Red Tacos for a Blue Lady

I still do not miss Wichita Falls. I miss Backdoor Theatre, of course, but not the city.
But the Falls does have some things to offer, about two to be exact, which most people don't even know about. The theatre, of course, that is the single most worthwhile thing in that place, as under-supported as it may be.

The other one is Casa Mañana, downtown. I just read on Facebook that they had a fire, and so it's temporarily closed, and that is tragic. When GA and I are in WF at the same time, we always try to go to the Casa for their delicious red tacos. Don't try Googling it, because the closest you'll get is the old Freddy's on Iowa Park Road, which is closed. But you can read some comments about it here.

If you ever have an opportunity to have lunch or dinner in that wicked, drug ridden city, you must go by Casa Mañana, and order something- anything - that includes at least one red taco. When it is served to you, check the table for a little squeeze bottle with a red liquid inside. That is the red sauce. Put a dollop on one bite of the taco, and prepare to be enthralled. If you like it, put it on the whole darn thing.

Back in the day, they served them swimming in that sauce, and that is why they are called red tacos. Now that they let you put your own sauce on it, to taste, they come to your table not so red. The shell of the taco is between hard and soft, kind of thick, crunchy and flexible.

I'm not sure what's in the sauce, but I think I can taste wine, and maybe some catalina dressing. No matter, it's delicious. And you can't get it anywhere in the world except in the City that Faith Built. (They don't use that motto anymore... now it's the City of Meth Labs or something). You can find something close in Monterrey, Mexico, or in a couple of border towns, but it won't be exactly the same. Besides, the drug crime in Mexico is even worse than in Wichita Falls.

The tortilla chips are awesome, too. Pay a little extra, and order the queso. Mix a little of the salsa they bring to you, and dip those chips for a taste treat.

And it's healthy, too. OK, I'm lying on that part, but there are some pleasures that are worth destruction of your arteries. Oh, and don't ask to see the health permits. Consider this to be an adventure, and don't worry about the ambiance. It may look like a pig sty, but trust me, you've eaten in some fancy schmancy restaurants that are actually less clean.

Now I'm starting to miss that awful place. Meaning the awful city, not the Casa.

Noises, off and on and from cats

When I moved away from Wichita Falls some years ago, I thought I would never be able to do another show at Backdoor theatre again. That's my home theatre, where I learned anything I know about acting or being in a show. In 2004 I moved to Midland TX, where I learned to treasure Midland Community Theatre and the friends I made there. Now I live in the Houston area, and while I won't sell the theatres here short - they do set high standards - it's really hard to do theatre when you have to drive 45 minutes each way for rehearsals because the theatres are so far apart here.

But thanks to my best friend still trapped in the Falls, who allowed me to live in his home for a couple of months for rehearsals and performances, I was able to audition for, and have a role in, the funniest play ever written, Noises Off! (The title is supposed to have an exclamation point, you see).

I did that show twelve years ago, playing Freddy/Phillip, but the part I always wanted more than any other was Lloyd, the director, who speaks such lines as "No, Freddy, we have several minutes left before we open." This time, I got the part I wanted most. But beyond that, I was privileged to work once again with my favorite director, Gare Brundidge, and with my best friend, Dave. The downside was that I had to drive between Houston and Wichita Falls once the show went up. But then, I did some calculating, and I think I actually drove fewer miles doing that than by making the round trip for every rehearsal in Houston.

An added benefit was that Dave served as my personal trainer. When I stood on the stage for the audition, I was offering 235 pounds of mass to the gravity of this planet. I now weigh around 200 pounds, give or take a kilo here or there. Granted, when you perform in Noises Off!, you do get your exercise - I learned that twelve years ago - but most of it was improved diet and my 90+ minute walk each day.

So now I'm back home, and glad to be here, and the Houston heat and humidity is beginning to return. The real heat is actually in July and August, but June is at least warm, though not as warm as Wichita Falls.

******



Our cat, Pearl, is dying.

Some of you know about Pearl, having met her. We named her Pearl because she was born on the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, and because she is sort of pearl-colored, or cream. You can see by the picture she is one pretty cat -or she was when she was younger and healthier. Age robs cats of all but their inner beauty, too, just like most people. Yes, there are exceptions.

We have been trying to deal with a thyroid tumor (some cream in the ears apparently keeps that in check), impending renal failure (which has been impending for about ten years, and which I suspect we never really had to worry about), and some inconvenient seizures (they had something for that, too), but the last week or so she has quit eating and excreting - that means pooping, for you non-medical types out there. We took her in to see if there was some blockage that could be removed, but it turns out that her lack of appetite has more to do with the fact that she has cancer. How's that for irony? We move here to work for M. D. Anderson, the cancer center, and our cat gets cancer. So now she's on steroids to improve her appetite, and to make her feel generally better, but we are now considering her to be in Home Hospice for kitties - she is dying, and we have to figure out when the right moment is to have her put down. At what point is starvation far enough along to end it all? When is her life no longer worth prolonging? If she were human, the answer would be more clear - you keep people alive as long as you can, as comfortably as you can. But with a cat? A cat who can't even tell you if it hurts? I don't want to make that choice.

We have already decided not to have any more pets. Life without a pet is going to be radically different - beyond the expenses we will be relieved of, from vet bills to food and litter, there will be the things we did or didn't do solely because we had to accommodate the cat. We don't use actual bath mats because cute little Pearl peed on them when we did. We don't use floor mats just inside the front door for the same reason. We carefully check before we open a door to make sure she doesn't get out and get eaten by an alligator. We keep three litter boxes throughout the house to make sure she doesn't have to suffer any inconvenience when she needs to empty her little kitty bladder. Until recently, we couldn't eat without saving some for the cat, especially if chicken or tuna is involved. We are agreed that life without Pearl will be better and more convenient. Yet there is still the fact that we have had that cat for over 17 years, and we expect her to jump on the bed at night time and get in the way, we expect her to follow us into the kitchen and beg for food and get underfoot, we expect her to try to kill us as we go up or down the stairs.

It's going to be a different life. But for now, we have to keep that cat as comfortable and happy as we can, because it's either that or have her put down sooner. And we want to postpone that as long as we can.

Life is a box of chocolates, after the coupon

I just read a short blog about what two of my grandchildren did. Go read it. I'll wait here for you.

Now that's the quality I love in people everywhere - I love it when kids or grownups (but especially kids) do something different and original.

But this blog will intentionally be rambling and random. You know you love it.

This past week I went to visit my best friends in the whole world, back in my old hometown of Wichita Falls. It was a short visit, centered around seeing the play that they are both in, Move Over Mrs. Markham, which is a British farce, only they Americanized it because most of the cast wasn't able to handle the accent. I found it most enjoyable (and it is still playing to sold out audiences), and all the more so since I played Mr. Markham in that play and in that same theatre many years ago, when I still had dark hair.

While there, I met their new outside cat, named Princess, who looks and acts so much like a cat I used to have that I couldn't help but pet it and coo at it.

We watched a movie together (not with the cat, but with the family) - "21," which is about some MIT guys doing a card counting thing in Las Vegas and making tons of money. There is a scene where the professor is explaining to the class about probabilities and how change affects them. So he describes a game show where you're supposed to choose the best door out of three. A student chooses door number 1. Now the professor reminds the class that the odds are 33.3 percent that he has chosen the correct door, but - now the game show host reveals that door number 3 is not the best door, and is therefor out of the equation. Would he like to change his mind?

The student says yes, and now he goes for door number 2, because its probability is now - I forget the percentage, but it is higher than the obvious 50%. And the professor agrees, and praises him, and now wants him to go be a card counter in Vegas. And I'm all like "what???"

I was willing to agree that there are probably some mathematical principles that are way beyond me - I know that there are other dimensions besides the four that are obvious to us - but this was nonsense, or so it seemed to me, and still does.

Suppose you have the same scenario, only this time you have two students participating. One chooses door 1, the other chooses door 2. The game show host takes door 3 out of the equation, as before. Do the two students now switch doors, because each door is now greater than 50% likely to be the correct door? I would love for someone to explain to me how 1 out of 2 can possibly be anything but 50%.

But back to the family of my friends. One of their daughters is almost certain to be a semi-finalist merit scholar or whatever you call that, which doesn't really surprise me because she is so brilliant. Both daughters are, of course, incredibly smart and visually attractive in the bargain.

After the show Thursday night, the plan was to hit the backyard hot tub, so as to enjoy the near freezing temperatures and high winds that Wichita Falls was providing for us. But the female half of the partnership had to back out due to work interfering - honest - and that would have left two guys in the hot tub, and that would have been too... you know. The G word.

It was probably all for the best, since I was getting sleepy already and I had to leave early the next morning for my long drive back to Houston.

I wonder if my life would have been any different if either of my two brothers had been creative enough to want to sell me on a treadmill while playing store?

****

Update... OK, a computer geek in Midland explained it to me, though it wasn't clear in the movie. The game show host can't open your door, whether it's wrong or right. So if you have the correct door already, he has two doors to choose from. If you have the wrong door, however, he can only choose one door to open.

So your choice being wrong or right affects the door he opens, which in turn slightly affects the odds of your door being right.

Nature's 5.1 surround sound

It's raining today.
The bad news is that I don't get to go for my walk. So I can't eat candy, or at least I can't eat as much candy.

Not that I just stuff myself with such things, but if you don't burn the calories, you have to limit the intake more. Besides, I eat the sugar free Reese's cups, and low-carb Dove dark chocolate and raspberry things. The Dove things, by the way, are sweetened with sugar alcohols, which means you can't go nuts with them either, unless you need a laxative effect. If you do need a laxative some day , forget the drug store - buy a bag of these babies and go to town.

But I digress. It is raining today, and we're getting thunder with it. Down here in Houston you usually get just rain, with no thunder. Back in Wichita Falls or in Midland, you could usually count on some nice loud thunder for a soundtrack with your rain storm. In Wichita Falls, you could also count on some nice loud tornadoes too, but that's another story.



The 1979 tornado in Wichita Falls, TX

I remember a time when GA and I were hiking in the Smoky Mountains National Park, and when we were lying in our little tent, there was a thunderstorm crossing overhead. It was a wonderful experience - the sound would echo across the sky and reverberate. We just lay there enjoying the sounds for a while before we fell asleep.

I heard from the insurance company about our damage claim on the fence in our backyard. Our deductible is about $2000 so I'm supposed to find a fence company and get an estimate. If they can fix it for less, I won't file a claim, but if it's more I can file the claim. I have no idea what it will cost. If I were the hulk, I could just push it back into place and tamp the dirt down.


The Hulk, about to push my fence back where it belongs

But I'm not the Hulk, I'm more of a Captain Sloth.

And the sun just came out. If the sky turns blue, I will need to go run an errand or two.
Instead of blogging with no real point to make.

Houston, we have a - what was that, anyway?

I suppose there are an infinite number of ways to compare cities. One common way is by crime statistics. Houston has an exceptionally high crime rate, higher even than Wichita Falls. Midland has a relatively low rate, and Missouri City (where my mail is processed) has an even lower one.

Another, more useful comparison would be the percentage of TFM's encountered on the streets and highways. Oh, you aren't familiar with that acronym? Let's bring you up to speed. A TFM is a Total Freaking Moron, but you can adjust the acronym as you please. It could also stand for Terribly Foolish Moron, but the point is that these drivers are morons, and not just normal standard-issue morons.

A standard-issue moron is a person who tailgates, speeds, and generally takes risks that don't need to be taken. He drives aggressively, he uses a cell phone without bothering to compensate for the distraction, he believes that he is a good driver when he isn't a good driver by any stretch of the imagination. These people are everywhere, and the percentage from city to city doesn't really vary enough to be statistically relevant. You see them all the time, on virtually every drive home from work. They irritate you, they make you a little more defensive as you continue your drive.

But a TFM is an amazing creature to behold. One sees them in action and one either utters an expletive involuntarily, or one prays for divine protection and truly means it. While the normal moron will change lanes suddenly and without warning, nearly taking your bumper with him, the TFM will do it in an 18-wheeler. While the normal moron will make a left turn from the right lane, forcing you to slam on your brakes, the TFM will make the same turn across four lanes of busy traffic, causing a multi-car pile up. While a normal moron will weave in and out of busy lanes of thick traffic to gain perhaps an extra car length or two, the TFM will do it at 90 mph, and his weaving will involve six lanes of traffic at once, just before darting to make his exit on the opposite side of the freeway. That's a TFM.

He is incapable, I suppose, of assessing risk - the odds of a given action resulting in unwanted consequences as opposed to the goal or reward, the degree of that unwanted consequence, and the size or quality of the reward - all at the same time. He only gets as far as "if I can get from point A to point B faster, I won't have to wait as long." He rarely considers "if I kill myself on the way, I won't even get to point B." He never considers "the minor goal of getting to point B two minutes sooner isn't remotely worth the high risk of severe pain or death involved."

I estimate the TFM percentage in Wichita Falls to be about 4%, based on living in Wichita county most of my life. For Midland, maybe 2% at the most. Sugar Land or Missouri City would be about 6%, with the worst coming out at rush hour and going dormant the rest of the time. But Houston.... I would put the score at no less than 10%. If you aren't used to Houston traffic, you cannot possibly drive more than thirty minutes without your jaw dropping to your lap in amazement at least once. You cannot remain indifferent when you have seen a motorcycle on the service road, his crying, tormented little engine audible from high on the expressway, racing at 100 mph, down there precisely because there are fewer cars in the way, which means that he won't have to weave through them quite so much. Is he wearing a helmet? I'll let you guess.

Even on a short drive, you will typically see about three cars each minute blow by you at 30 mph over the prevailing speed (never mind the speed limit). You get used to it pretty quickly, and you figure out that to deal with it, you simply stay in your lane and ignore them. You assume that if you don't do anything unexpected, they will likely miss you, much as the bats do if you get caught in a cave at sundown when they awaken. And, on the bright side, TFM's don't pee on you as they pass. Well, they haven't so far, at least.

Now, the one good thing about having such a high TFM score is that the other 90% learn to be very good drivers - careful and logical. They learn the importance of driving close to the prevailing speed, regardless of the posted limit. If the limit is 60, but the traffic is moving steadily at 50, we all go 50. If it's going 65, we all go 65, because driving at a speed that's too different, whether slower or faster, is more dangerous than merely speeding is by itself. People try to keep a distance between them and the car ahead if possible (not the distance recommended back in driver's ed - that's not possible in Houston), and though there is a tendency to push the amber lights and thus run the reds, they generally don't floor the accelerator to do this when the car in front has applied his brakes to stop at the light. The TFM's, of course, do this all the time, and then slam on the brakes, coming to rest sideways just inches behind the next car - if all goes well, that is. (Oh, yes, they do. When I see this about to happen, I move to the rightmost edge of my lane to increase the chances of being missed by the tire-screaming missile to my left).

A friend of mine who used to live here said to me the other day, "Do you know what most parents in Houston give their kids for their first car?" The answer: a Piñata.