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Huge storm last night

 This morning, the Lake Sandpipers level is up.  Higher than yesterday.  All the houses are still dry, but some are surrounded entirely by water now.   There is severe afternoon  and evening weather forecast for the entire week.  We need a bigger pump. On the brighter side, we’re getting shorebirds we’ve never seen in the park before; lesser yellowlegs, several black-necked stilts, and a black-bellied whistling duck flyby. 
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Sunday morning

 Same lake. A last visit for the season with Barb and Henry (and Willow and Bailey); they left for Canada this morning. Jay and Karen, the park owners, got a couple two inch pumps going and pumped water out of the park all day long. Took a drive and a walk. Found a cloud of hawks (and a turkey vulture), kettled-up, working their way north.  Alex went to the Gymnastics Regionals at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs today.  Four states participating.  He scored 5th all-around.  Great job Alex! Retired to the swimming pool about 6.  When you’re birding without optics, it’s called bare-naked birding.  Bare-naked, no binoculars, no camera, we got a flyover of Mississippi Kites settling down for the night. It looks like the lake level has fallen several inches by dark. 
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Sandpipers

 This is our view from the deck looking across the park.Normally. Yesterday it rained off and on.  Then last night it poured.  Serious thunderstorms. It rained so hard we couldn’t see to the other side of the park. Checked the rain gauge in the dark.  It had overflowed at 5”. Checked the park.  It’s a lake. Got up this morning.  It’s still a lake. It looks the same tonight.  The water hasn’t gone down at all.  I feel raindrops.  There is weather all around.  We’re not through. We’re hoping our rent doesn’t go up now that we have a lakefront view.  
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Houston

 Driving down the road, car in tow, we’re long.  And heavy.  We don’t start fast or stop fast.  No sudden moves.  No surprises.  We want to be safe.  We want to be the most predictable vehicle on the highway.  As we drive along, sometimes we need to change lanes.  For that to happen in traffic, it’s a cooperative effort.  We find our opening, we signal our intentions, everyone sees what we’re doing, and leaves room.  It’s practically a graceful ballet.  That’s how it works.  Almost always… On a busy freeway in Houston a couple weeks ago, time to change lanes in preparation for an exit, passing a truck, the blinker goes on and we begin the lane change to the right.  In my mirrors I can see I’m clear, but I can also now see the car coming up fast on the other side of the truck, trying to get to the open spot before we do, to shoot the gap.  My decision is, do I swerve back into the lane I just left to make room for him to blow by, or do I continue the lane change forcing him to slow down and find another way to get around in front of us to flip me off?