous", slow moving rivers or inlets that snake all through the city. We have one about 1/2 a mile from the house, and it did overflow its banks to a frightening degree, but it is set lower than the roadway so did not impact the neighborhood. This is probably more than you wanted to know but good to know not all of Houston is under water.

What Harvey left behind is at least 100,000 homes in need of major repair or replacement. Schools and businesses and all city services are affected. We want to help, and we will. Houston is an amazingly diverse city, where people work together and live together. Just yesterday I spotted this in a front yard:

My eyes have been glued to the tv. I've been busy letting everyone know we are okay, sometimes more than once. It didn't seem possible to the outside world that anyone could be okay.

I just can't write about fashion yet. Maybe tomorrow, if I can figure out what day it is.