Exotica Friday : The Cure as envision by Ukes!

Sinks Canyon, WY

I totally want to go here.

This river disappears into a cavern and flows underground.
Nice.

lost in tlansration...

I'm on the phone with Live! Nood! Customers! now. I'm still not officially hired yet- still more hoops I've yet to jump through.

A lady called in Monday who didn't speak English. I needed her to hold while I dialed an interpreter for the line. I said to the lady "uno momento, s'il vous plait." Uh. Domo arigato, arrive-dorky!
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Um, if it's not about you, then why are you the one who has to git 'er done? If it's not about you, why do you have to have to be on the news or holding wank-fest press conferences on a nearly daily basis? If it's not about you, then why are you so dead-set that you are the one to get nationalized healthcare passed? Actually I think you want it to all be about you because it's your world. We're just living in it. You're so vain, I'll bet you think this blog is about you.

Things to do in Dallas when you're stuck in Dallas

I must apologize for procrastinating on this post. Last week in comments, DW mentioned he'd be in Dallas over the weekend and did I have any suggestions. Well, actually, yes, and not all of them are ghastly expensive.

First and foremost, if you're an outdoor hunting/shooting type, you really really must visit Ray's Sporting Goods at the corner of Sylvan and Singleton due west of downtown. Ray's is non-pareil among sports shops and is run by the daughter of the couple who opened the store more than 60 years ago. I lurveses it, Precious, and I know you will too.

My favorite shooting range in Dallas is private, the Dallas Pistol Club, but if you have the right kind of friends in Dallas, one of them may be a member. Most of my visits there, I went alone and was often the only one in the facility. Open 365 days a year from sunup to sundown, it's a great place to shoot. Also, if you're there on a match weekend, you don't have to be a member to participate. Just show up at the appointed hour and pay your entry fee. Good folks run this place, some I'm honored to call friends. DPC is one of the few things I think wistfully of when I think of Dallas.

If you're short on time, near downtown at lunch time and need some down-home cooking, Mama's Daughters' Diner is just past where Industrial Blvd turns into Irving Blvd to the west. If you like liver, get the chicken fried chicken livers with the white gravy. You'll thank me. And tell Barbara I said Hi and I miss her.

My favorite Tex-Mex in Dallas is Matt's Rancho Martinez next to the beautiful art deco Lakewood theatre. Their chile relleno is toe-curling, truly. Don't bother with the Cedar Hill location -- their compact fluourescent lighting sets the most sickly, unappetizing mood I've ever seen in a restaurant. The Lakewood location has loads more atomosphere, anyhoo.

If you have kids on your shopping list, go to Froggie's Five and Dime on Knox Avenue. They have great stuff, a huge selection of Pez dispensers, and lots of retro toys that will thrill your sprogs. Or your inner sprog. Bonus points for their tiny tots section of clothing and toys, and major bonus points for being the go-to place in Dallas for spark-throwing ray guns in clear blue plastic. There used to be a glorious toy/gizmo store in Northpark called Modern Toys with lots of groovy stuff from Japan, but they closed, alas. Then there was Right Brain/Left Brain, and they, too, went the way of the Dodo bird. Froggie's is the last good toy store I know of. Good stuff. More bonus points for being the go-to place for Elvis glasses.

For grown-up lady shopping, skip the malls and go to Nordstrom Rack at the southwest corner of Preston and Park in Plano. From the Dallas North Tollway, exit Park and go right on Preston, and it'll be behind Starbucks on the right. Fabulous, high-end retail garments at mark-down (often better than WalMart) prices. Srsly.

For bath stuff, go to Lush at Northpark. Park near the northeast entrance, go in the long galleria and it's on the ground floor to the right. There's also a decent movie theatre in this mall, but they don't call them mauls for nothing. Go to Lush, get in and get out. That's my advice.

For a quiet, cozy and rather fancy dinner, go to The Grape. Not cheap, but also not frighteningly expensive. Good food.

For a feast of more Bacchanalian proportions, go to my favorite churrascaria, Texas de Brazil.

For good Indian food buffet (during the day) go to Pasand at the Southeast corner of Coit and Campbell in Plano.

When House of Blues has a band you want to see, go there. It's a great venue with fabulous seats and good acoustics. Their food's not bad, either.

New Amsterdam Coffee Haus is a great place to have good imported beers and ales. at the corner of Parry and Exposition by Fair Park, it's a very cool hangout, actually. Love the huge collection of wrought-iron and colored glass Spanish colonial light fixtures, too.

Lee Harveys' is another great neighborhood dive bar, and it used to be my local hangout place. Before LH, it was Moose's Baby. I'd walk in with a friend, and we'd quadruple the number of teeth amongst all the patrons. The dental count's gone way up these days, but it's still the trashy kitsch scene you'd know and love if you had the sense to hang out with roller derby chicks.

Drinks on the balcony at Belmont Hotel's bar is a marvelous experience. Their Belmont Diner is marvelous, too. Their macaroni & cheese is an entire entree its own self for very good reason. You can also stay in a room there with a big fabulous bathtub, but they ain't cheap...

Dallas Museum of Art is quite nice, but you can walk around the sculpture garden around the base of the Trammel Crow building and view scads of TC's impressive sculpture collection for free.

Gosh, this list is longer than I expected it would be. To be continued, perhaps...

Sunday driver, yeah!

I snapped a few pictures of an old steel [thanks, Jon!] bridge I saw out on a Sunday drive off the beaten path recently. This bridge is barricaded and no longer in use. I think it's charming, though. This was just a road bridge and not for rail. Bridges are much less interesting these days, don't you think?

Sunday, Puppy Sunday - Yard dogs

Saturday I went to Dallas to see Mom and Pop, so teh puppehs are in the capable hands of dear ones back in Elsewhere. I miss their happy furry faces. It's a terrible thing to be away from one's dogs, however briefly. They always bring me back to earth and make me see what's really important. Plus I do love them so very dearly.

I arrived in Dallas midday Saturday and went to Nordstrom Rack with Mom and Niece and Nephew. There's been a staggering attrition rate on my (prescription, yet!) sunglasses lately, so I looked at the glasses at NR, but, alas, all the ones I liked were 80-ish dollars, marked down from 300-ish[Dior & Dolce&Gabbana], generally. If these will be chewed up, I vowed, I'd not spend so much. My prescription is very mild, so I don't really have to have them unless I want things to be very sharp when watching a movie or somesuch. I needed some clothes because most of my stuff is getting pretty baggy, lately. I found a gorgeous leopard print dress [rowr!] and decided to splurge. Then in line for the register, Mom said she wanted to buy my stuff for me, and the dress could be early birthday prezzie. Wow. Thanks, Mom! Serious prowling can not be long in coming...

Later I went to Ross and found a cute pair of $5.99 glasses. Just watch- the pups will leave those alone forever.

Also at Ross, I tried on an armful of clothes, and was faced with the freakish dilemma of everything fitting quite nicely and having to divvy the haul into will/won't buy piles. It was painful, truly. I put 5 garments back and bought 5, so split the diff, or whatevs. Anyway, I'm all set. 3 skirts for work and 2 pair of jeans.

Thinking my dear friend Lin would be supportive and happy for me, I called her up, gushing about my new jeans. (I know: thrills, right?) She said "you're the only woman I've ever heard so excited to get into her own pants."

Knew I could count on you, smarty-britches! *snerk*

I can't believe they broadcast this...

Tasty.

Missouri truck dealer is giving away an AK-47 with every truck sold.

Log Cabin Envy: I can haz it.

I stopped to gas up my wee chariot Thursday afternoon and saw this lovely congregation of lumber parked nearby. I'm having log cabin envy, now. I'm just imagining those big posts being the pillars at the front of a wide porch lined with rocking chairs and sleeping hounds. Lazy afternoons would be spent there shelling peas, reading and nursing at mint juleps. Or drinking coffee and cleaning guns. *insert Beavis-style snerkery here*

I really love lodge style, but my decorating sensibility is more what I call neo-trashical. I've picked up many a gem on roadsides far and wide. When I stopped driving pickup trucks, that was a teeny first-step toward recovery from a relentless acquisitive drive to "salvage" other peoples' castoff "treasures." *aherm* Still, all my fabulous crap would look great in one of these houses.

Actually, I think the logo on the back of the truck window was for Fuller. I could be mistaken. Speaking of things that make me drool, I think this house pretty much looks perfect with its wrap-around porch. *le sigh*

Do you love me, Mary Jane?

I love you.

*le sigh*

Monsieur Louboutin breaks my heart yet again.

Cruel man.

I hope he never stops.

Fetch me my drool cup, Jeeves.

While I'm on this soapbox...

Have you heard of CMS Mandate S111?

If you and/or your spouse is over 45, by 2011, your employer/insurance company/healthcare providers are all required to have your social security numbers on file, or face a fine of $1000 per non-compliant member/patient per day. If you are a person with no health insurance policy and always pay cash at your healthcare providers' offices, you still will be required to proffer your SSN.

Who must report: "an applicable plan." "…[T]he term 'applicable plan' means the
following laws, plans, or other arrangements, including the fiduciary or administrator for such law, plan or arrangement: (i) Liability insurance (including self-insurance). (ii) No fault insurance. (iii) Workers' compensation laws or plans."

[bold added by me]

Seems to me that at its inception, the Social Security Number was meant to be used for no purpose other than as an identification and tax number, yeah? I thought it was supposed to be illegal to compel people to provide that number for any purpose other than identification and tax purposes.

I'd love to blame the current White House occupant for this, but responsibility falls on the shoulders of the asshats in the House and Senate, for this was made law in 2007. Why any of those buffoons are still in office is a marvel, indeed.

*shrug*

How's universal healthcare coverage working out for Massachusetts?

Not well, according to the Chicago Tribune, and Democrats in DC want to do for us what Masshats did for themselves in 2006:

For inspiration, the Democrats borrowed heavily from Massachusetts' pioneering 2006 law, which did much the same thing: It mandated that everyone be covered, imposed fines on those who refused to buy insurance and offered subsidies for those who couldn't afford it.

Really? Really? Sheesh.

The article continues:

Health-care costs are so out of control in the Bay State that the governor just cut coverage for some 30,000 legal immigrants to close a growing deficit. That should save the state about $130 million. The state is also banking $63 million by no longer automatically enrolling low-income residents in health coverage if they fail to do so themselves. A hospital that serves thousands of poor residents sued the state last week, charging that the 2006 law forces the hospital to cover too much of the expense of caring for the poor. The hospital, Boston Medical Center, said it faced a $38 million deficit in this fiscal year and will lose more than $100 million next year because the state has lowered Medicaid reimbursement rates and changed other rules.

If a small, wealthy state like Massachusetts can't swing the universal healthcare thing, then how are we to believe anyone in D.C. can do even a passable job at healthcare coverage for the entire country? Shudder to think...

Clearing the decks...

I used to post photos of Dallas over at Dallas Diorama quite regularly, even daily at some points. I'm clearing old Dallas photos from my cell phone. Here's one of the Morton H Meyerson Symphony hall. It's a brilliant place to hear music, and it's a spectacular place to perform. The structure was designed by I.M. Pei and the veneers on the walls are acoustically spectacular.

I must say that no luminary I saw perform there compares to the breathtaking scattering of diamonds I saw swagged across the sky out here on my walk late Monday night. As I think of the sights and sounds of Dallas, I can't think of a single one which excels what I experience on a regular basis out here.

Work is going quite well, and I find myself grateful to be where I am. I'm fortunate to work with an immediate group of people I respect and admire, so that's a great thing. I admit to hitting the snooze button more than I should, perhaps, but I don't hate getting up to go to work, so that's a nice thing, too.
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Last weekend I was privileged to meet one John R. Shirley. John fairly crackles with electricity and-- like so many folks I've met through the shooty-blog circuit-- he's as witty and good-natured as the day is long, but I'd never want to piss him off. Hanging out with Holly, JPG, Matt G, LawDog and John was an absolute hoot*. I'm hopeful we can repeat the experience again soon and next time with shooty goodness.
*yes, envy me.

Reset button in 3 minutes and 34 seconds

I have decided Monday will not be a crappy day. :) I hope your Monday is not crappy, either.

Sunday, Puppy Sunday: Treedog

I don't know why, but Praline thinks something of hers is in this tree. I hope it's not another soon-to-be-dead baby bird. Yuck.