That time I was carded for squash...

Two mini-dramas of the day:

1) Starbucks for morning coffee, 8:53am. Lady in front of me is ordering a large caramel frappuccino with extra caramel and extra whipped cream. The barista takes a venti 24oz cup and starts marking it with the order. The customer exclaims, "Did you not hear me? I said a LARGE. I want THIS SIZE!" and points to the new trenta 31oz cup. "Sorry Ma'am. We can only serve iced coffee and iced tea in that size, Corporate's orders." Commence five solid minutes of arguing back and forth and accusations of atrocious customer service, concluding with the customer grabbing the measly 24oz of sugary yum-yums and storming out of the store in a huff.

2) Target for a box of Pacific Natural Butternut Squash Soup, 5:35pm. Cashier scans the soup and demands to see my ID. I ask why; he says I can't buy "that stuff" without being 21. I tell him that I'm not showing my ID. It's soup. He says that a lot of wine looks just like what I'm buying. That's fine, but I'm not buying boxed wine. I'm buying soup! He will not relent. Cashier calls the manager to the register. The manager confirms that I do not need to show ID to buy butternut squash soup. Thank you.

Naive Son & Midnight in the Garden of Goo and Evil (#bookswithalettermissing)

(More #bookswithalettermissing, my favorite Twitter hashtag in ages).

Truly, though, the Sons were naïvely optimistic this year when it came to garden tomatoes. We planted our tomatoes in early April, thinking that by the time July rolled around we'd see something like this:

RESULTS NOT TYPICAL

Instead, Texas decided to have its hottest summer in 30 years (and possibly ever, if we keep up the 100+ degree days for another week). At first we were amused by the early high temperatures, thinking that the weather would settle down and only the first round of tomatoes would be affected:

Haha, the heat rotted out one of the tomatoes to look like a mouth! How cute!

Soon, though, we realized that we were not going to enjoy limitless tomato-basil salads, bloody marys, and homemade pasta sauce. In the course of about three weeks one of our crops went from this:

Look how healthy! We're going to have so many tomatoes we'll have to give them away!! :D

 To this:

Oh.

So, 2011 in Dallas, Texas. Not the best year for tomato gardens. I will say, though, that Roland and his green thumb managed to save a healthy dozen or so of the tomatoes before they dried up, and his basil is thriving like a desert plant. And he cultivated a bunch of cucumbers and this beautiful eggplant that was delicious with olive oil & salt:

Survivor: Garden Edition

A Grisly (and Grizzly) Crime

In our mostly fruitless searches for quality furniture over the past year, we've come across some pretty strange pieces in some pretty strange places. Most horrifying, surely, is this ottoman we found that was clearly made from dismembered teddy bear arms. How barBEARic!

Trashy Update:

The box spring was removed from our front curb...and not by the bulk-trash truck! We think our neighbor across the street took it, because he was outside when we carried it to the curb and remarked, "Why, HELLO there." At the time we thought he was addressing us, but it looks like his greetings were actually intended for the box spring he was planning to swipe. Enjoy it, neighbor!

Bulk Trash

Our neighbor decided to cut down a small forest. Why? We do not know.

On our evening jaunt around the neighborhood, Roland and I happened upon a rare treat: looking through our neighbor's garbage. Okay, not their actual garbage full of banana peels and coffee grounds -- just the bulk trash they decided to put out on the curb for pick-up. Bulk trash pick-up is the last week of every month here, and there are very specific guidelines for what does and what does NOT qualify for pick-up:

OK: large limbs, shrubbery, bagged leaves (in sealed bags with a maximum 50 gallon capacity), furniture, appliances, mattresses and box springs

NOT OK: bagged grass clippings, new construction or remodeling materials such as lumber or roofing materials, bricks, concrete, rocks, dirt, paint, oil and hazardous containers

Do not ask me why a bag of leaves is acceptable but leaving a a bag of grass clippings outside for pick-up can carry a hefty fine of up to $200. Are they really opening the bags to check and make sure there's no grass in there?

Also, many people seem to see bulk-trash pick-up as an excuse to throw away regular sized items that could easily fit in their 90-gallon standard issue trash cans/recycle bins (weekly trash collection occurs in the alleys every Tuesday). Is this allowed? The rules don't explicitly prohibit it, but I'm sure it's annoying for the bulk trash staff, who are already probably having to deal with bags of prohibited grass clippings.

Then there are people like our neighbor, who apparently cut down half the limbs on his oak trees just to celebrate bulk trash pick-up day (picture above). 

Luckily, all this trash reminded us that we had our first OK contribution to bulk pick-up, the box spring from our old bed set-up that we unsuccessfully tried to donate for several months. Tip: The Dallas Salvation Army will NOT take queen & king sized box springs without an accompanying mattress. After convincing Roland that he did not need to do any "unwelding" to the springs to break it down, we carried it out to curb where it will hopefully be the topic of someone else's blog post.

Roland's Birthday Weekend, in iPhone Pictures

1. Roland's Birthday Popover - eggs, milk, flour - and a little rum (berries and sugar on top)
2. Birthday Eve lunch at R+D Kitchen
3. Looking suave with leftovers in the ritzy Highland Park area of Dallas

4. Sprinkles Cupcakes for a birthday treat
5. Coconut and key lime cupcakes, before they started melting in the 100 degree heat.
6. "The first duty of a cupcake is to be lemon-flavored." Key lime passed the test as well.

7. At Roland's parents for Sunday dinner/family birthday celebration
8. A full dozen beautiful eggs from Roland's sister. Fresh from her backyard chickens!
9. Traditional chocolate birthday cake made by R's dad. There has been some version of this cake (with the same sugar letters) every year.


Happy Birthday, Husby!

Dedicated to the neighborhood stray cat, who is mad at us

We may not have any pets in the Son family, but that's not to say we don't love animals.

Exhibit A: We like to watch the occasional rousing match between swine & cephalopod.

Exhibit B: We have great respect for exotic animals, even when they're taxidermied camels from the 1970's with creepy smiles for sale in an antique store.

 Exhibit C: And who wouldn't love a taxidermied otter?