Since I don’t have much time to write any in-depth political commentary (like I ever wrote such things in the first place), I’m going to start to try to populate the online void that has become my blog with daily reports on the mundane happenings of my life. Of course if I come across another Talton story or a particualrly egregious move by the administration that angers me, I’ll post about it. To be honest, however, I haven’t been in the mood to really seek these things out.
Therefore, I give you the Daily donkey!. A somewhat daily post about the boring life of a Web Developer in Houston. Presented in the hackneyed style of Larry King and updated as time permits…
Good morning, gang. Springtime humidity in Houston is the best. This morning when I was walking the “kids”, I noticed how the moisture in the air allows the pleasant aromas of Jasmine and Lilacs to hang sweetly in the atmosphere. Of course my house is 2 blocks away from a McDonald’s so I get eau de Hash Brown.
In the tunnel today, I passed a sign on a vacant store front that read, “Coming Soon: Kajun Clown, Home of the stuffed wing.” How the hell do you stuff a chicken wing, gang? And what do you stuff it with?
A lot of people complain about Starbucks, but I have to admit I’m a reluctant fan. Where I work it’s either the Evil Empire of Coffe or the brown swill in the breakroom Bunn. Now that’s not saying I don’t support the independent coffee shops when away from downtown. On the weekends I frequent the Onion Creek Coffee House near my own house (they need a website) and it’s great and run by friendly folks. Anyway, if you work downtown and find yourself jonesing for the oily bean while in the McKinney tunnel, stop at the Starbucks next to the Rajin’ Cajun. It’s an experiemental Starbuck’s franchise, not a company-run store, and the person running it is a good guy.
Here’s a reason I don’t live in the Clear Lake area. I’ll take the city squirrels, pigeons and bayou rats over free-range gators any day. Glad to hear the scaly fellow is going to be okay, though.
I heard the following through the political grapevine…If you live in the Houston area, and want to catch a fleeting glimpse of Presidential hopeful, Howard Dean, show up outside the Intercontinental Hotel in the Galleria area at 5PM on April 24th. I hear there will be a group welcoming him to H-Town.
You know, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, Burt Bacharach was right on when he wrote the sage words, “What the world need now, is love, sweet love” It really is the only thing that there is just too little of.
When I am in the mood for a cup of tea, I like to reach for the “Constant Comment” or the “Lemon Lift” from Bigelow. If I’m out of that I’ll go for the Earl Grey. Speaking of Earl Grey, I’ve always wondered what a bergamot was.
Do yourself a favor and grow some loquats, folks. They are in season now and they are fruit-tastic.
Someone in the local cube farm here has their cell phone ringer set to the Michigan fight song. As a Penn State Alumnus, that drives me to a Bruce Banner-like rage. I’m tempted to bring in my singing and dancing Nittany Lion to counteract the effects.
That’s all for now.
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11:04 am on April 17th, 2003
LMAO…kind sir, i think this blog is evidence that you actually have TOO MUCH time on your hands…;) and bergamot is a flower, i think…and mighty tasty in Earl Grey…though i prefer my Earl’s straight up w/pheasant…:-P
hehe
11:10 am on April 17th, 2003
According to the bergamot link, it also “Improves the flavor of pork dishes”. Mmmm, nothing like a heapin’ helpin of old-fashioned pig’s feet ‘n flowers.
12:15 pm on April 17th, 2003
We had bergamot growing from last year, but our landlord tore out all of our perennials, not realizing that they would return this year.
Pissed us off, it did. Lavender is always better the second year, for instance.
11:22 pm on April 17th, 2003
Hooray for the Daily Donkey! More – MORE, I say.
10:00 am on April 23rd, 2003
Here’s another reason not to hate Starbuck’s: unlike the independent coffeeshops, they offer their employees health insurance and other benefits.
Maybe on the West Coast there are alternatives like Pete’s which are small enough to be warm and fuzzy yet big enough to provide benefits (I don’t know whether they do or not). But here in Texas, you can support sterile corporate monoculture or you can support a friendly locally-owned sweatshop. It’s hard for me to see how either one has exclusive rights to the moral high ground. (And I say that as a devoted regular at Pacha with a Keep Austin Weird sticker on his car.)
10:17 am on April 23rd, 2003
Oh, yeah, and loquats. Yum! I’ll always associate them with a neighbor in Galveston, a weathered old man and gifted gardener from Sicily with whom we had no language in common. I spoke a little Italian but since he spoke only Sicilian dialect that didn’t help much. He was always chasing neighborhood kids out of his loquat tree (the kids were forever trying to strip the tree of fruit before it was ripe) with cries of “Getty! Getty!” so that became our nickname for the guy.
Once I sat down next to him on the steps of the Victorian house where we each had apartments and tried to engage him in conversation. He surprised me by trying to get me to hold hands with him and/or kiss him. I don’t make a habit of kissing guys, let alone 80-year-olds with whom I can’t communicate, so I had to get up and leave and I kept my distance from him after that. The fact that he couldn’t accept a simple “no, grazie” left me suspecting that there was some dementia at work and not just a language barrier.
Before long we put two and two together and realized that he lived alone rather than with his family because he also made passes at his nieces and nephews. Sometimes in the evening unsavory young men would visit him and we’d hear shouting; I don’t know what arrangement he had with them, but apparently on more than one occasion it ended in robbery. Eventually he had a heart attack and his family moved him out, I assume to a nursing home.
So anyway, I can’t see or eat a loquat without bittersweet memories of that old man, his wonderful garden and his disastrous attempts at seeking human contact.
Oh, and loquat in Sicilian Italian is nespola.