Dear...

Dear little ghouls and ghosties,

I'm all happy for you that it's halloween an' shit. The day where you can actually have candy with the blessing of your moms and dads . Well, actually, seeing the size of many of you little pumpkins, you have their blessing most of the time, eh? A word of advice, just be careful they don't steal the best of your haul to eat behind the wheel of their giant SUVs on the way to and from work.

Now, I'm sure you'll be all excited to get dressed up, and you'll be cute and adorable as Holly the Hooker, Peter the Pimp, Greg the Gangsta and Carole the Crackhead, but sorry, I'm not playing.

I'm Scrooging Halloween. That's right, I've decided to dress up as Scrooge this year. Bah, Humbug!

See, I live in a triplex, on the top floor. With my door way down there at the bottom. There is no way in hell that I'm going to be trotting up and down three flights of stairs all evening distributing candy to help fatten you up some more for the Evil Witch of Diabetes to snatch you up and haul you away.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's Halloween after all. And no, I don't have anything against Halloween and candy and the whole fun evening. I simply cannot be bothered. Besides I have people coming to dinner. Real people (ok, that was uncalled for, but it's staying). Actually, adult people with whom I can have an interesting conversation (remember munchkins, never end a sentence in a preposition - it's not 'who I can have an interesting conversation with' - Maybe I should dress up as a grammar whore).

Sorry, but interesting conversation, a good meal and good wine beat the hell out of distributing treats any day of the week. Especially Wednesday.

Unless of course you all would like a nice glass of cabernet to go to with those snickers?

It'll take the edge of the whole "get to the door first for the best candy" competition. I promise.

Maudlin Alert

OK, total change in gears here. That title was up there because I had written - and posted - a completely sappy blog about the fact that Mr. Jazz and I have been together 20 years now. But once it was up, there was no way I could leave it there. I don't much do goo unless I'm drunk out of my mind. And since it's Monday morning and I'm not, it just had to go.

Suffice it to say, Mr. Jazz is the best thing to happen to me in the longest time (over 20 years now) and he also loves Trailer Park Boys , probably one of the most profane, adolescent male friendly shows on TV. It is hilarious. A pseudo reality show filmed in a trailer park. And it's Canajun, eh? From Nova Scotia more precisely.

Anyone who loves TPB, well, what can I say, my heart is his.

In other news, a Monday rant...

When, exactly did food become medicine?

Yes, I understand all those lovely antioxydants and probiotics and stuff. Thing is, they've always been in the food we eat, haven't they? If you're eating a variety of foods (and this is no problem in North America, although the way some people live at McDonald's you'd think that's the case) you're getting all those antioxydants and stuff from the get go.

But now... Now the agri-food industry has jumped onto the bandwagon. At first it was little things. But now it seems like every second food is being marketed as medicine. You have your probiotic yogurts, you have your antioxydant juices and now Catelli has this new revolutionary pasta.

It contains 300% (?!) more fibre than regular pasta (how it can contain more than 100% more is something I need explained to me).

Newsflash Catelli? There has been pasta around for years and years that contained lots of fibre. It's called whole wheat pasta! It seems sorta stupid to me to refine every nutrient out of flour to make pasta with it and then add a whack of fibre back to it. But what the hell do I know.

Yes, I know, you're not the only people doing it, they're doing it with white bread too.

But what the hell is the point? Whole grains are a good thing! How about you let them do their thing rather than putting what you took out of the grain right back in and packaging it as somehow better?

Oh! because people are stupid enough to buy into it? Because they're willing to pay more if it's marketed as healthier?

Well, in that case, more power to you.

School Daze

The end of last week was spent on the school bench - a place I haven't been in a long long time. As when I was there for real, a part of the time was spent daydreaming and scribbling and writing notes. And correspondence.



Dear Teacher,

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is a database course. If we aren't going to be linking web pages to our databases because of security issues, why are you spending so much time on this. Why are you going on and on and on about VBA (VPA? - see how intersted I am?) language programming if we're not going use it. Why are you wasting my time????

Quizzically,

Jazz

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Dear Teacher,

On second thought, thanks for wasting my time; this way I don't feel guilty about all the wasted time. It's your fault.

Thankfully,

Jazz

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Dear Idiot in Class,

Please stop asking really really stupid questions. The teacher just explained that in detail. In much detail. In excruciating detail. In detail beyond any detail I have ever seen. Get with the program.

A word of advice: Stop answering your gmail and LISTEN!

If not, I will be obliged to slap you.

Frustratedly,

Jazz

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Dear Colleague of Mine,

You are in a class. Shut your damn cell phone. Do not let it ring. And if you've forgotten to turn it off, do so the moment it rings. Do not answer and start whispering. I don't care if it's your spouse. Spouse can take care of things until you're on break. You have a message box, use it. Your behaviour is incredibly rude and annoying for the rest of us.

Keep it up and I might have to slap you too.

On edgedly,

Jazz

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Dear Cafeteria Cash Register Lady,

Yes, this is a book on my tray. I put it there so I could pull out my wallet. No you do not sell books, you only sell food, you are, after all, working in a cafeteria. If I had put my shoe on the tray would you have looked for a price? (All things considered, probably).

You work in a University cafeteria. Do you never see people with books here? What planet are you from?

Mind boggledly,

Jazz

The Book Game

As I'm still totally inspirationless - everthing just seems to have come to a screeching halt - I decided to play this game that I poached from Ticknart . Of course, being anal like I am, I sorted the titles into alphabetical order.

From this list of books you must:

• Bold those you've read.
• Add an asterisk* to those you have read more than once.
• Italicize books you have started but couldn't finish. (I've also bolded 'cause I can't help but comment and comments are in italics)
• Underline those on your To Be Read list. (I don't seem to have underline on my toolbar and I don't know the HTML code so I'll just make it teal - oh and if someone knows the code - Ticknart obviously does - please let me know, pull me out of this cesspool of HTML ignorance)

1984 *

A Clockwork Orange

A Confederacy of Dunces *

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (I had to read it for class, lordy how I hated that book. And by extension James Joyce. Stream of conciousness and I don't do well together. It's bad enough my own brain is all over the place, I don't need to read a book that's all over the place too.)

A Short History of Nearly Everything (Pretty much the only book of Bill Bryson's I haven't read yet. It's on my shelf. It's waiting patiently)

A Tale of Two Cities

American Gods (I'm discovering Neil Gaiman, love him)

Anansi Boys (Ditto)

Angela's Ashes (But honestly, I didn't see what all the fuss was about)

Angels & Demons (Did the Da Vinci Code thing, good thriller, but not enough to get me reading all his other stuff)

Atlas Shrugged (I'm not so big on Ayn Rand either)

Beloved

Brave New World *

Catch-22 *

Cloud Atlas

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

Crime and Punishment

Cryptonomicon

David Copperfield

Don Quixote

Dracula *

Dubliners (It's Joyce. I want nothing to do with it!)

Dune

Eats, Shoots & Leaves

Emma

Foucault's Pendulum

Frankenstein

Freakonomics

Gravity's Rainbow

Great Expectations

Gulliver's Travels

Guns, Germs, and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies

In Cold Blood

Jane Eyre

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (I have it on my shelf, I'm just waiting for the "right" moment)

Les Misérables *

Life of Pi: A Novel (Everyone has told me this is a great book, I've tried five - count 'em FIVE - times I can't get past page 30 or so. Perhaps one day I'll give it another go)

Lolita

Love in the Time of Cholera

Madame Bovary

Mansfield Park

Memoirs of a Geisha (again, on the shelf, twiddling it's literary thumbs)

Middlemarch

Middlesex

Moby Dick

Mrs. Dalloway

Neverwhere (this book is how I discovered Neil Gaiman)

Northanger Abbey

Oliver Twist

On the Road

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (does it count as extra reads if you've seen the movie 6 or 7 times?)

One Hundred Years of Solitude

Oryx and Crake (I love Atwood)

Persuasion (this one should be half bold. I'm pretty sure I read it but I'm not quite certain)

Pride and Prejudice

Quicksilver

Reading Lolita in Tehran

Sense and Sensibility

Slaughterhouse-Five

Tess of the D'Urbervilles *

The Aeneid (I much preferred Homer's Odessey and Illiad - and Dan Simmons' Ilium and Olympos)

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

The Blind Assassin (shelf)

The Brothers Karamazov * (one of my all time favourites)

The Canterbury Tales

The Catcher in the Rye *

The Confusion

The Corrections (This book made me laugh out loud more than once)

The Count of Monte Cristo ('Cause the count? He was a Dude! I had such a crush on that character...)

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Briliant book this is, I picked it up because the cover was cool... my criteria for reading a book are not necessarily logical, but mostly they work...)

The Fountainhead (Ayn again...)

The God of Small Things

The Grapes of Wrath (Love me some Steinbeck)

The Historian (Finally, a vampire book where the vampire is not a romantic tortured soul, but a complete monster like Stoker meant them to be. I almost missed out on this one because I figured it would be another Rice-ish vampire. Lestat was cool, by the tenth book it was a bit annoying)

The Hobbit * (How can Lord of the Rings not be on this list????)

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

The Iliad

The Inferno

The Kite Runner

The Mists of Avalon

The Name of the Rose

The Odyssey

The Once and Future King

The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Poisonwood Bible

The Prince

The Satanic Verses

The Scarlet Letter

The Silmarillion

The Sound and the Fury (I flipped through Faulkner's As I Lay Dying once. One of the chapters read: My mother is a fish. Then on to the next chapter. I guess I should give him a chance...)

The Three Musketeers

The Time Traveller's Wife

The Unbearable Lightness of Being (I obviously seem to like book titles that begin with "The")

To the Lighthouse

Treasure Island

Ulysses (Joyce again *shudder*)

Vanity Fair

War and Peace

Watership Down

White Teeth

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (I just read Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister. My first Maguire. All his others, including Wicked, are on the shelf)

Wuthering Heights

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

More favourites

I'm an illustration junkie. I love illustration, even though I can't draw to save my life. The extent of my talent is stick men. Stick men in Hangman. Stick men in Hangman who are thilled to be hung because they look so bad. But I love illustration and would sell my soul (and probably anthing else that might interest whoever could give me that talent) to be able to draw.

So, in my current uninspired state (meme and list blogging - which reminds me I have to do Ticknart's book meme), I thought I'd share another list, this one of the illustration blogs I like. If you're at all interested check them out. They're worth it.

Whateverings - One of the first illustration blogs I found, I don't remember in what circumstances. I love Paula. And she steered me to Snoopy's in Corpus (for great fish and chips), and she lives in Montreal. And I totally sound like I'm stalking her, eh?

Mattias Inks - Mattias is in Sweden I believe and I've been lurking on his blog for a long time. I love his quirky detailed drawings.

El Collage - I also love collage, and Mauricio knows what he's doing...

Illustration Art - He posts wonderful illustrations by all sorts of artists

My dog ate my sketchbook - Rico Schacherl (I hope I spelled that right) an illustrator out of Johannesburg

@ Random - Jason Bronkhorst - another South African from Johannesburg

Space Junk - Ben Hobson. I love this blog.


Edited to add: I can't believe I forgot this one: Daily Collage Project A collage a day. It's great.

If you have more to offer, please feel free to share. It'll give me that many more artists to stalk.

Five senses, five things.

I seem to be in list mode these days. While I was at the cottage this weekend, I started writing down my preferences according to senses, i.e. my five favourite smells, sights, sounds, tastes and "touches". Lucky you, I decided I'd share. OK, actually, it's just easier to recycle...

Five smells I love:

Freshly cut grass - How can you not love that smell

Mom's baking when I was a kid - The smell of Mom's apple pie or her cinammon buns was to die for.

The ocean - When we arrived in Corpus Christi and I opened the car window, the ocean smell hit me like a ton of bricks. I love that smell with a passion, and unfortunately I don't get to smell it often enough.

Cats - They smell so lovely, sort of sweetish and... well, it's hard to describe - odours usually are, but burying my face in a cat's belly and inhaling is one of my favourite things. If the cat is cooperating of course. Otherwise, unhappiness can result rather quickly.

New books - Cracking open a brand new book and sniffing it. That odour of ink and paper and glue... Mmmmmmmmmmmm

Asia - Getting off a plane in Nepal or Vietnam or Indonesia... the air just smells different there, different and wonderful and full of possibility. Oops that's six isn't it...

Five sights I love

The ocean - Always. I can't get enough of it and unfortunately I really don't get it often enough.

The sky - The blue of a summer sky contrasted against the green of the leaves. The sky in Montana which just seems so huge somehow. The sky in Nepal which is a blue I've neve seen anywhere else

Fall leaves up at the cottage - It doesn't last long, but when you manage to be there those four or five days when the leaves are at their peak. When it's the perfect year with not too much rain or wind... wow.

The desert - Any desert. I love the look of it, I love the feel of it, I feel comfortable in the desert. Especially the Sonoran Desert in Arizona. First time I went there, I felt as if I had come home.

Birds at the feeders - or anywhere else for that matter. They are beautiful animals, endlessly entertaining and fascinating.

Five tastes that make me happy

Shish Taouk - Chicken lebanese style. The marinade is so delicious, my mouth is watering just thinking of it. I think I'll get myself a shish taouk sandwich for lunch.

Tea - I love tea. Kusmi's Russian Morning no 24 blend is liquid happiness. Yes indeed it is.

Tomatos - Fresh tomatos, real in-season tomatos. Tomatos are the perfect fruit. Really they are. I love the taste of tomatos so much that I'll even eat them out of season when they're hard enough that you can sit on them and they'll stay intact. Then you cut them in two, put them on a baking sheet, sprinkle them with garlic, bread crumbs, dried herbs and bake them in the oven for about 1/2 hour. Delicious!

Chocolate - OK, not very original, but there you go.

Good wine - A bottle of Caymus's Conundrum with sushi? Heaven, pure and simple.

Five sounds I love

The ocean - Are you catching on to a certain theme here? Actually the ocean and water in general. Whether it's crashing waves or babbling brooks (how's that for clichéd expressions) it's all good. I love the sound of water.

Bamboo windchimes - We have bamboo windchimes at the cottage and in town. I love the sound of them. Deep, woody, simply lovely. I love my other metal windchime too. Mr. Jazz gave it to me many years ago, and it is tuned to a Japanese scale. Unlike the bamboo chime though, when it gets quite windy the sound becomes really annoying.

The wind - Whether it's just a breeze ruffling the trees or a huge windstorm, I never tire of it.

Birds - The sound of their wings, the sound of their song, the sound of them in general.

Laughter - Well, how can you not love the sound of laughter? Especially a child's. When they laugh it's not just their mouth, it's their whole bodies laughing along.

Oh, and even if I'm going over my limit, I can't leave out the sound of a cat's purr.

Five things I love to touch

Rocks/Stones - I have a rock fetish. I collect stones without really realizing it. I'll put my hand in my pocket and there will be a stone in it and I'll have no idea where I picked it up. I pick up stones and tend to rub them between my thumb and fingers for no reason I understand except that I love the texture and hardness of them.

Cats - Soft soft soft. The complete opposite of a stone.

Uncooked rice - Or sunflower seeds or anything of that nature where I can stuff my hands into it and let it run through my fingers. Sand fits the category as do dried beans...

Dirt - I don't like to garden, so I don't often get my hands into dirt, but the few times I've repotted the few plants I didn't kill, I loved the feeling.

Tweed - and other nubby textury types of fabric. I'm all for texture...

Of course, Mr. Jazz makes it into all of those categories. But that would've been too easy. And obviously I have tons more favourites. I did notice though that finding favourite smells was much easier than tastes or "touches". Perhaps my sense of smell is more important to me in some way than others.

How about you? Anyone willing to try this?

This and that...

As I realized this morning that I've almost filled another journal, it struck me that my journals have been filling up much more quickly since I began blogging.

Just sayin’

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Dear Nobel Peace Prize Board,

OK, maybe I’m an idiot, but I don’t understand why Al Gore got the Nobel Peace Prize. I really did love An Inconvenient Truth, but what does it have to do with the Nobel Prize? Please explain.

Will less pollution advance the cause of peace on our planet?

No offence, NPPB but I think not. I guess like everything else the NPP has gone Hollywood.

Respectfully,

Jazz

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I love those sponsored links in the Gmail sidebar. Depending on your subject line, a million different websites that have, supposedly, something to do with it just pop up.

I sent an email regarding a book to a friend and these are the links they came up with:

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Book Writing Software
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80/20 Spanish
Use just 138 words to say almost anything you want to say in Spanish

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What would I get if I were talking about my vibrator or the previous day's screamingly good sex?

=========================================================

I won't be around for the rest of the week. The office is paying good money to a company to keep me out of the office for two days "teaching" me computer stuff. All they had to do was say, "Hell, Jazz, we don't want to see you, disappear for the rest of the week." No need to pay mucho dinero to have me stay away...

The Book Meme

I love the idea of this meme because I can’t conceive of life without books. I read everywhere, all the time. I’m never without a book – leaving the house bookless leaves me feeling anxious. Yes, I guess I have come to depend on books way too much. They’re an obsession. As obsessions go, I could do worse.

1. How many books do I own? I’ve never bothered to count, but well over a thousand I’d think. Other than all the books lying around the house and cottage (as in not in bookshelves and thus prone to driving Mr. Jazz crazy), the front room of our place has two walls covered floor to ceiling in bookshelves. Overflowing bookshelves. This despite the fact that I try to cull regularly and get rid of books I know I’ll never read again (get rid of as in donate, sell or otherwise make disappear without throwing out). Thing is, my books are special. My books get together in the dead of night and procreate. Really they do. I swear!

2. What was the last book read? Technically the last one I read is A Year in Japan by Kate Williamson. It’s an artists journal. Lovely watercolours and chronicals her year in Kyoto. I loved it.

Right now I’m in the middle of The Sleeping Buddha by Hamida Ghafour, a canadian-afghan journalist who spent time in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. It retraces both the history of her country and of her family. So-so so far, but good enough to keep at it.

3. What was the last book I bought? If I recall correctly, but I probably don't, that would be a book on the birds of Texas. Did you know that of the 900-some birds in North America, almost 700 of them can be found in Texas because they’re on the migration routes. And over 300 species can be found in the Corpus Christi area. Not that this has anything to do with books – except that I’ve gotten into the habit of buying bird books for each place I go. So yeah, that would be it. It’s a rare day when I buy only one book; I have a tendancy to enter a bookstore and go crazy.

4. Five meaningful books that I've read:

Meaningful in general or meaningful for me? Big difference. I’ll go with me. So off the top of my head:

Lord of the Rings – For me this is the book (well trilogy – though actually it wasn’t meant as a trilogy but as one volume. The publisher broke it down when it was first published because they figured it wouldn’t sell as a 1000+ page book) to end (rule?) them all. I am a LOTR junkie. I’ve read this about 7-8 times and am way overdue for another re-read. And I loved the movies, which were spectacularly done, but I love the books more. Besides, the books are easier to consult on the bus. It is without a doubt my favourite book of all time.

Lord of the Flies – by William Golding. I read this book when I was about 12 or 13 and it blew me away, exposed me to concepts that I’d never really had much of a notion about. I have a thing for Lords don’t I?

Nancy Drew – I was a fan of the Nancy Drew series. Here was a girl not much older than myself – ok quite a bit older, she was 16 wasn’t she? – who solved mysteries, who took no guff from anyone, who had a car and a father who, damn it, would let her traipse around solving mysteries. Nancy Drew so rocked, though I really disliked the name Nancy

The Brothers Karamzov – Dostoyevsky. As far as I’m concerned, one of the best books ever written. It’s absolutely brilliant. That’s all.

The Mother Tongue – Bill Bryson. This is the first book of Bryson’s I ever read. Subtitled: English and How It Got that Way. Quite simply the history of the English language. It’s funny, it’s irreverent and it’s, well, vintage Bryson. This book started my love affair with Bryson’s writing. After reading it I hunted down all his books and have kept up with him ever since.

And here I thought I’d have an easy time of this. The last question sucked. How can you narrow it down? I have tons of others I should add to this list, some whose title I don’t even remember (among them the book that began my passion for medieval history). And these are maybe not even the books I should have put there. I'm sure there are some more important ones. Ain't that just me, agonizing over a book list. Sheesh.

I’d say books have probably had more influence on my life than most other things. Which is sad in a way, I guess. I might have spent too much time in a fantasy world where nothing bad can happen to me rather than in the real world dealing with the knocks and bumps and all out crap. And that’s enough said about that.

Of course it would be hard to not have become a reader, both my parents instilled a love of books into the three of us really young. There were always books, life without them was unthinkable, though I do remember mom taking my book away and shooing me outside to play. What was up with that?

I'm Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak!!!

OK, well, I'm back but my brain hasn't quite caught on to that fact - it hasn't quite checked in yet - so I'm sort of not quite into it today...

So a few bits of personal wisdom I've picked up over the past couple of weeks (and way to many instances of "so") :

• Vacations are good. Returns from vacation not so much.
• Places are often way way far from how you visalize them when you've never been. I didn't see even one oil well. But I did steal some cotton from a field. So cool. Feels like a dirty cotton ball. In a good way.
• Same goes with people. Not the stealing them, the visualization thing. Didn't meet any rednecks but plenty of really nice people. And the accent! I love the accent, though I didn't come across many of those either.
• It is majorly cool to meet online people in real life. I've never been disappointed yet. And Geewits? She rocks! Even though she did out me as a softie. But that was just one evening so it doesn't count. I will remain a blog bitch. There will be no frilly pinkness in this blog.
• I know I should be devastated that the Canadian dollar is on par (or higher now?) than the American one. Because we're told it's horrible for the economy or somesuch. But having been shopping in the States and buying a camera for over $150 less than it costs here on sale (!!), I can only say: YAY FOR ME! Same goes for the books and shoes I bought (YAY for me again! and yay yay yay for shoes!!!) and mea f-ing culpa if I'm not being politically correct. And I'll stop here before I begin to rant. 'Cause the cost of stuff in Canada is a rant waiting to happen.
• Texas BBQ has got to be one of the most wonderful things in the world. Yes indeedy.
• Fall is highly overrated. Seriously overrated. Granted, the leaves are pretty for a few days, but then the cold and damp and rain and clouds chug in and bam, it sucketh indeed. I much prefer 90 degree weather and a dip in the ocean.
• Air conditioning is not a luxury in Texas. Some people say it's necessary here, but they have no freaking idea what they're talking about. Airco is definitely a luxury here; it has it's uses about 2 weeks out of the year. 75 degrees is not airco weather. Nope.

That's all.

Almost gone...

So, tomorrow at 6:30 - or something approaching that ungodly hour - I'll be flying to Toronto and thence to Montreal.

And I'll be spending a week at the cottage, internetless.

Don't y'all post too much next week, I don't want too much catching up to do.

Cheers all.

10:45 - The deed is done

We have met and it was - and oh how I hesitate to use the word - awesome! (Bwah!). I'm pretty sure I beat her to posting because she's way farther than I am from the restaurant (bless her purty little heart for choosing someplace near to us, and that's all I'll say about that).

Geewits (and to hell with Blogger who refuses to do the link right now - if you're a regular just go to my last post for the link) had me in stiches for most of the meal. The woman is hilarious. Plus she actually got Ticknart (check my bloglist for "Useless Writing" 'cause Blogger? It still has it in for me, so I can't link) to call her cell while we were at the restaurant. Now how cool is that? She got someone I've never spoken to in real life to call me. And I probably made a total fool of myself. But i'm not quite sure because a few glasses of wine were drunk before he called.

'Cause the Jazzer? She felt like she was in first date mode. Which is weird because Geewits is not my first internet meetup. Which Mr. Jazz found sorta amuzing.Which... well, anyway... moving on...

I dare say a good time was had by all (and if that's not the case, they're all too polite to say so, so I win).

For pictures - didn't I tell you I was totally mid-20th century? - I got nuttin'. You'll have to check Geewits's blog (last post, yadda, Blogger, yadda and all that).

And if she's feeling really generous she'll photoshop me an awesome (and I do not use the word lightly) pair of boobs - 'cause she's the master (mistress?) of Photoshop.

All this said, I wish y'all ('cause i'm goin' Texan dontcha know) a good night.

Wednesday 8:30 am.

Damn. Early morning blogging again. I guess old habits die hard.

Back from Corpus Christi yesterday. That place is great, not at all what I think about when I think Texas. Tropical paradise, great beaches, lovely places to go birding. As an aside, I think I know now why people start liking to observe birds later in life (a diplomatic way of saying when we get old); it's because you slow down and are willing to sit somewhere doing nothing for hours at a time waiting for birds to show themselves. Fascinating animals they are...

The beach at the Padre Island National Seashore is incredible. 80 some miles long. Of course, we forgot our bathing suits and towels so we had to use our birthday suits. Which is quite feasible on that beach seeing the length of it. No one wants to be right next to the other person on the beach so we had a huge stretch all to ourselves.

Funny enough, when we got to the Ranger post to pay our entry fee, there were signs saying "Take out more than you bring in, garbage bags available". So we ask about it, the ranger says, "How many d'y'all want?" We figure one will do it. Nope. How very wrong. Because just above the high tide line there is all sorts of garbage. Primarily plastic. Apparently it is washed in from all over the world via the Gulf of Mexico. The mind boggles at how much trash we dump just anywhere. Most of it recyclable trash. We could've filled 20 bags easy had we wandered around a bit. As it is, we filled our one bag in 15 minutes flat. Somehow it seems like we didn't even make a dent. It's quite a wake up call to see, in such a beautiful otherwise untouched area just what we're doing to the planet.

Not to make it sound like the beach is one big garbage heap. It isn't. Below the tideline it's absolutely pristine. The water is warm, the waves are wonderful...

And on the way back, as per Paula's instructions, we stopped at Snoopy's. The best fish and chips.

Actually, so far in Texas, nothing has been at all like my preconceived notions of what this state is. Except the BBQ. We stopped at a little BBQ place called Van's on the way back up from Corpus. We order our brisket. It came, with a sizeable splat of yummy potato salad, on a sheet of wax paper. No waste of time washing plates at Van's. No indeedy. It's sort of strange for a Montrealer to be eating brisket off a sheet of paper, but damn, was that stuff good. Freaking perfect it was. I was thrilled at that moment that I'm not a vegetarian...

So far, I've seen nary a Stetson on anyone's head nor have I heard many southern accents. I have spoken to Geewits though, and she has the accent! And we're meeting up with her tonight, so there will be photos, at least on her blog, 'cause me? Not only have I not taken a picture yet, I also would have to wait for them to be developed in that annoying 20th century way. But Mr. Jazz and I, having bummed a computer from Big Brother (which we haven't yet seen fit to hook up to the net) are seriously thinking of buying a digital camera while we're down here. 'Cause they're so much cheaper dontcha know, and our dollar is, incredibly, on par. Damn I love to shop on vacation*.


*For all the females reading this: 3 pairs of shoes bought in two days. Happiness abounds. 'Nuff said. I'm sure there would be an interesting sociological study to be made on the passion women have for shoes.