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...)

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...)

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.

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.

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.

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...)

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