THIS EVENING...
*RING*
ME-- Hello
SHITIBANK TELEMARKETER-- Hello, may I please speak to THE WIFE'S NAME?
ME-- I'm sorry, she's not here now. Can I take a message?
SHITIBANK TELEMARKETER-- No, that's okay. We can call back another time.
ME-- (SMELLING A CREDIT CARD TELEMARKETER) Can I ask what this is in regard to?
SHITIBANK TELEMARKETER-- I'm TELEMARKETER'S NAME with Shitibank and I'm just calling Shitibank Diamond Preferred Cardholders to thank them for being valued customers and--
ME-- (INTERRUPTING) Actually, we no longer have a Shitibank account. You guys dropped us a couple of weeks ago.
SHITIBANK TELEMARKETER-- Ohhhh, we dropped you? I'm so sorry. (PAUSE) Well, I can only speak with the primary account holder. I can give you a toll free phone number to call if you have any questions about this call?
ME-- No, thank you.
SHITIBANK TELEMARKETER-- You have a good evening.
ME-- You, too.
*CLICK*
And this is true. Two weeks back, we received a letter from Citibank alerting us that they were closing our account with them. This came as a bit of a shock to us, being as how there was no reason listed, beyond a general accusatory wording, as though we had somehow used our card in an unacceptable way that offended Citibank deeply. Of course, now that I think about it, I guess we had, since we carry no balance on the card and have not actually used it at all for a couple of years. They tend to favor indebtedness over at Citibank. Still, this was one of the wife's first credit cards of her life and she's had it for the better part of 20 years, with my name being on it for the past nine or so. We wondered if maybe they'd reconsider if we purchased a pack of gum with it and then forgot to pay the bill for a month or so. Nope, turned out there was fine print on our letter stating that no amount of purchasing on our part would change their minds.
That wasn't all our news from the Citi for that day, though. In that same pile of mail, we received a letter from CitiFinancial alerting us to the fact that they were raising our interest rate on a credit account we'd had with them back when we were paying for some furniture we'd purchased. Trouble is, that furniture has been paid off for nearly a year now, so as far as we were concerned we didn't HAVE any other Citi accounts beyond the credit card. Seemed odd that a credit organization would drop clients that weren't costing them any money, even if we weren't actively making them any money either. Weren't we still potential money?
I did a little research online and saw several articles about Citibank dropping customers, sometimes without bothering to inform them. Guess we were lucky, there.
TWO HOURS LATER...
*RING*
THE WIFE-- Hello?
DIFFERENT SHITIBANK TELEMARKETER-- May I speak to THE WIFE'S NAME?
THE WIFE-- This is she.
DIFFERENT SHITIBANK TELEMARKETER-- Good evening. I'm TELEMARKETER'S NAME and I'm calling Shitibank Diamond Preferred Cardholders to thank you for being a valued customer and--
THE WIFE-- (INTERRUPTING) No, I'm sorry, but you can't say we're valued customers when you dropped our account two weeks ago.
DIFFERENT SHITIBANK TELEMARKETER-- Ohhh, you canceled your account with us?
THE WIFE-- No. Shitibank canceled our account with you.
DIFFERENT SHITIBANK TELEMARKETER-- Ohhhh. (PAUSE) Well, I can give you a toll free phone number to call if you have any questions about this call?
THE WIFE-- No, that's all right.
*CLICK*
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Trudging through a Winter Wonderland
Don't know if you've seen the weather reports, lately, but much of our state has been buried under a foot and a half of snow. Started Friday afternoon for us and pretty much didn't stop until some time in the wee hours, at which point there was an impressive amount of snow on the ground.
Sadie and Moose have had a blast running through it, even after it had grown taller than Moose himself. I had a blast laughing at them. The wife and I ate takeout pizza and spent an evening by the fire.
After we arose this morning, I assumed we would probably eat breakfast here and settle in until the roads were plowed, but the wife announced she wanted to "get out in it." This is the sort of thing people who grew up in Alaska say whenever they haven't seen this amount of snowfall in a while. I don't think it's a matter of wanting to show off their ice-driving skills so much as the desire to be able to immerse themselves in a reminiscence about how things used to be when they drove around in several feet of ice back in Fairbanks. (This behavior is usually accompanied by long speeches about how the scraper trucks in Alaska are so much bigger than those here, how none of these pickup truck with a blade on the front models would be able to move even 5 feet in Alaska, and, eventually, ends a treatise on how Alaskan blueberries are so much better than any in the lower 48--or maybe that's just at my house.) Besides, we needed groceries and breakfast, she said, so we bundled up and out we went.
We dug the wife's Element out, which had been stuck in the driveway all night, having been unable to reach the top of the hill due to my car being in the way. Sadie, in fact, couldn't recognize the wife's car as even being a car, as its boxy shape just looked like a big white cube, and she barked and barked at it until we were able to dig it out. Once we were on the road, we discovered that with 18 inches of snow, driving was more like piloting a boat than a car, but out we went. It's mostly down hill to get out of my neighborhood, but then pretty much uphill all the way to the highway. Didn't matter. The wife was in great form and we had hardly any problems all the way to our first destination: our favorite local breakfast buffet.
There were hardly any cars at the buffet, and we had already half-expected them to be closed due to their staff being snowed in, but the Open sign was lit so we parked. Inside, we waited to pay, but there was no cashier. Beyond the glass-fronted windows of the cooking area we saw a manager lady we're familiar with and a male manager. As we were to learn soon enough, we nearly outnumbered the employees ourselves, as there were only the two managers, plus a guy who looked like a bus boy or maintenance man and another lady who I think was a baker. There was no wait staff and the managers were pretty much running the show, with the other two employees cooking what they could in back. Besides us, there were maybe 8 other customers.
After waiting for a couple of minutes, the female manager came over and invited us in, saying we could pay later and that they didn't have the full buffet out, but were taking orders for custom cooked eggs or omelets. Sounded fine to me. She then directed us to the servers' station where we could get our own coffee. Still sounded cool to me.
What proceeded was a meal of understanding and cooperation between the customers and the four staff members of the restaurant. For instance, we understood that they didn't have the staff to put out the full buffet spread, so we overlooked the items such as green beans and baked chicken that were present on the bar, and instead ate from the bacon and sausage which were there. (The bacon was deep fried for added speed and was, therefore, really good.) We did our own serving and refilling and tried not to be huge hassles for the overextended staff. Meanwhile, the female manager did custom eggs for us, which we ate over Texas toast, and they were great.
Two of our fellow nearby customers had been traveling through the state on their way from Florida to parts further north and had been stranded in our town, spending the night in their car. They seemed very grateful to have a place to stay and certainly weren't going to complain about anything. The whole meal just felt like people pulling together to make a bad situation work out for the best, and I have to say it was one of the more enjoyable meals I've had in a while as a result.
After breakfast, we headed down the road a bit to see one of the wife's patients. She doesn't do a lot of house calls, but is not opposed to them and has a small list of people she has visited in their homes, usually among the elderly. Unfortunately, the patient she'd promised to come see lived at the very end of a very hilly neighborhood. We couldn't even start at the bottom of the hill, though, because there was already a guy in an SUV firmly stuck, blocking the road. We tried to help push him get out, but conceded the battle to a fellow in a pickup who had a tow rope. That didn't work, either, but we'd brought our shovel and snow shovel so we helped dig him out and then pushed while the truck pulled and were finally successful. Less successful was our journey up the hill. The fellow in the pickup was on the same journey, so we let him go first. However, he stalled out mid way up the hill and we lost our momentum and had to start over. We still only made it about mid-way up, before just parking the car and walking in the rest of the way. The wife's patient was amazed to see us, as she'd assumed we'd never be able to make it out of our own house, let alone to hers.
Following a couple more errands and a trip to Wally World for groceries and beer, we headed home. We had hoped that our neighborhood would have been scraped by the time we returned, but not even the road leading to our neighborhood had seen a plow, so we figured it was highly unlikely. Still, we made it past the entrance to our neighborhood and about mid way up the first major hill, before stalling out. We gave it a few more college tries, of course, but wound up having to park the car at the bottom and haul most of our groceries up the hills and, eventually, up our gravity driveway. It's basically half of one of the two routes I walk with the dog every day, so it wasn't so bad on me, but the wife isn't used to such hills when laden with the ingredients for mulled cider. Once we got back and dried off, the wife indeed fired up the cider and we spent the afternoon camped out on the couch, drinking cups of it while warming ourselves with the wood stove.
Sometimes it's nice to be snowed in.
Sadie and Moose have had a blast running through it, even after it had grown taller than Moose himself. I had a blast laughing at them. The wife and I ate takeout pizza and spent an evening by the fire.
After we arose this morning, I assumed we would probably eat breakfast here and settle in until the roads were plowed, but the wife announced she wanted to "get out in it." This is the sort of thing people who grew up in Alaska say whenever they haven't seen this amount of snowfall in a while. I don't think it's a matter of wanting to show off their ice-driving skills so much as the desire to be able to immerse themselves in a reminiscence about how things used to be when they drove around in several feet of ice back in Fairbanks. (This behavior is usually accompanied by long speeches about how the scraper trucks in Alaska are so much bigger than those here, how none of these pickup truck with a blade on the front models would be able to move even 5 feet in Alaska, and, eventually, ends a treatise on how Alaskan blueberries are so much better than any in the lower 48--or maybe that's just at my house.) Besides, we needed groceries and breakfast, she said, so we bundled up and out we went.
We dug the wife's Element out, which had been stuck in the driveway all night, having been unable to reach the top of the hill due to my car being in the way. Sadie, in fact, couldn't recognize the wife's car as even being a car, as its boxy shape just looked like a big white cube, and she barked and barked at it until we were able to dig it out. Once we were on the road, we discovered that with 18 inches of snow, driving was more like piloting a boat than a car, but out we went. It's mostly down hill to get out of my neighborhood, but then pretty much uphill all the way to the highway. Didn't matter. The wife was in great form and we had hardly any problems all the way to our first destination: our favorite local breakfast buffet.
There were hardly any cars at the buffet, and we had already half-expected them to be closed due to their staff being snowed in, but the Open sign was lit so we parked. Inside, we waited to pay, but there was no cashier. Beyond the glass-fronted windows of the cooking area we saw a manager lady we're familiar with and a male manager. As we were to learn soon enough, we nearly outnumbered the employees ourselves, as there were only the two managers, plus a guy who looked like a bus boy or maintenance man and another lady who I think was a baker. There was no wait staff and the managers were pretty much running the show, with the other two employees cooking what they could in back. Besides us, there were maybe 8 other customers.
After waiting for a couple of minutes, the female manager came over and invited us in, saying we could pay later and that they didn't have the full buffet out, but were taking orders for custom cooked eggs or omelets. Sounded fine to me. She then directed us to the servers' station where we could get our own coffee. Still sounded cool to me.
What proceeded was a meal of understanding and cooperation between the customers and the four staff members of the restaurant. For instance, we understood that they didn't have the staff to put out the full buffet spread, so we overlooked the items such as green beans and baked chicken that were present on the bar, and instead ate from the bacon and sausage which were there. (The bacon was deep fried for added speed and was, therefore, really good.) We did our own serving and refilling and tried not to be huge hassles for the overextended staff. Meanwhile, the female manager did custom eggs for us, which we ate over Texas toast, and they were great.
Two of our fellow nearby customers had been traveling through the state on their way from Florida to parts further north and had been stranded in our town, spending the night in their car. They seemed very grateful to have a place to stay and certainly weren't going to complain about anything. The whole meal just felt like people pulling together to make a bad situation work out for the best, and I have to say it was one of the more enjoyable meals I've had in a while as a result.
After breakfast, we headed down the road a bit to see one of the wife's patients. She doesn't do a lot of house calls, but is not opposed to them and has a small list of people she has visited in their homes, usually among the elderly. Unfortunately, the patient she'd promised to come see lived at the very end of a very hilly neighborhood. We couldn't even start at the bottom of the hill, though, because there was already a guy in an SUV firmly stuck, blocking the road. We tried to help push him get out, but conceded the battle to a fellow in a pickup who had a tow rope. That didn't work, either, but we'd brought our shovel and snow shovel so we helped dig him out and then pushed while the truck pulled and were finally successful. Less successful was our journey up the hill. The fellow in the pickup was on the same journey, so we let him go first. However, he stalled out mid way up the hill and we lost our momentum and had to start over. We still only made it about mid-way up, before just parking the car and walking in the rest of the way. The wife's patient was amazed to see us, as she'd assumed we'd never be able to make it out of our own house, let alone to hers.
Following a couple more errands and a trip to Wally World for groceries and beer, we headed home. We had hoped that our neighborhood would have been scraped by the time we returned, but not even the road leading to our neighborhood had seen a plow, so we figured it was highly unlikely. Still, we made it past the entrance to our neighborhood and about mid way up the first major hill, before stalling out. We gave it a few more college tries, of course, but wound up having to park the car at the bottom and haul most of our groceries up the hills and, eventually, up our gravity driveway. It's basically half of one of the two routes I walk with the dog every day, so it wasn't so bad on me, but the wife isn't used to such hills when laden with the ingredients for mulled cider. Once we got back and dried off, the wife indeed fired up the cider and we spent the afternoon camped out on the couch, drinking cups of it while warming ourselves with the wood stove.
Sometimes it's nice to be snowed in.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Our New Family Member, the Third
A wise man once said: when a puppy piddles on the carpet, whose fault is it, the puppy's or its owner's? Answer: the owner's, because he's the one not paying attention to his puppy. That's paraphrasing, but we read something very similar on a puppy potty-training website, back when we were first trying to train Sadie. It's as irritating a statement as you're likely to find, but it's also true. Potty training a dog to "go" exclusively outside is a long and uric-acid soaked process that can drive you nigh onto insanity. Complicating the process further is that we refused to go the half-step route of first training to "go" on paper or floor diaper, opting for the whole hog "yer goin' outside or ye'd better get used to holdin' it" avenue.It's the same process we used on Sadie, starting a year and a half back. We must have done a good job of it, too, because Sadie is completely awesome when it comes to whizzing exclusively outside. Point of fact, she's a pretty awesome dog all around, which we can see now that we have Moose (or Piddles McGillicuddy, as he's come to be known) as contrast. Whenever Sadie has to go "potty," she literally asks to go out; she comes and finds us wherever we are, and gives us an urgent-toned series of grunts and growls. That's our cue to say, "You need to go potty?" at which point she steps up the urgency of the growls. In the early days of this, we used to also have episodes of what we called "potty lying" in which the dog really just wanted to go outside to sniff or investigate the possibility of deer lurking in the yard and would use pottying as her ticket to be let out. This was annoying because at the time we didn't have our nifty wifi shock collar system in place and would have to accompany her into the cold using a leash to prevent her from tearing off into the night after said lurking deer. These days, though, she's so well-trained by her shock collar that she doesn't even have to wear the collar anymore and we completely trust her to stay in the yard and let her out whenever the mood strikes her.
As well trained as Sadie now is, we can't for the life of us remember what exactly we did to reach that level of perfection with her. How was it, for instance, that we were able to get her to verbalize her potty needs? We'd really like to know, because it seems silly to punish Moose for piddling in the house and yell at him to only go outside when he seemingly doesn't have any recourse for letting us know that he needs to go outside. So for the past few weeks, we've tried to remain vigilant for any signs that he needs to go and immediately let him out. Trouble is, he's a stealth-pisser and covert-crapper, capable of squeezing out some waste in seconds, usually choosing to do so in a room other than the one we're in and dashing back before we know he was even gone. Until about three days ago, we had not had even one single day without an accident in all the weeks he's been here. And I'm not convinced he even achieved that record feat, because I found and cold, old link in the guest bedroom two days ago, and who knows when he deposited that?
Fortunately, I think we're finally seeing the light at the end of Poop & Piddle Tunnel. While we have had some excretory indiscretions in recent days, they've all been of a solid variety, so he's either getting the message that the yard is where he needs to wee, or he's developing better bladder control. Maybe both. He's even begun to go to the back door when he needs to go, which makes us extremely happy. Now if we can only work on his verbalizing, we'll be good. As shiny and perfect as Sadie appears in this regard, in actuality it took her several months to achieve this state.
Meanwhile, Moose has been easier to train in other regards. He's actually sitting and waiting on command--at least most of the time--and is already shaking hands with enough regularity that it's nearing on-command level, too. He also fetches far better than Sadie, (who is perfectly willing to go get any item you throw, but will then only play keepaway with it); Moose actually brings things back, provided you don't tell him he's a good dog until he returns with them, otherwise he drops whatever it is and runs to be praised.
As much as we've hated having to be back in cleanup mode again, we're really digging Moose as a pup. He's a far less high-maintenance dog than Sadie was at that age and it's been a fun guessing game as to what sort of dog he really is. We keep telling him he'd better not be a damn little chow chow, but we'll probably survive okay, even if he is.
He and Sadie are great friends--except before she's had her coffee in the morning, when she tends to growl at him. Same goes for Avie kitty, who has wisely chosen to make friends with him while he's still tiny. They have lots of fun chasing one another around the house, with Avie running only until Moose gives up the chase, at which point she turns and slinks back in his vicinity to get his attention and start the game anew.
The other thing I'm trying to do with him is to take more pictures. We took lots of Sadie as a puppy, then a few more as an adolescent dog, but very few in between those stages and then adult. Got to get more in the bank before he loses his puppy cuteness. Everyone who sees him falls in love with him, even down to our vet. I've taken him in three times now for initial checkup and shots and each time the vet and her staff have trouble giving him back to me. This past visit, they even apologized that I had to wait around the waiting room for so long, because they didn't want to let him go. He's a charmer.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Our New Family Member, the Second
We did some research on Leonbergers to see if what we'd been sold was indeed what it was billed to be. Didn't really matter, of course, as he was the cutest puppy ever and we loved him no matter what his breed. However, we thought it would be nice to know if he was going to be as large as we hoped, or top out at largish medium dog like his big "sister."Leonbergers, in addition to being a fairly rare breed in this country, have a diversity of appearance in both puppy and adult form, so much so that even with the similarities in coloration it was hard to say if Moose was a Leo, even only in part. Our vet was no help either, saying we just needed to pay attention to what physical characteristics he showed or developed and compare those to his alleged breed stats. Unfortunately, most of these (black muzzle, black tipped ears, white tip on the tail) also match a number of other breeds. And that tail was suspiciously curly. In fact, if not for his face, he had kind of a puggish sort of build, though no other pug features.
"Oh, he's probably a pug/German Shepherd half-breed," I suggested, much to the wife's dismay. She was already beginning to suspect him to be some kind of Shepherd/Chow combo.
"Don't do that near a chow," I said.
"What?" she understandably replied.
"Oh, I didn't tell you that story?" I said, referring to the fact that I've told her most of my stories at least once and usually thrice.
The story goes that back during my first junior year of college, I went with my friends Joe and Sujay to hang out in Atlanta for several days during spring break. (Side story: this was the very trip during which I composed and unleashed the second loudest and longest power-belch of my life, the now legendary I'M OUT OF SCHOOL belch, the recipe for which consisted of Sour Cream & Onion Pringles and generic Jitney Jungle brand Sprite. It was a belch worthy of an artistic grant.) Being poor college students, we stayed with Joe's elderly great aunt and went out via car or walked to the nearest Marta station, a couple miles away. During our initial hike to the Marta station, we were traveling down a sidewalk when we saw that ahead of us was a section of the sidewalk that was being regularly drenched by an overzealous yard sprinkler. In order to make it across the long stretch of moistened concrete without getting wet ourselves, we knew we would have to be swift of foot. And, seeing that the sprinkler stream was even then on a course back toward the sidewalk, we hoofed it quickly across. Now, what we didn't really notice was that ahead of us, beyond the moistened sidewalk, was a woman in her mid to late 30s walking a Chow. And, not having noticed her, we didn't take into account that three youths of indeterminate racial background (Sujay is east Indian, Joe has some Cherokee in him somewhere and I'm a squat, hairy, Franco/German honky) approaching at top speed would be the sort of thing that might cause her a bit of alarm. She gave us a fearful look, then, seeing that we weren't about to assault her, gave us an angry one.
"Don't do that near a chow!" she spat. Meanwhile, her dog was very calmly--some might say sleepily--paying us little mind, was barely bothering to sniff our air, let alone bark, and seemed the least-threatening beast any of us had ever encountered. While we quickly realized we should never have come running up behind her the way we did, her projection of viciousness onto that particular chow struck us as very funny and we spent the rest of the week--nay, the next several years--often repeating "Don't do that near a chow" whenever we were around each other.
I didn't much like the idea of Moose being a chow (you know, other than it would give me a constant source of reason for saying "Don't do that near a chow") but not because of any hatred of the breed. Mostly, I just don't like paying for one thing and getting something else. I was mostly content with assuming whoever had dumped Moose and his siblings off at theanimal shelter had known the parentage of the pups beforehand.
The wife, continued her image research online and was actually able to find pictures of German Shepherd puppies, chow puppies and German Shepherd/chow puppies that looked remarkably like Moose. His coloration is very German Shepherd, come to think of it, down to the light patches on his sides, (though Leonbergers often have this as well)."He doesn't have a black or blue tongue," I countered to the chow argument. Turns out I was wrong on this, though only partially. Moose's tongue does have a blue spot on its tip, which the chow sites say begins to form on chow puppy tongues at about his age. However, the Leonberger sites say exactly the same thing as well, since Newfies--part of the Leonberger mix--can also have dark tongues. As of this writing we still don't know what the hell he is. We're pretty sure that whatever breed he is, he ain't part Saint. He's also a vocal force to be reckoned with and can emit the most entertaining growly sounds you'd ever care to hear and sometimes seems to argue with you, if you're not doing what he wants you to. And he often follows up these howls with a sharp bite.
And, of course, there is the matter of his leavings.
(TO BE CONTINUED...)
Monday, November 16, 2009
Our New Family Member, the First
Over the past few months, the wife and I have been talking about getting a second dog. Mostly, we're interested in this to help socialize our first dog, Sadie, when it comes to members of her species. Partly, though, the wife just wants a truly enormous dog and preferably a full blooded St. Bernard. As I've detailed at some point in the past, the wife likes St. Bernards and has wanted another for a while now. Sadie is allegedly part St. Bernard, but the other half of her is Border Collie (again, so we think) and that offsets the overall size and drool factors (some of us would say nicely) while amping up the intelligence, stubbornness and energy. It's a great mix, really, but the wife would still like nothing better than to get a "real" St. Bernard, cause Sadie seems to have topped out at only 70 pounds.
Three Sundays ago, as merely a theoretical discussion, we happened to bring up the topic of a potential future second dog over breakfast. We agreed that, again in theory, a second dog might be a good idea. At least one of us in the conversation, however, was of the opinion that discussions were about as far as the subject would take us for probably another few months. Then, an hour or so later, I was working at the computer when the wife called from the living room, saying, "You need to come see this." I found her seated before her laptop with the picture of a brown puppy with a black nose centered in its screen. The wife, you see, had decided to surf by a St. Bernard rescue page--which is how we originally found Sadie. What she'd found was a painfully cute puppy listed as a mix of St. Bernard and Leonberger and located what turned out to be a couple hours drive from us. Now, I'd not really heard of Leonberger before, outside of possibly seeing one on a dog show on Animal Planet one time. But they looked kind of cool and were supposed to be a mix of St. Bernard, Newfoundland and Great Pyrenees. In other words, a butt-ass large dog.
The wife called the humane society where the puppy was located and asked if he was still there. They said he wasn't, which was disappointing news until they backed up and clarified that he had been taken to an adoption fair for the afternoon and if he wasn't adopted there he would be taken by a lady in New York.
"How do we get to the adoption fair?" the wife asked.
A couple hours later, me, the wife and Sadie pulled up to the parking lot of a movie theater in Grundy, VA, where there was indeed an adoption fair in full swing. Before we could even leave the car, we spotted a young lady holding the very puppy we came to seek. He was even cuter in person. He was also the last of a litter of six, all of which had already been adopted. The wife held him for a few minutes and even carried him over to the car to see what Sadie's reaction would be. Sadie barked at him, of course, but she was barking at everything at that point. The new pooch was a little scared at this, but still very sweet and just ridiculously cute. I paid the $30 adoption fee and after a quick stop for a pre-trip potty break, we hit the road home.
Once in our own yard, it took Sadie a couple of hours to get used to the new guy. We weren't sure if she was considering whether or not he would be good to eat, for a while, because she began drooling. And, on occasion, she did try to squash him by collapsing her front half on top of him, pinning him wrestlig-style, or just mashing him with a paw. But after a brief period of nervousness around Sadie, the new puppy warmed up and began to play back, biting and barking with the best of them. His little voice sounded kind of hoarse and squeaky and we wondered if he had laryngitis from yipping away in his cage back at the pound.
While neither we nor the humane society knew how old he was, exactly, I was guessing from his size that he was around 6 or 7 weeks old. (We got Sadie at around 8 to 10 weeks. )
It took us several hours of brainstorming to come up with a name. We considered things like Leon, Louie, Grundy, and Pudding Head Jenkins. Eventually we decided to follow my family's longstanding tradition of giving animals a name and then calling them something else entirely (i.e. Boots = Bay, Luke = Boo, Winston Churchill: The Infinitely Bad Kitty = the Kitty or Hey Cat, Avie = Kissy, Sadie = Sadie Mac Dog or Mac or Say Say or Mactastic, etc.). So we named him Seamus, but exclusively call him "Moose" for short. It just seems to fit.
(TO BE CONTINUED...)
Three Sundays ago, as merely a theoretical discussion, we happened to bring up the topic of a potential future second dog over breakfast. We agreed that, again in theory, a second dog might be a good idea. At least one of us in the conversation, however, was of the opinion that discussions were about as far as the subject would take us for probably another few months. Then, an hour or so later, I was working at the computer when the wife called from the living room, saying, "You need to come see this." I found her seated before her laptop with the picture of a brown puppy with a black nose centered in its screen. The wife, you see, had decided to surf by a St. Bernard rescue page--which is how we originally found Sadie. What she'd found was a painfully cute puppy listed as a mix of St. Bernard and Leonberger and located what turned out to be a couple hours drive from us. Now, I'd not really heard of Leonberger before, outside of possibly seeing one on a dog show on Animal Planet one time. But they looked kind of cool and were supposed to be a mix of St. Bernard, Newfoundland and Great Pyrenees. In other words, a butt-ass large dog.
The wife called the humane society where the puppy was located and asked if he was still there. They said he wasn't, which was disappointing news until they backed up and clarified that he had been taken to an adoption fair for the afternoon and if he wasn't adopted there he would be taken by a lady in New York.
"How do we get to the adoption fair?" the wife asked.
A couple hours later, me, the wife and Sadie pulled up to the parking lot of a movie theater in Grundy, VA, where there was indeed an adoption fair in full swing. Before we could even leave the car, we spotted a young lady holding the very puppy we came to seek. He was even cuter in person. He was also the last of a litter of six, all of which had already been adopted. The wife held him for a few minutes and even carried him over to the car to see what Sadie's reaction would be. Sadie barked at him, of course, but she was barking at everything at that point. The new pooch was a little scared at this, but still very sweet and just ridiculously cute. I paid the $30 adoption fee and after a quick stop for a pre-trip potty break, we hit the road home.
Once in our own yard, it took Sadie a couple of hours to get used to the new guy. We weren't sure if she was considering whether or not he would be good to eat, for a while, because she began drooling. And, on occasion, she did try to squash him by collapsing her front half on top of him, pinning him wrestlig-style, or just mashing him with a paw. But after a brief period of nervousness around Sadie, the new puppy warmed up and began to play back, biting and barking with the best of them. His little voice sounded kind of hoarse and squeaky and we wondered if he had laryngitis from yipping away in his cage back at the pound.
While neither we nor the humane society knew how old he was, exactly, I was guessing from his size that he was around 6 or 7 weeks old. (We got Sadie at around 8 to 10 weeks. )
It took us several hours of brainstorming to come up with a name. We considered things like Leon, Louie, Grundy, and Pudding Head Jenkins. Eventually we decided to follow my family's longstanding tradition of giving animals a name and then calling them something else entirely (i.e. Boots = Bay, Luke = Boo, Winston Churchill: The Infinitely Bad Kitty = the Kitty or Hey Cat, Avie = Kissy, Sadie = Sadie Mac Dog or Mac or Say Say or Mactastic, etc.). So we named him Seamus, but exclusively call him "Moose" for short. It just seems to fit.(TO BE CONTINUED...)
Monday, November 9, 2009
But first... Doing something wildly stupid pays off
While walking the dog, one morning, we were just starting up the lower portion of the street that winds up the major enormous hill in my neighborhood, when I noticed the dog was pulling hard toward the house located in the elbow curve of that street. It's a house I always think of as the Snow Bird House, because of the fact that I think it used to serve as a summer home for some people who spend winters further south. Actually, they may or may not have given up on living in it at all, as I've never seen anyone there even in the summer, beyond the people hired to keep the lawn mowed and the interior dusted. The dog continued to pull toward it and I was about to scold her for this when I heard a cat cry. At first I thought it was coming from the snow bird house, but as I listened without my headphones it seemed instead to be coming from the house of our neighbors the Wiley's house, which was back the way we'd come. Still, Sadie was pulling directly for the Snow Bird House. Crazy dog. We walked on up the hill.
As we returned from our journey, I heard the cat again and this time it did sound like it was coming from the Snow Bird house. In fact, it sounded like it was coming from the garage. Now, I had seen a car parked in the driveway of the house the day before, and had assumed it was the person hired to come in and clean. I wondered if the cat was either theirs, or perhaps it was one of the neighborhood cats that had somehow gotten into the house while they dusted and become trapped when they left. How awful.
I moved toward the house, the dog again pulling, and tried to listen for the cries. I was right next to their garage door when I heard more meows, but this time they were behind me, again seemingly in the direction of the Wiley's. Or maybe they were from the culvert that ran beneath the road in that direction? I walked toward the culvert, then heard meows again, this time from directly above my head. I looked up and saw that some 30 feet up there was a calico cat on a tree limb. I recognized the cat as the Wiley's cat, who I'd first encountered a few days before while on a similar walk. I'd first mistook him for our cat Avie, not only due to his similar coloration but also to the fact that he came walking down the Wiley's driveway in our direction despite the fact that I was leading an enormous dog. He had seemed friendly enough to both of us, but had kept his distance when Sadie took interest in him.
The kitty in the tree mewed at me pitifully, but I wasn't being fooled. After all, the old adage does still say that "cats will come down from trees when they're ready, or hungry enough." So I told it to come down and then took the dog home.
After a few hours, I returned to make sure the cat had indeed come down. He had not, and was now perched a bit further down that limb, where a branch could give him added support. He looked to be smaller than Avie, perhaps a few months younger than she, which would practically make him a kitten. One has to take a little pity on inexperienced youthful climbers, doesn't one? Nope. I told him again to get down and then went home.
Around 3 in the afternoon, I was going out for some errands when I noticed the sky was getting darker and threatening rain. It was also getting colder. I drove back by the Snow Bird House to check on the kitty. He was still there, still mewing for help. I wondered if he'd been there all of the previous night. I left on my errands, during which the weather continued to worsen, though still wasn't actually raining. The kitty was still in the tree when I returned, so I decided to do something that I was pretty sure was very stupid: I went home and packed up my expandable utility ladder and drove it back down to the kitty's tree.
The limb really was thirty feet from the ground, but because the tree itself was set into the side of the hill that sloped down from the driveway, it was far more in places. I extended the ladder to nearly its limit, leaving two rungs worth still unextended so that I could actually maneuver it. This really was a two person job. Once the ladder was leaning against the tree, I tried to wedge its feet into the most stable position I could find for them and gave it a test climb to a couple of rungs. It seemed stable enough, but I couldn't help but notice the many rocks piled at the base of the tree and how painful they might be if fallen upon. The top of the ladder seemed very high above and didn't even come within three feet of the actual branch I was going for. This became even more apparent as I climbed higher. In order to reach the branch, I would nearly have to be on the next to last rung at the top, which would give me nothing but the tree to hang onto. I'd also not considered how I was going to get the cat down with me, but decided I'd have to figure that out when the problem presented itself.
I went as high as I dared, still well out of reach of the limb, and stood there for at least five minutes. Above, the kitty crawled to the tree trunk and positioned himself in such a way that I could probably have grabbed him if only I had a couple feet more ladder beneath me. Even that idea, though, made me nervous as I thought that might further weaken my stability that high up. What I really should do, I reasoned, was to wait for the wife to get home so I would have someone to hold the ladder for me. I was pretty sure, though, that the weather would have set in by then, making the task even more unpleasant. As a safety measure, though, I thought what I should really do was to phone the wife at work and tell her that I was about to do something wildly stupid and to call an ambulance for me in case I didn't call her back in ten minutes.
I descended, extended the ladder by two rungs and stood there trying to work up the courage to climb back up. Above the cat mewed and climbed back out to his perch in the fork of the branch. This was either going to work or was going to be really bad. What if I got up there, secured the cat and then he went nuts with the claws? I'd have to drop him to keep from losing balance.
After a few more minutes, one of my neighbors happened in her car. I could have guessed which neighbor it would be before she even rolled down the glass, because it was only fitting that the lady I've come to think of as the Nosy Neighbor, cause I can never remember her name, would be the one to catch me in this act of ill-advised, half-assed rescue. Yep, it was her. The very one who has cornered me in the grocery store in the past to attempt to wring details out of me as to what exactly it is that I do for a living that allows me to walk the dog at all hours of the day, or details as to the lives of one or more of my immediate neighbors. No doubt such details were intended as fuel for some local gossip mill where I have no doubt she's a foreman. Fortunately, I don't keep up with my neighbors and my own answer was too boring to bother repeating.
"What are you doin'?" she called.
"Got a cat in a tree," I said, imagining the gossip headlines my name would now be appearing in.
"Awww," she called. "Is it yours?"
"No."
"Whose is it?"
"I think the Wiley's," I said. "It's been up there all day. I'm a little scared to go up after it."
"Well, if it's the Wiley's cat you should go get them to help you."
"Uh huh," I said. It was not a bad point, as Mr. Wiley might be an older gentleman, but he might be able to at least hold the ladder for me.
"Yeah, you should go get them to help you," she reiterated. "It's their cat."
Something about the way she kept insisting I go alert the Wiley's annoyed me. It was probably because I still viewed my little rescue mission as more than a little bit unnecessary and foolhardy and therefore something I'd prefer as few people knew about as possible. (Which, now that Mrs. Nosy was aware of it, would also be highly unlikely.) It seemed to me that Mr. Wiley was just as likely to laugh at the idea of a cat needing a rescue from a tree as he was to actually agree to help me pull it off.
"Yeah, I'd go get them," Mrs. Nosy said again, then drove on up the hill.
Now quite annoyed and with the clouds continuing to gather overhead, I decided it was time to shit or get off the pot. I started up the ladder, keeping eyes forward on the trunk of the tree. Within very little time, I was four rungs from the top. The going felt very smooth and steady, too. That was, I reasoned, probably the trick to this--pretending I was only four feet above ground, rather than 24 feet. I put an arm around the tree and took one more step up, putting me at three from the top and, after a bit of tree-hug steadying, within reach of the cat's branch. The cat, quite cooperatively, came all the way to the trunk and put himself within reach of my left hand. And he remained cooperative as I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and pulled him off of the branch and down to my chest. He was definitely nervous and meowed a couple of times, but he didn't claw me to ribbons. He didn't even really try to dig in to hold on, but just let me hold him there. With my right hand, I guided myself back down the trunk until I could again grip the side of the ladder, then, rung by rung, we descended until I was once again on solid ground.
I expected that when I set the cat down in the driveway of the Snow Bird House he would claw me for my trouble and run away. Instead, he meowed and began to rub himself gratefully along my legs, as if saying thank you for the rescue. This somehow made the whole thing worth it and I packed up my ladder and departed feeling all warm against the chill of the afternoon. Somewhere, on some alternate earth, might be lying dead or broken in the gravel, but on this earth doing something wildly stupid actually paid off.
Haven't seen that cat since.
As we returned from our journey, I heard the cat again and this time it did sound like it was coming from the Snow Bird house. In fact, it sounded like it was coming from the garage. Now, I had seen a car parked in the driveway of the house the day before, and had assumed it was the person hired to come in and clean. I wondered if the cat was either theirs, or perhaps it was one of the neighborhood cats that had somehow gotten into the house while they dusted and become trapped when they left. How awful.
I moved toward the house, the dog again pulling, and tried to listen for the cries. I was right next to their garage door when I heard more meows, but this time they were behind me, again seemingly in the direction of the Wiley's. Or maybe they were from the culvert that ran beneath the road in that direction? I walked toward the culvert, then heard meows again, this time from directly above my head. I looked up and saw that some 30 feet up there was a calico cat on a tree limb. I recognized the cat as the Wiley's cat, who I'd first encountered a few days before while on a similar walk. I'd first mistook him for our cat Avie, not only due to his similar coloration but also to the fact that he came walking down the Wiley's driveway in our direction despite the fact that I was leading an enormous dog. He had seemed friendly enough to both of us, but had kept his distance when Sadie took interest in him.
The kitty in the tree mewed at me pitifully, but I wasn't being fooled. After all, the old adage does still say that "cats will come down from trees when they're ready, or hungry enough." So I told it to come down and then took the dog home.
After a few hours, I returned to make sure the cat had indeed come down. He had not, and was now perched a bit further down that limb, where a branch could give him added support. He looked to be smaller than Avie, perhaps a few months younger than she, which would practically make him a kitten. One has to take a little pity on inexperienced youthful climbers, doesn't one? Nope. I told him again to get down and then went home.
Around 3 in the afternoon, I was going out for some errands when I noticed the sky was getting darker and threatening rain. It was also getting colder. I drove back by the Snow Bird House to check on the kitty. He was still there, still mewing for help. I wondered if he'd been there all of the previous night. I left on my errands, during which the weather continued to worsen, though still wasn't actually raining. The kitty was still in the tree when I returned, so I decided to do something that I was pretty sure was very stupid: I went home and packed up my expandable utility ladder and drove it back down to the kitty's tree.
The limb really was thirty feet from the ground, but because the tree itself was set into the side of the hill that sloped down from the driveway, it was far more in places. I extended the ladder to nearly its limit, leaving two rungs worth still unextended so that I could actually maneuver it. This really was a two person job. Once the ladder was leaning against the tree, I tried to wedge its feet into the most stable position I could find for them and gave it a test climb to a couple of rungs. It seemed stable enough, but I couldn't help but notice the many rocks piled at the base of the tree and how painful they might be if fallen upon. The top of the ladder seemed very high above and didn't even come within three feet of the actual branch I was going for. This became even more apparent as I climbed higher. In order to reach the branch, I would nearly have to be on the next to last rung at the top, which would give me nothing but the tree to hang onto. I'd also not considered how I was going to get the cat down with me, but decided I'd have to figure that out when the problem presented itself.
I went as high as I dared, still well out of reach of the limb, and stood there for at least five minutes. Above, the kitty crawled to the tree trunk and positioned himself in such a way that I could probably have grabbed him if only I had a couple feet more ladder beneath me. Even that idea, though, made me nervous as I thought that might further weaken my stability that high up. What I really should do, I reasoned, was to wait for the wife to get home so I would have someone to hold the ladder for me. I was pretty sure, though, that the weather would have set in by then, making the task even more unpleasant. As a safety measure, though, I thought what I should really do was to phone the wife at work and tell her that I was about to do something wildly stupid and to call an ambulance for me in case I didn't call her back in ten minutes.
I descended, extended the ladder by two rungs and stood there trying to work up the courage to climb back up. Above the cat mewed and climbed back out to his perch in the fork of the branch. This was either going to work or was going to be really bad. What if I got up there, secured the cat and then he went nuts with the claws? I'd have to drop him to keep from losing balance.
After a few more minutes, one of my neighbors happened in her car. I could have guessed which neighbor it would be before she even rolled down the glass, because it was only fitting that the lady I've come to think of as the Nosy Neighbor, cause I can never remember her name, would be the one to catch me in this act of ill-advised, half-assed rescue. Yep, it was her. The very one who has cornered me in the grocery store in the past to attempt to wring details out of me as to what exactly it is that I do for a living that allows me to walk the dog at all hours of the day, or details as to the lives of one or more of my immediate neighbors. No doubt such details were intended as fuel for some local gossip mill where I have no doubt she's a foreman. Fortunately, I don't keep up with my neighbors and my own answer was too boring to bother repeating.
"What are you doin'?" she called.
"Got a cat in a tree," I said, imagining the gossip headlines my name would now be appearing in.
"Awww," she called. "Is it yours?"
"No."
"Whose is it?"
"I think the Wiley's," I said. "It's been up there all day. I'm a little scared to go up after it."
"Well, if it's the Wiley's cat you should go get them to help you."
"Uh huh," I said. It was not a bad point, as Mr. Wiley might be an older gentleman, but he might be able to at least hold the ladder for me.
"Yeah, you should go get them to help you," she reiterated. "It's their cat."
Something about the way she kept insisting I go alert the Wiley's annoyed me. It was probably because I still viewed my little rescue mission as more than a little bit unnecessary and foolhardy and therefore something I'd prefer as few people knew about as possible. (Which, now that Mrs. Nosy was aware of it, would also be highly unlikely.) It seemed to me that Mr. Wiley was just as likely to laugh at the idea of a cat needing a rescue from a tree as he was to actually agree to help me pull it off.
"Yeah, I'd go get them," Mrs. Nosy said again, then drove on up the hill.
Now quite annoyed and with the clouds continuing to gather overhead, I decided it was time to shit or get off the pot. I started up the ladder, keeping eyes forward on the trunk of the tree. Within very little time, I was four rungs from the top. The going felt very smooth and steady, too. That was, I reasoned, probably the trick to this--pretending I was only four feet above ground, rather than 24 feet. I put an arm around the tree and took one more step up, putting me at three from the top and, after a bit of tree-hug steadying, within reach of the cat's branch. The cat, quite cooperatively, came all the way to the trunk and put himself within reach of my left hand. And he remained cooperative as I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and pulled him off of the branch and down to my chest. He was definitely nervous and meowed a couple of times, but he didn't claw me to ribbons. He didn't even really try to dig in to hold on, but just let me hold him there. With my right hand, I guided myself back down the trunk until I could again grip the side of the ladder, then, rung by rung, we descended until I was once again on solid ground.
I expected that when I set the cat down in the driveway of the Snow Bird House he would claw me for my trouble and run away. Instead, he meowed and began to rub himself gratefully along my legs, as if saying thank you for the rescue. This somehow made the whole thing worth it and I packed up my ladder and departed feeling all warm against the chill of the afternoon. Somewhere, on some alternate earth, might be lying dead or broken in the gravel, but on this earth doing something wildly stupid actually paid off.
Haven't seen that cat since.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Surprising Septuagenarians in the South West (or "Eating Like An Asshole Week: Day 7")
Our final day in Austin was only a half day, as we were flying out around 2:30 for our trip home. We ate kolaches at a local kolache place my sister liked. They were tasty enough, but I took issue with their using the term "bacon" in the title of my "bacon, egg and cheese" kolache, as the kolache contained merely the memory of bacon within its doughy center and not any actual bacon that I could detect.
The sister saw us off at the airport, we checked our bag and started through security. For some reason, my bag was flagged as containing objects of interest and the TSA folks had to rescan it twice before asking me if they could search it. All it had in it were a bunch of wires, adapters and a funny-looking usb/AC outlet/car adapter, so I had no problem with them searching anything. I just found it odd that beyond the many graphic novels I picked up while I was in Austin, there wasn't much else different about the bag than it was when I first went through security in Charlotte.
Now, with the ongoing financial troubles the airlines have been having, we all know about the increase in fees that some airlines charge for checking bags. They did this allegedly to make money to offset rising costs. However, I suspect they have not actually accomplished that goal. It may not be universal, because some airlines still allow you one check bag per person and then charge you $15 for any additional bags checked, but American Airlines just goes ahead and charges you $18 for your first and then the price goes up from there. So now, instead of people checking their luggage and going about their flight, everyone tries to smuggle as much of it aboard as carryon. Both of our flights on the way home left 15 minutes late because it was taking so long for everybody to get their carryon luggage crammed into the overhead bins. Similarly, it took extra time to deboard for not only the same reason in reverse, but also the seeming inability for people to do the math and realize that they needed to get their shit together BEFORE it was time for their row to deboard, not wait until that moment to finally unbuckle and get up and try to pull down their massive bag. We didn't miss any flights because of this, but we hardly had any time to scarf down some food between flights in Dallas because of it.
On our leg from Dallas to Charlotte, we had another annoyance in the form of a passenger on our row. Normally we like to fly in the D&E two seat row side of the plane, but for this particular leg we had no choice but the B&C seats of an ABC row. When we arrived, the A-seat passenger was not seated by the window, which meant there was no point in belting up until he or she arrived, as we'd have to get up to let them in. Across the aisle from us was a man with a thick Australian accent, who was seated in the E seat by the window and was working on his laptop. I only knew he had an Australian accent because a few minutes later, the actual ticket-holders for seats D & E arrived and pointed out to him he was in the wrong seat. I knew exactly where his correct seat would turn out to be, and sure enough it was the A seat next to my B. What kind of myopic dumbass can't tell and A from an E?
"Bruce" was all smiles and amiable enough about his error, as we did the across the aisle shuffle of him, his laptop and his carryon laptop bag, so I hoped he'd be a decent enough seat-mate. I might have even enjoyed chatting with him and hearing what his story was, except that he immediately began annoying me with a consistent yet seemingly absent-minded flaunting of airline regulations, which he continued for the rest of the flight.
It started out when the stewardess came on the intercom and told everyone to put away their personal electronic devices. Dude was still engrossed in whatever he was doing on his laptop and wasn't in a hurry to stop being engrossed. He took a good four minutes or so to actually shut it down and put it away, during which my estimation of him as a fellow traveler decreased with each passing second. We were still on the ground, mind you, so I didn't think it was all that big a deal, but the flaunting of regulation still got under my skin. Then, immediately upon putting his laptop away, he whipped out his iPod, plugged in his headphones and turned it on. What was next, a cell phone call?
Being a non-confrontational soul, I just sat and seethed. I've often suspected that the necessity to turn off electronic devices during takeoff is bullshit. After all, they let us turn them on once we're in the air. But who really knows? I mean, until Mythbusters busts or confirms it, right? My inner self, however, was screaming at me that I should lean over, yank one of his earbuds out and assure him that were our plane to crash due to his rule-breaking, the crash investigators would indeed find his corpse with an iPod wedged up its ass.
A stewardess happened by soon enough, saw his transgression and gently told him off. However, we were no sooner in the air than out came the iPod once again, several minutes before the go-ahead was given. I quickly put my own earbuds in and fired up my new Zen XFi-2. I expected he would fire up his laptop, but he kept it stowed until later, preferring to watch some sort of rodeo videos on his iPod. When we were about five minutes away from landing in Charlotte, though, he fired up the laptop again and started looking over some horse-training material, just in time to be told to put it away again over the speaker. Again, he took his time in shutting down.
Now, I realize that none of this really matters at all in the grand scheme of things. His actions were hardly endangering anyone, they weren't making me nervous, and the man didn't seem to be operating with any kind of malice (in fact, he was all smiles and good-natured attitude when we saw him at baggage claim fifteen minutes later--you know, after we had to wait for all the people in the rows ahead of us to get their shit and luggage together and then a move on). Really, it shouldn't bother me, but it does. It chaps my ass that he was either A) taking his time to follow regulations when not busy flaunting them on purpose; or B) just not paying attention to what he was being asked to do. They're equally bad, in my book. And I wasn't the only one annoyed by him. I could tell that my wife was irritated by him as well, and she probably would have told him off, but she wasn't sitting directly next to him. I could feel her willing me to say something, but knowing how unimportant it was in the grand scheme.
After we were in the terminal and out of earshot, I turned to her and said, "So... Aussie cowboy?"
"Yep. That was my guess," she said.
We didn't leave the airport until nearly 9 and then had several hours to get back to Borderland. Our only chance to eat like assholes on the way home was by stopping at a Jack in the Box on the way out of town, and we were only assholes for thinking we'd get good food there quickly. (In my experience, Jack in the Box food looks far better than it actually is and almost always takes about five minutes longer to receive than you really hoped it would. In fact, I once literally--and, as usual, I assure you I am in no way misusing the word "literally"--waited over 25 minutes for food at a different Charlotte-based Jack in the Box because the particular restaurant I was at was concentrating all their attention on filling drive-through orders and didn't care so much about the mass of customers like myself who were still waiting for their food. In their defense, that particular store on that particular night seemed very much as if it were being managed by morons--though probably only figuratively in this case.)
When we got home, the cat was happy to see us. The dog had to wait until the following morning to be picked up from doggy jail. She'd developed a case of kennel cough while in the clink, too, but unlike the previous stays there did not develop a bladder infection. We've decided that for our next vacation we'd prefer going somewhere we can take her, too.
That may or may not happen, as in the time it's taken me to write this up since we returned from Austin, we've actually added a fuzzy new family member--one who'll certainly factor into things for future vacation plans.
The sister saw us off at the airport, we checked our bag and started through security. For some reason, my bag was flagged as containing objects of interest and the TSA folks had to rescan it twice before asking me if they could search it. All it had in it were a bunch of wires, adapters and a funny-looking usb/AC outlet/car adapter, so I had no problem with them searching anything. I just found it odd that beyond the many graphic novels I picked up while I was in Austin, there wasn't much else different about the bag than it was when I first went through security in Charlotte.
Now, with the ongoing financial troubles the airlines have been having, we all know about the increase in fees that some airlines charge for checking bags. They did this allegedly to make money to offset rising costs. However, I suspect they have not actually accomplished that goal. It may not be universal, because some airlines still allow you one check bag per person and then charge you $15 for any additional bags checked, but American Airlines just goes ahead and charges you $18 for your first and then the price goes up from there. So now, instead of people checking their luggage and going about their flight, everyone tries to smuggle as much of it aboard as carryon. Both of our flights on the way home left 15 minutes late because it was taking so long for everybody to get their carryon luggage crammed into the overhead bins. Similarly, it took extra time to deboard for not only the same reason in reverse, but also the seeming inability for people to do the math and realize that they needed to get their shit together BEFORE it was time for their row to deboard, not wait until that moment to finally unbuckle and get up and try to pull down their massive bag. We didn't miss any flights because of this, but we hardly had any time to scarf down some food between flights in Dallas because of it.
On our leg from Dallas to Charlotte, we had another annoyance in the form of a passenger on our row. Normally we like to fly in the D&E two seat row side of the plane, but for this particular leg we had no choice but the B&C seats of an ABC row. When we arrived, the A-seat passenger was not seated by the window, which meant there was no point in belting up until he or she arrived, as we'd have to get up to let them in. Across the aisle from us was a man with a thick Australian accent, who was seated in the E seat by the window and was working on his laptop. I only knew he had an Australian accent because a few minutes later, the actual ticket-holders for seats D & E arrived and pointed out to him he was in the wrong seat. I knew exactly where his correct seat would turn out to be, and sure enough it was the A seat next to my B. What kind of myopic dumbass can't tell and A from an E?
"Bruce" was all smiles and amiable enough about his error, as we did the across the aisle shuffle of him, his laptop and his carryon laptop bag, so I hoped he'd be a decent enough seat-mate. I might have even enjoyed chatting with him and hearing what his story was, except that he immediately began annoying me with a consistent yet seemingly absent-minded flaunting of airline regulations, which he continued for the rest of the flight.
It started out when the stewardess came on the intercom and told everyone to put away their personal electronic devices. Dude was still engrossed in whatever he was doing on his laptop and wasn't in a hurry to stop being engrossed. He took a good four minutes or so to actually shut it down and put it away, during which my estimation of him as a fellow traveler decreased with each passing second. We were still on the ground, mind you, so I didn't think it was all that big a deal, but the flaunting of regulation still got under my skin. Then, immediately upon putting his laptop away, he whipped out his iPod, plugged in his headphones and turned it on. What was next, a cell phone call?
Being a non-confrontational soul, I just sat and seethed. I've often suspected that the necessity to turn off electronic devices during takeoff is bullshit. After all, they let us turn them on once we're in the air. But who really knows? I mean, until Mythbusters busts or confirms it, right? My inner self, however, was screaming at me that I should lean over, yank one of his earbuds out and assure him that were our plane to crash due to his rule-breaking, the crash investigators would indeed find his corpse with an iPod wedged up its ass.
A stewardess happened by soon enough, saw his transgression and gently told him off. However, we were no sooner in the air than out came the iPod once again, several minutes before the go-ahead was given. I quickly put my own earbuds in and fired up my new Zen XFi-2. I expected he would fire up his laptop, but he kept it stowed until later, preferring to watch some sort of rodeo videos on his iPod. When we were about five minutes away from landing in Charlotte, though, he fired up the laptop again and started looking over some horse-training material, just in time to be told to put it away again over the speaker. Again, he took his time in shutting down.
Now, I realize that none of this really matters at all in the grand scheme of things. His actions were hardly endangering anyone, they weren't making me nervous, and the man didn't seem to be operating with any kind of malice (in fact, he was all smiles and good-natured attitude when we saw him at baggage claim fifteen minutes later--you know, after we had to wait for all the people in the rows ahead of us to get their shit and luggage together and then a move on). Really, it shouldn't bother me, but it does. It chaps my ass that he was either A) taking his time to follow regulations when not busy flaunting them on purpose; or B) just not paying attention to what he was being asked to do. They're equally bad, in my book. And I wasn't the only one annoyed by him. I could tell that my wife was irritated by him as well, and she probably would have told him off, but she wasn't sitting directly next to him. I could feel her willing me to say something, but knowing how unimportant it was in the grand scheme.
After we were in the terminal and out of earshot, I turned to her and said, "So... Aussie cowboy?"
"Yep. That was my guess," she said.
We didn't leave the airport until nearly 9 and then had several hours to get back to Borderland. Our only chance to eat like assholes on the way home was by stopping at a Jack in the Box on the way out of town, and we were only assholes for thinking we'd get good food there quickly. (In my experience, Jack in the Box food looks far better than it actually is and almost always takes about five minutes longer to receive than you really hoped it would. In fact, I once literally--and, as usual, I assure you I am in no way misusing the word "literally"--waited over 25 minutes for food at a different Charlotte-based Jack in the Box because the particular restaurant I was at was concentrating all their attention on filling drive-through orders and didn't care so much about the mass of customers like myself who were still waiting for their food. In their defense, that particular store on that particular night seemed very much as if it were being managed by morons--though probably only figuratively in this case.)
When we got home, the cat was happy to see us. The dog had to wait until the following morning to be picked up from doggy jail. She'd developed a case of kennel cough while in the clink, too, but unlike the previous stays there did not develop a bladder infection. We've decided that for our next vacation we'd prefer going somewhere we can take her, too.
That may or may not happen, as in the time it's taken me to write this up since we returned from Austin, we've actually added a fuzzy new family member--one who'll certainly factor into things for future vacation plans.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Surprising Septuagenarians in the South West (or "Eating Like An Asshole Week: Day 6 PART II")
I've visited my sister in Austin a total of three times now. Each time I've been, I've sworn I was going to visit the legendary Salt Lick and until this trip I had failed to do so.
Technically, I guess I've been to the Salt Lick before, but not the one in Austin, nor any other town in Texas. Instead, I have eaten twice at a now defunct Salt Lick spin-off restaurant that existed for a time in Tupelo, MS. The place had come recommended to me back when I lived in Tupelo, but it took me a while to actually go there. The Tupelo Salt Lick was located in a tobacconist shop in down town, but there was a kitchen in the back and a few tables scattered about, just right for a quick lunch. My wife, then girlfriend, went their and enjoyed brisket tacos that were amazing. While we dined, we read the table tents that detailed how the Salt Lick: Tupelo was a spin-off of the Salt Lick Austin and their meat was prepared with similar spices if not the same wood fired clay pit oven. This was all the brainchild of, I believe, but don't quote me, the daughter of the owner of the Austin Salt Lick, who'd relocated to Mississippi. By the time the wife and I tried to visit it again, a few months later, the kitchen part of the tobacconist shop had relocated to a tiny alley-based shop around the corner and were only serving cold meat sandwiches and no brisket. They said their cook had left.
Since then, I'd seen the Salt Lick Austin on a number of TV shows (including Man V. Food) and had heard tales of its greatness from people who'd been, but had not been able to get there myself. I was determined to change this, but I had doubters among our crew. It was pointed out that the Salt Lick was, like, a 40 minute drive outside of town and the wait to be seated once we arrived would likely be at least the same. Our other major option was Five Guys Burgers, which, while very appealing, was also a good drive away and through thick afternoon traffic. Our decision finally came down to the fact that traffic wasn't so bad in the direction of the Salt Lick and while we love Five Guys Burgers, we've already had that experience. Salt Lick was the way to go.
For all its reputation and popularity, the Salt Lick is actually a fairly simple operation. They only accept cash (ATM on premises), they don't serve alcohol (it's BYOB all the way, including the little jar of Grand Marnier my wife brought which she thought might not be welcome) and they have a fairly limited menu, but they don't have to be anything other than what they are because what they offer is something very few other restaurants on the planet can claim: the best barbeque ever. The Salt Lick is located on what looks like an old ranch, with a large dirt parking lot and a stone walk leading up to the door of what might have once been a barn. Inside there lies magic.
We knew we'd made the right restaurant choice before we'd even walked in the door, because what was cooking over that clay pit could be smelled from far out in the mud & gravel parking lot. Inside was an expanse of wood plank floor covered with bench-lined tables full of very happy people. However, I'm afraid the decor and people were mostly lost upon me as I was immediately distracted by the immense barbeque pit right at the front of the place, which was covered in the most amazing looking array of meats I've ever seen. Spread out atop the grill were chunks of brisket, sausages and ribs and ribs and ribs. It nearly brought a tear to my eye.
I have little memory of the immediate minutes surrounding that, except that we were soon taken to a table where our waiter brought us menus and a tub of ice for the remaining Blue Moons that I'd BYOBed. When he learned we'd never been there before, he just grinned knowingly, like a parent taking his kid to Disney World, looking on with knowing pride as they walk into the Magic Kingdom for the first time.
Now, Salt Lick's menu contains has some economically-priced offerings, such as the barbeque sampler plate for around $11. However, we had been advised in advance to ignore all options except for that of Family Dining. For $18 each, the Salt Lick brings to your table all the meats (as listed above), all the side dishes (potato salad, slaw, beans) and bread and they keep bringing them as long as you can keep eating them. And with all of the above in plentiful supply there, we very quickly had a table full of bounty spread before us, into which the six of us hungrily dug.
"Bring you some more meat?" our waiter asked a couple of minutes later.
"Meat... more..." we said, well-cleaned bones jutting from our collective maw. "Potato salad... more," we added. Seconds later both appeared. On the edge of the meat plate, I spied a charred corner of brisket and grabbed it. This was from one of the outer pieces of brisket, seared to what I hoped was perfection. I saw Adam on Man V. Food eat just such a piece on that show and he had to be excused for a personal moment afterward. Popping it into my mouth, I knew exactly how he felt. It was like a religious experience, so savory, so wonderful, so meaty. It was everything I had expected, but so much more.
And the ribs... OH, THE RIBS!! Despite my triple use of the word some paragraphs ago, I'm not particularly a rib man in day to day life. I love the taste of them, sure, but I cannot usually abide the mess that comes with eating them. For these, however, exception was necessity--nay, mandatory! Just sweet and succulent and falling right off the bone fantastic. The sausages too were a worthy thing. We gorged ourselves until we could feel our intellects sliding downward into stupidity.
"Bring you some more meat?" our waiter asked again, grinning his knowing grin.
Our plates brimming, the meat plate loaded with only a couple of sausages, we knew we weren't going to be able to fit much more, but we nodded, mouths full. Magically, another plate piled high with meat appeared.
When we could hold no more, we still had a goodly stack of meat before us. The waiter returned.
"Anyone have room for dessert?" he asked.
We did not, but somehow our mouths still said, "Yes." I ordered pecan pie a la mode, as did the wife. My sister ordered cobbler. While we waited for it to arrive, we ate a little more barbeque. Then it was there, and we were scarfing down pecan pie the way pecan pie was meant to be. Enormous, thick of crust and with no skimping on the pecans. I ate every bite. The wife saved half of hers. The waiter already knew where we were going next and brought us to-go boxes in which we packed up all of the remaining barbeque and sides. We then rolled ourselves toward the door, paid our bill and were gone.
As you can see from their website, there are other Salt Lick locations, including one at the Austin Airport. My sister has been advised, however, that the original Driftwood location is the one to visit, though I'm sure the others are fine. If you're ever in Austin, though, you NEED to get you some Salt Lick.
NEED.
Technically, I guess I've been to the Salt Lick before, but not the one in Austin, nor any other town in Texas. Instead, I have eaten twice at a now defunct Salt Lick spin-off restaurant that existed for a time in Tupelo, MS. The place had come recommended to me back when I lived in Tupelo, but it took me a while to actually go there. The Tupelo Salt Lick was located in a tobacconist shop in down town, but there was a kitchen in the back and a few tables scattered about, just right for a quick lunch. My wife, then girlfriend, went their and enjoyed brisket tacos that were amazing. While we dined, we read the table tents that detailed how the Salt Lick: Tupelo was a spin-off of the Salt Lick Austin and their meat was prepared with similar spices if not the same wood fired clay pit oven. This was all the brainchild of, I believe, but don't quote me, the daughter of the owner of the Austin Salt Lick, who'd relocated to Mississippi. By the time the wife and I tried to visit it again, a few months later, the kitchen part of the tobacconist shop had relocated to a tiny alley-based shop around the corner and were only serving cold meat sandwiches and no brisket. They said their cook had left.
Since then, I'd seen the Salt Lick Austin on a number of TV shows (including Man V. Food) and had heard tales of its greatness from people who'd been, but had not been able to get there myself. I was determined to change this, but I had doubters among our crew. It was pointed out that the Salt Lick was, like, a 40 minute drive outside of town and the wait to be seated once we arrived would likely be at least the same. Our other major option was Five Guys Burgers, which, while very appealing, was also a good drive away and through thick afternoon traffic. Our decision finally came down to the fact that traffic wasn't so bad in the direction of the Salt Lick and while we love Five Guys Burgers, we've already had that experience. Salt Lick was the way to go.
For all its reputation and popularity, the Salt Lick is actually a fairly simple operation. They only accept cash (ATM on premises), they don't serve alcohol (it's BYOB all the way, including the little jar of Grand Marnier my wife brought which she thought might not be welcome) and they have a fairly limited menu, but they don't have to be anything other than what they are because what they offer is something very few other restaurants on the planet can claim: the best barbeque ever. The Salt Lick is located on what looks like an old ranch, with a large dirt parking lot and a stone walk leading up to the door of what might have once been a barn. Inside there lies magic.
We knew we'd made the right restaurant choice before we'd even walked in the door, because what was cooking over that clay pit could be smelled from far out in the mud & gravel parking lot. Inside was an expanse of wood plank floor covered with bench-lined tables full of very happy people. However, I'm afraid the decor and people were mostly lost upon me as I was immediately distracted by the immense barbeque pit right at the front of the place, which was covered in the most amazing looking array of meats I've ever seen. Spread out atop the grill were chunks of brisket, sausages and ribs and ribs and ribs. It nearly brought a tear to my eye.
I have little memory of the immediate minutes surrounding that, except that we were soon taken to a table where our waiter brought us menus and a tub of ice for the remaining Blue Moons that I'd BYOBed. When he learned we'd never been there before, he just grinned knowingly, like a parent taking his kid to Disney World, looking on with knowing pride as they walk into the Magic Kingdom for the first time.
Now, Salt Lick's menu contains has some economically-priced offerings, such as the barbeque sampler plate for around $11. However, we had been advised in advance to ignore all options except for that of Family Dining. For $18 each, the Salt Lick brings to your table all the meats (as listed above), all the side dishes (potato salad, slaw, beans) and bread and they keep bringing them as long as you can keep eating them. And with all of the above in plentiful supply there, we very quickly had a table full of bounty spread before us, into which the six of us hungrily dug.
"Bring you some more meat?" our waiter asked a couple of minutes later.
"Meat... more..." we said, well-cleaned bones jutting from our collective maw. "Potato salad... more," we added. Seconds later both appeared. On the edge of the meat plate, I spied a charred corner of brisket and grabbed it. This was from one of the outer pieces of brisket, seared to what I hoped was perfection. I saw Adam on Man V. Food eat just such a piece on that show and he had to be excused for a personal moment afterward. Popping it into my mouth, I knew exactly how he felt. It was like a religious experience, so savory, so wonderful, so meaty. It was everything I had expected, but so much more.
And the ribs... OH, THE RIBS!! Despite my triple use of the word some paragraphs ago, I'm not particularly a rib man in day to day life. I love the taste of them, sure, but I cannot usually abide the mess that comes with eating them. For these, however, exception was necessity--nay, mandatory! Just sweet and succulent and falling right off the bone fantastic. The sausages too were a worthy thing. We gorged ourselves until we could feel our intellects sliding downward into stupidity.
"Bring you some more meat?" our waiter asked again, grinning his knowing grin.
Our plates brimming, the meat plate loaded with only a couple of sausages, we knew we weren't going to be able to fit much more, but we nodded, mouths full. Magically, another plate piled high with meat appeared.
When we could hold no more, we still had a goodly stack of meat before us. The waiter returned.
"Anyone have room for dessert?" he asked.
We did not, but somehow our mouths still said, "Yes." I ordered pecan pie a la mode, as did the wife. My sister ordered cobbler. While we waited for it to arrive, we ate a little more barbeque. Then it was there, and we were scarfing down pecan pie the way pecan pie was meant to be. Enormous, thick of crust and with no skimping on the pecans. I ate every bite. The wife saved half of hers. The waiter already knew where we were going next and brought us to-go boxes in which we packed up all of the remaining barbeque and sides. We then rolled ourselves toward the door, paid our bill and were gone.
As you can see from their website, there are other Salt Lick locations, including one at the Austin Airport. My sister has been advised, however, that the original Driftwood location is the one to visit, though I'm sure the others are fine. If you're ever in Austin, though, you NEED to get you some Salt Lick.
NEED.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Surprising Septuagenarians in the South West (or "Eating Like An Asshole Week: Day 6")
The following morning was a bit hectic. My sister's car had been having trouble for a couple of days and had symptoms of a bad battery. We'd had to jump the car off after returning from Artz the night before and it only grudgingly started again afterward. So this was of great concern to the parents when they phoned at 8:30 in the morning, because they were afraid they might have to give us a ride to a battery place and they didn't have a lot of time on their hands--at least, according to them.
See, on their way to Austin from Dallas, days before, they'd very nearly missed their plane. They said they'd left their hotel in plenty of time, but with a side trip or so and rental car return they'd arrived for check-in so late that they were advised by the airline agent not to take the time to check their bag or they'd miss the flight for sure. They arrived at their gate in the nick of time, and were told that they should have missed the flight as the plane was past time for shutting its doors. (I have a theory as to why that was the case, which we'll get to in another entry.) The previous night, after helping us jump the sister's car, dad had announced they would be turning in early so they could arise in time to get to the airport early in order to avoid a repeat. It was heavily implied that if we wanted to eat breakfast with them or get a potential life to a battery place, we'd need to arise early too.
Eight thirty may not seem very early, but for those of us who stayed up til all hours drinking White Russians, not to mention those of us needing to sleep off our food benders, it was. Now, the previous evening, while drinking the White Russians, my sister and I had already determined what the parents would want for breakfast, there in the capital city for not only Texas but also of the very concept of Amazing Breakfast itself: yep, McDonalds.
And, surprise surprise, when dad called at 8:30, he said that in order to help facilitate their rapid escape to the airport in plenty of time, he was suggesting we all stop off at McDonalds. Now, my family has a long and storied history of loving McDonalds and, these days, the parents eat there nearly every morning. But there was no way in hell we kids were settling for Mickey Greeze when there were ginger-bread pancakes to be found elsewhere. Still, we agreed to accompany them there in order to spend time with them before they had to leave--which was actually the other thing we were amused by. Despite the fact that my sister lives ten minutes from the Austin airport, and despite the fact that there are plenty of great breakfast places in the neighborhood, the parents wanted to scarf down their McMuffins and be at the airport by 10 a.m. so they could get to the airport in plenty of time for their 11:30 flight.
We had to jump off the sister's car in order to get to McDonalds, and again after breakfast in order to get to Auto Zone, but we saw the parents off by 10 and got a new battery installed shortly with no real problem. Then, as the parents were no doubt settling into their seats at the gate for a nice long 90 minute wait, we settled into a booth at Kerbey Lane for heaping breakfast tacos and pancakes. Our waiter seemed just a little bit annoyed by something. We couldn't tell if it was us or any of the five other tables he was responsible for, but he didn't have a lot of the standard customer service beaming-attitude. (Kerbey Lane wait staff tends to be drawn from multiply-pierced and tattooed Indie Music scene day-job types.) It was kind of refreshing, really, as he seemed very much like a real person and not a plastic servant to our needs. And as a former waiter myself, he proved to be my hero in that department in how he dealt with a table full of granola neo-hippie types who were seated near us mid-way through our meal. From the moment they sat down, they began plying the waiter for what sort of food the place served without bothering to open their menus or even pause for him to take their drink orders. After about three such questions on pancake flavor options, or vegan content, all of which could have been answered far more efficiently by the document in front of them, the waiter said, "You know, you could just try looking at the menu." There was a pause as it seemed to dawn on them that they could indeed do that and that it wouldn't violate their free-spirited nature to do so, and gave him their drink orders. We couldn't help but laugh out loud.
By 5, we weren't hungry, but were starting to think about it. Especially since our dinner destination was going to be a bit of a drive. We were headed, as I might have mentioned before, to the Salt Lick.
(TO BE CONTINUED...)
See, on their way to Austin from Dallas, days before, they'd very nearly missed their plane. They said they'd left their hotel in plenty of time, but with a side trip or so and rental car return they'd arrived for check-in so late that they were advised by the airline agent not to take the time to check their bag or they'd miss the flight for sure. They arrived at their gate in the nick of time, and were told that they should have missed the flight as the plane was past time for shutting its doors. (I have a theory as to why that was the case, which we'll get to in another entry.) The previous night, after helping us jump the sister's car, dad had announced they would be turning in early so they could arise in time to get to the airport early in order to avoid a repeat. It was heavily implied that if we wanted to eat breakfast with them or get a potential life to a battery place, we'd need to arise early too.
Eight thirty may not seem very early, but for those of us who stayed up til all hours drinking White Russians, not to mention those of us needing to sleep off our food benders, it was. Now, the previous evening, while drinking the White Russians, my sister and I had already determined what the parents would want for breakfast, there in the capital city for not only Texas but also of the very concept of Amazing Breakfast itself: yep, McDonalds.
And, surprise surprise, when dad called at 8:30, he said that in order to help facilitate their rapid escape to the airport in plenty of time, he was suggesting we all stop off at McDonalds. Now, my family has a long and storied history of loving McDonalds and, these days, the parents eat there nearly every morning. But there was no way in hell we kids were settling for Mickey Greeze when there were ginger-bread pancakes to be found elsewhere. Still, we agreed to accompany them there in order to spend time with them before they had to leave--which was actually the other thing we were amused by. Despite the fact that my sister lives ten minutes from the Austin airport, and despite the fact that there are plenty of great breakfast places in the neighborhood, the parents wanted to scarf down their McMuffins and be at the airport by 10 a.m. so they could get to the airport in plenty of time for their 11:30 flight.
We had to jump off the sister's car in order to get to McDonalds, and again after breakfast in order to get to Auto Zone, but we saw the parents off by 10 and got a new battery installed shortly with no real problem. Then, as the parents were no doubt settling into their seats at the gate for a nice long 90 minute wait, we settled into a booth at Kerbey Lane for heaping breakfast tacos and pancakes. Our waiter seemed just a little bit annoyed by something. We couldn't tell if it was us or any of the five other tables he was responsible for, but he didn't have a lot of the standard customer service beaming-attitude. (Kerbey Lane wait staff tends to be drawn from multiply-pierced and tattooed Indie Music scene day-job types.) It was kind of refreshing, really, as he seemed very much like a real person and not a plastic servant to our needs. And as a former waiter myself, he proved to be my hero in that department in how he dealt with a table full of granola neo-hippie types who were seated near us mid-way through our meal. From the moment they sat down, they began plying the waiter for what sort of food the place served without bothering to open their menus or even pause for him to take their drink orders. After about three such questions on pancake flavor options, or vegan content, all of which could have been answered far more efficiently by the document in front of them, the waiter said, "You know, you could just try looking at the menu." There was a pause as it seemed to dawn on them that they could indeed do that and that it wouldn't violate their free-spirited nature to do so, and gave him their drink orders. We couldn't help but laugh out loud.
By 5, we weren't hungry, but were starting to think about it. Especially since our dinner destination was going to be a bit of a drive. We were headed, as I might have mentioned before, to the Salt Lick.
(TO BE CONTINUED...)
Friday, October 16, 2009
Surprising Septuagenarians in the South West (or "Eating Like An Asshole Week: Day 5")
As much as we'd adored Casa Maria when the sister took us, we thought we had to bring the parents there, too. Everyone ordered the migas plate again, except for me. Wanting to be more adventuresome, I ordered the machacado plate--which turned out to be almost exactly the same thing as migas, only without tortilla chips and with dried beef instead of chorizo sausage. (That's okay, cause I just added tortilla chips on my own.) Once again, their flour tortillas, used to wrap up our breakfast-matter, were amazing, heavenly cakes of pure goodness. One major revelation of the meal, though, came when the waitress told us that the tortillas were actually made at a completely different restaurant owned by the same people and imported. That means that potentially there exist even fresher tortillas which could only be better, right? The concept boggles my mind.
Let me say a couple of words about barbeque: good stuff. I don't deny it. However, barbeque is kind of one of those foods that people take really personally. The regions of the country famous for making it each have their own spin on it and each region claims there's is the best. Now, I'm able to enjoy nearly all kinds of barbeque because I'm not terribly picky, though I do confess to not eating ribs often because I just can't deal with the mess of them. My wife is not so blessed as me. She's a vinegar-based barbeque gal and is even pretty choosy within that sub-genre. And it is because of this reason that until the day before our trip, we had not dined at the local barbeque joint in Borderland. Then, the very night we left to drive to Charlotte, on our way out of town, we decided to give it a try despite the fact that it claimed to be barbeque of a style more at home in a major mid-south city, as opposed to NC or Austin. Our logic in this was that we would soon be in Austin and were planning to head to the world famous Salt Lick restaurant at some point so we may as well get the barbeque party started early. We needn't have bothered, for it turns out that our local barbeque joint is aggressively sub par in nearly every way. We were pissed off.
So, for Day 5's dinner, we decided it was time to head to the Salt Lick. Before we could leave for it, though, we talked ourselves out of it. From what we'd been told, and what Mapquest suggested, the Salt Lick was a 45 minute drive at minimum and usually had a wait for a table of around the same. Instead, we headed to Artz Ribhouse, on Lamar. The sister had heard it was good, but not tried Artz herself. Turns out, she heard right. There was a table the size of our party readily available and the live band that fired up was of exactly the correct volume to allow for conversation. I ordered a brisket plate, but I should have ordered the ribs. One look at my sister's rib plate and I could see and smell my error clearly. The wife took one look at them and ordered one rib of her own to accompany her cheeseburger. I wound up having a bite or two myself and can attest that they are pretty awesome.
However much I enjoyed Artz Ribhouse's ribs, though, I may never set foot in the place again due to the the ribs I ate the following evening when we finally did make it to the Salt Lick.
(TO BE CONTINUED...)
GASTRONOMICAL JOURNAL FOR DAY 5
Breakfast: Return to Casa Maria for Machacado.
Lunch: -
Dinner: Brisket and ribs at Artz Ribhouse
Let me say a couple of words about barbeque: good stuff. I don't deny it. However, barbeque is kind of one of those foods that people take really personally. The regions of the country famous for making it each have their own spin on it and each region claims there's is the best. Now, I'm able to enjoy nearly all kinds of barbeque because I'm not terribly picky, though I do confess to not eating ribs often because I just can't deal with the mess of them. My wife is not so blessed as me. She's a vinegar-based barbeque gal and is even pretty choosy within that sub-genre. And it is because of this reason that until the day before our trip, we had not dined at the local barbeque joint in Borderland. Then, the very night we left to drive to Charlotte, on our way out of town, we decided to give it a try despite the fact that it claimed to be barbeque of a style more at home in a major mid-south city, as opposed to NC or Austin. Our logic in this was that we would soon be in Austin and were planning to head to the world famous Salt Lick restaurant at some point so we may as well get the barbeque party started early. We needn't have bothered, for it turns out that our local barbeque joint is aggressively sub par in nearly every way. We were pissed off.
So, for Day 5's dinner, we decided it was time to head to the Salt Lick. Before we could leave for it, though, we talked ourselves out of it. From what we'd been told, and what Mapquest suggested, the Salt Lick was a 45 minute drive at minimum and usually had a wait for a table of around the same. Instead, we headed to Artz Ribhouse, on Lamar. The sister had heard it was good, but not tried Artz herself. Turns out, she heard right. There was a table the size of our party readily available and the live band that fired up was of exactly the correct volume to allow for conversation. I ordered a brisket plate, but I should have ordered the ribs. One look at my sister's rib plate and I could see and smell my error clearly. The wife took one look at them and ordered one rib of her own to accompany her cheeseburger. I wound up having a bite or two myself and can attest that they are pretty awesome.
However much I enjoyed Artz Ribhouse's ribs, though, I may never set foot in the place again due to the the ribs I ate the following evening when we finally did make it to the Salt Lick.
(TO BE CONTINUED...)
GASTRONOMICAL JOURNAL FOR DAY 5
Breakfast: Return to Casa Maria for Machacado.
Lunch: -
Dinner: Brisket and ribs at Artz Ribhouse
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Surprising Septuagenarians in the South West (or "Eating Like An Asshole Week: Day 4")
Okay, lemme just tell you, if you're interested in breakfast and you're in the Austin area, you need to head up to the Original Pancake House in North Austin. My sister had told us tales of the incredible things to be found there. So we made the 20 minute trek north and braved the additional 20 minute wait time for an 11 a.m. table, by which time we were starved. However, the meal was WELL worth the wait. Original Pancake House is a wondrous, wondrous place because not only is their food fantastic but nearly every meal combination they offer comes with delicious buttermilk pancakes. And for a slight fee, you can have those pancakes exchanged for nearly any other kind of pancake on the menu. So, for instance, when I ordered my Meat Lover's Skillet, I had my buttermilk pancakes exchanged for bacon pancakes. That's right: Bacon. Pancakes. That means pancake batter mixed with chunks of bacon in it, then slapped lovingly into a skillet, fried up and served with syrup on the side. They were outEFFINGstanding!
After breakfast, the parents departed for a field trip to see some friends of theirs in the area, leaving us to our own devices. First on the agenda was to visit a comic shop we'd passed by on the way there, Capstone Comics. I'd not been to Capstone before, but it was quite an impressive place with a fine selection of books. Unfortunately, they didn't have the two collections of THE GOON I was looking for, but they did have plenty of FABLES, so I picked up the "War & Pieces" trade.
For "lunch" we hit another of our favorite places, Amy's Ice Cream, in down town Austin. Amy's is similar to Cold Stone Creamery, offering many flavors into which toppings can be mixed. I had Coffee and Heath ice cream with Oreos and Nutter Butters mixed in. It was not the only time we'd visit Amy's that day.
Our supper was at Umi Sushi Bar & Grill, a destination we'd planned after assuming the parents would be eating with their friends. My parents aren't known for their adventurous eating and in the past we've nearly had to nearly force them to try more exotic fare. (Which I always find ironic, since it was my dad who used to have to force my sister and I to try new things.) In fact, during our last visit to Austin, I'd started to feel guilty that we had insisted we would be eating Indian Food at the Clay Pit restaurant--that is, until my dad suggested we keep breakfast light one day and just eat at McDonalds instead of one of the many fantastic Austin-based breakfast establishments. However, sushi is something of a different creature, cuisine-wise. The wife and I love it, but the sister and parents hadn't really had anything beyond Chinese buffet sushi, and the real thing is not for everyone. Still, they said they were up for it, though once we were at the restaurant we learned that my step-mother's stomach actually wasn't feeling too good, unrelated to the sushi.
The sushi at Umi Austin, while pretty good stuff, did not arrive in the proportions I've come to expect from dining at other sushi restaurants. After polishing off our own double-roll orders within minutes, the wife and I wound up ordering an additional sampler plate to share with the table (i.e. my sister, as the parents were not going to stray from their chicken teriyaki).
As a refreshing palete-cleanser, we all headed back to Amy's, albeit a different location. I was even able to guess the movie quote on the blackboard ("Somebody blows their nose and you want to keep it?") and won a free topping. I love Amy's.
GASTRONOMICAL JOURNAL FOR DAY 4
Breakfast: Original Pancake House-- had a meatlovers skillet and bacon pancakes!
Lunch: Amy's Ice Cream Heath & Coffee Ice Cream with Oreos and Nutter Butters
Dinner: Umi Sushi Bar & Grill
Dessert: Amy's Ice Cream (different location) Dirt Cake (chocolate cheese cake ice cream with Oreos) plus Nutter Butters.
After breakfast, the parents departed for a field trip to see some friends of theirs in the area, leaving us to our own devices. First on the agenda was to visit a comic shop we'd passed by on the way there, Capstone Comics. I'd not been to Capstone before, but it was quite an impressive place with a fine selection of books. Unfortunately, they didn't have the two collections of THE GOON I was looking for, but they did have plenty of FABLES, so I picked up the "War & Pieces" trade.
For "lunch" we hit another of our favorite places, Amy's Ice Cream, in down town Austin. Amy's is similar to Cold Stone Creamery, offering many flavors into which toppings can be mixed. I had Coffee and Heath ice cream with Oreos and Nutter Butters mixed in. It was not the only time we'd visit Amy's that day.
Our supper was at Umi Sushi Bar & Grill, a destination we'd planned after assuming the parents would be eating with their friends. My parents aren't known for their adventurous eating and in the past we've nearly had to nearly force them to try more exotic fare. (Which I always find ironic, since it was my dad who used to have to force my sister and I to try new things.) In fact, during our last visit to Austin, I'd started to feel guilty that we had insisted we would be eating Indian Food at the Clay Pit restaurant--that is, until my dad suggested we keep breakfast light one day and just eat at McDonalds instead of one of the many fantastic Austin-based breakfast establishments. However, sushi is something of a different creature, cuisine-wise. The wife and I love it, but the sister and parents hadn't really had anything beyond Chinese buffet sushi, and the real thing is not for everyone. Still, they said they were up for it, though once we were at the restaurant we learned that my step-mother's stomach actually wasn't feeling too good, unrelated to the sushi.
The sushi at Umi Austin, while pretty good stuff, did not arrive in the proportions I've come to expect from dining at other sushi restaurants. After polishing off our own double-roll orders within minutes, the wife and I wound up ordering an additional sampler plate to share with the table (i.e. my sister, as the parents were not going to stray from their chicken teriyaki).
As a refreshing palete-cleanser, we all headed back to Amy's, albeit a different location. I was even able to guess the movie quote on the blackboard ("Somebody blows their nose and you want to keep it?") and won a free topping. I love Amy's.
GASTRONOMICAL JOURNAL FOR DAY 4
Breakfast: Original Pancake House-- had a meatlovers skillet and bacon pancakes!
Lunch: Amy's Ice Cream Heath & Coffee Ice Cream with Oreos and Nutter Butters
Dinner: Umi Sushi Bar & Grill
Dessert: Amy's Ice Cream (different location) Dirt Cake (chocolate cheese cake ice cream with Oreos) plus Nutter Butters.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Surprising Septuagenarians in the South West (or "Eating Like An Asshole Week: Day 3")
My vision restored, we awoke mid-morning and headed out for breakfast with the `rents. Our chosen destination, our favorite purveyor of breakfast tacos: Juan in a Million.
I wrote about Juan in a Million in a previous incarnation of the blog. Since then it has appeared on Man Vs. Food to much-deserved acclaim. Everything I wrote back then still stands. Go read it. SonofaBee the Don Juan is a massive amount of breakfast taco goodness, but especially when paired with their tortilla chips, guacamole and a hearty handshake from Juan himself. We stuffed ourselves into stupidity, and I was still the only one of use who finished his entire plate of food--bunch of amateurs.
Which brings me to a major point: when most people head to Austin, they come for the atmosphere, the shopping, the music, the vibe. We come for the food. No where else that we've been has such a concentration of truly delicious restaurants at reasonable prices. It was our stated goal to get up very early every day so we could fit in an extra meal and enjoy that much more of the food to be had--our diets be damned. Trouble is, our intestinal transit time was not as swift as one would need it to be in order to accommodate the kind of quantities we were envisioning. Very quickly we found that we could realistically only eat about two meals a day, with almost no snacking in between. Sad, really.
We spent our day running the wife and step-mother to find a good bead shop where we stranded them, leaving to go find a proper comic shop. We didn't find it. What we should have done was driven immediately to Austin Comics & Books which, with every visit, further cements itself as my favorite comic shop ever. Instead, we went to find a different comic shop that my sister had never been to. We found it and it was pretty tiny and not at all what I was looking for. By the time we found it, though, we didn't have any time to go to a good shop before having to return to the bead store and rescue the ladies. I would have to wait for comic shop goodness.
GASTRONOMICAL JOURNAL FOR DAY 3
Breakfast: Juan in a Million's Don Juan.
Lunch: Leftovers from Cheesecake factory in which I ate the remainder of the wife's shepherd's pie.
Dinner: Hills Cafe's Original Burger and fries.
Beer Journal: Lone Star beer at Hills Cafe (pretty standard beer). More Blue Moon later.
Beer Journal: Lone Star beer at Hills Cafe (pretty standard beer). More Blue Moon later.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Surprising Septuagenarians in the South West (or "Eating Like An Asshole Week: Day 2")
Our game plan was to leave Borderland on the day before Dad's birthday, stay the night in Charlotte, and then fly out the following morning for Austin. Dad wasn't scheduled to arrive there until the day after his birthday, so we'd have a full day of hanging out with the sister and eating glorious, fantastic Austin food. And that we did. We even managed to keep our yaps shut when Dad called the sister that afternoon, no doubt snooping to see if he could hear us in the background. We made not a peep. And I phoned him later on to wish him a happy birthday, but waited until I knew he was at his F-8 pilot reunion, so we'd show up on his phone as having called without having to say anything untruthful about our whereabouts.
Our next item on the agenda was to crap on Dad's expectation that we were indeed in Austin to give us at least a small surprise buffer for all our sneaky planning effort. It wouldn't do for the sister to pick the `rents up from the airport and bring them back to her place to find us waiting there. It would be much better for there to be no evidence of our presence at all and for us to be elsewhere entirely. She could let them relax around her place for a good couple of hours, then take them out to dinner that night, where they would find us waiting at the restaurant. Not having a car, and not being willing to rent one to pull off that gag, we'd toyed with the idea of simply whiling the time away at the shopping center near our chosen restaurant, the Cheesecake Factory. Something about this plan seemed frought with potential to go awry, though. It would be just like Dad to suddenly develop an aversion to cheesecake or a stomach concern that would not allow for the consumption of tasty food. We'd have to reveal the "surprise" and then the joke would be on us.
Instead, the wife and I decided to go swimming in her apartment's pool, figuring we could work off some of our Kerbey Lane brunch and while away a couple hours. The sister could pick them up, bring them back, lull them into a false sense of our nonpresence for a while (our luggage well hidden) and then offer to take them on a tour of the complex that would end at the pool, where we would be waiting.
The plan worked like a charm, though the ultimate execution was not without some flaws. The biggest of these came from my love of swimming underwater and my lack of swimming goggles. I know that doing this will usually result in some hazy vision due to the chlorine, but mine started going hazy within half an hour of being in the water. And by the time we got out to lounge and read while we waited, it was pretty hazy indeed.
After an hour and a half, I got a text from my sister that they were headed our way for the "tour" so the wife and I got back in the water and hid behind the lip of the pool until we heard them approach some minutes later. Then we popped up from the water and surprised Dad but good. We later were able to get him to admit that he suspected we would be there, but that he'd had second thoughts when we weren't waiting at the apartment.
On the way to dinner, my vision seemed to be getting worse. Usually chlorine haze begins to fade after an hour or two, but mine was increasing to the point that I could barely see due to the haze halos I saw around streetlights. (Fortunately I was not driving.) This didn't stop me from having a fantastic meal at the Cheesecake Factory, of course. I'd never been to one before, though I have eaten cheesecake from there. The food can be pricy, depending on what you order, but is of great quality and satisfying quantity. After all, there's little I hate more than paying a lot of money for an entree and getting two French fries with it. Glad to report that my Fish & Chips had q&q in both the fish and chip departments, and the proportions of everyone else's meals seemed as good.
Before our dessert arrived, I left the table to track down our waiter to let him know that when it came time to bring the bill it was to be given only to me. There were two other men at the table, both known for politely swiping the bill and I wasn't taking any chances on them doing it. Not long after I returned to the table, the waiter brought out our cheesecakes and my dad's had whipped cream and a candle. The wait staff did the traditional Happy Birthday and we dug in. I immediately asked the wife and the sister if they'd told the waiter about the birthday, because I hadn't mentioned it. They'd assumed I had. Now, we must have mentioned it aloud at some point during the meal for the waiter to have overheard it but it was an impressive pull all the same.
When it came time for the bill, the waiter brought it to me as ordered. I took a look at it and realized I couldn't see the numbers very well. It was very dim in the Cheesecake Factory and that combined with my still worsening vision made the figure difficult to see without getting comically close to the bill. I didn't want to pass it to anyone else for confirmation, so I finally squinted until I was pretty sure I had it.
The fact that my vision wasn't getting any better disturbed me. The wife suggested that the extra-chlorinated pool might have stripped away some of the essential oils from my eyes, causing them to dry out in the air and not function properly. My dad suggested I smear some Vaseline in them, and in a pinch I might have, but the wife pointed out it wasn't sterile. Instead we popped by Wally World and picked up some medicated ointment, which felt soothing pretty quickly and had reestablished my vision by the time I briefly woke around 2 a.m.
GASTRONOMICAL JOURNAL FOR DAY 2
Breakfast: Casa Maria's Migas platter with extra thick home-baked tortillas. Holy crap this was an amazing meal and the best tortillas I've had stateside. We ordered extra just to sit and inhale their heavenly aroma.
Lunch: Quick light lunch of pastries we bought at Casa Maria's bakery.
Dinner: Cheesecake Factory fish & chips platter, Adam's Peanut Butter Cup Cheesecake
Beer Journal Day Two: Blue Moon from Cheesecake Factory, with a slice of lemon, chosen because a friend of the sister's told me to always bet on Belgian when it came to beer. He was right. Delish. Bought a six-pack of it later.
Our next item on the agenda was to crap on Dad's expectation that we were indeed in Austin to give us at least a small surprise buffer for all our sneaky planning effort. It wouldn't do for the sister to pick the `rents up from the airport and bring them back to her place to find us waiting there. It would be much better for there to be no evidence of our presence at all and for us to be elsewhere entirely. She could let them relax around her place for a good couple of hours, then take them out to dinner that night, where they would find us waiting at the restaurant. Not having a car, and not being willing to rent one to pull off that gag, we'd toyed with the idea of simply whiling the time away at the shopping center near our chosen restaurant, the Cheesecake Factory. Something about this plan seemed frought with potential to go awry, though. It would be just like Dad to suddenly develop an aversion to cheesecake or a stomach concern that would not allow for the consumption of tasty food. We'd have to reveal the "surprise" and then the joke would be on us.
Instead, the wife and I decided to go swimming in her apartment's pool, figuring we could work off some of our Kerbey Lane brunch and while away a couple hours. The sister could pick them up, bring them back, lull them into a false sense of our nonpresence for a while (our luggage well hidden) and then offer to take them on a tour of the complex that would end at the pool, where we would be waiting.
The plan worked like a charm, though the ultimate execution was not without some flaws. The biggest of these came from my love of swimming underwater and my lack of swimming goggles. I know that doing this will usually result in some hazy vision due to the chlorine, but mine started going hazy within half an hour of being in the water. And by the time we got out to lounge and read while we waited, it was pretty hazy indeed.
After an hour and a half, I got a text from my sister that they were headed our way for the "tour" so the wife and I got back in the water and hid behind the lip of the pool until we heard them approach some minutes later. Then we popped up from the water and surprised Dad but good. We later were able to get him to admit that he suspected we would be there, but that he'd had second thoughts when we weren't waiting at the apartment.
On the way to dinner, my vision seemed to be getting worse. Usually chlorine haze begins to fade after an hour or two, but mine was increasing to the point that I could barely see due to the haze halos I saw around streetlights. (Fortunately I was not driving.) This didn't stop me from having a fantastic meal at the Cheesecake Factory, of course. I'd never been to one before, though I have eaten cheesecake from there. The food can be pricy, depending on what you order, but is of great quality and satisfying quantity. After all, there's little I hate more than paying a lot of money for an entree and getting two French fries with it. Glad to report that my Fish & Chips had q&q in both the fish and chip departments, and the proportions of everyone else's meals seemed as good.
Before our dessert arrived, I left the table to track down our waiter to let him know that when it came time to bring the bill it was to be given only to me. There were two other men at the table, both known for politely swiping the bill and I wasn't taking any chances on them doing it. Not long after I returned to the table, the waiter brought out our cheesecakes and my dad's had whipped cream and a candle. The wait staff did the traditional Happy Birthday and we dug in. I immediately asked the wife and the sister if they'd told the waiter about the birthday, because I hadn't mentioned it. They'd assumed I had. Now, we must have mentioned it aloud at some point during the meal for the waiter to have overheard it but it was an impressive pull all the same.
When it came time for the bill, the waiter brought it to me as ordered. I took a look at it and realized I couldn't see the numbers very well. It was very dim in the Cheesecake Factory and that combined with my still worsening vision made the figure difficult to see without getting comically close to the bill. I didn't want to pass it to anyone else for confirmation, so I finally squinted until I was pretty sure I had it.
The fact that my vision wasn't getting any better disturbed me. The wife suggested that the extra-chlorinated pool might have stripped away some of the essential oils from my eyes, causing them to dry out in the air and not function properly. My dad suggested I smear some Vaseline in them, and in a pinch I might have, but the wife pointed out it wasn't sterile. Instead we popped by Wally World and picked up some medicated ointment, which felt soothing pretty quickly and had reestablished my vision by the time I briefly woke around 2 a.m.
GASTRONOMICAL JOURNAL FOR DAY 2
Breakfast: Casa Maria's Migas platter with extra thick home-baked tortillas. Holy crap this was an amazing meal and the best tortillas I've had stateside. We ordered extra just to sit and inhale their heavenly aroma.
Lunch: Quick light lunch of pastries we bought at Casa Maria's bakery.
Dinner: Cheesecake Factory fish & chips platter, Adam's Peanut Butter Cup Cheesecake
Beer Journal Day Two: Blue Moon from Cheesecake Factory, with a slice of lemon, chosen because a friend of the sister's told me to always bet on Belgian when it came to beer. He was right. Delish. Bought a six-pack of it later.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Surprising Septuagenarians in the South West (or "Eating Like An Asshole Week: Day 1")
It's been kind of quiet here on the blog, but not quiet in my life. Unfortunately, I couldn't write about any of it for fear of spoilers.
See the wife and I flew out to Austin, TX, last week to stay with my sister for a few days. Beyond the fact that we love hanging out with my sister and LOOOOOVE Austin--particularly its food--we had a primary goal before us as well, which was to surprise my dad on his 70th birthday.
Back in June, I approached my step-mother, Myra, about Dad's impending October birthday and mentioned that the wife and I thought it would be fun to throw him a surprise birthday party. In our envisioned plan, we and my sister would fly in to my home town in Starkville, MS, a day or so before the party, stay with friends, have everything set up for the party in advance (place to have it, food, etc.) and then on his birthday Myra would take Dad out for a small birthday dinner only to turn up at the party location where we would be waiting with all of his friends. He'd be surprised, have fun and we'd all eat heartilly and party til dawn or 9:30, whichever came first. Myra thought this sounded good. Naturally, Dad wasn't going to make it that easy.
Not long after we returned home to Borderland, Myra informed us that Dad had announced that there was a reunion of F-8 pilots in Dallas on his birthday and he wanted to go to it. He was a pilot in the Navy and flew F-8s for a couple months. He'd even contacted the organizers for permission to crash it--the reunion, not the F-8s. So we decided to relocate the party to my sister's in Austin, because Dad would certainly pop over to see her for at least a day if he was in the area. Of course, no sooner had we all adjusted the plan then Dad called to let us know he was going to be in Texas on his birthday in case we wanted to come down... HINT HINT.
Dammit!
We decided that even if he hoped we would come, we wouldn't say anything about it and would actively make like we weren't planning to come. Besides, it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility for Dad to change his mind about the trip. We went ahead and bought plane tickets and left it to Myra to convince Dad not to change his mind.
A couple weeks ago, my sister called to point out a flaw in the plan. While we'd assumed Dad & Myra would stay in a hotel while they were in Austin, allowing us to stay with my sister, Dad would be assuming they'd be staying with the sister and wouldn't make reservations. It was a good point. So we let him go on thinking that and reserved a hotel for them as part of the birthday present package.
Meanwhile, we were becoming increasingly of the opinion that Dad wasn't going to be surprised in the least at us showing up for his birthday--after all, he'd suggested it. And while we couldn't count on the surprise factor being strong, we could at least play with the execution of it in ways he wasn't expecting, thus leading to something of a surprise.
(TO BE CONTINUED...)
GASTRONOMICAL JOURNAL FOR DAY 1
Breakfast: shitfer waffles, a bagel and a banana at the hotel we stayed at in Charlotte (where our room smelled like feet and that was the nicest thing we could say about it).
Lunch: A hamburger, fries and a breakfast burrito, plus several bites of the wife's gingerbread pancakes at Kerbey Lane.
Dinner: Indian Food from a nearby buffet.
Beer Journal Entry #1: Lobotomy Bock (which was bitter and not to my liking), and my safety beer choice of Dos Equis Ambar.
See the wife and I flew out to Austin, TX, last week to stay with my sister for a few days. Beyond the fact that we love hanging out with my sister and LOOOOOVE Austin--particularly its food--we had a primary goal before us as well, which was to surprise my dad on his 70th birthday.
Back in June, I approached my step-mother, Myra, about Dad's impending October birthday and mentioned that the wife and I thought it would be fun to throw him a surprise birthday party. In our envisioned plan, we and my sister would fly in to my home town in Starkville, MS, a day or so before the party, stay with friends, have everything set up for the party in advance (place to have it, food, etc.) and then on his birthday Myra would take Dad out for a small birthday dinner only to turn up at the party location where we would be waiting with all of his friends. He'd be surprised, have fun and we'd all eat heartilly and party til dawn or 9:30, whichever came first. Myra thought this sounded good. Naturally, Dad wasn't going to make it that easy.
Not long after we returned home to Borderland, Myra informed us that Dad had announced that there was a reunion of F-8 pilots in Dallas on his birthday and he wanted to go to it. He was a pilot in the Navy and flew F-8s for a couple months. He'd even contacted the organizers for permission to crash it--the reunion, not the F-8s. So we decided to relocate the party to my sister's in Austin, because Dad would certainly pop over to see her for at least a day if he was in the area. Of course, no sooner had we all adjusted the plan then Dad called to let us know he was going to be in Texas on his birthday in case we wanted to come down... HINT HINT.
Dammit!
We decided that even if he hoped we would come, we wouldn't say anything about it and would actively make like we weren't planning to come. Besides, it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility for Dad to change his mind about the trip. We went ahead and bought plane tickets and left it to Myra to convince Dad not to change his mind.
A couple weeks ago, my sister called to point out a flaw in the plan. While we'd assumed Dad & Myra would stay in a hotel while they were in Austin, allowing us to stay with my sister, Dad would be assuming they'd be staying with the sister and wouldn't make reservations. It was a good point. So we let him go on thinking that and reserved a hotel for them as part of the birthday present package.
Meanwhile, we were becoming increasingly of the opinion that Dad wasn't going to be surprised in the least at us showing up for his birthday--after all, he'd suggested it. And while we couldn't count on the surprise factor being strong, we could at least play with the execution of it in ways he wasn't expecting, thus leading to something of a surprise.
(TO BE CONTINUED...)
GASTRONOMICAL JOURNAL FOR DAY 1
Breakfast: shitfer waffles, a bagel and a banana at the hotel we stayed at in Charlotte (where our room smelled like feet and that was the nicest thing we could say about it).
Lunch: A hamburger, fries and a breakfast burrito, plus several bites of the wife's gingerbread pancakes at Kerbey Lane.
Dinner: Indian Food from a nearby buffet.
Beer Journal Entry #1: Lobotomy Bock (which was bitter and not to my liking), and my safety beer choice of Dos Equis Ambar.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Small Deaths #9 : Behold a Fresh Victim
(An ongoing pictorial series chronicling the poor, small, stuffed animals my dog Sadie has murdered during the course of her life. Not for the faint of heart.)
Oops. Called that one a bit quick.
Oops. Called that one a bit quick.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Small Deaths #8 : Behold a Survivor!
(An ongoing pictorial series chronicling the poor, small, stuffed animals my dog Sadie has murdered during the course of her life. Not for the faint of heart.)
A quickly snapped shot of a live green mouse.
As evidenced by its missing ear and maimed forehead, this mouse has had a run in or two with our dog, but has thus far lived to tell the tale.
A quickly snapped shot of a live green mouse.
As evidenced by its missing ear and maimed forehead, this mouse has had a run in or two with our dog, but has thus far lived to tell the tale.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Our Ferocious Child
There are several ongoing cold-wars being fought around my house at any given time, most of them involving our dog Sadie versus various populations of woodland creatures. Chiefly she has it in for the local deer, who frequently mill about in our yard, peacefully eating acorns just to spite her. However, Sadie's willing to extend her ire toward squirrels and birds, too. She even knows each animal group by name. If we say, "Is there a deer?" Sadie will rush to the front window and peer down the yard. If we say "Is there a bird?" she'll do the same thing, only looking up into the trees. For squirrels she does both. If she sees any of the above creatures, she will bark ferociously and dash back and forth between the windows in search of a better vantage point for barking. If one of us is nearby, she will also make a third stop at the front door, hoping we'll crack it open for her and let her blaze out into the yard, where she will chase after whichever creature she sees until it A) escapes up a tree; or B) travels past her shock-collar boundary. (The funny thing is that 95 percent of the time we don't even make her wear the shock collar, cause we keep forgetting to take it off of her when we drive anywhere. Yet, still she respects her boundaries.)
However, there's another animal type that Sadie doesn't quite know what to do about: other dogs. Unlike deer, birds and squirrels, who flee from Sadie, giving her something fun to chase, dogs are wildcards and may decide to stand their ground. Having never been in a fight, Sadie's not sure how to deal with dogs that are unphased by her terrifying, fluffy presence.
Take, for instance, her boyfriend. This is a neighborhood dog who wanders around freely at night and typically stops by our house at some point in its trek through the area. While I haven't gotten a great look at him, he's a "Terrierish" sort of small to medium sized dog and from his behavior does not come off as being at all aggressive. The first time I saw him was when he happened to sneak up into the yard while we were working in the garage one night and startled Sadie by suddenly being in a place where she had not previously been aware another dog was at. She didn't utter a sound. Another time was in the middle of the night while I was out letting the dog go "potty" and he came bounding from the woods with great energy, making a direct line for Sadie. I wasn't exactly concerned, cause she outweighs him by twice. And to her credit, she didn't run, but she certainly seemed confused as to what to do about him when he halted in front of her and sniffed her about the nose. Then, he turned and dashed off down the driveway with nary a problem.
Since then, he's been back frequently. The closest they've ever come to fighting was when he tried to sniff Sadie's ass and she jumped around and growled at him. Normally, though, Sadie's reaction to his presence is to pretend he isn't there at all. If he's not actively sniffing her, she will ignore him and, instead, sniff areas of the yard he had occupied only moments before. It's as if she's far more interested in having sniffed evidence of another dog that had been in the yard in the past rather than deal with the dog that is right there in the present. The best example of this was a couple nights ago, when she began whining at the back door to get out after hearing our neighbor's fenced-in dogs barking at something. I opened the door, she dashed into the yard and then began running full out toward what turned out to be her boyfriend. As soon as she realized he was a dog and not a deer, she immediately put on the brakes and then trotted a little further down the yard to sniff, as though the dog wasn't there at all. It could only have been funnier if she'd looked back over her shoulder to see if I'd seen her seeing the dog.
Don't get me wrong, I don't want her to get in a fight no matter how well I think she could defend herself. I just find her "dog-blinders" very amusing.
It is, however, more evidence that our dog is in need of more socialization. Or, if my wife has her way, a doggie sibling.
However, there's another animal type that Sadie doesn't quite know what to do about: other dogs. Unlike deer, birds and squirrels, who flee from Sadie, giving her something fun to chase, dogs are wildcards and may decide to stand their ground. Having never been in a fight, Sadie's not sure how to deal with dogs that are unphased by her terrifying, fluffy presence.
Take, for instance, her boyfriend. This is a neighborhood dog who wanders around freely at night and typically stops by our house at some point in its trek through the area. While I haven't gotten a great look at him, he's a "Terrierish" sort of small to medium sized dog and from his behavior does not come off as being at all aggressive. The first time I saw him was when he happened to sneak up into the yard while we were working in the garage one night and startled Sadie by suddenly being in a place where she had not previously been aware another dog was at. She didn't utter a sound. Another time was in the middle of the night while I was out letting the dog go "potty" and he came bounding from the woods with great energy, making a direct line for Sadie. I wasn't exactly concerned, cause she outweighs him by twice. And to her credit, she didn't run, but she certainly seemed confused as to what to do about him when he halted in front of her and sniffed her about the nose. Then, he turned and dashed off down the driveway with nary a problem.
Since then, he's been back frequently. The closest they've ever come to fighting was when he tried to sniff Sadie's ass and she jumped around and growled at him. Normally, though, Sadie's reaction to his presence is to pretend he isn't there at all. If he's not actively sniffing her, she will ignore him and, instead, sniff areas of the yard he had occupied only moments before. It's as if she's far more interested in having sniffed evidence of another dog that had been in the yard in the past rather than deal with the dog that is right there in the present. The best example of this was a couple nights ago, when she began whining at the back door to get out after hearing our neighbor's fenced-in dogs barking at something. I opened the door, she dashed into the yard and then began running full out toward what turned out to be her boyfriend. As soon as she realized he was a dog and not a deer, she immediately put on the brakes and then trotted a little further down the yard to sniff, as though the dog wasn't there at all. It could only have been funnier if she'd looked back over her shoulder to see if I'd seen her seeing the dog.
Don't get me wrong, I don't want her to get in a fight no matter how well I think she could defend herself. I just find her "dog-blinders" very amusing.
It is, however, more evidence that our dog is in need of more socialization. Or, if my wife has her way, a doggie sibling.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Small Deaths #7: Scavenger Caught!
(An ongoing pictorial series chronicling the poor, small, stuffed animals my dog Sadie has murdered during the course of her life. Not for the faint of heart.)
Often times scavengers take advantage of a recent kill for a quick meal.
(Which is only fitting, in this case, as it was Avie's toy to begin with.)
Note its irritation at being captured on film.
The scavenger hides, blending seamlessly into its surroundings, awaiting the moment when it can return to the carcass.
Often times scavengers take advantage of a recent kill for a quick meal.(Which is only fitting, in this case, as it was Avie's toy to begin with.)
Note its irritation at being captured on film.
The scavenger hides, blending seamlessly into its surroundings, awaiting the moment when it can return to the carcass.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Small Deaths #6 : Punk Cow 4.0 Even Deader Still
(An ongoing pictorial series chronicling the poor, small, stuffed animals my dog Sadie has murdered during the course of her life. Not for the faint of heart.)
Monday, September 7, 2009
Alien Wang Shroom
We've had a great deal of rainy weather round the Borderland for most of the summer. So much so that for several weeks we had a fairly large crop of mushrooms growing throughout our immediate back yard and down the wooded backside of our property. With such a large variety of fungus available, the wife and I began to wonder if any of them were edible. Granted, not all of them looked or smelled appetizing, but there were several varieties that smelled good enough that we suspected they might taste delicious if sautéed in a little butter. We were not, however, going to take any chances, particularly when there are some poisonous mushrooms that can destroy your liver and kidneys.
We did a little research online into the sort of mushrooms native to our area, but were never entirely happy with the results we found. Finally, we decided to spend some money on the task and purchased Mushrooms of West Virginia and the Central Appalachians, by William Roody. It's a nice thick volume with color pictures of every featured variety, categorized by appearance and type. Of course, no sooner had the book arrived then two weeks of solid dry weather set in and all the mushrooms melted into puddles of blackness.
Last night it came a rain which lasted until mid morning today. This afternoon, I gathered up a basket and went out to see what might have come up. Not far behind our wood pile, I saw something white and stalky poking out of the leaves. On closer inspection, I could see that it was a mushroom unlike any I've seen around here before, as this one had a slimy, dark green cap. I pulled it from the ground and it came away easily, but I could see that there was something more left beneath the leaves. Sure enough, there was a fleshy, partially transparent egg-like body there--not entirely dissimilar from the eggs in the ALIEN movies. I carefully gathered it up and stuck the stalk of the mushroom back within it. To my horrified fascination, I discovered that what I had there in my hand was
the most phallic mushroom I've ever seen. It looked exactly as if when God was designing it he basically said, yep, gonna make this one look exactly like a wang, no two ways about it. They're gonna take one look and say, `that, sir, looks like a wang, all right.' As far as fungus wangs go, however, this was possibly the nastiest, most alien-looking wang to be found outside of certain substrata of anime. And, whoo, did it stink. No, let me rephrase that: it was Mr. Stankyesque in the foetid intensity of its stench. Naturally, I didn't fully realize this until I'd carried it into the house to show the wife, contaminating pretty much the premises in the process.
Using my new guide book, I was able to successfully classify this alien wang-shroom and found that its data could not be more appropriate in nearly every way.
Latin name: Dictyophora duplicata
Synonym: Phallus duplicatus (insert Harry Potter spell-casting joke here)
Common Name: Netted Stinkhorn; Wood Witch
Order: Phallales
Family: Phallaceae
Astoundingly, it is edible, but only in the "egg stage" (which goes to prove that even Bill Roody knows an ALIENS reference when he sees one). Once the mushroom is, um, erect, however, there's just nothing less appetizing, as the slimy green cap and overall stench attracts bugs to it, which pick up reproductive spores from the slime and spread them wherever they go. In fact, between the time I left the thing on the deck rail, went and found more mushrooms and came back to classify them, the wang shroom was pretty much covered in flies. I, then, didn't help matters by trying to hurl the offensive thing into the woods, doing so by throwing it holding only the relatively slime-free stalk. Trouble is, that stalk isn't nearly as solid as you might expect and the whole thing exploded upon my attempt, sending a shower of slime everywhere. Which probably means, we'll have more of them springing up in the future.
We did a little research online into the sort of mushrooms native to our area, but were never entirely happy with the results we found. Finally, we decided to spend some money on the task and purchased Mushrooms of West Virginia and the Central Appalachians, by William Roody. It's a nice thick volume with color pictures of every featured variety, categorized by appearance and type. Of course, no sooner had the book arrived then two weeks of solid dry weather set in and all the mushrooms melted into puddles of blackness.
Last night it came a rain which lasted until mid morning today. This afternoon, I gathered up a basket and went out to see what might have come up. Not far behind our wood pile, I saw something white and stalky poking out of the leaves. On closer inspection, I could see that it was a mushroom unlike any I've seen around here before, as this one had a slimy, dark green cap. I pulled it from the ground and it came away easily, but I could see that there was something more left beneath the leaves. Sure enough, there was a fleshy, partially transparent egg-like body there--not entirely dissimilar from the eggs in the ALIEN movies. I carefully gathered it up and stuck the stalk of the mushroom back within it. To my horrified fascination, I discovered that what I had there in my hand was
the most phallic mushroom I've ever seen. It looked exactly as if when God was designing it he basically said, yep, gonna make this one look exactly like a wang, no two ways about it. They're gonna take one look and say, `that, sir, looks like a wang, all right.' As far as fungus wangs go, however, this was possibly the nastiest, most alien-looking wang to be found outside of certain substrata of anime. And, whoo, did it stink. No, let me rephrase that: it was Mr. Stankyesque in the foetid intensity of its stench. Naturally, I didn't fully realize this until I'd carried it into the house to show the wife, contaminating pretty much the premises in the process. Using my new guide book, I was able to successfully classify this alien wang-shroom and found that its data could not be more appropriate in nearly every way.
Latin name: Dictyophora duplicata
Synonym: Phallus duplicatus (insert Harry Potter spell-casting joke here)
Common Name: Netted Stinkhorn; Wood Witch
Order: Phallales
Family: Phallaceae
Astoundingly, it is edible, but only in the "egg stage" (which goes to prove that even Bill Roody knows an ALIENS reference when he sees one). Once the mushroom is, um, erect, however, there's just nothing less appetizing, as the slimy green cap and overall stench attracts bugs to it, which pick up reproductive spores from the slime and spread them wherever they go. In fact, between the time I left the thing on the deck rail, went and found more mushrooms and came back to classify them, the wang shroom was pretty much covered in flies. I, then, didn't help matters by trying to hurl the offensive thing into the woods, doing so by throwing it holding only the relatively slime-free stalk. Trouble is, that stalk isn't nearly as solid as you might expect and the whole thing exploded upon my attempt, sending a shower of slime everywhere. Which probably means, we'll have more of them springing up in the future.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Our gifted child
A few evenings ago, the wife and I were sitting on the couch enjoying some tube. Our dog, Sadie, had evidently not received as much attention as she wanted in the form of play time, so she rushed through the open back door and ran to find her stick.The dog has had many sticks during her year and a half of life, many of them bordering on logs as she has grown to her current above average dog-size. Her current stick is actually part of a branch from a tree the wife and I had to chop down one day, which is nearly three feet long and sporting two sub-branches that make it form something resembling the letter F when viewed from the correct angle. She loves it, probably because it's big and unwieldy, offering her a variety of structures on which to chew, yet is still quite portable unlike some of her previous sticks/logs.
So, Sadie rushed out to find her stick, located it, gnawed on it viciously for a little while, then decided that if she brought it inside and showed it to Ma and Pa one of them might be enticed to follow her outside to play and allow her the opportunity to play keepaway from us with said stick. That decided, she raced back toward the house with the stick held horizontally in her mouth and attempted to run through the open back door with it. And because our back door is a bit wider than average, she might even have cleared it had our back screen door not been slid about four inches from being fully open. One end of the stick hit the screen and the other hit the door frame and the dog came to a sudden and violent halt, a comical act for which the wife and I had front row seats on the couch.
Before bursting into uncontrollable laughter, we first paused to make sure the dog hadn't just brained herself. She immediately looked a little surprised, sat down and dropped the stick. Then her expression shifted into a cartoon bluebirds flying about the head dazed sort of look, but as she saw us rising to examine her she walked into the house easily enough and seemed to be little worse for wear. We checked her teeth and mouth for cuts, but all looked fine. Soon she was back to her usual self, though she gave the stick a wide berth for a few days.
Cut to last night. The wife, being on call, came home late, so it was already dark. The dog, who'd been waiting patiently impatiently for Ma's usual evening arrival for hours, went nuts and began happily mouthing (we call it biting) her Ma and jumping around excitedly slashing everyone with her claws. (It's really the cutest thing you've ever seen, provided you're wearing the proper protective gear.) When she gets into one of those moods both she and we know the only thing that can be done about it is for her to take some of her pent up excitement out on one of her toys. And in these cases, we simply say "Where's your toy?" or "You'd better go find a toy" at which point she dashes off, finds one and then dashes back to show us how good she is at mauling it. All of her toys were outside at that point, so I opened the screen door and she dashed out to go find one. Unfortunately, I closed the screen door behind her and when she shortly returned with one of her toys she plowed headfirst into the screen door, knocking it off its tracks and bending part of it into the interior of the house.
I was standing right there when she did it and happened to look down at witness the whole thing. It was one of those slow motion moments in which I remember thinking, Here she comes. She'd better slow down. She's going to stop. Any second now she'll... *SLAM* What an EFFing moron.
Sadie stood still for a moment looking pretty surprised. Her expression was one part dazed and one part concern that she might be in trouble for breaking the door. I pulled the door a little further into the house and told her to come in, which she did. Again we checked her out and she seemed okay, not to mention relieved that she wasn't in trouble.
I've now reattached the door, the dog watching me all the while. It too is okay, though there's kind of a double crimp in one side of it from the two recent impacts.
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