Down Memory Lane

My high school graduating class may not be on Facebook, but a couple of old classmates make sure the remaining members of the Class of '59 get e-mail updates of all the reunions, news from Breckenridge, etc. Recently one of them sent out a recreation of an old poster that read:

The Breckenridge Junior Chamber of Commerce
Presents

A Minstrel

Featuring the Breckenridge Men's Chorus
Assisted by the Breckenridge Women's Chorus
And Guest Artists

My children probably do not know about Minstrel shows - more accurately "Negro Minstrel" shows where white performers blacked their faces and sang and performed vaudeville-type acts, caricaturing Negroes in general and Southern slaves and freedmen in particular. The thought of such a program today boggles the brain, but this was a very popular form of entertainment beginning about 1830 and lasting over 100 years. This particular program was in the summer of 1944 - perhaps it was one of the very last of it's ilk.

The primary point of interest in sending this poster to me and my classmates was the list of the businesses that helped sponsor the program, and the names of people who sang in the choruses. It generated a lot of "Do you remember so-and-so" and "Yes, I used to eat at such-and-such Cafe" responses.

But I was struck by what was then an accepted and popular form of entertainment and my how times have changed. That led to a discussion with Mom about when our high schools were integrated; in my case well after I had graduated. Hispanics, yes. Blacks, no. And before you know it, we had the High-School Yearbooks down and if ever there was an instrument that could show you in an immature and foolish light, it is the Yearbook. Oh, my!

So we went wandering back through time this afternoon. Some things you find back there make you wonder about the good ol' days. And some things just make you wonder. Was I really that skinny? Could I have looked any more like a nerd?

Just your regular Monday night at Chuy's

For some time we have followed a blog called WaiterRant. In it, an anonymous waiter describes in rather irreverent, often profane ways what it is like to wait on tables for a living. It is not a job for the weak-of-heart or arch. He's turned his blog into a book that is just now hitting the stores and in it one of the ways he says you can tell you are eating in a bad restaurant is by the wait staff turnover. Well, Chuy's remains one of our favorite restaurants but the turnover is very noticeable; for years it was always the same staff, then something happened and nearly every trip now we see an entirely new staff.

Tonight, we were explaining our choices to the (new) waitress and she admitted that she was new and that her customers knew the menu better than she did. She reinforced her newness when she was serving our food and her unbalanced tray hit the floor with Mom's Chuychanga and my side of refried beans. The whole restaurant goes dead silent, and another waiter says, "You want that to go?"

They try to get everything cleaned up, but the the place is just getting busy and a whole lot of people are slipping and sliding on the greasy spot next to our table. I thought I was going to get my newly-reordered side of refried beans in my lap there for a minute. Then another waitress a couple of tables down dumps the drink orders on the floor. Now in all fairness, none of this was as bad as the night we saw a loaded tray get dumped on the customers in one of the booths, but it was messy, nevertheless.

It calmed down, we got the rest of our food, it was good as always, but I had to get our waitress to take one of the Chuychangas off the bill - I told her I was a nice guy, but I wasn't going to pay for the one she dumped.

Maybe Waiter has a point about turnover. But it will take a lot of dumped trays to keep me away.

The Great Mattress Adventure - Night 14

We've slept on the Wonder Mattress for two weeks now. It is not a miraculous cure for what ails my back. In all fairness, Tempur-Pedic wants you to try the mattress for 60 days before you make a final decision. I think that's because that's how long it takes for the funny smell to go away. It doesn't smell bad mind you. It just smells.

Mom has adapted quickly and well. I no longer wonder whose bed I am in, but I have not yet come to the point where I can say in all honesty, "I love my bed."

Stay tuned.

More old movies

I mentioned that we had our annual viewing of the Fellowship of the Rings trilogy. Well, we're on a role - it's old movie time at the Andersons. Setting aside one non-memorable movie that we rented, we're scouring the book shelf for those old classics that we have accumulated. For instance, the other night it was the 165 minute epic "Once Upon a Time in the West" - one of Sergio Leone's classic spaghetti westerns with Charles Bronson and Jason Robards. Can you say fifteen minutes of closeups before the actual gunfight? Then it was "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade." Last night we started the Star Wars trilogy (which used to be our annual tradition the week before we went overseas). By the way, that's the original Star Wars trilogy - none of this jazzed-up version.

After that, we've got several waiting in the wings - "Bull Durham," "Hunt for Red October," "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" "Dancing with Wolves." Might even watch "The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming" again though we've seen that one recently.

Why Old Movie Time? Because there is nothing - absolutely nothing - on TV sports-wise. We don't do ML Baseball until it's play-off time (sorry, Sis - even if Josh Hamilton is hammering them out of the park) and watching every one turn left is no better...so it's Old Movies until the Olympics start, and then (being an Olympic junkie) it's 24/7 Olympics and then we're back to football.

However, that's only 3 weeks away and we have lots of movies to watch. Better get on it.

Finchless in Austin?

While wandering through the pet food section of Walmart the other day in search of another 500 pound sack of birdseed (a 3 day supply, I might add), we came across a section of finch feeding stations and seed. We weren't sure if there were finches in this area, but we enjoyed seeing them so much in West Virginia that we invested a whopping 4 bucks for a sack of finch food. That's the sock-looking thing hanging on the right. The way the feeders work there are multiple socks attached to a reservoir of seed and the little birds cling to the socks and feed. In theory.

I did a little Googling and apparently there are several varieties of finch in the region; mostly an un-colorful variety called the house finch, but some other kinds as well. Several mentions of Goldfinches, but the pictures of them looked like a bigger bird that fed conventionally (not hanging upside down). So on that promise Mom hung the sock and we've been waiting patiently since.

We're pretty good at waiting. See the owl shack in the background? It's been there over a year and so far nary an owl. I reduced the rent a couple of times but still no takers. Not that we lack for birds. You see that there is only an inch or two of seed in the regular feeder on the left and this been only a few days since it was filled. Mostly sparrows at the feeder and dove picking up what's been scattered on the ground. I caught one the other day just standing there looking up with his beak open, waiting for Manna. But we do see cardinals regularly and jays irregularly , so we keep the cafeteria in operation.

But if you are down at the bird cafe and see some finches hanging with an owl or two, tell them there's room and board on our back porch.

Time for "Fellowship of the Ring"

And "The Two Towers."

And "The Return of the King."

Yes, all 16 hours of the extended editions of the Tolkein Trilogy. Not all at once mind you. Not even an entire movie at one sitting. We watch one DVD an evening and in only six days we see the entire set yet again. It's become an annual tradition. In the comfort of our own home, pausing as needed for potty breaks. Wonderful.

And every time I watch it I see something new - some subtle little something that I had never noticed before. Plus we turn on the sub-titles and pick up a ton of dialog that you miss if you just listen.

Good stuff.

At last, the video

You will recall the saga of the belligerent coach? We finally obtained video of the entire incident!

The Great Mattress Adventure - Night 1

Now we know why Tempur-Pedic insists that you try the mattress for at least 30 days. It did not cure all aches and pains the first night. But... I didn't roll toward the edge, and the body-sized depressions filled in quickly when you turned over. It's a lot firmer than our old topper-topped mattress and I felt that firmness all night. This is not my bed, I kept thinking through the night.

Plus I kept waking up, thinking, "Does my hip hurt? Does my back ache? Well, not so much I had to get up and sit in the recliner (where I usually spend a couple of hours each night). So, maybe there's hope. I'll keep you posted.

Once upon a mattress

For some time we have been determined to get a new mattress. Something about the fact that the current version has these body-sized craters on each side and also sloped toward the edges so that if one were not careful, one just might slip right out of the bed!

I had decided that when the fabled Economic Stimulus Payment came our way we would go mattress shopping. Well, I told you how that worked out, but we really had to do something, so we looked at Consumer Reports which said "I'm sorry, but you will never find the same mattress we reviewed in your store, so short of ripping them open to see how they are made, find something that feels good and sleep on it." Then we read consumer reviews on the Internet and decided you could support the viewpoint that the mattress should go on top of the sleeper if you Googled long enough.

I had been eying the Tempur-Pedic and the sleep number mattresses, and like the Internet, we have friends who said, "Oh, we have one of those and we really ______ it!" We had added a memory-foam topper on our current mattress (actually, we ended up with 2 and a mattress that was 2 feet tall) that seemed to help, so we gravitated toward the Tempur-Pedic. Now all we had to decide was which one of the 20 models we thought would be right for us. Finally, decision semi-firmly made, we went to the Relax The Back store and made the big (and I do mean big) purchase.

T-P and RTB have a 90-day trial, so if we decide it is like sleeping on wet sand we can return the mattress for a fee equivalent to a Hawaiian vacation. The only problem is, you want to hold on to the old mattress during this period or you might find yourself sleeping on the floor. Finally, we decided the old mattress could go between the couch and the wall in the front bedroom during this period. Of course, anyone sitting on that couch feels slightly threatened by the towering mattress leaning precipitously over them, but it's only for 90 days or less. Actually, it sort of makes that bedroom look like a padded cell, which may come in handy.

The store called and said if we could take late, late delivery (6 to 8 PM) they could have it delivered today. That meant canceling our plans to go party on 6th street, but for a good night's sleep.... We stripped the bed (what do you do with 12 cubic yards of foam topper?) and wrestled the old mattress to the front bedroom and waited. And waited. And. Waited. Six PM, seven, eight, nearly nine and finally two teen-aged boys showed up with a mattress in the back of a pickup. They said they had had a hard day. I said I thought I was going to have to sleep on a hard floor. But the mattress did get delivered and positioned for our first night of gloriously relaxing, back-mending, ache-healing sleep.

Stay tuned for the results of night number 1.

Feed the Birds

Me: Wow, the birds really chowed down on that stale bread you put out!

Mom: Yes, and the cake too.

Me: Cake? I don't remember any stale cake.

Mom: It wasn't stale.

Me: You tossed the rest of that cake? That good cake?

Mom: We had plenty of cake this weekend. We didn't need any more cake.

Me: But...but...

Mom: When you weighed last, did the arrow point up or down?

Me: (muttering) Lucky birds.

Grand Fun in Zilker!

Nothing like a visit from the Grandkids (and their Mom and Dad) to make a happy 4th of July! If I were to take the time to dig through the albums, I think I can come up with pictures of our children and then all their children on the fire truck in Zilker Park.

Everyone, that is, except Grace . She opted for the train.

As did Babi and Deda. Been a long time since we rode the train in Zilker!

The IRS giveth, and the IRS taketh away

June 16, 2008

Dear Taxpayer:

Whahoo! Your beneficent government has taken pity on your poor miserable soul and you are entitled to an Economic Stimulus Payment of an amount that boggles the brain and overwhelms the senses. If you rush right out and spend this, all will be right with the world and the stockmarket will go up 600 points!


June 17, 2008

Dear Taxpayer:

You doofus! How could you have made such an egregious error in your 2007 tax return? You owe us an additional sum equal to the National Debt of many small nations! Only by our good graces are you not already in Debtor's Prison, so fork over the Moolah immediately!


June 23, 2008

Dear Taxpayer:

Remember that Economic Stimulus Payment we told you about? Fahgeddaboutit! We applied it to your debt while you were not looking. Don't forget to send the balance before Guido comes and collects it personally. Oh, and have a nice day.