Holiday Shots with the Wilberts

So, we head over to the Wilbert's because Sam is turning 7, and we have some cool Star Wars Legos to deliver. After cake, ice cream and a whole lot of candle borning, including Shari wowing the kids with her "stick the lit candle in your mouth" trick, Glen offered us all shots. Tequila? Whiskey? Rum? Nah, just your standard flu shot.

A muff by any other name....

This is an entry from our dear friend, Whitney Hansen. This was originally posted on the UTA website.

Muffuletta sandwich 1906 Central Grocery New Orleans The tart smell of olives and lemon juice to me meant the long days of endless summer heat had arrived and that it was time to escape Arlington, Texas for a cooler destination. Signaling the rapid approach of a spontaneous trip to scenic Lake Ouachita, Arkansas, or any town nestled in the valleys of the southern Rocky Mountains, my parents would spend one night furiously assembling olives, cheese, lemon juice, peppers, and olive oil in vats of large plastic bowls. Affixed with sentiments verging on giddiness at the prospect of vacation, the tangy smells of marinating Muffuletta permeated throughout the entire house, aided of course by the overworked air conditioner on a hot August night. Eventually my sister and I would be compelled to join in on the festivities occurring in the kitchen and spend the next hour or so packing the marinated olives and veggies into slender glass jars not realizing at the time that we too were about to be packed into a different kind of jar. This jar of course would be our parents’ old Chevy Suburban, and we would be sharing it with coolers, luggage, books, cd players, and any number of combinations of childhood friends, due to the fact that we always traveled with at least two other families. One could almost say that the success of the entire trip depended on this critical night of cooking because relying on McDonald’s or Taco Bell entirely for sustenance on the road was simply out of the question. Our recipe for Muffuletta came from the loving cooking tradition of my father’s parents where they discovered the savory goodness of the sandwich in their New Orleans Church community. How then, could a fast food chain compete with two generations of parental care for the nourishment of our band of adventurers? It couldn’t, but Muffuletta could because one mouth watering bite of the colorful olive mix and I could hear my Nana’s sweet Southern accent telling me about the church potluck where she first had it, or I could see the bright smiles on my mom and dad’s faces as they worked on juicing the fifteen lemons that it takes to make Muffuletta. I wasn’t the only one who felt this connection too. A little olive filled sandwich would almost always incite questions from my parents’ friends pertaining to the well-being of my Nana and Pop Pop, or instigate amusing stories from previous vacations. So there it was, a simple recipe transformed into an event where adventure, comfort, and history melted together under a hot broiler, or between two cold buns to form my favorite sandwich of all time.

So you want to be a magnolia....

Some parents sit through interminable football games, baseball games, soccer games, and basketball games, but the Simmons are known to sit through plays, lots of plays. In high school Erin had the lead in Fiddler on the Roof, Joel was a freshman and had a few lines, and even Jack got recruited for a wee part. We sat through all the performances, every one. We knew the songs, the lines, the pauses, and the backstage drama. Recently in the Lamar high school auditorium, a rat fell out of the ceiling on to the audience members just to the right of Shari and Glen, so in the future we will wear closed in shoes and a hat.



We have had a few years off, so we were delighted when the faculty of Friendswood high school put on a production of Steel Magnolias. We all met in Galveston for a Saturday night in a high school auditorium. Erin played Shelby, a newlywed who loves pink and is known for her postive outlook on life. Not really much of a stretch for one Miss Erin Lynds. We all KNEW she wasn't going to make it to the last scene. We KNEW about the armadillo shaped groom's cake, we KNEW that Truvy wears a size 6 shoe, but a 7 is so comfortable she buys an 8. We KNEW time marches on, across your face. We KNEW Weezy wasn't mad, but had just been in a bad mood for 40 years. We KNEW about the diabetes. We KNEW she shouldn't put her body through a pregnancy. Did that stop the bucket of tears in our row? Not for a second.

Shooting the Bird

What a glorious fall we’ve had this year in Texas. Crisp mornings followed by sunny afternoons and just enough September rain to keep everything green until the leaves turned color a few weeks ago. Throw in one of the greatest college football seasons in recent memory, a few good backyard fires and it all adds up to perfect. But then, just as we were about to go all Robert Frost on everybody’s ass, it all came to a crashing halt. The first icy blast of winter? Hardly. We only have winter for about two weeks and normally schedule it between the division championships and the Super Bowl. Post election blahs, recession, dim prospects for the Mavericks? Heck no, those things are just minor annoyances. It takes a full blown disaster to ruin a great fall and the perfect storm began brewing last week with just one phone call.

Erin called and said they weren’t quite up to hosting Thanksgiving this year as they had only been back in their apartment for three days since being washed away by Ike back in September… As she rattled on we felt the winds begin to form a small tropical depression in the Caribbean… They would go to his parents which meant we were free to host everyone else here. We began making obscene gestures at the phone before we hung up. Thanksgiving at our house. Again. Awesome! The next afternoon Lori’s mother and sister just happened by and were overjoyed by the good news. Within five minutes the guest list had grown to 20, and the storm had been upgraded to a category 2 hurricane.

To say that my mother-in-law overdoes Thanksgiving is like saying that Bill Clinton had roaming eyes. She lives for it, and truth be told, she does an unbelievable job. Now the game was on. She came back later that evening to go over the menu and assignments. This is one of my favorite parts because in the 30 years I've known her, the menu has never changed. We actually have to speak aloud all of the names of all the dishes and write them down. How about turkey? Ooh, there’s a new one. Dressing? Yeah, I think I heard about that on E’meril. BAM! I usually throw her a silly curve, and she always takes the bait, “Instead of sweet potatoes, why don’t we try marinated artichokes with currants?” She’ll smile/frown and say something like,” Oh I don’t know. I’m afraid the kids would be disappointed.” So sweet potatoes it is. We then start assignments, which is an even bigger joke since she likes making everything herself and doesn’t trust anyone else other than us, and only us when she can supervise. Lori always suggests that Shari or Christina brings this or that and she usually says, “Oh, they can bring rolls or maybe the appetizer plate. That’s really a lot of work and they have their hands full.” We finally agree to do everything and she is happy. This year as we concluded the planning session, she dropped the hammer and informed us that Aunt Gail and Uncle Lloyd were coming from South Dakota. We were now officially at category 5.

The holiday attendance record for our modest, 1968, ranch house currently stands at 27, and in all fairness, some of them weren’t disasters. Several were though. Like the time I ran over Randy and Jane’s Golden Retriever on the way to the football game. Or when my niece slipped in the kitchen and broke her arm. Or the year we had to rush Jack to the emergency room with an asthma attack. Or the year I had surgery on the Tuesday before. Each a treasure in the memory chest, but what unites them all is the fact that all of the guests still expect to be fed their full blown, traditional, Norman Rockwell feast on time despite these little inconveniences, always in our house. It’s sort of like a bad government program, at first a good idea but now just another entitlement. But as I said earlier, it’s Carol’s favorite darned day of the whole year and we love her, so we’ll love Thanksgiving too. She will start cooking on Sunday and won't stop till we clean up the leftovers after the 10:00pm supplemental feeding Thursday night. Our pattern is pretty predictable as well. We will get up early Thursday morning and play the full version of Alice’s Restaurant while we drink Kahlua laced coffee and then cook like galley slaves. Hopefully Sam, our 2^nd grade nephew, will bring a homemade centerpiece. Once the table is set and Carol does her Betty Crocker curtsey, we will all begin passing and sighing and conversing and passing some more. During the course of the meal and day, Lori and I will occasionally slip out of the room towards the kitchen carrying a decoy platter or pitcher. We’ll end up in Erin’s old bedroom where in the closet our friends from the Sauza family, the Tres Generaciones, reside. I’ve glued some turkey feathers from my fly-tying kit to a couple of shot glasses and we’ll give thanks each time we feel the warm, agave nectar slide down our throats. Who knows, after the 4th or 5th trip, we might even hug Aunt Gail.

Au Revoir lovely fall. You were too beautiful for this world. Well, maybe just too beautiful for Grand Prairie

One Man Gathers What Another Man Spills

I used to be a big fan of garage sales and flea markets. As a child, I used to love going with my grandpa to the weekly cattle auction which was always preceded by a swap meet. Some of the farmers would fix up old appliances and farm implements, but mostly it was just old junk. Of course my 10-year-old eyes lacked the experience to know the difference between a bargain and a burden, so one time I bought 2 bald tires, a washing machine and broken television for seventy five cents. My grandpa yelled at me and ended up paying the scrap dealer a few dollars to haul it all away. I was sent to the car to learn my lesson, which was the undeniable fact that grandpa was totally loco passing up the huge bargain. Looking back, that was the moment that I actually began my pursuit of the American dream, the accumulation of unlimited stuff. Forty years, three kids and several moves later, I found myself on the other end of the spectrum, and began trying to rid myself of all the stuff in my life. I wish I could say it was a spiritual quest or self improvement plan, but the truth is, I finally just ran out room.

This process was accelerated by the recent decision to put in new floors. We had to move all of the old furniture out of the house and suddenly became aware of how ugly and stupid many of our treasures were sitting in the carport and how disgusting it would be to put them on our beautiful new floors. Most of the decisions were easy; some were a little more complicated. Our biggest dilemma was the old couch/hide-a-bed. It weighed about 25,000 lbs. and the cushions had become soiled to the point where the dry cleaners said “Sorry, we tried but failed.” After even the local mission said “No thanks,” we called the landfill and they said that the regular garbage truck would pick it up if we could get it out to the street. This brought up a whole new set of issues, the first being the fact that while I hated abusing the landfill, I hated having the couch in my carport even more. Secondly, I knew that the lady at the landfill, while convincing enough on the phone, had no real control over what the crews actually did on their route. Our trash day is Saturday, and if they decided to pass on the maroon, striped monster it would be Tuesday before we could take it to the landfill. We don’t spend a lot of time worrying about what the neighbors think, but it seemed kind of tacky to force everyone to experience a Sanford and Son moment every time they passed by. Joel and Lori were leaving for Austin Friday afternoon, so I grudgingly agreed to put it on the street and this where the miracle begins.

After hauling the couch out, Joel took a long look at his old, 7-headed, hydra lamp that seemed so cool in junior high and decided it had to go as well. As he set it by the couch, we noticed how it looked like an actual, tasteless, living room display. We thought it would be funny to add a junky end table beside it and placed an old magazine on the table along with a broken remote control. We stuck an old bicycle on the other side and our “room to go” package was completed. What started as a joke instantly became a clever marketing scheme, and by the time we made it back to the carport, the lamp was gone. I then saw a white Cherokee slow down for a look before moving on. By the time I got inside the house, a Malibu was parked in my driveway and the driver was running his hand over the end table, checking out the finish. He then popped his trunk and began making room for the new addition. As he placed the table into the trunk, the Cherokee circled back and after a brief conference, pulled into the neighbor’s driveway. Some money was exchanged, the men shook hands and the Cherokee driver took the table out of the Malibu and placed it in his own. When I checked back an hour later, the couch and bicycle had disappeared as well. Rarely have I experienced such a satisfying, multi layered experience.It was truly win-win. In one August afternoon, through an act of simple selflessness, we:

A) Improved our living quarters.

B) Saved the environment.

C) Stimulated the local economy and created jobs.

D) Created a spirit of community that transcended race and socioeconomic barriers.

E) Began to explore the possibilities of running for public office.

Women are from Venus: Men are from Mars: Douche bags drive Saturns in the left lane

One of the many elements that unites us as Americans is the earnest belief that our own local drivers are the worst in the world. Maslow identified this on his hierarchy of needs and labeled it Communal Bitching. He ranked it between Physiological/Safety which means basic food and shelter and Technological which includes cable, internet and cellular access with unlimited free texting. Having travelled a bit about our fair nation though, I believe that all drivers in all regions are equally awful but in unique and different ways. For instance, a New Englander will graciously signal, wave and then run you off the road, while the New Yorker generally honks and shoots the bird before doing the same thing. A few of our DFW subgroups include the less educated fundamentalists who believe turn signals are Satan’s tools and refuse to use them and the local racers who weave in and out of heavy traffic at high speeds. The latter group (Nasholes) appeared in the 90s shortly after the opening of Texas Motor Speedway. Each group holds their own special place on the road, as well as the ditch, and for the most part, we have learned to live with them much like one learns to live with a chronic medical condition like hemorrhoids or heartburn.

This weekend, however, we were introduced to a group we had never heard of. We left Grand Prairie about 11:00 AM to visit the kids in Galveston and ran into them just south of Corsicana. We first noted something amiss when I had to slam the brakes to avoid plowing into the Civic who was trying to avoid the SUV. Both lanes went from 80 to 35 in about 3 seconds and slowly creeped back up to 55. This lasted about 10 miles or so till we finally saw the late model Saturn in the left lane, completely oblivious to the 30 other cars and trucks passing her on the right. This happened 3 more times before we got to Houston, which by itself is not all that unusual anymore. What is unusual is that every one of the left lane parkers involved at least one Saturn (2 sedans, 1 sports model and another SUV). None of them looked particularly menacing or hateful either, just a bunch of ordinary dipsticks poking along at 50 or 60 in the left lane on a major, crowded freeway. It seemed like a strange coincidence, and we discounted any real conspiracy until our return trip. Just north of Conroe, we ran into another brake slamming bottleneck, and sure enough, a blue Saturn SUV was at the front of the pack in the left lane. This same SUV later passed me about 100 miles up the road. I was doing about 78 so he apparently discovered his gas pedal. And to be fair, he was in the left lane which I assume he never left.

So with all of this in mind, we thought it might be helpful to give all of our Saturn driving readers who want to be douche bags a quick refresher course for highway driving. First, pick a speed you are comfortable with between 55 and 60 and set your cruise control. Do not under any circumstances change your speed as this could use extra gas and make you part of the problem rather than the solution. Next, choose a nice, relaxing, totally hip CD like Neil Diamond or Barry Manilow and then breathe deeply from your diaphragm especially concentrating on your exhales. Now slowly move over into the left lane and feel yourself becoming one with the music and the endless ribbon of tarmac. You are not your body and your car is not a car and the road is not a road. You are the music and the road: the road is the music and you. Pay no attention to the other drivers for they are just part of the road and the music. Watch them flow around you on the right side in one continuous river of motion and sound. Feel the harmony of their horns as they blend into a symphony of the road. As they wave their one fingered greeting to you, think of a nice hot, soothing bath in your freshly tiled bathroom. Picture the medicine cabinet to your side and imagine the third row where the box with the pretty flowers resides. Open the box and inhale the aroma of the botanicals. Pay no attention to the other drivers, they do not matter, for you drive a Saturn in the left lane and are flowing with the traffic into the nice, pink bag and are truly one with the douche.

Chicken Cordon Blues

You’ll have to speak up quite a bit, because right now I can't understand you. We are having our floors replaced and between the noise and chemical fumes, everything seems a little fuzzy. We’ve only been planning it for five years, so really, the chaos is perfectly logical. The contractor told us we would lose our kitchen for a week, but somehow we never made the connection between that and needing to eat out. I suppose we just planned on either fasting, relying on our friends and relatives to host us or manna. Although option #1 would have been a good idea for the parents, we instead chose option #4 eating out and thought we’d offer a few critiques of the local culinary scene.

Jack suggested that we seek out a local Italian restaurant in Arlington as most are just chains. Our first choice was Angelo’s, located on 303 near Collins Street. Our first impression was a nursing home, but that soon gave way to the folksy friendliness of the waitresses and other five patrons who were nice enough not to sample our entrees when they were mistakenly delivered to their table. The food was actually pretty good, in a 1960s Italian sort of way, iceburg lettuce swimming in dressing, texas toast with garlic butter and heavy red sauce. The staff couldn’t have been nicer. In the end, we agreed that the ambience was “not too scary” but we do recommend going during daylight hours.

Our other forays are listed below.

Whataburger- best fast food burger, worst french fries, slowest drive through ever. Skip the fries, hit the burger with Tabasco and try to forget all about Grampa Farty Pants doing their ads. Note to all UT students: he is not Walter Cronkite.

Taco Bell- nothing has changed. Stick to the economy menu for dependable comfort. The new printed order board has boosted their average to about 5 out of 6 menu items correctly. The drinks are still lousy, but better than they used to be. Supplement with good hot sauce and you’re in business.

Schlotzky’s- getting better. The order was correct and fairly fast. Still too expensive but nice for a change. Their salt-n-vinegar chips are the best.

Kentucky Fried- losing a step or two as they go too creative with the menu. The regular chicken doesn’t seem to have any taste anymore. Crust good, chicken blah.

Jimmy Johns- pretty good sandwiches in a hurry. I love all the neo-philosophical/motivational, psycho babble homilies on the wall. They are the first sub shop to recognize it doesn’t have to take a long time.

El-Fenix-enchilada dinner special still the best deal in town. Great chips and hot sauce. We love El-Fenix about once every 6 weeks or so.

The list goes on and on and is fairly grim. It’s too hot to eat outside, so we just sit down on the blanket in the bedroom and dig in, fumes and all. Knowing the carpet is going to be replaced has been fun though. One of the boys spews and sputters their drink on the carpet at some point during every meal, and the other 2 guys laugh and laugh. So far Lori hasn’t gotten the joke. The best meal of the week has been the one brought to Gusto and Jose by their wives, homemade tamales, enchiladas, rice and beans. We all just stood there with our mouths open carrying in our sack-0-burgers while they dug in around our kitchen table in the carport. We can't wait to cook on our new tile floor.