A Message to You, Rudy's

My man came home the other day, gushing. He had finally found the Barbecue he'd been looking for, he told me. You see, we moved to Austin, TX last week and had visited a few months before, and we'd been told we'd feast on nothing but mind-blowingly awesome barbecue that entire time. Alas, such awesome barbecue was not had until he was taken by his co-workers to a little place called Rudy's "Country Store" & Bar-B-Q. He was skeptical at first - how awesome is the barbecue going to be at a place that looks more like a gas station with a Kwik-E-Mart than a restaurant?

So awesome, apparently.

He took me out the next night to our local Rudy's, on Research Blvd. just off the 183. My first impressions from the outside were the same as his - the hell kind of barbecue am I going to get at a gas station? Road kill? I did find the sign out front claiming to be "the Worst Barbecue in Texas" absolutely hilarious. I stepped inside and it reminded me of home - well, at least a very specific aspect of it. There's a counter where you order your food, and a line leading up to it, with coolers along the way to grab your cold sides and drinks. The rest of the building is lined with picnic tables. It reminded me of this little pie place out in the middle of nowhere, Northern California. Or maybe the pie place is supposed to be reminiscent of this. Whatever, I'm from Northern California, so I'm reminded of the pie place.

When we got up to the counter, my man told our server that it was my first time here - he asked me where I was from, and wished me a hearty welcome that the rest of the staff up front joined in on. Then, I was served a sampler of some of the different meats they serve there. I had a nibble of their dry brisket, extra-moist brisket, smoked turkey and creamed corn. The turkey had a very rich flavor, but I was in the mood for cow. I actually am considering ordering one of their whole smoked turkeys for Thanksgiving, to save me the trouble of cooking one myself, if that gives you an idea of how much I liked it.

Now, the dry brisket was very tasty, and packed a stronger punch than the moist brisket, but I found out the intended eating format is a sandwich, and I thought the dry might make things too dry for that application. However, for those of you who are on a low-carb diet, I'd go with the dry and skip the bread. The meat here is priced by the half-pound (and that's weighed as it's served to you, so after cooking), but you can get any amount you want, so long as it measures on their scales.

All in all, I ended up with the extra-moist brisket and a side of creamed corn, while my man got more of the brisket and a side of coleslaw. Your meat is wrapped in butcher's paper and placed in a soda flat along with your sides and drinks, with more pieces of butcher paper and a healthy helping of white bread. Your paper serves as a plate to make your sandwiches on, and it's got a very picnic-y feel to it. At your table is Rudy's "Sause", a barbecue sauce that's a bit sweet with just enough kick to tingle. You can grab onions and pickles from a condiment stand off to the side to augment your sandwich with, and while I used onions in my sandwiches, they weren't needed in the slightest.

The extra-moist brisket is, of course, wet and flavorful, and works well with a small amount of "Sause" and onions in the sandwich, though all of the meats I tried were strong enough that no such augmentation would be required to make them enjoyable. The creamed corn is very sweet and the corn still has a bite to it - unlike most creamed corn, which has the homogeneous texture of snot. I'm not normally a fan of creamed corn, you see. It needed with a few dashes of pepper to give some kick to counter-balance the sweetness, but I can see why it doesn't come with that pepper already in. Some people don't like everything they're eating to bite back. The coleslaw was pretty standard - tasty but not incredible, but definitely a nice cooling side dish along all the heat being tossed around.

All in all, Rudy's real is the Barbecue we've been waiting for - sure it's not a gourmet format, but it was most definitely good eats. Rudy's has locations across Texas and New Mexico, with one in Oklahoma.

Where's Pac-Man when you need him?

As I walked home from work yesterday, I looked down at my feet and saw a tiny, round candy.

A few feet away was another candy, identical to the first. And then another not much farther down.

I wondered where the trail would lead, and if I was going towards its objective or away from it.

I continued walking home.

Singing to the Void

Singing to the Void
---
I continue to sing into nothingness
A voice to go unheard.
These scraps of melody
Not meant for anyone
Drift slowly into nothing
As I fade to Black.

Perched
---
Finch on curled branch
as if asking me the time
tilts her tiny head

The Time?
---
"I'm afraid I don't,"
I shrug an apology.
She flits off, annoyed.

Warmth

At first, she wondered why she was always so warm. She was far too young to have hot flashes, wasn't she? She had lost two children in the womb, it drove her husband away and she was so alone. Always so hot! She held ice cubes and they shattered in her hands from the heat. She thought she was dreaming when she dropped a cube in her hand one day and it disappeared, a puff of steam coming up from where it should have landed.

Later that day she accidentally sautered the door shut by touching the hinge. Suddenly, the loss of her children made sense. She'd baked them in the womb, stifling their life before it had the chance to begin. Her husband's complaints about how hot she made the bed. She cried and it smelled of sulfer.

Meeting the Weavers

I found out today that I was not the only one who could do this. I turned down a narrow alley and nearly ran into her. I knew she couldn't see me, but she knew I was there. Her skin was an unhealthy white, as if she'd never seen the sun, and over her eyes there was a bloodstained scarf. She held the loom like those frescoes of angels with harps in the heavenly chorus, and turned her face up to mine, an unsettling smile spreading across her face. She began weaving.

I pulled out the paper I had pre-written in case of emergencies. It read in my neat, even script a single word, "Sword." I reached through the paper and pulled out the one-handed, simple but sharp sword that lay in wait within, just in time to block a wicked-looking trident from goring me. I hadn't even seen the woman reach through her loom, but I knew what she had done. I stepped back and took a deep breath. This would be one hell of a fight.

I'm So Tired

It's not that I am losing interest, or that I am not attracted to him. I'm very attracted to him, I'm incredibly interested.

[│Treble-Clef, lots of flats ¾ When I first come home │ I want more than anything │ to jump him then and there │ But he's so tired │ And then it gets late and he is awake │ and oh how he wants me │ But I'm so tired │ Last night he asked me │ if I was no longer attracted to him │ and I cried out │ "No! That's not it!" │ I don't think he believed me │ I come to work │ and I'm so very restless │ Lonely a lot │ Bored │ I'm often the only one here │ I find myself thinking of him │ and how I miss him! │ And I come home and ׃║ ]

…the cycle of longing begins anew.

But it is the weekend now, and our cycles will not be in conflict any longer. I cannot wait.

Geek Heritage

My father was a very talented musician. In eighth grade, he wrote a symphony. He could hear a song on the radio once and play it back for you on the piano. He played keyboards in a number of different bands; I have a picture of him in a cape, white bell bottoms and platform boots performing onstage. My dad was one of the first rockin' geeks. I bet he'd love MC Frontalot and Optimus Rhyme if he was still around.

President of both chess club and the student body, he dated a cheerleader in high school, yet looking at pictures of him, you can tell that even for the times he was a nerd. He wore Coke bottle glasses and had a big grin, and his talent with music probably made the ladies swoon. I wonder if by that point he'd started using? I'll need to ask his friends.

He thought it was so cool that geek was becoming chic. Dad was proud of my geekocity. He'd really wanted a son, but didn't have one until much later. When I was raised, then, my dad took me camping and fishing and of course, to the arcade. He raised me as a tomgeek, encouraging my nerdy habits. We'd watch cartoons together, and they'd be things like Voltron, Dominion Tank Police and Robotech (Macross). While my dad egged me on in computers, anime and video games, mom got me reading the classics from an early age and watched art film with me.

My momma is a geek for words. She enhanced my vocabulary and gave me the unquenchable thirst for books that I have now. My favorite story that she'd read to me at bedtime was the Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. She encouraged my love of British comedy on PBS, and would discuss movies with me on an in-depth level. She never just asked if I liked a movie, she'd ask what about it I liked, and we would critique parts of the film together. Also, Star Trek. She watched a lot of Star Trek: The Next Generation, then Deep Space Nine. We had Klingon dictionaries and Enterprise design schematics scattered about the house.

She's a very supportive nerd momma, too. She's gotten behind my geeky habits and even gotten involved. She started playing the text MUD I was addicted to, and even volunteers at the same SciFi/fantasy convention I do. I /almost/ got her playing World of Warcraft. We geek out over Firefly together. I still talk film and literature with her, and she encourages me to keep writing.