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Tag Lines
A middle-age woman in jeans, a t-shirt and a short, white veil was sitting at the center stage table at Knucklehead’s last week when singer/story-teller Tom Russell was the headliner. Later, we chatted while waiting at the back counter for a couple of pre-show brisket specials.
“So,” I said. “The veil must mean something?” “My bachelorette party,” she quickly confided. “What happens at Knucklehead’s stays right here,” she said slamming the counter with the flat of her hand. “Yes, indeedy,” I said to her back as she grabbed her order and headed back to her table.
“What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” is some tag line. It has slipped into the American vernacular and shows up in the most out of the way places. It sums up their city — what’s bright, special and why you’d want to drop by. Here are some other city tags that I like. (Source: Tagline Guru)
Always Turned On – Atlantic City, NJ
So Very Virginia – Charlottesville, VA
The Sweetest Place on Earth – Hershey, PA
Rare. Well Done – Omaha, NE
The City Different – Santa Fe, NM
City with Sol – San Diego, CA
And my personal regional favorite:
Where the Odds Are With You – Peculiar, MO
Sweet Alsace
We wheel in from a 3 day road trip: there’s too much junk to carry in – in one trip, the real draw-back of road trips. The porch cats are annoyingly wailing about being under-fed, a solitary bold-face lie. The door won’t stay open without help, for heaven sakes!
And we are hungry, not for the McDonald’s dollar menu or Subway’s tired 6” subs, or the Pick 2 at Panera’s; we want something good without leaving the house and without cooking.
So I find a pizza in the freezer from Trader Joe’s, part of a bounty of goods I scooped up when I made the mistake of going there hungry. It’s a Tarte J’ Alsace, a French style flat bread with ham, caramelized onions and Gruyère cheese made by Maitre Pierre.
I fire up the oven and in it goes. It’s cheesy, chewy, flavorful and if I had slowed down enough to make a salad it would have been a dinner for company as long as I had two pizzas and my guests liked ham. Stock up.
Flushed
Today Sig and I took delivery of a 24’ steel grey, Mercedes Sprinter van in Austin, Texas, a long way from home. We ordered it a couple of months ago after endless nights of fretting and more fretting and finally giving up saying, “Why the hellnot?”
We spot it on the lot right away. It is the only steel grey among a herd of white. And it really is something.
We climb around in it for a while, and then go in and get about the business of finalizing things, like the size of the refrigerator, the arrangement of the cabinets, the color of the carpet, the soul of the toilet.
Paul, the absolute conversion coordinator, talks about toilets: the cassette and the porta-potty. The cassette toilet is a stable, predictable fixture that makes people feel at home while the porta-potty is flexible and encourages diversity and spontaneity. The two are the same size, style and general demeanor. But water is pumped to the cassette toilet and hauled to the other.
We finally choose the porta-potty! Imaginary confetti dumps from the ceiling, we all gaze up and smile at the positive consequence of our choice.
I don’t much remember anything after that.
Missed it
I had such celebration aspirations. But then it crept up on me and it was over. I rolled over 10,000 hits a while ago without so much as a murmur. It deserved more. I 
am thrilled that readers are looking over my shoulder, checking once or twice to see what’s on.
The discipline of blogging regularly is formidable. Especially since discipline is not to be found listed in the strengths section of my up-dated resume. So I was particularly poised for this event. Not to say that I was going to issue invitations or serve up tapas, but surely, make a note.
Here then, thanks for dropping by, it’s awful nice to be red read.
(Image from www.free-extras.com)
Snarky
So I wake up this morning and learn Paul McCartney is married again. Since I really didn’t have a dog in that race, I didn’t think much beyond, hmmm. But I couldn’t resist clicking to the Huffpost pop culture cache for the details.
Along with a requisite photo of the beaming couple in a shower of confetti, the article introduces the bride, an American heiress of 51, and chatters about the wedding details. Here’s the part that kills me.
The former mop-top wore his tinted hair longish for the occasion, bringing back memories of the days when girls swooned as he sang “All My Loving” and other boy-meets-girl hits.
Tinted hair? Did this follow with … and the bride attached a flower in her artificially darkened for the occasion coiffure to remind herself that 50 is the new 40? Nope, not a single word.
I felt the same way when I first read that Mama Cass died when she choked on a ham sandwich; it was in 1974. (A giant myth, as it turns out. She died of heart failure but it was too tempting to leave out the leftover ham sandwich on her night stand.)
I think of things like this when I remember I’m not a celebrity. Have a Happy Monday, Monday.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Comfort
It’s a lazy Saturday morning in October.
Only 24 Days Away
So lucky you. An invitation to a Halloween party, costumes and all. But you’d better get started now, or you’ll end up running all over town picking over costume dregs. Or worse, you’ll start rifling through your closet to dress up as a gypsy, a hippie or a biker chick. And let’s face it – those ideas are pretty lame no matter who’s throwing the party.
Save money by doing something clever and witty with just a few props. You could dress as a famous character or make a common saying come to life. Act out Think outside the box with a body-size box and a thinking cap. Make a sandwich board from foam core and let them read the Handwriting on the wall. If you are really desperate, trace your palm on paper and tape it on your cheek, for a Slap in the face.
Now here is a group that put in an all-out family effort for the holiday. All they used were grey and white felt, batting and a glue gun. If you duplicate this great look for say, a fun political fund-raiser, be sure to take care to line up the eye holes to prevent any injury.
(Image from Awkward Family Photos)
A Night Out
Organically grown grapes? Do they make a better wine? I talked it over a little bit with the friendly clerk at Trader Joe’s and decided why not try it? It’s a clean, crisp — as they say — a 2010 white table wine called Dynamic from Lake County in California.
A glass on the front porch is what I have in mind. Just before leaving to go to Knuckleheads, a saloon on the right side of the railroad tracks close to the river. The bill is Tom Russell, a folksy song and story-teller man.
There really isn’t much better than to get the chance to sit and listen to live music in a funky bar with a bunch of people who have the same taste in music as you do.
Isn’t October great?
Steve Jobs
October 5, 2011
Unplugged.