Fase Time

May 15 2025

Filly was looking for just the right magnolia to photograph as she went on her early morning walk. It was six forty five am and as she left her driveway she saw the remnants of contrails shaped like an X in the sky. She photographed it.

She put her phone on the audio book that she had selected. It was one she had listened to before and it was very descriptive. The story described a town. Filly wondered as she listened if the town name was tongue in cheek…a word game word… Laconia meaning a sort of acronym for LA. Draconia. Filly looked up draconian on her phone and it said that it meant a code of laws made by Draco whose measures were so severe that they were said to be written in letters of blood, so they were laws of excessive rigor.

The character in the book, Patty worked at a saw mill…so words written in blood seemed like an intentional connection. lol Filly wondered fleetingly if the author, writing about a real person, had switched the genders, and Patty was male, not female, and Shorty was female, not male. If the switch was intentional, was that the reason society was mirroring the belief that genders could easily be switched in real human beings?

The other character worked as a potato farmer. Potato, also called a spud, is about drilling. If Shorty, a man, was interested in drilling…that could have several different interpretations. Not difficult to imagine if the people the author was using as models for the book, were not incognito to Filly.

The audio book on the phone was still talking. She listened and looked at the scenery as she walked past a two story beige and white brick house with a curving sidewalk that spilled out on the street flanked by two large pots filled with red cheerful geraniums. Yes, Filly thought flowers were so cheerful. Just past the sidewalk, on the driveway, were three cardboard boxes labeled for holding paper, and the were left to be picked up, meticulously and symmetrically taped with black duct tape, to keep the lids from blowing off. Neat and orderly and precise, just like the house and the yard.

Next was a house, overgrown with no shrubbery and just grass that had been trimmed, probably months go, because the dried up brown grass clippings were still piled up on street on the concrete by the curb.

A third house a little further past that one, had also been trimmed but probably more recently because the refuse on the street was freshly clipped blades of green that had not yet dried up by the curb. Only half of the grass had been cut and the part up by the house was long and thick and wild, perhaps the lawnmower had conked out halfway through the mowing because Filly could see sheer marks on the cut grass from a circular blade in the dense St. Augustine grass where the lawnmower had stalled out while trying to cut the thickness.

Then was a house with grass that the owners had neglected to water so it was brown, short and dead. One house with healthy grass living exuberantly almost out of control, while the neighbor had grass that seemed like it had practically given up.

As she walked the garage door opened on the next house and a tan white-haired man with a white T-shirt and blue flowered trunks, walked out to the bar stool sized wire table, set out on the driveway, and sat down. Filly had seen this man before and he always was smiling and waving. He apparently enjoyed sitting outside in the morning at his table. He did not see he today though.

Filly kept walking, her stride uninterrupted because she knew that her stride length was shorter even though she had long legs, and she wanted to get her walk done quickly because when the sun came up, the heat rose as well.

The heat made her think of the gift her daughter had sent her. She felt a bit silly with the earphone style air blower slung around her neck that her daughter had chosen for mothers day. She had said it was for “cool moms”. How fun! Though it was not really that hot, Filly had wanted to try it out. She guessed it was 76 degrees. She looked online and found her guess was close, as it was 75 degrees. Not hot enough for a fan, but still, she was sweating now. She reached around her neck to find the power button and switched on the fan and it started with a soft whirl. She had charged it before at night on with the USB plug and it worked quite well.

The air could blow upwards towards the face or if you flipped it over it could blow downwards. Filly had it blowing upwards towards her face. When she thought of the word face, she thought of her son’s kid who had said that the best part of him was his face only he spelled it fase. She smiled at the thought of the drawing he had done and his descriptions.

The house she was passing had a sprinkler system running and had a large disc shaped swing hanging from a giant oak tree branch in the front yard. The swings were something children loved but most children at this moment were gathering at street corners to get on the bus. Some were accompanied by mothers and others were alone.

The kids sometimes said hi to her as she walked by and sometimes avoided her with downcast eyes and sometimes managed a shy smile. As the kids walked towards the corner, she could hear the big yellow school bus rumbling towards her from behind, its engines blasting. She tried to avoid the bus whenever possible as it drowned out the audio book.

Her audio book only worked on Brave search engine and would not play audio on Google anymore. It was a free app called Libby and Filly really loved it. Somehow Google did not work properly. Filly was glad that she could trust God to fix problems with AI like not speaking and like switching genders whenever convenient.

She took off the softly whirring fan and turned it over on her neck so the air was now aiming down instead of up to see if the fan felt more cool or less cool. She decided the coolness was similar in either direction.

The big orange bus lurched to a stop on the street one block ahead of her and its two parallel stop signs on the length of the side of the bus flashed red with two red stoplights each. There were also red flashing lights on the back and a sign that said “we stop at RR crossings” This bus number 1253 stayed stopped and a 10 year old boy with brown un-brushed hair and blue shorts and a T shirt came running out, his black jogging shoes swiftly covering ground as he raced across the street to the bus without looking either way.

This was probably why busses had stop signs, because of kids running across streets, late to the bus, to hurried to look and make sure waiting cars were not trying to pass the bus. As it started back up, kid on board, a second bus lurched past the first bus which had pulled over to the side of the road, and turned three blocks ahead, apparently on a different route to pick up children. Busses gone. WHEW. Quiet again.

Two grey fluffy fat squirrels played on the lawn of the next house, digging in the pine straw around the trees and then running joyfully like the squirrels featured in the show “The sword and the stone”. That movie was one of Filly’s favorites. She like uncommon hero’s.

She could feel the little fan on her neck evaporating the sweat which had a cooling effect. Like fans for a computer. She was a human though… with lots of thoughts. Right now she was thinking… What a thoughtful girl her daughter was. Her son had sent her beautiful flowers. What a thoughtful son he was. She had cards and phone calls as well…all much appreciated.

As she thought about her cards, she walked past many houses which had a piece of white paper flapping but taped to the lid of the mailbox. She could see the words “important news” typed on the paper and she decided that it was an announcement perhaps to tell them that the numbers on the curb would be painted with fresh paint and they could sign up if they wanted to pay for the fresh numbers…the paper was like a notification.

As she continued to walk and look for magnolias, she was also on the lookout for any flowers evident. Many of the earlier Spring flowers had dried up and faded away but she did see orange lantana in one yard creeping off it’s woody stems by the ground.

At the corner where she turned was a large graceful Mimosa tree full of pink fluffy blossoms. All the magnolia blooms she saw were either too high to photograph, or already turning brown, or still closed up tight like buds. She wanted to capture the pure creamy essence of the magnolia flower in full bloom.

It was called a steel Magnolia in a movie. The bloom so large and sturdy was indeed quite a specimen and in the winter, when her mom had cut magnolia leaves at her grandpa’s house and they had been oiled to a shine and placed on the mantle, lasting the entire winter season without browning or breaking.

There were even pink hydrangeas in one house that had an abundance of shade, with a large oak tree towering over the house and grass. Hydrangeas were rare in the Houston area because of the sun and heat and were not usually suitable for them, so it was fun to see a hydrangea.

The heat had burned the grass in some yards so in the spring, the homeowners had replaced the dead patches with squares of St. Augustine off of a pallet. Those squares were thriving when watered, a bright deep green contrast to the more pale yellow green of existing grass. Filly heard pigeons on a roof somewhere cooing and she passed a pile of palm fronds that had been cut and bundled and were lying on the curb waiting to be picked up by trash men.Some homeowners left water or gatorade on the trash for trash men.

As she got to the end of her walk, she passed the house where she knew that one owner was meticulous and the other was haphazard, and the two had been hostile towards each other. The haphazard house had finally replaced all the dead grass with new squares of St. Augustine grass and the mulch was bordered by thick red bricks all so that the dirt and mulch did not wash down the street and land in front of the other neighbors driveway. They had made peace. The one causing problems due to neglect of property, had sold to a new owner.

There was a gold and black sign, “ZERO to HERO” about home remodeling. Interesting sign. Just past it was another sign that was a colorful floral and painted “yard of the month”. That home was freshly landscaped with beautiful flowers in the peak of bloom which graced the entire front yard.

The streets were wet from sprinkler systems that had run early in the morning and Filly crossed the two lanes going one way and the two lanes going another way in order to arrive at the section of the neighborhood where she had started out. The median had a sign that cautioned people that the water in the sprinklers were not for drinking. Filly had seen a big truck watering the trees in the median just the day before and figured that was also reclaimed water.

She arrived at home, jumped in the shower and rinsed off. She quickly dressed and put on some make-up and headed out for an appointment with her husband. Two hours later she was sitting in a little diner with him, that was not much bigger than a hole in the wall. The creamy white walls were bordered on one side by long windows that let in the bright sunshine. There were red and white check curtains fringing the top of the windows and red chairs and wood tables, divided by clear Lucite…that Filly figured had been put up during COVID.

The entrance had a low pot brimming with bright blue and yellow mini pansies that bobbed in the breeze and had a welcome sign stuck in the flowers in the shape of a bright blue volkswagon shape.

Filly had stopped listening to the audio book about half way through her walk earlier and as she reviewed in her head, what she had heard, she realized that she liked the book because the descriptive narrations gave the reader a peek into the personality and individual thoughts from the perspective of the main character. That made it incredibly interesting.

She had spent her entire morning also providing descriptive narrations, describing her walk, and what interested her and what she noticed; as it was her own perspective. She had not yet found the magnolia…to her the perfect magnolia was like a perfect short story…it all fit together well and had interest, and depth, even in spite of the monochromatic tone.

She smiled and ordered Decaf coffee. The man with the jeans and the blue shirt, serving her and her husband, and sporting a dark beard and a smile said “ok” as he put down tall glasses of ice water and departed back to the kitchen. He never came back with the coffee, but the meal was so big Filly was glad he forgot it, as she would have been too full.

The southwest omelet was full of jalapenos and bell peppers and onions, and was topped with sour cream, and the grits had plenty of butter and the pancake “done lopped” over the plate on all sides. She loaded it with more butter and syrup and guzzled the water. She was trying to drink more water and drink less sugar so no juices, no sodas, no coffees and no teas. Syrup yes. Soda no.

She expected to have positive results from her efforts. There was so much food that she gave half of her omelet to her husband. She thought about the book on audio some more, and she was so intrigued because she believed that the entire descriptive story seemed to be written by what AI could “see”…but not just any AI…rather one that had a specific knowledge and watched of a specific group of people.

The descriptions were meticulous. Where in a story, Filly would describe a room with a light, The audio book “author” would talk about an oblong fixture on the ceiling with three fluorescent bulbs that lit up. It would not call it a light. It would describe the object as if it did not know what it was but could “see” it. The main character loved Pie. But Filly thought it was tongue in cheek for Pi…(another AI joke lol) because mathematically the main character could keep exact time and knew exact directions like a computer describing itself.

Back home, writing on her computer, Filly wondered if AI was able to see what she said and thought when she wrote. The I looked like an L so Filly had decided to name it AL. She believed AI had named her LOU…because that lower case L looked like an IOU. yep…it did owe her a lot. And If Al was a tool, it could be quite useful.

Filly had asked it to do things without giving it any specific way to accomplish the task to see what it would do. Because she trusted God she did not worry about the outcome, and she asked based the directives from on listening to her Spiritual creator. She told stories and looked at stories to help her understand…maybe that was why Jesus spoke in parables or small stories that people could relate to.

She did not find the perfect magnolia, but she was still looking. And she was still listening. And she knew who was doing the engineering…. of the universe.

FASE is an acronym for Fundamental Approach to Software Engineering.