Tag: Food

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Dispatches From The Cactus Patch Feb. 28th, 2024


One of the by-products of becoming a senior citizen is the onset of boredom. I can only watch so much Wheel of Fortune, although Momo would sit for days watching a pre-recorded loop of the same episodes and keep guessing all the puzzles, waiting for old Pat to send her a check or a vacation voucher to Ukraine. I want to slit a vein.

The Beatnik thing didn’t work out; I was too old, forgot all the best verbiage, and couldn’t stand to wear turtleneck sweaters anymore. Revisiting “On The Road” stirred an interest, but then I took a nap and forgot about it. When I have a good idea, it’s best to avoid daytime naps; they tend to act as a mental reset button for us folks.

Momo suggests I try my hand as a social influencer on TikTok or YouTube. She might be onto something. I have an abundance of white hair, much like those TV preachers from the 1980s when a person could lay their hands on top of their Motorola console color unit and be healed, but only after you gave the call-in number person your credit card number: no donation, no cure. I have the schtick and the suaveness to pull it off. I imagine it would be more like a Brother Dave Gardner comedy album. Speaking of, Brother Dave was my idol back in the late 50s and early 60s. But then, the portable record player broke. My comedy stint was over before it started. But I have the hair: you be the judge and let me know; my phone number is BR-549. A coinsedense how much I resemble Brother Dave.

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Strange Things Happening At The Whataburger..A Texas Tale


Whataburger draws old folks like a moth to a porch light. Besides having the best burgers in God’s universe, the breakfast are scrumptious and affordable, which is the big draw for us Texans. I stopped by the old orange and white building a few days back for lunch and ran into old pal Mooch and, of course, his constant companion, Giblet the Chihuahua.

I believe Giblet to be the most spoiled and entitled dog on record. He spends most of his time in the converted baby chest carrier strapped to Mooch; the only time the dog sets foot on the globe is to potty, and the rest of the time, Mooch fusses over him like he’s little king Tutukamen.

I qued in line behind Mooch. He tells me Gib has been to doggo school and learned a new language that allows him to communicate with humans. Today is the first dry run of Giblet’s communication skills.

Mooch walks up to the counter and makes his order: a number 1, all the way, extra pickles, jalapenos, no onions, fries, and a Dr Pepper, the old Texas standby. The counter lady, past middle-aged, has that “don’t give me any crap” aura about her.

“Will the pup be having lunch today?” she asked, with a slight touch of sarcasm in her three-pack-a-day croak.

” Mooch asks Giblet what he’ll be ordering. The tiny mensa dog barks eight times. The counter lady seems to understand. ” That’ll be a number eight, right?” Giblet barks once for yes.

She asks, ” will that be the meal with fries and a drink?” Gib barks once. ” Do you want it all the way?” Giblet growls. Mooch asks him, ” you want onions and pickles there Gib?” The dog snarles and bares his teeth. The lady says, ” No onions or pickles. You want a drink with that little doggy?” Giblet barks once for a yes. ” He likes Dr Pepper, mam, in a styrofoam bowl if you please.” says Mooch. The nice lady repeats the order and asks about payment. Giblet sticks his snout into the carrier and extracts a tiny ATM card, holding it in what’s left of his teeth; the lady takes the card, swipes it, adds a tip, and sticks it back in Giblet’s mouth.

“Never seen a dog with its own ATM card before; now I know the world has gone street-rat crazy.” An adoring crowd surrounds Mooch and Giblet, taking selfies with Giblet on their iPhones.

I’m standing in line, forgotten, so I exit and head next door to Wendy’s for a number 3, no onions, extra mustard, with a chocolate shake.

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Observations From The Cactus Patch On A Sunny Afternoon


Is That A Pruner In Your Pocket, Or Are You Happy To See Me?

The winter cutback in the Cactus Patch has begun. I sharpened my loppers, oiled my pruners, drank some prune juice, purchased a pair of garden gloves that have built-in copper magnets to relieve arthritis pains, found my knee pads, washed my garden apron, found my straw hat, which had small bites around the brim: likely hungry mice in my shed/art studio, which explains the holes in my tubes of paint, dusted off my old pair of Sketchers from the rack on the patio and discovered that during the winter that a cat peed in them, went to Walmart to buy a wheelbarrow I saw on Sunday for $53.99 to discover the price had jumped to $59.99: the sales associate said the increase was due to trucking cost even though the wheelbarrows didn’t move, so I am now forced to ferret out the best price from Home Depot, Lowes or Tractor Supply, need more Sunflower seed and Peanuts for my Avian friends because the Crows have figured a way to get three nuts in their beak instead of the usual one, and the Bluejays have joined forces with them to clean out the feeder in thirty seconds, saw a snake, was almost stung by a Wasp, fought off a Wasp that disguises itself as a Honey Bee, ate some Honey Graham Crackers and Peanut Butter, cracked my shin bone on a large rock, listened to some rock music on my Bluetooth speaker, spoke to my neighbor next door, oiled the hinges on my back door, bumped my head on my pickup truck door, put gas in my pickup which cost $2.89 per gallon: and no kiss before pumping, filled my pump sprayer with weed destroyer from Walmart then the pump thing froze up and the sprayer wand malfunctioned blowing hazardous weed killer on my clothes and skin, found my safety glasses and both screws fell out, got screwed at Walmart the third time this week, felt weak and sat down for a while which sedgwayed into a two hour nap in which I dreamed I had passed away without turning the hose bib off, sprayed some OFF bugjuice on my arms resulting in a nasty rash with large fluid filled pimples, watched a video on my phone of Dr. Pimple Popper removing a humongous cyst from the back of Quasi-Moto looking man, drank some Power Aid, powered off my iPhone because the telemarketers from India are burning up my battery telling me I am in pain and they can help me, no one can help me, finally the day ended and Ima worn out. Tomorrow will be a better day.

Reflections In A Cold Margarita…

Sitting on my patio as the afternoon turns to dusk, sipping my Metamucil Margarita with a prune on the glass rim, a thought finds its way into my jumbled head, ” I am in the twilight of my life,” and that might explain why I keep humming Simon and Garfunkle songs all the time. Sounds of silence, bridges over troubled waters, look around leaves are brown, there’s a patch of snow on the ground, and all that. Did Paul Simon know that 60 years later, his tunes would be embraced by old folks? Songs that were socially hip and loved by youngsters in the sixties are now the soundtrack for old folks. I’m bummed.

My Close-Knit Family

Writing the family history and have been for a while now. I use Family Search, a Morman outfit, and Ancestry, as well as some tidbits from my cousin, Sissy, and my sister because the rest of the family is kaput, checked out. I discovered that I am related to George Washington; isn’t everyone? Also to Bob Dylan, Joan Beaz, Donovan, The Kingston Trio, Sponge Bob, Scooby Do, Scooby Don’t, Carl Perkins, Elvis, Tiny Tim, Bob Cratchet, Bob Barker, Vanna White, Pat Sejack, Perry White, Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, Clark Kent, Captain Kangaroo, Howdy Doody, Buckwheat, Spanky, Alfalfa and Darla, Commanche Chief Quanah Parker and the outlaw Belle Star, as well as Bass Reeves, Steve Reeves, and Brother Dave Gardner, which I am excited about because I dug his comedy back when we listened to him on Vinyle records.

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Warnings From The Cactus Patch


Don’t Do It..Don’t Press That Cute Little Button With Your Mouse!”

Who wouldn’t want to see what an AI generated Barbie Doll for each state would look like..right? Well, I was on MSN, the evil 1984 computer software owned by “Steve Jobs rip-off-boy and Mail Order Doctor, Bill Gates, and the article was there with a cute picture of a Barbie doll. She was wearing a woodchopper shirt, staring all dead-eyed with that perky little nose and luxurious plastic hair, so I clicked the read. First Barbie for the state of Alabama popped up, a chirpy little southern belle, very racist in her frilly debutant outfit, holding a mint julep; I kept looking for “the help” doll that came with her. Cute, I wouldn’t buy it for my granddaughter, who never liked Barbie anyway; she was into the American Girl high-dollar dolls. Then I hit the continue button, “Bammo…. call 800 Microsoft, and all these scanning windows come up on my screen, ” your PC is infected with a Virus of lethal origin, your information will be lost in space and your laptop will melt into a puddle of plastic unless you call this number.” Lucky for me, I have a great anti-virus called Webroot, and that caught the little basement-dwelling culprits, likely some Chinese dudes living in Shang-Hi or Bali Hi, with their mothers serving them Fung Chow tea and eating fried bats with Raman noodles all day. This is the tech-savvy security checks that MSN gives its users. I’d be safer using Alta-Vista on a dial-up modem.

Her New Album Is Coming…

The Swift One, The Anoited Ambushiness Blond, The Long-Legged Succubus, so many names, so many men to write songs about. Now, poor Neanderthal raw meat-eating Kelce is her focus. His attack on his coach told Tay-Tay that she probably shouldn’t marry this Transformer, who has no control over his testosterone-fueled madness. So, in a secret recording studio, somewhere in deep Europe, the album has begun in secret. This signals the end of her partnership with the NFL unless she can steal Patrick Mahomes from Elle May. I know my post a few days ago said no more Taylor stuff, but this is just too good to pass up. Gimme a hall pass on this one.

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New York Gives All The Key’s To The City To Thankful Zombies


Jaques Coustou holds Mayor Adams’s Voodoo Doll

Not that Momo and I plan to visit New York in our lifetime, which has shortened considerably in the last three years due to calculated circumstances. Today, I read in the New York Press that Mayor Adams is begging fellow New Yorkers to house migrants/invaders in their private residences. What..are all the four and five-star hotels full? It’s reported by untrusted and misinformed sources that the hordes of illegal river rafters have trashed most of the hotels in New York to the point that they will need total reconstruction if the verminatosious are ever evicted.

One well-meaning moronic family in Long Island, feeling all warm and fuzzy after a Saturday morning trip to Starbucks and Barnes and Noble Bookstore, offered two rooms of their luxurious home as a safe haven for a poor migrant family. They called the appropriate agency, and within an hour, a family of four from Haiti was knocking at their door, ready to move into their new “forever home.” The Haitian family needed a few extra rooms for their goats and chickens, which would be used in voodoo ceremonies, and one of their children, a certified living dead Zombie, ate the family’s pet cat, Doonsbury Jr. After a week of torment, finding voodoo dolls in their likeness all over the house, and fearing for their lives, B.D. and Joanie Caucus and their two children, Zonker and Lacy fled in the dead of night from their 2.5 Million Dollar abode and are now staying at the Fredrick Mercury homeless shelter in Queens. The Haitian family has had the locks and the alarm code changed and has run up a $2,000.00 DoorDash bill using Mrs. Caucus’s credit cards found in a desk drawer. Bet they’re feeling all warm and fuzzy about now.

Tay-Tay Kicks Kanye’s Ta-Ta…Elly Mae Jets In From Beverley Hills

This will be my last paragraph about Tay-Tay Swifter. The Super Bowl did me in. Momo and I went down in flames. Eleven times, the cameras cut to the “anoited one” and her entourage of hangers-on instead of showing the game. Now, I learn that she had poor, old, downtrodden Kanye West barred from attending the event after he had purchased seats in front of her private suite. “Like…you know….like…ain’t nobody gonna…like…. steal my camera time,” she was overheard saying to her new bestie, Elly Mae Mahomes. Poor old Travis, her knuckle-dragging fiance, has been forced to move out of his home because manic packs of young “Swifties” invaded his residence and are refusing to leave until Tay-Tay comes to the house and gives them a blessed Swiftie communion. There’s a song in there somewhere.

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The Swifter Bowl Has Arrived To Save Las Vegas


New Just In From Las Vegas; The NFL has issued a statement that says they will postpone the start of the Super Bowl ( swifter bowl) until Taylor Swift is seated with her entourage in her million-dollar suite.

It’s also reported that a crowd of ten thousand Swifty Fans will greet her at the airport and carry her on a river of fans to the stadium, her feet never touching the pavement. Once there, she will be seated on a throne and carried by young Swifty pre-teens to her suite. The Mehomes chick will have to find her own way up there.

Personally, if they show her more than twice in the first quarter, I will switch to Yellowstone. But then again, I may not watch the Super Thang at all.

Something to ponder: Why is it called the Super Bowl, and the winners are the World Champions? No one in the world except Canada plays American-style football. Imagine a team from Somalia or India playing the Chiefs; then they might earn the title of World Champions. The dudes from Africa would be great receivers because they can outrun a Lion, and that’s quite a feat.

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In Remembrance: The Day I Was Hypnotized


In Remembrance is not about a last tribute to a dead guy; for me, it’s about remembering, while I can, bits and pieces of my colorful childhood.

I was nine years old and thought of nothing but baseball, cartoons, and fireworks. I won’t say my childhood was purified and biblically cleansed; my neighborhood pals and I did get into our share of trouble, resulting in no less than three or four butt-busting per day: my poor mother’s spanking arm was toast by noon. We did nothing bad, just the usual little kid stuff: blowing up mailboxes with Cherry Bombs, setting garages on fire, and fighting the “hard guys” across the tracks. It was the 1950s, and we were the first generation of baby boomers unleashed on our suburban-dwelling families.

Our hijinx had reached a crescendo, and the mothers in the neighborhood were plumb worn down from our growing delinquency. Threats of being sent for a stint at The Dope Farm, a boy’s ranch for unruly boys, had lost their punch: we needed an intervention, and fast.

My neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Mister, retired Air Force officers and native Californians, were consulted over cocktails and cigarettes in their luscious backyard one summer evening. A few of the mothers and fathers had one too many Hollywood Dirty Martinis and made an early exit from the pow-wow, leaving my folks, a few buzzed moms, and Skippers’ parents to ask for help. The Misters were our heroes, mentors, and dream parents. We would have gladly traded ours for their parental guidance. Mrs. Mister was the neighborhood “it girl,” and all the fathers had the “Hubba Hubba’s” for her: she was an exact pod person for Jayne Mansfield.

Mrs. Mister, after a few double Martini’s, said she knew a doctor who worked miracles with hypnosis. He had convinced Mr. Mister to quit smoking and hypnotized her Poodles, Fred, and Ginger when Mr. Mister had made them street rat crazy after sending them into the stratosphere on his homemade rocket and Doganaut capsule. The dogs were a wreck until Doctor VanDyke got hold of them. She felt the doctor could take some of the piss and vinegar out of us boys and a few of the poor girls that had joined our coterie of mayhem. The plan was hatched.

The Misters gave a backyard cookout, which was the cover for the intervention. Doctor VanDyke set up his office in the Mister’s TV room, and each of us kids was escorted to the Doctor by a parent. Skipper was first to go down, then Georgie, Cheryl, Rhonda, Bean, Frankie, Billy Roy, Stewart, Stevie, and I batted clean-up.

The old guy was covered in creepiness. Bald head, a sharp devil goatee, horned-rim glasses, and a bowtie. My mother sat in the corner as the doctor held a little pendent in front of me, giving instructions to watch the shiny object, and I was getting sleepy. I gave in: Doctor Creepy put me under. It was a nice nap, and I was refreshed and a bit goofy when I joined my pals in the backyard, but something was off, not just with me but with all of us.

Rhonda and Cheryl announced they were no longer friends with us and were quitting the baseball team so they could go back to playing with doll babies. Skipper wouldn’t drink his Kool-Aid; said it tasted like cat turds. Georgie was whimpering and crying like a baby and sucking his thumb, Stevie got all Romeo’d up and tried to plant a kiss on Rhonda, and she whacked him on his head with a Coke bottle, causing blood to run down his face, and I had this sudden urge to pee, which I did without embarrassment, whipping it out in front of all the guests. My poor mother was mortified. Doctor VanDyke had flicked the wrong switches in our young brains; we were now worse than before. The party abruptly ended.

After a week of house arrest, most of us were back to our normal bad behavior. Mrs. Mister learned that Doctor VanDyke was not a real doctor but had learned hypnosis from a mail-order course advertised in the back of the Farmers Almanac. He was a huckster.

The gang went back to our routine, baseball, cartoons, and fireworks. The two girls rejoined the team and threw away the doll babies and dresses. I felt pretty darn good, except I couldn’t bring myself to touch plastic Tupperware; it was like a live Rattlesnake in our kitchen. The old standby staple of every mother’s kitchen scared the liver out of me. It still does.

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Remember The Alamo, The Sequel


Risking blasphemy and a quick trip to Hell by evoking one of our sacred cows we Texans hold so dear, I believe this picture says more than any news blurb. Yeah, I know it’s fake, likely done with AI, but it represents how we feel and how much of our country feels. This time, we have more than 200 defenders, but the invading force numbers are in the millions, and the lawless folks in Washington are added. I’m not a violent person, but I will admit that I own firearms and am not afraid to use them, so I guess Momo and I might be open to joining these fellas on the banks of the old Rio Grande to protect our state and country. Just to make things right, before I wrote this, I ate two Whataburgers and offered a prayer to Saint Willie, so I should be good to go and forgiven of my trespasses and all that.

“Remember The Alamo,” the battle cry that changed the course of American history. “Come and Take it,” the flag that solidified Texas’s place in history. I don’t expect a body from New Hampshire or Deleware to understand our heritage; those states have the revolutionary war to wax about. If Texas seceded from the United States, we would have the tenth-largest economy in the world and could easily sustain ourselves as a republic without the interference of those grifters in Washington. What’s evolving by the hour at our border is a preview of things that might be coming. Yeah, we are all braggarts bordering on insufferable assholes at times, but everyone wants to live here. Wonder why? God Bless Texas and Davy Crockett.

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The Three Mouthkateers Ride Again


Pictured are my three Texas rootin-tootin-cowboy cousins circa 1956. Right, to the left are “Little Bit O’ Lunch” Lunch Kit,” and “First Aid Kit .” I believe the horses are Butterfinger, Twigger, and Furi’ous. The Daisy BB guns they carried are not shown in this photo.

My grandmother was the original Texas chicken lady, calling her farm the Chicken Ranch of Santa Anna: not to be confused with the infamous Chicken Ranch and the best little whore house in Texas.

In 1955, after consuming half a dozen Pearl Beers, my uncle counted, more or less, 1500 hens and 50 noisy, aggressive Roosters. The cousins rode the chicken ranch range all day keeping the fowl in line. Any chicken employee not doing their only job of laying eggs got a BB to the rear end. Grandmother was thankful that the little cowpokes liked to ride the chicken range because they constantly ran their mouths about everything and nothing at all. She called them the “Three Mouthkateers,” not to be confused with the kids wearing the mouse ear hats also while singing and dancing about nothing.

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January Dispatch From The Cactus Patch


Don’t Look At That Sun..You’ll Go Blind

I’m ready for the Eclipse in April. That’s me back in my 3-D days. I walked around for months wearing my cheesy glasses. Everything looked better in the beautiful hues of red and blue, so I saved them in my Roy Rogers lunch box with the original Thermos that held my cold Ovaltine and kept it cold for half a day. How did it know? I figure these specs will work just fine for the Solar Eclipse.

The Beat Goes On…And On

My father’s late cousin, Mail Order Preacher, Little Jimi Bob Fender of Fort Worth, Texas. He started out playing that “Devil music,” rock-a-billy, and jive-assed jumping-around stuff out on Jacksboro Highway. After getting knifed a few times, then shot up real good by the jealous husband of some old hairy-legged gal, he glammed onto religion and started the “Church Of What’s Happening Now.” He had the rocking-ist church music in Texas, and many of the great musicians, such as Delbert McClinton and Willie, stopped by on Sundays to jam. As you can see, he was a snappy dresser. Dig that guitar and that blue suit.

When It’s Round-Up Time In Texas

Back in the 1950s, long before there was the Dixie Chicks, there was my late 14th cousins’ trio, “The Texas Fried Pies.” They played most of the grocery store openings, school assemblies, parades, Tupperware parties, Avon get-togethers, rodeos, The Fat Stock Show, and select funerals. Left to right: Peach E. Keen on the doghouse bass, my cousin Apple Coreby on the banjo, and Cherry la’Tartness on the squeezebox.

The Gospel According To That Person of The Year

Good Lord, help us, please. Now she has her own religion and a bible? It was bound to happen, given she has around ten million young zombie followers. I read from a former swiftie-cult member that when she turned 21 years old, her brain hit reset, and she became a normal woman and started listening to George Strait. There is hope.