Tag: Food

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The End Is Near


Well, dear hearts, it’s official: another Polar Vortex will be in Texas by Sunday night, about the same time the Dallas Cowboys kickoff against whoever in the hell they are playing for whatever, something, or another position in the NFL universe. I’m very over my former home team. My son, Wes, the rabid family Cowboy fan, is coming in from Corpus Christi for the big game and is taking an entourage of family and friends to the game: he owns seats at the Death Star, and instead of selling them for enough to retire on, he actually attends games, pays $18.00 for a BBQ sandwich, $20.00 for a warm beer, and $150.00 to park, and then walks two miles to the stadium. I watch it on TV and enjoy my own food and my Barc-o-lounger. He’s young and has the stamina and the chutzpah.

We do experience winter in this part of Texas, but damn, in 2021, we had ice and single digits for a week: Momo and I were stranded in our hilly community and were cooking frozen wieners over the butane firepit.

This cold snap, as we call it in Texas, will be about the same. H.E.B. was a crazy town today: No baskets, people snarling and slugging each other over a loaf of Mrs. Baird’s bread, and then, I ran into my buddy Mooch at the frozen pizza case. There he stood, fifty or so Red Baron Frozen Pizzas in his cart, thirty bags of Pork Rinds, and two cases of Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer. He is ready for the apocalypse. A young boy, around the age of six, stood staring at his cart. Mooch had taken all of the Red Baron Pizzas, and it was obvious that they were also the kid’s favorite. Mooch is a gruff old fart, but that little boy, staring at him with those Puss-In-Boots watery eyes, broke the man down. He handed the kid a twenty dollar bill and told him to go buy some Paul Newman’s Pizzas. What a humanitarian. The kid took the bill, gave him the finger, and took off to find his momma.

Momo paid an old lady some cash for her empty cart and loaded the baby up with milk, what was left of the bread, some produce, a few Boston Market Pot Pies, yogurt, eggs, ground turkey, ground Chipmunk, Ostrich steaks, Emu-On-A-Stick, bacon wrapped jalapenos, bacon wrapped Gerbils, bacon wrapped chicken wings, smoked cheese, smoked smokies, aged corn beef hash, Betty Crocker Elf Cookies, ten bags of tater chips, two cases of ginger-ale, three bottles of wine, a dozen jars of Ovaltine, Terlingua Chili Mix, three dozen cans of Tomato soup and a large bottle of Tums. We are ready for the Vortex, so bring that Canadian baby on. The “Police” patrolled the aisles to keep the peace, and I thought I saw “Sting” over by the deli counter signing autographs; there is a rumor he now lives in Granbury with his crazed wife and their fourteen children.

I’ll keep my Cactus Patch pals appraised of our survival as the weather deteriorates. If you don’t hear from me by Tuesday, you know Momo and I didn’t make the cut.

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Dispatches From The Cactus Patch…A Few Things You Might Not Know About


Pictured are my late father’s late cousin, Bell, and her husband, Alexander, showing off their 1952 invention, the “Head Phone,” which was the predecessor to the modern mobile cell phone. It was an awkward unit to use. The phone is attached to your head, and the braided phone line is carried in a backpack. Cell towers weren’t invented, so the unit and the lovely couple were tethered to the home plug by a five-hundred-yard cord roll. She eventually sold her phone ideas to some hot-shot princess in Monaco who came out with her own line of cute little bedside phones. ” Besides”, Bell said, “every time the damn phone rang, it gave me a massive headache.” Alexander, on the other hand, was unable to speak, smoke a ciggie, or drink his nightly cocktail, which impacted their social life.

Pictured is my first real grown-up science experiment kit, Christmas 1955. I asked our neighborhood mentor and mad scientist, Mr. Mister, to tutor me in the art of scientific experimentation. He brought home a few viles of Plutonium X3 from his job at Carswell Air Force Base, and with parts and dangerous minerals from the kit, an old Waring blender, and a Betty Crocker pressure cooker, he and I constructed and tested a small nuclear device right there in our neighborhood. Our garage was totaled, and we were all puny and hairless for a few months, but the family got over the effects of the radiation and, seeing they had a small genius in the family, awarded me a second kit the next Christmas. See Below.

Christmas 1956, I received my second kit, like the one above. I had no idea what Meth was, and the instructions were in Spanish, so frustrated with making 9 Love Potions and disappearing inks, I gave the kit to my cousin, Jock, who set up a cute little lab in his family’s camper trailer parked in their backyard. After blowing up their trailer and suffering non-life-threatening injuries, he was sent to the Juvenile Dope Farm for six months. The last I heard, he opened several pot shops in Ruidoso, New Mexico, after retiring from the Texas Senate.

Who knew that Lard was so good for you? My grandmothers would not have been able to cook a meal without a tub of Crisco, White Cloud, or Puffy Stuff lard. They also kept a soup can full of used bacon grease next to the stove, so if they were out of that soft, luscious lard, they could still fill our bloodstream with massive doses of saturated vein-clogging fat. My grannie soaked her chicken mash feed in Puffy Stuff and then fed the hens her secret mixture. She claimed it made the eggs bigger and better, and when she wrung the head off of one of the greased-up hens and cooked it for supper, the chicken was already basted and fried to a golden brown. Yummm. Gotta love that country cooking.

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Tune In And Drop Out


The above picture is of my late cousin, Velveltine, her late husband Zig Zag, and their young family. I believe the year is 1971, when they lived in a commune in the mountains of New Mexico on the Apache Indian Reservation. Zig Zag, ever the historian, swore they would live as the Apache did; thus, when the children were born in the tent with the help of an Apache midwife, he would pull back the flap of the TeePee and name the child for the first thing he saw. It was an Indian tradition: no cheating and no changing the name. He was a stickler, as was Velveltine, even though in her old age, she realized they traumatized the children with the crazy-assed hippie names they gave them. All the kids had identity issues as well as psychological malfunctions.

Pictured left to right: Gentle Morning Rain, Mama Cousin Veveltine, daughter Chattering Squirrel, daughter Noisy Thunderstorm, Papa Zig Zag, and the youngest child, daughter Two Dogs….well, you get the picture. I heard that when the children reached legal age and got out of prison and the mental wards, they changed their names to a more appropriate moniker. And we wonder why the world is the way it is today.

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Is New Year’s Just Another Day Like the One Before? Yes


Some of my late relatives celebrated New Year’s in 1955

For me and my wife, Momo, New Year’s Eve wasn’t much different than the day before it. We had a nice supper, watched a bit of TV, and then we were in the sack by 9:30 CT. Texts from my son, grandchildren, and friends went off at about 11:45 PM, prompting me to get up and answer back. I’m getting better at texting once I found out how to use the voice-to-text part on my iPhone. That’s what us old folks do for special occasions: nothing, and we do it quite well.

The fireworks started about dark and continued until around 1 AM. Our neighborhood is a “no fireworks” area, so many of the residents got around the law by firing their automatic handguns and rifles into the air. The Sheriff will give them a ticket for a bottle rocket, but firing weapons at random is ok by them: It’s a Texas thing. Momo and I were tempted to take our automatic handguns into the backyard and fire off a magazine or two, but it was too cold, and we were already in our jammies and had slurped down hot Ovaltine and old folks meds. Maybe next year.

New Year’s Day will be the same as the day before. Nothing, with a bit more of nothing, except adding some of Momo’s Blackeyed Pea Soup with Jalapeno and Texas-style cornbread, will keep it gastronomically interesting for the rest of the day. She made a batch of homemade salsa and put a smidgen of my Vietnamese Death Pepper in the mix. It was pretty darn good once I got past the tearing eyes, the shortness of breath, and the muscle spasms that occurred when I leaned over the pot and dipped my Frito into the sauce. She also whipped up some homemade “Nanner-pudding” with Vanilla Waffers embedded in the luscious mix. I plan to eat myself into a mild desert-induced coma this evening.

I hope everyone who follows my blog and the ones I follow has a great 2024 year. Let’s be honest about it: things can’t get much worse than they were in 2023. Well, maybe they could, but I’ll address that in a few days. From the cactus patch, have a Happy New Year, folks.

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Willie Saves the Church And A Whataburger Communion


Painting by Pablo Piccaso’s Great Great Grandson

Two days after Christmas, half past midnight, I just had my second cup of hot Ovaltine and am ready to pontificate.

It appears Taylor Swiftless is now the new “Yoko Ono,” having ruined the KC Chiefs chance at returning to the Superthang and cursing her Charlie Football for life. I always thought that poor Yoko got a bad rap when it was Paulie who pulled the plug on the Fabs. Not so with Person of the Year, Swifter Girl; she is toxic to human men. A football-inspired ex-boyfriend album and an NFL tour of all the stadiums will be coming soon. The games will be played at halftime.

Momo and I watched the Christmas movie, “Elf” on the 25th. I guess age has dulled my sense of humor since I find Will Farrel irritating. I enjoyed him in “Eurovision ( the elves went to far)” but Buddy the oversized Elf needs to go to LaLa Land. I thought James Caan got knocked off in The Godfather?

Momo made her infamous Greek Ribs today. Her daughter Tammera and the fam stopped by for an early supper and gift exchange; what a nice afternoon. I finished my first in the series of old-time circus sideshow posters yesterday; there are only seven more to go. I remember going into one of those freak or sideshows at the state fair. Lizard Woman, Alive! Cost me twenty-five cents. Turned out it was an ugly gal with a bad case of Dermatitis. The Lady With Five Legs was worth the change. Bonnie and Clydes Death Car was an old Ford that some moron drilled holes into the body and poured some red paint on the seats. PT Barnum was right, ” there’s a sucker born every minute.”

My Boy Scout grandson, Jett, his troop, and his Pop are doing another winter campout starting tomorrow. For Christmas, I gave him a family heirloom six-inch razor-sharp skinning knife in a leather scabbard, much like the one O.J. and Jim Bowie used. My grandfather said he carried it in WW1 and used it to open canned Pork N Beans and stab Germans when he ran out of ammo. I believed every word of it.

So Kwanza is here. A fictional, absurd holiday invented by a felonious black American male who needed a steady income after prison. So what about “Festivus?” George and Kramer deserve a day to celebrate, too. I always felt bad for the Seinfeld folks; what did they do on Christmas since the Soup Nazi was closed? I am working on inventing a holiday for senior citizens called ” Respect Your Elders Day.” Catchy slogans like “Get the hell off of my lawn” and “Do you think money grows on trees?” will go over well with our age group. All adult children, grandchildren, and neighbors will relate.

New Year is approaching. We live in a rural community outside the city limits, so the joyous and festive sounds of fireworks, 9mm pistols, and assault rifles fired into the air will be keeping us up all night. The problem is, those bullets have to come down, and they can kill you. Last year, it sounded like Santa was plodding around on our roof; turned out it was only bullets ruining our shingles. Insurance doesn’t cover that.

Now that Christmas is done and gone, I’m ready for the traditional Texas after-holiday meal of a Whataburger, large fires, and a Dr Pepper. Father Frank, our groovy-hip young priest at Our Lady Of Perpetual Repentance, is having a blessed by Willie service this coming Sunday. Governer Abbott has petitioned the Pope to make Willie Nelson a Patron Saint, at least here in Texas, so our good priest, getting the early ball a-rolling, will have a Willie Nelson approved impersonator give communion to any who wish to partake. A tiny bite of a Whataburger( no onions and extra pickles), a small toke of Willie’s popular Dripping Springs righteous weed, and a sip of rum-infused ice tea to wash urn down, and you can be ” on the road again” and feeling real good. Pretty sure the church will be at full capacity.

More later from the cactus patch.

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Thoughts From the Cactus Patch on Christmas Eve


So now the Cowgirls have lost 2 in a row but somehow remain in the playoff mix. I’m not sure who is making the rules, but these wimpy-assed, jive-dancing morons shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a playoff game. Wonder if Jerry Jones, their Arkansas Hillbilly owner will be talking shit after the holidays. ” I feel like this is the year we go all the way.” Same crap he says every year. No, Jerry, not until you sell the team to a real owner, like maybe Mark Cuban or that rich gal in Vegas, or hopefully, Elon Musk. Then Elon could put old rummy Jones in one of his capsules and put his rickety ass into orbit and turn his carcass into a Starlink internet satellite. The Cowboys have made me hate football.

Now, the Deer in Yellowstone have a Zombie disease. I guess that explains standing in the road as a timber tuck smacks them while they stare at the headlights. The disease is spreading. I saw some people in Walmart that had it. They shuffled through the store in their pajamas and fuzzy house slippers filling their basket with crap they would never use. There were four young guys that breezed by me with two carts full of HD Flatscreen tele’s. When I got to the checkout, they were arguing with a checker, demanding a receipt for the TVs they were stealing so that they could return them for a refund if anything went wrong. Yes, there is an entire gene pool of these people out there.

I hope to get through the Christmas holiday without any news about Taylor Swift. Let us hope she marries that knuckle-dragging football guy and gets knocked up in record time so we don’t hear from her again for at least nine months or so. The poor baby will likely need auto-tune to cry in tune. An overheard interview with her boyfriend, the football jock;” football…been…very…good…to…me. Who dat blond is with them long legs and that screechy voice?

When I was a pre-teen, back in the 1950s, I discovered comedy records via my older cousins. Red Fox, Rusty Warren, and my favorite, Brother Dave Gardner. Brother Dave was on his way to becoming a certified, glorified, and justified Baptist Minister when he found booze, cigarettes, sex, and comedy. Lucky for him, most ministers act like comedians when standing at the pulpit, so he carried that onto the stage and was a hit. His records were legendary and would make anyone pee their pants from laughter. Brother Dave wouldn’t be welcome in today’s world; he was too politically incorrect. He would also be deemed a racist for imitating black dialect. But Dave was from the south, so this was how things were back then. I miss Brother Dave. My cousins also introduced me to Cherry Bombs, burning ants with a magnifying glass, starting fires with lighter fluid, shooting people with a bow and arrow, Steve Allen on late-night TV, cussing, homemade Tacos, beer, cigarettes, cigars, grass, beatniks, church ladies, water balloons full of urine, eating Doodle Bugs, stuffing crickets up my nose, shooting spitballs with a sling-shot, BB gun wars, sharp knives, riding Honda motorcycles late at night in Poly, Jack Kerouac, Sal Paradise, and other unsavory characters. My wife, Momo, says I would have become a juvenile delinquent if I had stayed in Fort Worth. She is right.

I caught Willie Nelson’s 90th birthday celebration on the tube last week. First of all, why was it held in LA at the Hollywood Bowl? I bet the folks in Austin went crazy because it’s Willie’s homeland. Willie isn’t in good shape, but it’s good to see he can still sing and pick on Trigger. When I was a wee-one, sometime in the early to mid-1950s, my father was a country musician in Fort Worth, Texas. He played all the joints in town and then some, always coming home late at night, worn to a frazzle. He and Willie were friends in music. Willie and his friend Paul English, his drummer, made the rounds, setting in with the house bands or friends that were playing. He was also a DJ and sold vacuum cleaners during the daylight hours. Either Willie was down on his luck, or his wife may have kicked him out for a while, but he wound up sleeping on our couch for an extended period of time. He seemed happy and was the perfect, polite guest. My mother couldn’t help but like him. After the third or fourth week, she was itching to reclaim her couch and her privacy. She gave my father the ultimatum: either Willie moves on, or you move on together. My Dad broke the news to Willie, who was understanding and moved on to another sofa somewhere in Fort Worth. He and Dad remained friends for life. I was under five years old, so I don’t remember much of it, but I do recall him and my Dad playing music in our living room, Willie on an acoustic guitar, and my Dad on his fiddle. A friend of mine who lives in Austin summed Willie up perfectly; he’s morphed into an elder statesman, somewhere between Will Rogers and Walt Whitman. It’s going to be a sad time in Texas when Saint Willie takes the last trail ride.

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Another Friday At The Grocery Store And Beach Boy Gas


My wife had a small grocery list of a few things we forgot last week. So I accompanied her to our local Texas H.E.B. superstore here in Granbury, Texas, the “Best Historic Small Town” in the United States for the third straight year. Hell yeah! We bad-ass.

1883 filmed here for a week, and then around the countryside along the beautiful Brazos River and close to my house at the base of Comanche Peak. I could hear the gunfire and Indians whooping it up from my patio. I will never forgive Taylor Sheridan for killing off Elsa and Shea. Who does that kind of shit? I may never recover or be the same.

The shopping excursion was fruitful. Twenty-minuets of checking the list and dropping items into our “small basket.” The prices were up from last week, no doubt because of the cost of diesel fuel. I notice a few older folks buying dog food and powdered milk. Tears ran down their cheeks as they passed up the favorite foods and the Shiner beer. A young woman dressed in workout clothes looking like a Kardashian breezed by with a cart full of expensive meats and a case or two of wine. She paused to take a selfie in front of the flower aisle.

We arrive at the checkout. I’m thinking the few items in the basket might add up to 30 bucks, maybe a few more. Nothing special, just some veggies, milk, bread, a piece of meat.

Our effervescent checker scans everything with a smile. She is a teenager in high school with no real grasp of the reality of our world. She works and makes $15.00 bucks an hour. Good for her; at least she is working instead of mooching and bitching. I watch the screen, blah..blah…blah… it all adds up. Total bill; $ 74.00. The booty fills two cloth bags. I ask her to please check again. She does. The same amount flashes on the screen.

My wife says this is a good deal. I think we are now living in the Twilight Zone. Thirty minutes earlier, I paid $ 4.09. ( Beach Boy gas ) for regular fuel, and now this. I know the poor folks in Ukraine have it worse than we can ever imagine, but shit-fire folks. Did we move into an alternate universe when I was sleeping? I could be experiencing a continuing 1960s L.S.D. Flashback.

A year ago, before the “thing from the swamp” was sworn in, a large basket full of groceries could be had for $125 smackers.

The hunched-over old lady behind us is digging through her small change purse, hoping she has enough to cover the few items she has purchased.

What went wrong?