Lunch Lunch

My husband is an expert at finding places serving good, cheap lunches. And when I take a day off from work, as I did Friday, I can sometimes benefit from his previous research. As it happens, this particular place has attracted some wider attention as well [see the photo at the bottom of the post] but it still fits his criteria of cheap and good. With the added benefit of fast, at least once you get seated.

That's the only problem with Taco Taco—it's tiny, tiny. So you wait in line outside until there's table space. Or counter space, which is what we opted for to get in a little earlier. They were great seats, as it turned out, right next to the chip bin:

We also had a good view of the fresh tortillas being made, right on the other side of the counter:

Pretty authentic dining experience, eh?!

I'm not sure I completely agree with the Food Network, but the tacos were good, as was the rice on my taco plate. The beans not so much, but then I'm not that much of a refried beans fan. Our tortillas de maíz [I'm linking to a recipe I doubt I'll ever use—why bother? when it's so easy to let the experts do it!] were quite tasty, however, and we know they were fresh!

Wordless Wednesday: exotic food

Purple potatoes from Central Market prior to roasting

Belated Happy Mothers' Day

I'm a bad sister and only sent my little sis a Mothers' Day email, while she sent me this very lovely card. So I felt I must develop my vague idea of an M-Day post into a full-blown, if belated, blogger's kiss to all the moms I know.

Unfortunately I can no longer send cards or emails to either of my moms (that's Granny and Tootsie, my mother-in-law) or my grandmothers. But of course they are all remembered and loved very much in absentia. And we have tangible reminders of all of them. Some of the lovely day lilies in the bucket on my back porch—which have started blooming profusely the last week or so—are from Mom's yard. But they date back even further in family history.

Dad and Momoo (Mom's mother) did some horticultural experiments long ago and came up with some new day lily varieties. Unfortunately, when I took samples from Mom's yard, which have been moved from garden to garden (to bucket) over the years, I didn't carefully note which ones were old and which ones new (not very scientific of me, Momoo, I know, and I'm sorry). But I like to think that the prettiest are scions of this family cross-polination.

We have many objects to remind us of Tootsie [perhaps a future post will highlight some of her lovely antiques] but for today I liked this picture of my sister-in-law with her Tootsie t-shirt (from a honky-tonk in Memphis of the same name). She and her husband got drafted to help Henry with boat re-arrangement in our new boat storage facility [previously known as our garage—subject of another future post].

So how did I spend my Mother's Day? On the river, happily, with the only offspring currently residing in the land of E Pluribus Unum. (Got a nice phone call from the peripatetic offspring, whose writings you must see—here and here—if you're not a fan already.) And a fine time was had by all, in spite of heat and low water. Thanks for making the long drive to join us, Sally!

Pomp & Circumstance behind the scenes

Every spring our friendly neighborhood cow palace* gets a makeover and hosts a raft of college (and probably some high school, too) graduations. We at St. Mary's have ours there so that we don't have to limit attendance. We could have them in classier surroundings, but think it's pretty neat that entire extended families, plus as many friends as possible, can attend and cheer, ring cowbells, blow air horns, etc., in honor of their graduates.

Since librarians at our shop have faculty status we get to have to are privileged to attend graduation in our academic finery. We line up and march in en masse to awe and impress the gathered spectators—as well as to show our support for the new baby grads, of course. Here are a bunch of faculty sort of lined up waiting to be marched into the arena.

I've become something of a connoisseur of graduations in the past several years. In addition to St. Mary's affairs, I've been to both of our kids' plus—let's see—I think it's around 4 or 5 niece's and nephew's. It's interesting to see how different places do it.

The best food I've had at one was at my niece's at the University of Miami—they actually feed everybody that shows up! They had a good speaker, too. Best speaker was probably the doc who spoke at another niece's med school graduation—would you believe a standing O for a graduation speaker? Our son's was probably in the best location—outdoors on a crisp spring morning in Vermont.

But we have something no one else has—kids we've seen in the library, or in choir, or otherwise around campus for years. It's sad to see them go, but a treat to send them off into the wide world. Here are three of my colleagues all ready to do their duty and help send the kids off in style:

Congratulations, graduates! Do us proud! And give generously to the alumni appeals!

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*It used to be used for the rodeo but when the Spurs got their new arena they agreed to share it with the cowboys. That's so the Spurs will have a team-building long road trip every February. It's like an executive's retreat. At any rate, the Coliseum is still there next door and available for fan-friendly graduation ceremonies.

Belated Wordless Wednesday: what's on your desktop?

I brought this little bit of Venice home to grace my work-desk-desktop.

Hangin' Green

One of my chores when I was a little girl living in Montana was to hang clothes on the line to dry. We had no dryer, and, with relative humidities rarely out of the single digits and breezes rarely into the single digits, why would you need one? At any rate, it was a chore I used to enjoy or at least with the advantages of hindsight I remember enjoying it.

So when our dryer started showing signs of its age a few years ago I decided to help it out by getting sun and wind to do some of the work for it. We don't have the kind of winds here that soften clothes significantly on the line, so I toss stuff in the dryer for the last bit of fluffing up. And my delicate sensibilities (!) lead me not to display underwear that looks like underwear on the line (sports bras and boxers are okay, though).

Here's an assortment of stuff getting dried for free last weekend.

Even though I'm not a total eco-dryer, I feel like I'm saving some energy and some money by using my little line. Which is strung between the back porch and a very sad-looking basketball goal that really needs to go away. When that eventually happens I'll extend the line all the way to the garage and might actually have plenty of space on sheet-washing days. I hear you can go much more high-tech and fancy with your clothesline, but my very primitive model works fine for the small amount of laundry generated by empty-nesters.

I find it enormously satisfying to do this from an environmental standpoint, but I probably wouldn't do it as regularly if the managing of the laundry on the line wasn't a bit therapeutic and soothing in itself. I guess I'm old enough to revel in a little second-childhood activity now and then.

Why it's good to have children

They grow up and learn things that help you be a better blogger.* Here is the picture of the hibiscus bush I posted yesterday, that I lamented as being a bit anemic-looking:

And here it is after the processing work gently suggested by my son*, who says he wasn't criticizing....

Much better, no?

I promise I will try and remember to use the little bit of photoediting skills I have when they're needed in the future. Since even a little bit of tweaking sometimes has noticeably good results.

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*The suggestion came via high speed wifi in La Paz, Bolivia. Do we live in a wonderful world, or what?!