Ah, the famous "apologies for lack of updates post" finally strikes mah blog. I plead the extraordinary slowness of (a) life and (b) internet down in rural Texas.
La Mere and I made our way back to Austin early on Wednesday. We got up at o-dark-thirty so as to have time to stop in for Berdoll's pecans outside of town and to revisit the Tamale House. This time we actually tried the breakfast tacos, which are 85 cents and so full of greasy awesome that it's almost impossible to describe. The eggs are cooked in pork fat, in skillets that are seasoned with at least five years of the stuff, and the bacon is in thick-cut country-style bits; the tortillas are fresh and warm, and in general I would love to know why these things haven't taken over the country. The masses deserve breakfast tacos!
To make up for the lack of substance, I offer a photo of recent entertainment in Arizona, on what turned out to be a very bad day for the calves. Could've been worse, guys; at least Danny leaves your oysters alone. Can you find the editor, the public health advocate, the cabinetmaker, and the dentist in this picture?
Things I did for fun this weekend:
- Drove through Gates Pass, occasionally whooping to myself over the more dramatic dips and twists. Then I decided that it was so much fun that I did went back and did it again, with a break to watch the sunset and moonrise from Saguaro National Park. I also decided that the bicyclists who take the pass are freaky masochists. Nice legs though.
- Rode horseback through the Sonoran desert until a lot of my bits were sore and/or chafed. Which is absolutely not your fault, Snip, and thank you for handling those insane slopes without making me want to cry. Also thank you for not running yourself into a barrel cactus and dooming yourself to euthanasia because the hook-shaped spines would work their way inward and ruin your joints, a new and exciting thing our guide taught me to worry about.
- Got up before the sun to tack up and ride out to round up cattle and then help body-slam the calves and hold them down for vaccinations, ear tags, and the ever-popular branding. For interesting times, I cannot but recommend leaning your entire body weight on a highly agitated cow while someone wielding hot pieces of rebar tries to sear it and not you. Before I do that again, some serious weight training is in order. Likewise some serious weight gain, because inertia is your friend when you're tackling a panicked bovine.
- Remembered yet again that even inexpensive beer is nectar when you're hot and covered with dust.
Things I did not do this weekend:
- Lose any teeth to kicks from adrenaline-filled calves. Danny said that someone got whacked in the face last year and hasn't been back since. Wuss. But telling us that story ensured that we were all careful about leaning back whenever we let go of a calf.
- Find the missing clues for finding the Jesuit treasure that, according to legend, is buried not far from Peck Canyon. Personally, I think this sounds a little too much like the Lost Dutchman's Gold thing from the Superstition Mountains and that Arizonans have hit on a nifty way to get rid of irritating members of society. "There's gold in them thar hills. Follow these incredibly vague clues about lining up the Needle's Eye with the cross carved on the wall that we can't find, and don't come back. I mean, don't come back until you find it."
- Wind up kissing any of the following: the ground, ocotillo, cholla, mesquite (a glancing smooch from the saddle doesn't count, though my t-shirt begs to differ), prickly pear, or barrel cactus. Damn but Arizona is home to some pointy flora. As for the fauna, I was reminded of the confession in A Canticle for Liebowitz: "Bless me, Father, I ate a lizard."
- Eat prairie oysters, Montana tendergroins, Rocky Mountain oysters, cowboy caviar, or anything else made of calf testicles, despite assurances from one of the other guests that they are delicious as part of an asado. Since Danny doesn't castrate his calves, preferring to let them get big and ornery so he can sell them for rodeo work, we would've had to make a special trip. I cannot say that I am disappointed.
Plans for the next few months remain up in the air. I met with the financial planner, a very pleasant woman who failed to laugh out loud at the state of my records, and we're scheduled to get together to go over her recommendations when I get back from Arizona. It was a bit like going to confession: "Forgive me, advisor, for I have savings in a low-yield account and have not put enough thought into the profile of my retirement investments." But she didn't snicker at any of it (divil thank her, as my mother would say) and she said that she felt that it would be fairly straightforward, so I look forward to our next meeting.
In the days preceding our meeting, I was looking around online to see what the options for travel will be and what looks appealing. I've been fascinated by Mongolia for years, ever since finding out that you can ride from one side of the country to the other without encountering a fence, and more so lately, so for giggles I looked up Boojum Expeditions, an outfitter that caters to crazy-ass ferengi interested in wearing out their butts on tiny Mongolian ponies. But now I know that I shouldn't go until 2008, because if you're going to spend 23 hours on a Korean Air flight, there should be a total solar eclipse waiting at the end. And so there will be. I can't adequately convey how amazing I think that it would be to see an eclipse, period, and especially in an area as beautifully open as Mongolia. This may be a truly fiendish bit of planning on the part of the Beijing Olympics committee, scheduling their festivities AND a major astronomical event, but regardless of the merchandising possibilities (the Five Friendlies sacrificing one of their own to bring back the sun!), it sounds like barrels of fantastic.
In the meantime, the woman who invited me to Arizona for the weekend of playing ranch hand now informs me that the manager wants us there at 8 AM on Saturday and 6 AM on Sunday. This raised important questions about the coffee supplies in Nogales, lest the cattle will end up not just punched or poked but also beaten to a bloody pulp. I am mighty peevish without my caffeine fix.
