9 Sandwiches

Remember Mr. Grumpy pants who walks his dogs every morning as I am out walking? The one I wrote about not too long ago. Never speaks. Well, he actually spoke to me today and said "Good Morning". I about fell off the road. I have gone to great lengths to avoid him and this morning he was coming off his porch as I passed by and I could not. 

My aunt is in the hospital and is going  to have a surgical procedure today. I am getting vague information from mother who is extremely fussed up. I thought she was going to cancel dinner tonight when she told me she would not  be very good company. Her sister is her last family member alive and this scares her. I think in her mind she will be left alone. (uh... Mom?? My brother?...Me?..... My cousins?.... hello!!!!) I guess this is right in line with the "Family Reunion" which includes my dad's brothers and their wives but not anyone else because we are ...? what?.... NOT family? Call it a Gathering of Brothers or The P-Boys Reunited or Vida's Sons Together Again. Family??? no!

I told her we will watch The Voice 

because there is a new performer every few minutes so we will constantly be surprised and with Blake and Adam bantering back and forth keeping us laughing we will get through the evening together. She seemed reluctant but said OK. Now I just hope that everyone on the show is Brilliant tonight. 

I actually did not get the chance to finish this yesterday morning, however, my aunt breezed through surgery. The problem was not exactly what they thought and she is in recovery. She will be in the hospital a couple of  weeks before she goes home. Mother will probably go home to be with her. 

Four months after I get back from Chicago Food & Wine write about "9 Essential Chicago Sandwich Shops". Really??? I could have used this then. Chicago has been bumped off my bucket list because I have been there. 

Speaking of bucket list... I am off to explore some options.... I wonder what Alabama

 has to offer right now. or Arizona

 or Utah 

or Midland

and Odessa? 

Tasting Whine

We were on a petite vacation up in Texas wine country. We paid our fare and got on the wine tour bus. It makes stops at 11 different wineries throughout the course of the day. You can get on or off at any winery along the way. They will even stow your wine back at headquarters so you do not have to lug it around.

At one stop a couple gets on board and warns us off a winery I had not been to but wanted to check out. They say it is not as good as Blasted Winery. I ask them if they like Blasted wines. "Yes they are the best in Texas!!" I think Blasted makes some of the worst wine in Texas so in my opinion their taste falls flat of what I would like.  The girls decide to pay heed to the couples warning and we do not get off the bus.

At another winery Carl, the staff member providing the tasting is ruling his little roost like the King of the cocks. Great! He is talking down to everyone as though we are all ignorant inferior creatures that need his guidance. So we start tasting and he starts bragging about medals won and blah blah blah regarding a particular wine I find to taste like a spring meadow looks; grass, earthy minerals, sunshine and flowers. He is describing a dark cherry and vanilla. I look to make sure we are on the same wine. He then pops off and says it won a medal. How wonderful!!?? He then gets cocky and tells me wine tastes different to everyone and that the judges found it good.  I set the glass down and at that moment my daughter says, "Mom! let it go."

 He backs away from us and slides down the bar to wait on others as a woman with a very pleasant smile moves in to help us. It felt like that moment when you are up at the black jack table and they order a dealer change. What??? This was a good thing as she has a warmer, more pleasant personality and smiles through her judgmental eyes.  She pours another taste from a different bottle and proceeds to explain what we are tasting as though we are again ignorant. I hold up my hand. She pauses. I am there to taste not be told what to taste. I grew up on California wine, "Oh! Napa wines lovely!!" Bloody hell NO I tell her and sigh with a smile Sonoma, to the coast. She looks puzzled. People!!!! California is NOT Napa. I also want to add that El Cielo Winery

in Mexico has the BEST Chardonnay

 have had since leaving California.  Actually all the wine from there I drank was amazing.

Why can't I just go and enjoy wine tasting? Why does the staff assume we are all ignorant imbeciles? Just because we are stuck here having to deal with the mostly bitter and overly mineral taste  of Texas  wines does not mean we do not love excellent wine.  Just because most people in Texas love their wines does not mean all of us do. Here the tasting notes will say "plum and  jammy". In California tasting notes will say  "on the nose rich ripe strawberries and pomegranate, subtle undertones of spice and cedar heavy body structure and a velvety finish."

Tasting Notes

With candied red fruit and simmering holiday spice aromas, this wine bursts onto the palette with juicy, mouthwatering red stone fruit. This lighter style offers a zippy Russian River acidity that dances around happily on your tongue. The finish on this wine leaves one smiling with fresh warm berry pie and allspice cloves. We anticipate this wine cellaring very well for 5-8 years.

Maybe it is just me. I like to taste and write what I taste and then discuss it with staff not be told what I should taste.

Let me bloody TASTE the wine!!!

Ok I am done whining.

Thanx McClellan Mom is Alive

My daughter cooks a chicken breast every evening for her fiance's lunch the next day. They buy a large package of chicken breasts which she divides up into smaller baggies and then rations out all week.

One morning I opened the fridge and was assailed by a horrid stench. I cleared out all the leftovers thinking they were the culprits and closed the door. Over the course of the day the fridge continued to stink.  The next day it was beyond retched and I could not make breakfast the smell was so horrific. So.... it was not some random forgotten leftover.  Shaggy opened the door but quickly closed it. Finally Chazzy came into the kitchen to see what all the fuss was about. He pulled the fridge door wide and screamed. He stuck his head in and after rummaging through bags of grapes and cheese in the back of the fridge behind the drawers in the bottom was a baggie with a piece of chicken.  He pulled it out, gagged three times, threw it in a bag and ran out the front door and to the dumpster. I got out the Lysol and cleaned the fridge.  I am still not able to think about raw chicken; did not phase them. He still eats chicken every day for lunch and there are bags of flesh in my refrigerator.

I am not a fan of the Jack In the Box commercials with the big headed Jack guy, however the one where he saunters into the pool is kind of sexy. Nice ass Jack!!

Mother has been watching a Civil War show on PBS all week and she slipped over to it last night when the Regurgitater Freak came on America's Got Talent. (Seriously??

 that is NOT talent and real talented people are going home because the sheep want to see a freak show). She was telling me how amazed she was at what really happened during the war and how it was not what they taught in school. Ya think mom? She is thoroughly enjoying it and is seriously wondering how with McClellan on the side of the Union they won.

                                                         U.S. General George B. McClellan 

 I looked at her and said "Mom you should be glad he never moved his troops and engaged in battle or you might not be here, your people obviously were across from  his army. " She looked at me like I had grown another head and then said "that's right!"

The older she gets the funnier she gets.  The more interested in local gossip from her old hometown she has become sharing it with me. I barely remember some of those people having met them only a few times as a child. She looks forward to those weekly chats with her cousins and her sister and friends from college.

I wonder who will I chat with when I am old..... my cats?

I ain't missing you...

Someone told me the other day that they missed me. I do not hear that very often and it stuck with me. In the midst of my prayers and waking up today; that thread containing those words wove itself into my thoughts. I started thinking about missing people and wondering what that felt like. I tried to gather a memory of missing someone, sifting through postcards I keep in my heart-chest, traveling back roads to replay events. I found none.

My father was gone a lot when I was a child but I did not miss him. He was doing his job. I may not have understood exactly what his job was or what he really did but it involved airplanes and he sometimes was gone for a few days and sometimes a month. Maybe it was because he always came back home.

 My little brother was in and out of the hospital  often when he was a small child with severe Asthma and Pneumonia. I did not miss him. I was .... maybe worried or afraid for him..... I was 4. I never missed him. Maybe because he always came back.

We moved around a lot when I was a child and I would leave friends but because we moved in a circle where everyone else around us moved too there were always friends moving in and moving out. It was their dads jobs just as it was mine. I understood that.


When I left home for college and after I married I did not miss the parents. The husband would travel now and then but, I never missed him. He was abusive and I found a week without him as a reprieve.  I had boyfriends come and go and after serious thought it was not them I missed. It was a fear of not being lovable even if I was the one to leave them that shook me up.


My children have grown and left and I do not miss them. They were never mine. Just little people I had to feed, clothe and nurture until they became big people. I love them. I fear that they are not happy but I do not miss them.

Maybe I do not understand the concept of missing. I hear people talk about it and cry about it but, I just do not understand it. I often wish I had my grandparents back to ask them questions about photographs and memories when I am ghost hunting. Is that missing them? I only saw them once a year and for just a few weeks.

I believe I am missing the missing gene. Did they say  "get your miss gene" at the factory and I heard priss and decided not to get one?

Thinking again on it, seeing how miserable people are and the pain they feel missing someone I am very OK without it. So to everyone who may say to me "I miss you" please understand I cannot reciprocate that feeling for you. I will rejoice when we are together and I will look forward to when we are together again but I will not wallow in sadness. I have no heart left to be broken. So writing your name on my heart just will not happen.

All that being said I do miss being a size 6. Everything I wore looked AMAZING!!!

Devil of a Malbec

We are cruising down the road to the venue for an event we are both going to be participating in. She is an artist and will be painting in a small vignette live while the party goers observe and I will be portraying a Vampire, muse for one of the artists. It is for a Vampire Masquerade Ball.

She is driving her vehicle like she stole it. We are in the wilds of some back road in San Antonio and there are speed bumps every few hundred feet but she does not feel the need to slow down for them. We crash on over them and speed on.  I guess they are intended for other people, not Wanda. Yes her name is Wanda. I always liked that name when I was a child. I thought it a magical word since it contained the word wand. The name Wanda is Polish in origin and translates to young slender tree... actually a wand. Wanda was the daughter

Death of Wanda, painting by M. Piotrowski. Illustration from a book History of Poland from  1909 (collection of JM)


 of King Krak the founder of Krakow.... or so the legend goes.


I hate to say this but the ants are back. After 4 days of washing and air drying everything in my closet because most things are "non Bubba friendly". I went to hang something else up and there the bloody bastards were crawling all over my newly washed clothes. I even scattered Borax all over the closet and took everything out for the second time in less than a week.

The good news is I took 6 bags full of remnants of my former Bohemian wardrobe to Goodwill. Swirling gypsy skirts, scarves, jeans, tops, jackets, boots all gone. While this has been liberating and I feel free and unhindered by any former idea of who I was and maybe still am what do I wear until fall rolls in and I can decide who I am again. Come the end of summer I am going to get rid of even more stuff...
this is very exciting...

except for the ants who motivated this....

 like one of the seven plagues to invade Egypt while Moses was freeing the People.

But wait there is more. We hauled they bags to my car and flipped open the trunk which popped open with ease. Shaggy then attempted to close the trunk. Yes attempted. It failed to close for her or me no matter what we did the trunk would not close. So we had to move everything to her car and place a box of sidewalk chalk on the trunk of my car to keep it closed.


As we were checking out at the grocery store earlier today we saw a female customer attempt to take the sultry young Jonathon home with her. He was being polite and chatting with her as he checked her out and bagged her groceries but as he handed her the last bag the lanyard around his neck swung forward and collided with the bag just as she wrapped her hand around the handle and turned to leave. Jonathon head and body was dragged on to the counter of the bagging stand. She was mortified, he looked a bit shook up and tension filled the air. I laughed and politely asked her if it was her normal Monday shopping experience to drag home cashiers like they were willing pool boys at a Sandals Resort in 1984 in Acapulco?

They both laughed and she left.

I usually do not buy wines with silly Sorority girl names. Like Girly Girl,

Skinny Girl, Fancy Pants, Be Flirty,

 etc. You get the picture. However in a funky mood and at Target I grabbed a bottle of Handsome Devil  Malbec.

I was prepared for the worst but was pleasantly surprised. The violets came through as did vanilla, blackberry and some mellow spices like in a lightly dusted Snicker-doodle.  It was a bit too sweet but velvety and a little too easy to drink. I am glad I picked it up and as the Johnsons said it is the perfect introduction to Malbec wine. Too bad I had already been introduced.

I shall wine on...hahahah