Fresh, Hot Wastes of Time

About that black widow thing. The day we left, the one in the cow skull on the table outside on the patio had had babies. There were literally hundreds of baby black widow spiders scuttling around in the skull.

And we didn’t just see one scorpion in the house – there was the (giant) one in the bedroom, then a tiny little baby one in the light fixture in one bathroom and another teeny little one in the bathtub in another bathroom. This one was the one who crawled out of the sink overflow on our last visit when hub was washing his face.

Nitey night – oh, and sweet dreams.

All this time I thought the cat was mad at me.

He’d be sleeping, and I’d go in and call his name and he wouldn’t even look at me. When he was walking down the hall, I’d call him and snap and make kissy noises and he’d just ignore me and go on his way.

You know, according to intelligence tests I’m supposed to be a genius. So why did it not occur to me for weeks that the cat might be deaf as a post? Really. Last night I set him on the floor and snapped my fingers behind his head and clapped loudly and hollered – nothing, nada, no reaction. Hub shouted at him really loudly, which made the cat’s ear flicker a tad. In past times it would have levitated him off the bed and downstairs in about 2.1 seconds.

I was prepared for the possibility that he might go blind, since renal failure can cause high blood presdsure which can cause blindness, but the deaf thing really caught me flatfooted.

There is a fine art to a good chalupa. I grew up in San Antonio (I may have mentioned), home of all that is Tex-Mex and good. Hub and I have been on a mission to get good Tex-Mex in Austin and failed. All the places that people rave about are either interior Mexican (Fonda San Miguel), trendy (Chuy’s), or just terrible (Tres Amigos, Serranos, Rosies, etc.). I want a nice, cheesy hole in the wall Tex-Mex restaurant.

Today I think we found one. It’s called Maudie’s and it’s been around since the 50s.

First test of a good Tex-Mex restaurant: the iced tea. This tea was nice and strong, came in an enormous glass, had lime instead of lemon, and a good ice-to-liquid ratio. Check.

Second test is the chips and salsa. Unbelieveably in Austin there is a popular restaurant that serves saltines instead of tortilla chips. Anyway, Maudie’s had really nice thin chips and the salsa was very flavorful with just a little bite. Chip refills were prompt and we never got around to an empty basket. Check.

The third test is the refried beans. We were quite nervous since the menu stated that their beans were 100% vegetarian, and you just can’t have good refrieds without any bacon grease and/or lard. The beans were just ok, passable but not excellent (La Posada del Rey in San Antonio has excellent refrieds, if you’re ever in the neighborhood). Semi-check.

My fourth test is chalupas – it’s what I order the first time I visit a Tex-Mex joint because they’re very hard to screw up and done right, they are heaven on earth.

Note that chalupas (in my opinion, and I don’t want to hear any flak from you Mexican food purists, I’m talking about Tex-Mex and not Mex-Mex, so siddown and sheddap, thank you) bear no resemblance whatsoever to that dreck they sell at Taco Bell. Real chalupas have the following layers, from bottom up: a crispy tortilla base, refried beans, cheese, chicken or beef, shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, grated cheese (preferably American), and a dollop of guacamole (if you like chalupas compuestos). These chalupas had all that and were excellent. Hub’s cheese enchiladas were apparently good – I did not get a bite because they were gone about 3 minutes after they hit the table. I do hope he chewed just a little.

So anyway, check. And it’s in a tiny little space with a full bar and Elvis paintings on the wall and pink curtains and flies and traditional Mexican music (not Tejano, thank goodness) on the speakers.

Tonight we go to Ararat, speaking of hole in the wall restaurants. It’s a tiny middle-eastern place that has walls, floor, and ceilings covered with Oriental rugs and the tables are so close that sometimes the waitresses have to pass food via other diners to get it to your table. On the weekends they have belly dancers. It’s really hot inside and it’s BYOB and my goodness, is the food good. I can’t decide whether I want to take a shower beforehand because I know I’m going to get hot and sweaty there.

Decisions, decisions.

We sent the kids to visit their grandparents this weekend. I’m not used to having all this time to myself. Tonight we went to the old house and started to clean out the last room with crap in it, and we were attacked by 5 foot long killer cockroaches.

For those of you who don’t live where there are real cockroaches, know that Southern roaches tend to be rather big. Like, averaging 2 inches long. 2 inches, people. That’s as long as the first 2 joints of your index finger. They are red, they are huge, they are quick, they can fly at you when cornered, they get into everything, and I have a horrible, irrational fear of them. Nothing can turn me into a stereotypical housewife screaming and standing on a kitchen chair quicker than a cockroach can. And I absolutely refuse to kill them, because they… crunch. And curdled yellow goo comes out.

Spiders? Fine. June bugs? Sure. Locusts? Used to keep them as pets when I was a kid. But roaches send me into the red every time.

We set off 11 fumigators in the house and left. Since I’ve only had one meal today (McDonald’s, how healthy) I thought I’d come home and eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The real kind, on bread. Only when I walked into the living room, I noticed that A) the brown sugar box that had previously been on the counter in the kitchen was now in the middle of the living room rug and B) the dog looked really sheepish. This can mean nothing good. In the kitchen, I saw that the previously full loaf of bread was now nothing but a few scattered shards of plastic wrapper. That fucking dog had eaten an entire loaf of bread.

I wasn’t too hard on him, since we didn’t get home until midnight and he’s used to eating at 10. Hub took off his belt and came bolting up the stairs when I told him what happened, but I intervened and he settled (under protest) for giving the dog a second serious scolding, including reminding the dog that hub had recently acquired a new gun that he needs to try out.

So much for my PB&J. Guess it’s leftover Chinese food for me.

Pa. Man Dies in Vat of Chocolate… No, his name was not Augustus Gloop.

Just got back from the vet. Gus has lost a pound in the last month, down to 4.5 lbs from his normal 7.5 lbs. He has a severe UTI and is acutely dehydrated. His kidney bloodwork shows that his numbers are twice what they were a month ago. That’s a bad thing. So he’s in the hospital getting IV fluids for 3-5 days. We’ll see if he can pulll this one through.

Some of the wildlife found at the ranch:

€ A buck I shot in December 2000. I decided to retire after this guy, since it doesn’t get any better than this.
€ A little guy who crawled out of the sink to say hi while hub washed his face.
€ A hot mama who was holed up by the woodpile. That snack she has is a grasshopper, to give you an idea of scale.

We didn’t see any rattlesnakes this time, but next time I do I’ll post a pic of it.

My friend Gus is getting older. There’s no denying it now. He’s really slowing down. He’s horribly underweight. He has serious medical problems and limps around from arthritis. And I think that the worst for him is the fact that he’s losing bladder control.

I’ve known Gus since 1990. He’s been my closest companion and confidante since we met. We’ve been living together for years. It’s hard to see your best friend grow so old.

I should explain that Gus is my cat, a bluepoint Siamese boy who used to play fetch with cellophane, who used to have his own teddybear which he would throw in the air and catch and tackle, who used to sniff my panties and get his head stuck in the leghole and run around the house with panties on his head. When he was a kitten I’d dye him pink with food coloring. He’s the house inspector and has to put his seal of approval on all that enters, furniture or person or animal, vegetable, or mineral. Once he was mad at me for spending too much time out of town and he peed on my friend’s head while she slept. Sometimes he’d use the toilet.

He’s like my son, although he’s old enough to be my grandfather. What’s to come is going to be very, very hard.

Hub was washing his face in the sink today when he looked down and saw a scorpion crawling out of the overflow. He then smashed said scorpion with a flashlight and left its dismembered body in the sink.

We slept late. It’s hot out and the sun’s shining. This means the snakes will all be coming out from under their rocks. I only brought shorts and tennies and didn’t bring jeans and boots. Hub’s mad at me.