Red Velvet Cake

I am not sure whether it's a good thing or a bad thing. I just love Eatsis.

I got into town yesterday and before I even got to my apartment I had to stop for a piece of Eatzis Red Velvet Cake. It doesn't help my figure but it helps my happiness that Eatzis is just a block away. Whenever I drive down Oaklawn, I watch for the blue light on the front of the building to be rotating. Just like K-Mart, Eatzis has their blue light specials. Everything left is marked down so that us peasants can eat like kings, or in my case, Queens.

Skinny vs Skinny

I love spring time in Dallas. The flowers are blooming and it's between 75 and 85 degrees - except when there's a precipitous mood swing and you get an overnight drop into the 60s.

When the clothes start coming off, the body becomes more visible - or should I say the skeleton. There is a funny breed of people in Dallas that are just...skeletal. Their clothes hang off of them and it's painful to look at them. There is a sharp angularity that I call "painfully skinny".

Perhaps there are these people in the San Francisco Bay area but, I don't see them. I bet they migrate down to LA where it is warmer and where it is hipper to have dermatitis of the middle finger - the finger used to purge.

I have one girlfriend that is "painfully skinny" and she is sick. Frail. My stereo type is that if you are that skinny you must be sick or purging or just not eating or exercising every moment of every day or some other OCD affliction.

I am not saying that the girls in San Jose are fat but maybe they're just healthy. I was noticing a teenager at the airport upon my arrival back to San Jose. She was super cute, super skinny, but had a roundness to her body where the muscles are supposed to be. I imagined her at the beach surfing, because she was in her trendy surfer garb. I imagined her plucking the painfully skinny people out of the water with one hand, placing them on her surfboard and catching a cool wave back to the beach in her graceful California beach style.

Saturday Morning

It's 9:47 on a Saturday morning in Dallas. I live in Oaklawn - just off of Stemmons - and went for a walk this morning. The weather is warm and there is an overcast sky and everyone is still asleep. The roads are empty and the noise of the day has not started yet.

A random cop car drove by, there were a few people in the bank and Starbucks is half full as my neighbors start the journey of waking up.

I like the silence. It calms me.

Waterbug vs Cockroach

California doesn't have bugs. At least the San Francisco Bay Area doesn't. I remember when my sister moved to Roseville. She got these big watery blisters all around her ankles and had no idea what they were. She finally went to the doctor's and figured out that they were mosquito bites and she was allergic. I think she was 34 and didn't know what a mosquito bite was.

Tonight I am watching what people call a waterbug. I almost called it a waterbig - Freudian slip perhaps? It is big. Maybe two inches long, with inch long legs and inch and a half long antennae. It's so big it's slow. In contrast, I had cockroaches in my first apartment. I never really saw them, except for a movement in the corner of my eye. They were slick little beetles and they moved fast. They ducked from the light and the movement made them creepy. This big bug thing is just dumb.

So, I am watching this dumb bug. It showed up this morning when I moved a bag on the floor. It moseyed off into the corner of the room. Within about 8 minutes it had rolled onto it's back and was trying to right it's self. After watching out of the corner of my eye, I left for the day. Tonight it's still in the same position. Legs flaying, antennae searching.

I know these things come here to die. I find them every other month or so. Do you think it's inhumane to flush it? That's really a rhetorical question because I won't be able to sleep with it writhing and thrashing. Another sacrifice to the porcelain goddess. Go in Peace.

Willow Glen's got Nothing on Dallas!

Growing up in San Jose, I remember ooohing and aaahhing as we drove through the big beautiful homes in Willow Glen to look at their holiday lights. These homes all had a decorated Christmas tree in their front yard and row upon row would be lit up at Christmas time. My Dallas apartment is right on the edge of Highland Park - Dallas' big beautiful house neighborhood. Some things never change, they just get taken to a different level.

In Dallas the Christmas lights are an attraction. Dallas has specialized companies that will install the Christmas lights to your specifications and the displays put the Neiman Marcus windows to shame. These homes are in the five thousand square foot plus range, on quarter acre or larger lots and every shrub, tree and fence is covered in lights. Full sizes Santas and Angels and Christmas Trees adorn the windows. Full scale dioramas in the front yards. Every architectural detail highlighted in spotlights and Christmas lights. Even the 30 foot tall trees have string upon string of lights illuminating every leaf, every inch of bark, and swaying in the Dallas wind.

Miles of cars creep up and down the streets as kids in the back press their noses to the window, eyes wide enough to reflect the thousands of colorful lights. To enjoy the lights in style, there are a couple options. You can hire a horse drawn carriage to take you up and down these ornate and exclusive streets. Another option is to rent a limo. This option allows you to drink and party with 15 of your closest friends.

If only I had 15 friends, I'd throw them into the back of a limo and drink too much and enjoy the balmy weather of a Dallas Christmas.

Texas State Fair

The Texas State Fair runs for 24 days and we were there for the last day. Susie is such a fun friend. She was starving when we got there so she ate the first thing she could. It was an awful hamburger but as we were sitting for her to eat, I told her about mom’s murder. She handled it really well and then we went on with the day. We had makeovers – she had each eye done differently and went around all day that way. We went to the Neiman exhibit, flew over the fairgrounds, saw cars and pigs and steer, oh my. We ran into some friends of mine and they gave us the lowdown on the “award winning fried foods”. It seems frying things is some what of a sport here in Texas. We got the inside scoop on the fried food “winners” and ate fried guacamole and fried cookie dough. We sat in the grass and watched the sunset and the people and chatted. The weather was perfect and the mood at the fair was electric. We wandered through the auto show and shared chocolate covered strawberries. We gave our tokens for the skyway to two kids and wandered through the animals. Pigs and Steer and Lambies. As we were leaving I gave my tickets to a 3 year old girl with dark hair and big eyes. Her eyes sparkled with her good fortune. Magical.

My Sunday Ritual

I love Sundays. Like most days, it has a certain ritual to it that feels comfortable. I like to head off to church first thing. My church starts at 9AM and that seems a little late for me - even on Sunday. I like following the little ant trail of cars into church. Then finding something cheerful and warm to say to my greeter. I like sitting up front and connecting with someone. I like crying during the service. Then I am off to Costco.

I like getting to Costco before most folks are out of bed. I want to wander down the aisles and not worry about running into people. [When I am in Silicon Valley, most people at Costco on Sunday morning are asian....and they are fine with me running into them]. I like to rummage through the warm bread and peruse the fine wine.

I am not a big "studier of wine", I just like it when my man picks out something wonderful for me. My buddy Don is a sommalier and he's teaching me about wine. We went through the smells and what each pallet likes. He showed me some merlots and a chablis. I know I am not a chardonnay fan, the whole buttery thing makes me want to gag. So, he pulls out a riesling. I like it. It's not too sweet like my old white zin of the 80s [remember when that pink white zin from sutter home was everywhere!?] and it's lighter than a heavy chardonnay. So, I am at costco looking for a riesling.

There is a really pretty blue bottle, oh, and it's a riesling, oh, and it's under $10 perfect! I throw two bottles into the cart and cover my nipples as I head to the walk-in vegetable fridge. I wind through the warehouse. Salad dressing. Two years worth of laundry detergent. Noni super healing fruit juice. Done.

In the check out line I pull out my amexs - one for personal and one for business. The check out guy comes up "do you want a box?". Yes, please.

He eyes my pretty blue bottles and snatches them from my cart. "No liquor can be sold before noon on Sunday in the state of Texas" "you have another 45 minutes" he finishes as he gives me a long stare.

Holy Shit! Now I am a axe murderer because I am getting my shopping done before noon on the day of rest? I think god would be ok with my buying wine on the way home from church. He likes it when I share a pretty blue bottle of riesling with him.