Saturday, June 16th
First, some photos from Louisville and the first part of Houston are here.
Some highlights:
With my "derby dog" and Mint Julep at Churchill Downs
Piper and her big bucket 'o margaritas at the Monday barbecue in Houston.
Pool Football
So, it’s been forever since my last post – many apologies. The third week in Houston was much like the first two: hot and quiet. I discovered the “Red Box” DVD machine in the near-by McDonalds, rented several movies ($1 a day!) and mostly laid low. I watched The Pursuit of Happyness and was really affected by it. As expected, you saw the whole movie in the previews, but it was still enjoyable. The film really brought home how economically vulnerable so many people are. So many of us live pay check to pay check and can’t survive an emergency. Add to that impression the large numbers of homeless people I’ve seen in every city on the tour (even in the smaller cities) and it really got me thinking.
Happier topics:
Saturday between shows, several of us headed over to Goode Company Barbecue for some Texas-style barbecue. While Texas barbecue is not really my thing (I’d rather have Carolina-style and I believe a pig should be involved in barbecue), the food at Goode’s was tasty stuff. I had the brisket (the Texas specialty), spicy pork and sausage. The brisket was appropriately smoky and tender. The highlight of the meal, though, was the pecan pie. While pecan pie often has a layer of pecans and a similarly thick layer of goo underneath, the layer of goo at Goode’s was twice as thick as the pecans. The result was delicious!
Mounted on the wall inside Goode Co...
Tuesday, I had more bayou food, this time it was the Mardi Gras Café with Piper. The food at the Mardis Gras was equally as delicious. (Why, oh why, isn’t the tour playing any dates in truly Cajun country?!?) After some more oysters, I had crawfish both fried and in etouffee. The spice in the food seemed to suit the heat in the air. It is nothing but hot down here. Hot and sticky everyday without even really cooling off at night. The last several days there’s been a big afternoon thunderstorm (some of them spectacular) that lowers the temperature a bit, but does nothing for the humidity. Brutal.
Wednesday, I organized the Spamily for a horseback riding adventure at Cypress Creek Trails. About a half an hour north of Houston in Humble, Texas; the trails ran along Cypress Creek and through the woods with an occasional straight-away along a Bayou. A dozen Spammers went for a two and a half hour ride. The owner of the outfit, Darolyn, was one of our guides and she took tons of pictures of all of us. We had a blast. By the time we were done, it took us all a minute to get out feet back under us!
Darolyn recommended a little place up the street for lunch: The Potatoe Patch. The Potatoe Patch (their spelling, not mine) specializes in “Comfort Food”. We ordered lots of chicken fried steak, chicken and dumplings and pie. They are also the home of the “throw’d roll.” The servers’ tee-shirts said: “If a roll aint worth throwin’ it aint worth eating.” Sure enough, a server wandered through the restaurant shouting “Hot rolls! Hot rolls!” and if you raised your hand, he’d toss you one! They also wandered through the restaurant with blueberry muffins, fired okra and fried green tomatoes. You can probably guess how I felt about all of this!
Thursday at noon, I got a call from Jeff Dumas: “Hey buddy, I’ve got five tickets to the Astros game this afternoon. Interested?” I got around in a hurry and was waiting for him outside the will call window at 1 PM. After some struggles with the box office (did I mention that the tickets were FREE?!?! Jeff threw out the first pitch earlier in the engagement.), we headed to our seats in the 12th row behind third base. It was a great game; the Astros finally surrendered the go-ahead run to the A’s in the top of the 11th inning. We didn’t get to see the Minute Maid train make a homerun lap, but we were able to keep up on the prices of oil and natural gas during the game (NYMEX has a ticker on the right field wall). I also learned that after one sings Take Me Out to the Ballgame in Houston, one follows it up with Deep in the Heart of Texas (with appropriate clapping). “Star Dogs” (as the hot dogs are known at Minute Maid Park) have nothin’ on a Nathan’s Famous from Yankee Stadium. Firstly, they don’t walk around with them floating in the crack-tainted water at Minute Maid, you have to leave your seat and go to the concession stand. Secondly, a Star Dog is more of a sausage and less of a dog. They had the roof closed on Thursday. It was weird to watch a baseball game with the air conditioning on…
The Homerun Train at Minute Maid Park. Its tender is full of oranges...
Thursday night, a dozen of us returned to the Pittsley/Dumas/Petkoff ranch and squared off in a Texas Hold’em Tournament. Though I wasn’t the big winner, we had a grand time. We played two separate games, so the whole thing didn’t go on too late. Hopefully, this will become a more regular thing.
This afternoon between shows we had lunch at Café Adobe. I enjoyed stuffed shrimp wrapped in bacon and fried (you can imagine my happiness). We went in celebration of Ken, Karl and Francesca’s birthdays (all of them had birthdays here in Houston) and had a really enjoyable, relaxed time.
Tomorrow I have to repack my suitcases for the move to Dallas on Monday. It’s been a delightfully long time since I’ve packed a suitcase! Friday I went to the Samsonite outlet and bought a new (gigantic) duffel bag to replace the brown suitcase we bought on 180th street that has been leaving pieces behind in every airport on the tour thus far…
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#1 Texas Lesson Learned Thus Far: There is no irony in Texas. The “Don’t Mess With Texas” motto is not a joke. There is no humor involved when men at the bar do a shot of whiskey and shout: “Yee Hah!” They are not driving their enormous pick-up trucks, wearing their cowboy boots, or carrying their concealed fire arms with even any unintentional humor. They mean it. You are not supposed point out and laugh at the signs outside every bar about the amount of jail time that could result from carrying an unlicensed gun. What ever you do, DO NOT mess with Texas.
JV
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