If Only I had a lot of Wealth,

I'd be able to make this picture more perfect, by buying the place next-door and opening
the "Bastrop Concrete Company". 

"Modest Attire for the Feet"

 
Them Texians take their footwear seriously. 

Or frivolously, I never can be sure. 

The Red Dirt Girl was rather taken with these technicolor cowgirl rain-boots.
I was all ready to buy her a pair. (It was almost her birthday).

But hey, she's a girl, she couldn't decide.

 xxx

 Maybe these?
Well no. She confessed she couldn't really see herself wearing them.

Like I couldn't see myself wearing any of these.... Themes from "Bonanza" and "Rawhide!"  were running through my mind.



Only us, er, 'more mature' folk, will remember these guys.

And last but not least, a collection of Gil Elvgren cowgirl pin-ups!

Healthy Eating?

I was happy to see that in Texas I'll be able to get all those green tasty vegetables that I love,  all fresh and misted regularly with probably nastily chlorinated water. Mmm, multi coloured cauliflowers!

But then I move along a little:

Holey Moley! Prickly things! I'd be scared even to try pick one up and put it in a bag, let alone eat the nasty vicious thing.  Now, when I was a kid, there was a comic with a tough guy cowboy character called Desperate Dan. He was tough. Very tough. He might eat cactus. 

But me? Well... I confess, the idea has entered my head, and there's only one outcome. But raw? steamed? fried? 

"Edible cactus can be eaten raw or cooked. To cook, steam over boiling water for just a few minutes (if cooked too long they will lose their crunchy texture). Then slice and eat! Cactus can also be cut and sautéed in butter or oil for a few minutes.
Steamed cactus can be added to scrambled eggs and omelets, or diced fresh and added to tortillas. They can also be substituted for any cooked green in most dishes.
The pads can be served as a side dish or cooled and used in salads. They taste especially good with Mexican recipes that include tomatoes, hot peppers and fresh corn."

Ah.

" be sure to handle them with heavy leather work gloves and scrub them hard to ensure all the painful little barbs are off. Either way, handle them carefully or with gloves just in case."

Mm.

Like a Bra, On the Wire,

Bras on a wire.  

Swansea, South Wales.

April 2012

Like a bird on the wire,
like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried, in my way, to be free.
Like a worm on a hook,
like a knight from some old fashioned book
I have saved all my ribbons for thee.
If I, if I have been unkind,
I hope that you can just let it go by.
If I, if I have been untrue
I hope you know it was never to you.

Like a babe, stillborn,
like a beast with his horn
I have torn everyone who reached out for me.
But I swear by this song
and by all that I have done wrong
I will make it all up to thee.
I saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch,
he said to me, "You must not ask for so much."
And a pretty woman leaning in her darkened door,
she cried to me, "Hey, why not ask for more?"

Oh like a bird on the wire,
like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried, in my way, to be free. 

 

Leonard Cohen.

Tsimpansi!

It comes as something of a surprise to find a chimpanzee sanctuary amidst the valleys of south Wales. But why not?  I ask. 

Perhaps Wales is a place where chimpanzees, maligned, treated as second-class citizens, passed over in the job-market, and the butt of speciesist jokes, particularly long for escape, and safe haven. 

Fellow Tsimps! Coelbren offer you a new life!

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

( And this reminds me of another thing. Many non-british people think Welsh is just a dialect of English. It is not, it is a language much older, with different roots. Welsh is completely impenetrable and not in the least understandable to an outsider, really, try to figure it out? guess the meaning....  forget it.

Most roadsigns are bilingual, sometimes Welsh first, sometimes English first. My mother, though her parents were Welsh speakers, was dissuaded from using  her native tongue as a child, on the grounds that those who were to succeed in life would do so in English.

So much so that her school handed out punishments if you were heard speaking Welsh.

She could sing in Welsh, and won prizes at the national Eisteddfod , and she could swear wonderfully... As kids, we were in awe of her welsh cussing, which she thought she could get away with in a country of saisnegs.

Sadly, she was no longer fluent in conversation, a thing she always regretted.)