Did I really say I wanted to be more Texan?

I'm home by myself right now watching the Spurs/Mavs basketball game. If the Spurs lose they're out of the playoffs. I hung up on Mama Sly when she called during the game. I yelled at the cat when he got in front of the tv. I'm very confused as to when I started to care, but think it was when I accidentally drank tap water instead of filtered. Spurs Drugs in the water would explain a lot, both about San Antonio in general and also my sudden interest in the team.

I had to add "basketball" to "Spurs/Mavs game" above, since most of my DC friends, like me until recently, will have no idea what sport the Spurs play. Since I'm getting them all Spurs jerseys for their birthdays I figure they should have a heads up.

Quest

Fiesta is to San Antonio what Mardi Gras is to New Orleans, basically a huge drunkfest with parades, and because this is San Antonio, carnival rides. I truly think that I could ride a ferris wheel any day of any week without heading up to Six Flags or another amusement park, since San Antonio always has a party going on, and what says party better than machines that take you ten stories into the air, yet can be disassembled in 10 minutes and reassembled in five? I feel totally safe on them, especially after a beer.

But Fiesta is the party of the moment, and the King William Fair last Saturday was a big event during Fiesta, and we live in King William. I decided we had a moral obligation to invite everyone we know to park in the driveway and walk over, with burgers and beers here afterwards. Good thing we don't know many people, since our driveway's not that long and street parking was a bitch.

Anyrate, since I'm new to the area but determined to be the Best Little Texan in Texas, I decided that in order to have a Fiesta party we had to have the papel picado everyone else in King William put up pre-Fiesta. It may be ugly, but if everyone has it, I'm a-gonna get it. I'd seen it at the store, but didn't realize people actually hung plastic "paper" as a decoration, so didn't buy it.

When I decided we had to have it I headed, of course, to HEB. They were out.

I don't know where else to shop in San Antonio.

What to do? We're having a party, dammit, and that paper is The Thing To Have!! How many sin points do you get for stealing the neighbor's papel picado? I knew the Spanish Market had it, but the Market was Fiesta-ing away every day of the week, and the police seemed to be deliberately sending traffic away from the area. Ed and I drove down there twice and couldn't get near enough for me to jump and roll out of the truck while he pushed through the traffic.

So early, early, early Saturday morning, while everyone else was sleeping off Friday night Fiesta, I quietly scooted up to the market, parked on the sidewalk, gave the cop a saucy grin, told him I'd be cinco minutos, and got me that paper. Lots of that paper. You'd think some kids came through and papel picado'd the house when they ran out of toilet paper.

And since I went to so much effort, it's staying up waaaay past Fiesta. We'll be like the house that still has Christmas decorations up in June, and it'll be totally worth it. I'm proving my Texworthiness.

Driving Rant

I've decided to go with yelling therapy and get all my frustrations written down, with the idea that I'll be so annoyed by my own complaining that I'll snap out of it. So here's the first in my proud series on Texas Rantings.

San Antonio is an easy city to get around; people who haven't lived in DC complain about the traffic, but honey, they got it soooooo good. Memories of my hours a week sitting on Route 66 are fresh enough to make me appreciate that it takes less than 20 minutes to get anywhere I'd want to go in San Antonio.

And when people complain about the traffic, I could tell them exactly why there's slow-downs. It's because people drive on the interstates, which run through the middle of downtown in a very convenient way, 10 MILES UNDER THE SPEED LIMIT. And the speed limit's not crazy. We live right off Interstate 37 and I take it everywhere from the big scary HEB near us to the fancy organic HEB up north. And the speed limit is 60mph. On a big, wide, comfortable, three-lane highway. Three lanes each direction, Texans. That's how you define a highway, by the lanes going ONE WAY. A two-lane highway is not one lane each direction where you get stuck behind enormous tractors. Hear and learn.

So why, I ask myself (and yell at the other cars), is everyone driving 50 and below? Why? In DC I'd regularly drive 10 miles over the limit and never got a speeding ticket. I'd get passed by every third car like I was going backwards. If the road is open, gun it, because it won't be open long. Here the road are always open and it's a luxury no one appreciates! People here don't even like to pass! No matter how open the road is and how many lanes are free and how slow someone else is going. When traffic backs up I'm sure it's because everyone's courteously slowing down to accommodate that 35mph Ferrari in the left lane. It's the peddle on the right, people!


Hmm...ranting does make me feel a little better. Yay!

You kids get off my lawn!

Saturday Ed and I went to the Oyster Bake at St. Mary's University, one of the "can't miss" Fiesta events. Chevelle was headlining, and there were five opening bands on that stage alone. There were other stages with local rock bands, country music, kid-friendly shows, and who knows what else. They had any kind of meat on a stick you could think of, and the whole thing was sponsored by Miller Lite. Plus oysters. Baked, fried, raw, in shots...have I mentioned that I love oysters? It was warm and sunny after a morning of rain and, even though they estimated the crowd at 15,000, the line to get in wasn't very long. A perfectly planned party for the entire city.

The crowd was young and cute and rowdy, throwing their plastic beer bottles at each other and waiting in line for port-a-potties, the girls were dancing with each other and the guys were ogling them, it was loud and festive and there were police everywhere. It was definitely a perfect party, but I suddenly realized I'm old. Very, very, old. It was too loud and too crowded and too high energy. I just wanted to go to bed with a cup of hot chocolate and a Jane Austen book.

Next thing you know I'll be eating the early bird special at the diner. I'll have a collection of small yipping dogs who wear sweaters that I've knitted. With matching hats.

And I'm kinda looking forward to it.

Weekend fun

Maybe the world's not such a bad place after all.

Conflict in the home

So, y'all may have noticed that I've been calling the cat "Gigolo" even though Ed wanted to change his name to "Sylvester." I wasn't keen on the name change, but he started calling the cat "Sly" or "Sylvester" anyways. That lasted until the third time he said, "Sly! Treats!" and I came running, to find that the treats were tiny fishy nasty things, not big cold margaritas. Imagine my disappointment. So I told Ed that I was Sly long before I was MacSly and I wouldn't give my name to the cat.

So Ed told me to pick a new name, since "Gigolo" is fine for a stray moocher cat, but not for one with toys and expensive fungus medicine. I told him I'd think about it, but didn't, and kept calling the little guy Gigolo. It's his name.

Only, Ed still hates the name and is determined to break me down...by calling the cat "Mr. Snugglesworth." And he always says it in a high, teasing tone that gets right down to my bones with the shudders. It's such a terrible name that I'm almost ready to compromise.

Almost.

He is kinda snuggly.

I don't know what I was thinking

Man, Texas sucks. In DC I had plans every night and so many friends it was a real effort to keep up with them. Here I have no friends and no job, only a cat that makes me sick and a husband who's so concerned about my lack of social outlet that he wants me to apply for any job that'll get me out of the house. I get where he's coming from, but the last three job listings he's sent have been for low-paying administrative or receptionist positions, and I remember how miserable I was when I hated my job. I don't want another sucky job! I want to be back in DC where there's a hundred foreign policy and social services organizations, which a quick search yesterday showed are HIRING.

I didn't have a picture to illustrate this entry so I've drawn a self portrait. Don't worry, in real life my arms are the same length and my hair's not quite that frizzy. But the abnormally long torso is to scale.

Choose your own punchline

Myself, my mother in law, and a giant pink bunny. It's too easy.

But if you need help, notice how his inflatable arms are getting pretty damn fresh. Accident, hah.

Resume

MacSly
Casa MacSly
San Antonio, TX
giddyup@bitches.macsly

Previous experience

• You won't care about this part, since it wasn't in Texas so might as well have been on Mars.

Education

• UT? Texas A&M? No? Harumph.

Special skills

• Desk drawer always contains chocolate, microwave popcorn, safety pins, ibuprofin, and lady things, available generously upon request
• Agrees that your child/spouse/neighbor is acting like a crazy person and you are completely in the right to be mad at her or him
  
• Has many, many stories of stupid things she's done and will tell them with faces and hand gestures
• Is disturbingly cheerful in the morning and will say "good morning, sunshine!" if you point it out

Interests

• Coffee runs
• Celebrity gossip
• Eating ice cream

Bring on the jobs, bitches!

Letter to the editor

The first Friday of every month our neighborhood hosts a street festival. It used to be an art walk; there are lots of studios up and down the main street that would display to the public that first Friday, but over time street vendors, fortune tellers, and bratwurst hawkers took over. One of the main reasons we moved to this neighborhood is this festival, which is bigger and better, every month, than the yearly Clarendon Day in Arlington. It's just fun and we love that it's in our community.

The problem is that every month our neighborhood newsletter has a pissy letter from a local resident saying that there's no parking on their street and people are standing near their front yards and they want the whole thing shut down. Since I have tons of free time, I've been working on my own letter telling those whiners to shut their traps. I blame each of them, individually, for the fact that jazz clubs, environmentally friendly dry cleaners, and ice cream shops that were once in the neighborhood are now gone. Apparently these letter writers think that vacant lots full of broken bottles and hissing stray cats are better than businesses.

At least, that's what my letter would have said if I'd sent it a week ago. Then my sister came into town especially for First Friday; we got dolled up and decided that we looked at least as good as the other women cruising up and down the main drag. We sipped our wine and ogled the art and stepped daintily around cracks in the sidewalk, seeing and being seen. Ed walked a little behind us, and we didn't realize he'd stopped until we saw a light saber-waving doofus chasing us down. Oh yeah. The rest of the night two girls in cute summer dresses and chunky shoes, pretending to be sophisticated, couldn't get away from the Dungeons and Dragons escapee who "protected" them. Now I understand why people miss the original low-key art walk and hate the street vendors. Those street vendors have got to go.


Before two more girls' mojo is ruined, shut the whole thing down.

Remember, I don't have a SALARY

This whole free cat thing is overrated - between fixing up his leg, getting rid of the tapeworm, neutering, testing for all kinds of diseases, standard shots, a litter box, cat bed, toys, boarding while we were in Kansas, and now fungus Gigolo has probably cost us a thousand dollars. Oh yeah, you read that right. Both the "thousand dollars" and the "fungus."

Gigolo's fur had a couple of patches when we brought him in the house, and I thought it was stress from getting his cat butt kicked every night outdoors. But now he has toys and shots and a litter box and is still getting even more patchy . So the vet ran a test, and yep, Gigolo has a skin fungus. I had to pick up a prescription for myself and one for the cat at the pharmacy today...and insurance didn't cover the cat's.

I told Ed to get ready to hold him down tonight and I'll just hose them with Tinactin.