Is this typical?

Now that last week is over maybe some normalcy can return. Last week was weird. The kids at school were acting weird. I don't know if it was due to the fact that we were having Red Ribbon Week and that was out of the norm for them (0r that Halloween was on it's way.) Each day we had a theme to dress up or change our customary dress. Like Hero Day... we dress up as our Hero, one year I dressed as Jody. He's my hero. I wore one of his blue work shirts, jeans, boots and a tool belt with tools in it. I liked having that tool belt, it came in handy.

Then we have hat day where we can wear a funny hat to school. I only wear a hat when I have to to protect my easily sunburn-able face. Hats make my head itch.

The kids in Mrs Vazquez's class made their hats, from paper. I don't know if this was something Mrs. Christancho thought up (she was a teacher, and School Administrator in Mexico before coming to our school where she's now a Teaching Assistant) but don't you like her hat. There were some pretty nice looking sombreros and cowboy hats in this class, and one impressive pirate hat. Not all the kids had them on when I took this picture at lunch, but they gladly modeled them when they photographer from the newspaper showed up. They will be in this weeks edition. Our luck it will be raining again and all the papers will be soaked by the time their parents get to them.

Then we had crazy sock day and the Fall Festival on Thursday evening, with the highlight of that being the volunteers set off the smoke alarms and the Fire Department had to come to turn off the alarms after Kelly, Lori and I evacuated everyone from the building. Thankfully nothing that spectacular that I can think of happened Friday. All this and our Principal and Asst. Principal were in Atlanta for a conference. We just have to deal with all the Halloween sugar highs next week.


Yesterday I was on my way back from Sam's and took this picture of a house just off one of the main streets in town. It should be under the caption of "you know you're a redneck when....."

"you buy ALL the blow up animation Big Lots has, with no regards to your next electric bill"

Back on the home front, Jody has decided that it gets too cool in the evenings to go to the Square. With the time change (I think that could be a factor in the past week weirdness too) and it getting dark around 6:30ish we won't be going to the Square until next Spring. So we'll just invite people over to the house. He promised me I wouldn't have to go all out cooking and stuff. And really I didn't... I just whipped up a batch of cheese dip, some lil' smokies in BBQ sauce and I already had some Brownie Bites and Peanutbutter candy made. "Besides if that wasn't enough they could just eat the Trick or Treat candy" said Jody as he dumped 12 pounds of chocolate candy in the empty cardboard tray from a case of Dr. Peppers. That was his idea of a festive container for the Treaters. He would fit right in down on the corner with the blow-ups.

Mark, Chris and Jerry showed up kind of early, earlier than the Trick or Treaters. The whole idea of coming over earlier was so that they wouldn't be hanging out here at our house like they do down on the Square until 3 in the morning.

Mike, Dawn and the kids came down a little later. They brought the younger two to show them what they have recently been going to see on the weekends when they leave them home alone and drive off to some remote tiny town in East Texas. The oldest had come to the Square with them before he left for college in the fall.

The youngest, Travis walked in and immediately started head bobbing to the music. It wasn't long until Mark had Travis sit down with a mandolin and taught him to chop to the beat. This was a little unnerving to Dawn in the beginning, but Travis had it down by the 5th or 6th tune and did quiet well.

The kids decided it was time to gear up to go plunder the neighborhood and like good mothers we took pictures of them as they went out the door. Tori is dressed as a boy and Travis was some kind of grim reaper with facial piercings. Tori even had her boxer shorts showing out the back of her 4 sizes too big pants she was wearing. She was still too cute to pull it off.

Jody was glad that the kids came over, he's probably correct when he says that after this generation of pickers is gone there will be no more of the picking at the Square or in someone's living room. It's kind of a lost art. Kids just want to be discovered and get wealthy if they think (or their parents think) that they have the least little bit of talent. And at the same time there are people out there just looking for a kid with talent to exploit.

The beauty of Bluegrass is it's a group effort.... if you have an ego you need to stifle it. It takes more than just one person to make the music and each person is important as the next. The main thing with the people we know who play Bluegrass is they do it for the love of doing it... nothing else. They don't expect to get rich from it and they are not looking to be discovered. Well at least some of them aren't. And most are very tolerant of kids discovering Bluegrass and wanting to learn.

Phillip and June showed up along with a few more Trick or Treaters. This was going to be hard to do.... trying to hear the kiddies knocking on the door with all that music going on. I wish I'd thought of going outside to see how loud it was...
oh well, the cops didn't show up.

Travis and Tori came back after the pillage and Tori even sang a song. It wasn't a Bluegrass song, it was a Taylor Swift song that I pulled up on Chordie. Mark, Phillip and Chris had it down in a few minutes and Tori showed to have a beautiful voice. She stayed until she was almost frozen (the players get pretty hot so we keep the air down) and Travis hung on and snoozed in a chair and then on the couch until well after 1 or 2... I don't know what time it was because everyone kept saying "it's actually only..... or really it's.... "

So much for getting started early so they could head home early... After we said goodbye to Mark and walked back in the house it was ACTUALLY 4 in the morning!!!! About the time I got into bed my alarm that was set for 4:30 went off. Oh well, we've got all week to rest up for next weekend. Dawn and Mike want to have everyone down to their house.

Oh my gosh... I just saw some Whooping Cranes fly over.... Fall is officially here! Have a good week!

A Real Texas Weekend

We had a great weekend. The weather turned out so nice Friday afternoon. We went to Mike and Dawn's to play Sequence that evening. We beat them.... Dawn and I just slaughtered them. The guys just don't have the psychic abilities that we have. Dawn and I are still working on our Bartender's License. We won't be getting it any time soon. It takes us about 15 minutes to make a Mojito, but we've got the taste down. They were excellent!

Then Saturday turned out to be even prettier than Friday, Jody and I went on a little road trip. We not only left the zip code, we went 2 counties away. Totally unheard of for Jody.

Around 2:00 we headed to Cumby, Texas. We'd been invited out to Freddie's house for Wash Pot Stew. The lakes were really full from all the rain earlier this month and everything was still really green. We're not having much Fall color yet, we really haven't gotten much cooler than the mid 50's so far. But all the rain will sure help the leaves hang on until they do turn all the colors of Autumn.
Cumby is east of Dallas just off I-30. Just a blinker of a town.Freddie lives in this house that was built in 1900. I think it may have been his Grandparents. His parents lived in it after them and now he lives there. It's really cool with 12 foot ceilings, transom windows over every doorway, and the strangest floor plan. They had to add the bathroom on to it, just off the back porch. It's a tired little house and Freddie is renovating it as he can. When you work as an auto mechanic in a town of 200 people it's real easy to work yourself right out of a job.When we got there Freddie was cooking over an open fire just off his driveway in the front yard. I could smell the stew the minute I stepped out of the truck. The pot was about to run over and he was trying to cook it down a bit to add a few more ingredients. That's Jody there watching Freddie do his thing. Freddie's had 4 roasts, 4 sirloin steaks, 20 pounds of potatoes, a huge can of green beans (restaurant size), a huge can of corn, 3 big bags of carrots and some tomato juice in this stew. I only know this because I checked out the trash can. How else are you going to know how to make his stew when he tells you it's a secret recipe?

Freddie asked me do a taste test to see what I thought it needed, and I shared with a couple of older men who were sitting around the fire, one who didn't want to ruin his chaw of tobacco. They were all named Bill... easy enough to remember. The stew really didn't need anything more. But Freddie added some salt and pepper and one small can of Rotel there at the end. I didn't think I'd make it to 4:30 when everyone was supposed to be there to eat. Jody and I had brought 3 batches of cornbread muffins, a huge batch of Brownie Bites and some Black Bottom cupcakes. Who wants to have to scrounge up a knife or a cake server when you are out on the lawn? Not me! I like to have everything where you can eat it right out of your hand.
Soon people started showing up and the instruments came out. Freddie is Mark's cousin... Mark from down on the Square in Garland. You remember....
Then Phillip showed up with his Bass and Chris with another guitar. That's Mark with the Mandolin and Chaw-o-tobacco Bill standing in the back ground.

Here's Dawn and Jody in the background. By the time Dawn and Mike got there we'd, more like me... had already eaten. Jody didn't eat any stew, he had a Sub Sandwich on the way over. He doesn't go for stew that includes anything orange, green, yellow or red. He really doesn't know what he missed. That was the best stew I've EVER eaten. The beef was just shredded and melt in your mouth tender. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.
More and more people kept coming. At one point Dawn asked me how many people lived in Cumby. And I told her "about this many. I think this is all of them!" The Mayor and his family were there. That's Freddie's son there on the left, he was down on Fall Break from where he lives in Oklahoma. See that little girl, she's the Mayor's Granddaughter and she's playing the rocks. She was quiet good too. Kept perfect time with the music. And that's Terry there on the right, Mark and Freddie's cousin, Susan's husband. That's Susan, Terry's wife having me smell her beverage. Why would she want me to smell her vodka? Didn't smell like anything.Finally Freddie got to play and sing with the rest of the guys and his sister Judy (on the right) and another friend of the family Sarah (standing behind him.) I guess everyone got their fill of the stew and he didn't have to serve anymore. But not before the girls down at the corner store called and asked him to bring them some stew... they couldn't get off work and couldn't close the store. Then Judy and Sarah wanted me to sing with them, so what else was I supposed to do? I sang a few songs with them. Mike and Dawn standing by the fire....
Jody and I standing by the fire. It was so dark out there that you just had to kind of point and shoot with your camera and hope for the best. I think there may only be 3 street lights in Cumby besides the train crossing lights, and those have only been in place for a year and only because of a state law making them mandatory. They have really nice stars and we could stand in the middle of the street and see the milkyway. Who needs a street light?

About this time was when Judy came to drag me into the house to dance with the girls. Dancing seems to be a popular past-time with all the ladies. I guess when the guys are all outside playing guitars and mandolins and cooking with fire there's nothing better to do than dance in the house.

Later after most of the people had gone home with their bellies full, and Freddie had fed a homeless man who wandered up, the family members all moved into the house because it got a bit too cold outside. Freddie dipped up more stew to bring in the house and everyone had another bowl, it was time for a late evening dinner, 6 hours had past. At this time the stew had taken on a smoky flavor. It was even better!

We've decided Freddie should have a throw down against Bobby Flay, because Freddie Cooks with Fire in the Frontchard (that's going to be the name of his show on Food Network).... real good.

It's going to be hard to top that weekend.