Fresh, Hot Wastes of Time

We had a quick trip to Fredericksburg these past two days which was cut short by an acute case of homesickness. We did manage to eat at a couple of places that I felt needed comments, as well as stay in the best B&B in town. I’m not quite sure I want to say where we stayed because I’m greedy and would rather keep it a secret.

For a late lunch we stopped at the Lindenbaum, which was eerily deserted. We waited. And waited. And waited. After 5 minutes or so of hanging out at the front door without seeing a living soul in the place, we decided to sneak out and find a place that wasn’t run by ghosts.

The place turned out to be the Auslander. I ordered the wienerschnitzel (I thought you pronounced it “veen-er-shnit-zul” but the waitress called it “ween..” – who’s wrong here? and it better not be me). I also ordered two sides, red cabbage and German potato salad. I hadn’t had good German food in a long time and was greatly anticipating my order.

It came out, looked good, so I started cutting into it. It’s important to note that my allergies were bothering my so my nose wasn’t up to snuff. Hah, up to snuff. I slay me.

After 3 or so bites I noticed an aroma. Spoiled meat. Meat that had been sitting in the sun for 2 days and was rotten. Stinky Meat. My weenurshnitzul was kaput, and I had just taken 3 big bites of it. Apparently cutting into it let loose that magic spoiled aroma, and it started to permeate the table to the degree where I couldn’t eat my sides (‘sok, the German potato salad was consisted of vinegar, potatoes, and cornstarch, and had the uneasy appearance of chunky snot) and I was too disgusted even to have a sip of water.

I told the waitron that the meat had gone bad, and she took it off my bill, but that didn’t help my stomach troubles all night long. Sure, I could have had a tummy bug, but it’s a strange coincidence, n’est-ce pas?

Around 9:00 I dragged myself out of bed long enough to realize that all I’d eaten that day was an uninspired side salad and a few pieces of rotten meat, and since we were staying in the Burg, we needed to get moving fast if we were to eat anything at all that night. We headed down to the Fredericksburg Brewery, where my order was “Schinken Schnitzel- Veal Cutlet pounded thin, lightly breaded, sautéed, then topped with Black Forest Ham and Swiss Cheese and laced with a Dijon Cream Sauce served with Sauerkraut, German Potatoes”. It was very very good, and I managed to eat another 3 bites or so before my stomach started chanting “Attica! Attica!”. Doggie bag, please. Went back to the room and went comatose for the night.

For lunch today we stopped at the Peach Tree Tea Room, a name that made hub quake in his boots. Just after the waitron (who had an unccanny resemblance to the zombie-Linda in The Evil Dead [haHAHAHAHAHAHahah *CLANG* heeheeheeheeheehEEHEEHEEHEheehee *CLONK* etc.]) described to us the velvet chicken soup in loving terms that had my mouth watering, she came back to the table to tell us they ran out. We ordered a bread variety appetizer (the variety was that you had 2 choices of focaccia – pepper filled or walnut-something filled). I ordered the special quiche of the day – jalapeno and potato. Which meant there was a little crust, a tiny grating of cheese and a dab of egg, huge massive chunks of bland potato, and one little bitty slice of jalapeno.

Well, what the hell, it was nourishment. We ate, went shopping in the 50 degree rainy weather, then retreated to our suite.

About that suite – it’s over 1300 square feet with 2 huge rooms, one of them has an entire wall filled with floor to ceiling bookcases full of books, of course. They stock the room with pastries and fruit and juice and milk and cereals and coffee and heavy cream and a bottle of wine and chocolate mints for at night. The bed’s got a memory-foam top on it and 360 count sheets. When you walk in you see that the owners have filled up an ice bucket for you and set out a plate with jalapeno jack cheese, crackers, and hard salami. It’s just amazing, and they charge about half of what they should. I think we’ve been spoiled. Email me if you want to know what it is, because I can’t bear the thought of it getting booked and us not being able to get in.

I called the vet to check on the kitties who had their teeth cleaned this morning. Wrong, only one got her teeth cleaned. The vets decided not to do the other one when they saw her bloodwork. Turns out her pancreas-related numbers are FUBAR, and the vet thinks she might have pancreatic cancer.

Perhaps I need to send those freaking chain letters on after all.

I finally got my favicon.ico to work.

Some smart people have formed a collaborative Austin weblog at www.austinbloggers.org that automagically posts if you send it a trackback ping, which I think is cool as hell. And it abates some of my jealousy after seeing the new H-Town Blogs site (spotted on Big Pink Cookie).

A Valentine’s Day weekend without the kids, spent in a romantic hotel.
A birthday/wedding anniversary week in Las Vegas, also without the kids, spent in a 900 square feet suite at the Treasure Island for $175 a night, and all the good things that come with a trip to Las Vegas – shows, good food, gambling, seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time, risking life and limb to get a picture of Area 51, getting my In-N-Out burger fix, and of course the possibility of winning millions of dollars – a pipe dream, to be sure, but where would the human race be if we didn’t dream?

We have three choices of transportation to Las Vegas – first class flight ($2400), Southwest Airlines cattle car ($500), or driving (about $300 in gas plus 48 hours of driving).

Southwest’s pretty safe, aren’t they? I mean, who’s going to hijack a plane and say “Take me to… Yuma! Yes, Yuma, now!”

We have a mouse. It was in the stove. Hub chased it out and it ran into the cabinet. I opened the cabinet doors in hopes that the girl kitties will hunt it down. I don’t have much hope for that happening, though.

Oh yeah, and my boob’s trying to get infected again. I’m thinking about stopping posting until I have something positive to say.

“Honey, can you get up? The baby crapped everywhere, down her legs, on the floor, in my cell phone, and she needs a bath but the hot water heater is broken; I need to go out and dig a hole to bury the cat; and the Columbia broke up over Texas.”

There was an enormous crash, thud, and sound of stuff rolling around on the floor upstairs a minute ago. The kitchen is directly above the office, and my first thought was that a cat had knocked over a 12 pack of Coke in the pantry. The problem is that both hub and I checked and there is absolutely nothing out of place upstairs.

I think Gus is having some fun with us. This wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been haunted by a pet, but the concept makes hub very uneasy.

Our dog, Polliwog, used to sit at the end of the driveway in the evening and let out one little bark when it was time for Dad to get home from work. For months after she died, we’d hear her bark.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve felt a cat jump up on the bed and then realized that the cats are all in the other room.

I think it’s really comforting. But who knows what Gus is going to get up to, now that he feels well? As a kitten he was absolutely full of beans.

Hub’s wondering if Gus is upset because he’s out in the garage awaiting internment.

About 5 years ago, Gus snuck out the back door which hadn’t closed all the way. He was always looking for adventure, and once escaped he was loath to return to the drudgery of everyday life.

For the first couple of days, he hung out near the house. I’d see him sunning in the flowerbed or lurking under the porch stairs. Every time I’d go out to get him, he’d zip away even further. We figured that he’d eventually get hungry and decide that his adventure was over, so we left food in the half-open garage for him and started to wait him out.

Only the food didn’t get eaten. He’d wandered far afield, and we saw neither hide nor hair of him for a couple of days. I was beside myself – he was a Gus, he didn’t know what to do if a car was coming, and the only dogs he knew about were the ones who liked kitties. I made flyers and carefully sealed them in plastic so they wouldn’t wilt in the rain, and I stapled about 50 of them on various telephone poles all around the neighborhood. I told all the kids I saw to look out for the Siamese kitty. I met all my neighbors that week, knocking on their doors and asking if they had seen him. The one nice lady across the street didn’t speak any English, so I tried to tell her the best I could in my mangled Spanish about what Gus looked like. An hour or so later she came whooping and yelling across the street, saying that the cat was in her back yard. It was not Gus, but rather another male Siamese bluepoint, oddly enough.

After about a week I had pretty much given up hope. I didn’t think the little guy could survive that long on his own. There were no leads, no knocks on the door, no calls about the posters. In my heart I was sure he was dead, and I mentally started the long emotional process of saying goodbye.

One night Hub took me out to dinner to try to get my mind off things, and on the way home he said “Let’s just drive slow on the way home, one last time, and look.” So we did, and I looked and saw nothing. Hub saw a flicker of grey in a little culvert on the side of the road, a couple of blocks from our house. We pulled over, shone lights around, and saw… Gus – skinny, wet, cold, but absolutely full of beans. This time he didn’t run from me, but stayed still as I approached and let me pick him up.

We brought him home and he pissed in the cat box for about 4 minutes straight. A fastidious creature, he probably disliked squatting in the dirt like a dog. A quick bath and about a gallon of food and water later, and it was like it never happened.

This morning, Gus went on his last adventure. As the vet was going to get him to do bloodwork, Gus let out a little gasp and fell over dead, peacefully and naturally. I have a spot picked out for him in the back yard, where the blue jays fly thick and the sun warms the grass.

Farewell, kitty, Augustus Asparagus the Only, 1990-2003, velvet-pawed monkey overseer coversnuggle purrman.