Monday Meanderings - 2.27.2017

Use of hand-held devices while driving is illegal in Austin, so Siri and I often have blue-tooth conversations as I drive about. The other day I asked her what the current temperature was. She faithfully responded, "It's about 87 degrees." Then there was a pause, and she exclaimed, "Hot!"

Here's what it's like to live in Austin. The original plan was to meet Barb at Pappadeaux for lunch. I got there early and found that 50,000 Pre-K teachers (attending a conference at the hotel next door) were lined up waiting to be seated for lunch. The hostess said it would "Be about an hour," which in restaurant-speak means an hour and a half, at least.

I flagged down Barb (who couldn't find a parking place anyway) and we decided to go to Mandolo's Italian Kitchen. Mandolo's is located in the Triangle - about 3 city blocks full of shops, apartments and eateries. Of course, it's noon by then and there are no street-level parking places.

There is a parking garage located in the Triangle, but all but a handful of spaces are reserved for people who live there, but there were signs that said that there was additional parking in the next entrance. My worst nightmare come true - a parking garage divided into two parts, and to get to the 2nd part you have to find the exit and re-enter at a different location.

I'm thinking TXDOT Silver Alert and Lawton, Oklahoma in the rear-view mirror at this point, but fortunately Barb is driving and not only does she find her way out and back in, but actually finds a parking place. Okay, it's on the 5th level and I'm not sure where the elevator is in relation to the restaurant we are seeking, but it all turns out okay. Except it's now 12:30 and the line at Mandolo's is out the door.

Fortunately, they have a killer gelato bar at Mandolo's, so all's well that ends with a cup of mint chocolate. And Barb even found her way out of the parking garage. First try. Me? "Missing Elderly with gelato in his beard."

I needed to get my car inspected and my go-to inspection station was closed, so I ended up at a less-than-spiffy tire shop. I'm sitting in what passes for the waiting room, and I notice that the provided chairs are a bit unusual looking.

The seat and back appear to be genuine leather, but the base looks as if it was made from orange crates. Here's a close-up.

Yep. Hand-crafted. Eight of them. It would be interesting to know the back story on these,

Monday Meanderings - 2.20.2017

Try as I might to avoid weather as a MM topic, it just keeps showing up here. Eighty-eight degrees? What's up with that?

I came across an obituary the other day of an individual parked way out there on a distant limb of Barb's family tree. Not even a relative. Just someone distantly related to someone who was distantly related. I usually just log a name and dates of birth and death for these folks and move on, but this woman's obituary had a twist. It seems that the services were under the direction of the "Horne Hardware and Funeral Company."

You can't make something like that up. So I did a little research, and here's an advertisement that appeared in the Coleman Texas Democrat-Voice, April 3, 1930.

The mind boggles at how that combination might have been worked. "Jed, when you're down to Hornes to arrange for Martha's funeral would you pick up a new ax handle?"

I am reminded, for some reason, of Bob Newhart's comedy routine about the "Grace L Ferguson Airline and Storm Door Company." And yes, that is before your time, for most of you.

A recent post in the Nextdoor neighborhood news feed: "Lost. Sid Vicious Autographed tennis shoe. Last seen on North Lamar somewhere." See above about making stuff up.

Barb had a doctor visit this past week, and among all the paper work that a visit creates these days was the sentence, "Patient seemed well developed and well nourished." She said she wasn't sure if that was a good thing or bad.

Monday Meanderings - 2.13.20`7

I have no idea what season this is. The calendar says mid-February. The thermometer says it's summer. The weatherman says it's going to get chilly. No wonder the trees are confused.

Our doorbell played out recently. At least, I think it was recently - I have no idea when it actually quit ringing. So I decided to replace it with one of those snappy new video door bells. You put the little transmitter unit at the door and connect it to the Internet and when somebody comes calling, your phone rings and alerts you that "There is someone at your front door" and you see a video of your visitor and you can chat with them over the phone.

It also has a motion detector, so if someone comes snooping around the door you get alerted to that. as well. And you get alerted when cars drive by on the street, or dogs wander through the yard, or you go out the door to check the mail, and you come back after checking the mail, or poltergeists drift by.

It is an equal-opportunity, over-achieving motion detector out of the box, but thankfully, you can dial that back somewhat to avoid cars, dogs and the such. Except for poltergeists. I still get the occasional odd alert for no discernible reason.

But our new doorbell does point out that we actually get very few visitors. I installed it last week and have been patiently waiting for someone - anyone - to ring our bell. At this point I was really hoping for a siding salesman just so I could sit in my recliner and say, "No thanks. Not interested."

We finally got a visitor Saturday night - after dark - when a friend stopped by with news about the health of a mutual friend. The bell worked as advertised, but it took me about 5 minutes to  get the phone app figured out so I could respond. But these days it takes me that long to walk to the door, so I guess that's okay.

The problem with living in The Very Best City in the USA (according to Us News and World Report) is...everybody else wants to live there, too. And they all come in cars, so our traffic now looks like this.

Okay. This is actually in Brazil, but it could be Austin. In fact, it could be any number of places in Austin. Just saying.

Home Town Hero - stories for my grandchildren

I have mentioned before that my sister, in the process of selling her house, has been busy divesting herself of the ephemera of the years, sharing much of it with me - receptive pack-rat that I am. Last week she sent some clippings from the home-town newspaper, including this photo that recognizes my outstanding abilities to wheedle newspaper subscriptions from friends, neighbors and relatives so that I might take fabulous, expense-paid trips to the big city.

I was trying to establish the date of this clipping, and since the Breckenridge American has been digitized as part of "The Portal to Texas History" project, I was able to search the paper for instances of my name. It was easier than it might seem; I was the only "Bobby Anderson" in town during that era, and I turned up a couple of dozen articles that mentioned me in regards to one activity or another.

Now you have to remember that a small town newspaper puts your name in the paper when you attend story hour at the library - July 15, 1949 - Story Hour Has Largest Attendance, 65 Children Hear Stories of Circus. Or when you take swimming classes at the YMCA - September 3, 1950 - Final Promotions Made Local Swimmers Advanced From 'Y.' So it was not surprising to see all those references. Plus, I was a busy boy, with a lot of irons in the fire during my formative years.

Several of the references were for performances of the Breckenridge Boy's Choir. I was a member of that group in the formative years of the choir, and sang my little heart out at numerous concerts - until my voice changed. Mrs Dean had a strict rule - one squawk and you were out; only angelic, pre-pubescent voices could be in her choir.

And there were a number of references to my career as a newspaper carrier. Sometimes I was named carrier of the year. But you have to remember that there were only a half-dozen of us back then and you could be named carrier of the year simply by being in the building when they were trying to fill a 3-inch hole in the day's layout.

 Several times I received awards for outstanding feats, such as "Able to put the paper in a mud-puddle from 50 feet" and "Record for consecutive tosses behind the hedge." Here, I am described as one of the "Outstanding Carrier Salesmen for 1954. See the earlier paragraph referring to "wheedling newspaper subscriptions from friends, neighbors and relatives."

And there were School activities and Band performances; delegate to Boy's State; clowning around at the Junior Rodeo. and appearing as an entr'acte at a minstrel show (which just proves that it may not always be a good thing to dig too deeply into one's past).

Oh, and the date of the photo that triggered all this reminiscing? March 24, 1954 - 62 years, 10 months and 15 days ago.

Monday Meandering - 2.6.2017

Fake news struck a little too close for comfort this past week. There were a number of items on various news feed that proclaimed bacon was in short supply. The alarming headlines came quickly Wednesday morning: “Now It’s Getting Serious: 2017 Could See a Bacon Shortage.” “Nation’s bacon reserves hit 50-year low as prices rise.” “Everyone Freak Out! America Is Running Low on Bacon."

Alarming news, indeed. But it was all fake. Turns out that the panic was caused by misinterpreting news about pork belly futures. Not that one can be very clear about that commodity, anyway. Nevertheless, I'm relieved.

I ordered a mattress over the Internet this past week. Sight unseen. Not even a 5-minute trial at a showroom. To be sure, it was highly rated by Consumer's Report, and there appear to be thousands of favorable reviews, and it's sort of a "can't lose" deal.

After clicking on "Yes, send that sucker" the FedEx guy shows up barely 24 hours later with a box about the size of an old-fashioned cedar chest. Open the box and pull out a mattress bundle, all wrapped in plastic with the air sucked out. Position it on the box springs and carefully slice open the plastic seal-a-meal wrapper and WHOOOSH! You have a full-size mattress on your bed!

You get to sleep on your new mattress for 100 nights, and if you decide it's not the one for you, call the company and they will arrange for the Salvation Army, or charity of your choice, to pick it up and then they refund 100% of the cost.

Of all the weddings I have participated in over the years, this weekend brought a first. A bilingual wedding. Two ministers officiated, one speaking English and the other speaking Spanish. The vows were repeated in both languages, the homily, even the "You may now kiss your bride" was spoken (and performed)  twice. I wonder if that means that the couple is married twice? Or at least, more married than than the usual couple? IMWTK