I am hungry

I am very hungry right now. My mistake was chomping on an Altoid because it made me even more hungry and now my tummy is growling. Right now a batch of cupcakes sounds good. Canned meat even sounds good. Those frozen bags of chipped beef in a cream sauce that you would plop into hot boiling water in the 70s and serve over rice...sounds great cause it would be warm. Wonder if they still make those things. I hated them as a kid.

My tummy is remembering a trip to Philadelphia when I ordered a salad before my main course of some sort of fish. I was there for the music at Zanzibars and though I was in the culinary capital, didn't really think much about what I was ordering. The salad was a warm spinach and had berries and goat cheese. I didn't finish my main course what with the bread and butter and rice. I'm dying to know what I had now and wish I could eat what I couldn't eat then. The Sinatra hoagie at Sarcone's and the bakery down the street from that in Bella Vista! YUMMY! I loved Bella Vista, loved, loved, loved it. Also so close to 1st Street.

In Vegas I hardly ate unless it was at the Peppermill. I would clean my plate then. Breakfast and brunch were the best! I had a fruit salad and got loads of fruit served in a half a pineapple. Very pretty and tres yummy. Their pancakes and waffles and club sandwiches were so yummy. Again, another culinary capital and nothing. I'm not a food connoisseur though I do recognize a good dish when I taste it. Trying to think... but I don't believe I ever went to any fancy schmancy place in Vegas. Carmelo's is a personal fave though, more for their muzak and customers than anything. All locals, all older, older locals who dressed tres cool and spoke Italian with raspy, smoke damaged voices. They did a fried zuchini thing I loved and have the best sauce.

Elsi's I love ELSI's with my man on a Sunday or Saturday 11ish. I could eat there every day.
Fonda San Miguel! Where we got engaged and it is a very important place because of that. Their mole is divine as are those chile rellenos! I wish I could dine at Fonda right at this very second but no dice, it's 9am and I'm at work. But I love that my guy loves Mexican food so much. Makes things copesetic. I do wish there was a good Greek food restaurant cause i do miss the Greek food.

La Victoria Bakery, Mrs Johnson's Donuts, kolaches. So hungry. My fiancee and I have built up quite the repertoire of yummy meals. Tilapia Tacos with Guacamole and sausage with fresh cabbage I think are the faves. Come fall...I make great cornish game hens in an orange sauce served with asparagus and rice/walnut/mushroom pilaf or sorts. Kerouac ate pea soup. I have that same pea soup back in 1994 and that would even hit the spot right now.

Vienna sausages...that's what I meant when I wrote canned meat but couldn't think of the specific product. Oh, acreamy smoothie would hit the spot right now. Denny's would hit the spot right now. You have to tell them to make your bacon crispy though or they won't. Ramada Inn in Del Rio did serve the best waffle last time I was there. The bestest breakfast tacos are in Del Rio off North main. They are huge, fresh, generous and $1.60 each. IHOP, haven't been there in ages but that would hit the spot. Jester across the street would not hit the spot so I'll remain hungry until I can think of some place around here to go.

Anais Nin claims she did her best work starving. MFK Fisher I am sure would not, could not. Artichokes come to mind when I think of MFK Fisher. Love her writing. Then there are the tummy memories of The Peachtree in Fredericksburg. So delicious and with the best teas and company is the only way I have known it. I am hungry and it makes for nice thoughts even if I lack the epicurean slant in life. One day I'll turn into a food snob but I'm not at all near that now. Audrey Hepburn would only eat the tiniest one serving of anything. I felt like that when I bought a brie wheel recently and would slice lunch, dinner and a snack from it for a few days. Took one modest slice to do me too. Well towards the end I got crazy and took a huge chunk but it served me well as a light dinner.

I am hungry.

Cupcakes are the hottest dessert!

Is what an article in this magazine said. Wow, writers and reporters, trend watchers and so on must be bored. Pudding, custard, sherbert, and pineapple yogurt are my latest faves and old standbys.

If you find yourself unable to think of anything to look up while on the job, and keep returning to myspace.com and your Yahoo mail, for you guys may I recommend the following:

1. The Squished Penny Museum

2. The Cut Up Machine

3. Look up Spratling, Raymor pottery and Holt Howard on Ebay

4. Retro Recipes

5. Carol Wright

6. Radio Shows

And remember: You Are Bored! So these suggestions are better than ping-ponging from your email to myspace.com.

PS: If you are really bored:
http://www.online-sweepstakes.com/

Minutiae for the ones who love me:

1. Joined Flickr twice. One account for cat photos and another for the rest.

1.5 No, you won't find me on Friendster or MySpace.com

2. Wish Fall would hit Texas. The sun goes down earlier and that's a cool start.

3. The mall can be fun for window shopping on a Sunday evening.

4. Supposedly a barrel of Maker's Mark whisky is being named after me and I'll get a bottle of it when it matures in a few years.

5. I can change chords faster than ever.

6. Time for a Mojito at Brown Bar soon.

7. Can't wait for Halloween cause I have a costume in mind so someone have a party *hint*hint*

8. Love being a new Mommy to Mona and one Monty going on 2 years or so.

9. Can't get over Al Stewart's In Brooklyn. The melody, the lyrics, the structure of the song all seem to work on me. Also gives me ideas. I play it over and over non-stop. If I stop, the ideas and inspirtation for everything from new items for the site to how I want to decorate my dream house to the next writings I'll work on disappear. A long time ago Sounds of Silence had this same effect as did Venus in Furs and Heroin, Walk Away Renee, Art School Babe, Just Like Heaven,Life on Mars, Viva Las Vegas, Better Things,Christmas Lights, and darest I say Aqualung back in 1984. Yes, I know but it is true, got some nice paintings out of it and my mom still has them on her wall. But it's been awhile since I've grown autistic for a song and the more recent ones were:She Belongs to Me last year and The Good Life as sung by Darin. Just songs that for whatever reason I grow insanely attached to for weeks.

10. The Leisureama hat has yet to be developed but Welcome Mat Hat is on it's way and the Fudgcicle and Blinky scarves.

11. Art-o-Mat check it out at Mexic Arte.

brooklyn.mp3

Cuba!

Last September, a Category 5 hurricane battered the small island of Cuba with 160-mile-per-hour winds.More than 1.5 million Cubans were evacuated to higher ground ahead of the storm. Although the hurricanedestroyed 20,000 houses, no one died.What is Cuban President Fidel Castro's secret? According to Dr. Nelson Valdes, a sociology professorat the University of New Mexico, and specialist in Latin America, "the whole civil defense is embedded inthe community to begin with. People know ahead of time where they are to go.""Cuba's leaders go on TV and take charge," said Valdes. Contrast this with George W. Bush's reactionto Hurricane Katrina. The day after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, Bush was playing golf. He waited threedays to make a TV appearance and five days before visiting the disaster site. In a scathing editorial onThursday, the New York Times said, "nothing about thepresident's demeanor yesterday - which seemed casual to the point of carelessness - suggested that heunderstood the depth of the current crisis.""Merely sticking people in a stadium is unthinkable" in Cuba, Valdes said. "Shelters all have medical personnel, from the neighborhood. They have family doctors in Cuba, who evacuate together with the neighborhood, and already know, for example, who needsinsulin."They also evacuate animals and veterinarians, TV sets and refrigerators, "so that people aren'treluctant to leave because people might steal their stuff," Valdes observed.

Rants

RANT #1:Last night we came upon the sadly, gruesome scene of a dead, tagged kitty being kissed goodbye by a stray mate. The fault and anger was 50% for asshole driver and 50% for asshole owner for letting their pet roam outdoors. Cats belong indoors, dogs belong indoors, in fenced backyards or on leashes.

RANT#2:It is the people in the US who are helping the Katrina victims not the US "government". The only government helping out is local by opening convention centers, auditoriums and stadiums. It is the people who were moved by the images on television and stories on NPR of the conditions in New Orleans who moved the national government by pure shame and organized grass roots relief efforts through churches and corporations like Wal-Mart that trucked in sundries to those displaced in Texas and in other states (kudos to Wal-Mart, that's what a billion dollar corporation should do for the people who made them a billion dollar corporation). The US government as in the president and his cronies did nothing and still have done nothing as their recent actions are too little too late. Too little, very little, grossly late. This is a tragedy and embarrassment but the truth is out on this inept administration. Not only are there casualties of war but now casualties at the home front due to ineptness on the part of the "government". With all the talk of homeland security and preparedness for catastrophe the reality was/is, there was/is no such thing. All the homeland security talk is nothing but hot air and a way to funnel monies from real lifesavers like Medicare to put those monies in someone's pocket. Just who, I don't know, but it isn't going to a real organization that helps the American people. the US is tapped out in man power and money and fuel. The present situation of Katrina can result in a global recession and yet I am quite certain there are those who spin the blame on the US citizens, natural disaster as act of God rather than turn on their "fearless" leader. It was a series of bad decisions coupled with this natural disaster that has brought America to it's knees. In history it is always a series of events that leads to a crisis situation that makes the history books. For example: WWI, the spark was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, together with the Zimmermann Note, and the sinking of the Lusitania as a few of the key elements that led to a global crisis. In this case, there may be more to it, but basically the election of a brainless, frat brat to president, 911 ( kept him in office), careless and ill planned move to war with the wrong country, loss of billions of dollars and no capture of Bin Laden, cutting of social services to the American people to fund ill planned war, etc.........ending with Katrina. As far as being in this together, do not dare count yourself in it together with this Bush. He was not in it together with those in New Orleans for 4 days, not in it together with those struggling to make ends meet with gas prices rising, stagnate paychecks not able to keep up with a rising cost of living, donating to organizations to help not only those victims of Katrina but those previous victims of lack of funding for social services, children, the elderly, not in it together with every American parent who lost a child to a careless war under this brainless leader. It's not about Dems vs Reps but about the decent American citizen vs Bush, the indecent. He isn't doing a damn thing for you or me, his only service being self service. If you are a decent American citizen you will turn against what is indecent and it's a damn, unforgivable shame if you do not.
Exercise: Read the biography on a historically good president then take a look around.

Rant#3: Why is Austin TX putting up commercial property then charging so much to rent it out these buildings sit vacant for a year since construction and still going. Wouldn't it be smarter to charge rent that people in business could afford and get some money rather than sit greedy on none at all? There is a lot of vacant commercial real estate in Austin, TX .

Rant #4: Why does Austin allow commercial zoning in neighborhoods???? Why not keep it along with the established business areas. Maybe that way the commercial property could actually get tenants. Oh yeah, the greedy landlords would have to lower rent first. Those vicious circles. In the meantime, less residential space in cetral Austin.

It's A Sad Day