Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Bless Her Heart

I actually wish I could take credit for founding the organization called 
Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails, but low and behold, I cannot.  Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, all of you know damn well, I’m a “house-gin” kinda girl; 
give me a bottle of Gordon’s or Booth and a detailed septic story and Ima (Texas talk for the contraction I’m a) happy girl, but tonight’s the night and it’s something special.
Something Old, Something New
I just told my partner I was looking to have two cocktails; something classic and something newfangled.  For the classic, I choose an Old Cuban, a rum refresco with lightly muddled mint in the base of shaker (just to bruise) and for the newfangled, an Old Brazilian, a sugary pleasure with cachaca that will knocka your socks off, which in my “lengua de cocktail” poetic verbiage, leads to pompous, erratic babbling… which then takes a sharp turn to the corner of Blender and Ice… at which moment the ingredients knocka my trailer park girly ass down flat on the linoleum.  Speaking of asses…

I broke the 55-mph law to catch a side-view glimpse of a bumper sticker plastered on the rear window of a Dodge Dakota today.  Next to the words, I saw Obama’s face smiling like a cat that just got lucky in the Koi pond. The sticker read:
Does this Ass make my truck look too fat  
Of course, my sticker would only contain one small edit:



Oh, for the love of language!
Language is a cool, refreshing lemon-lime popsicle and I can’t lick it enough, especially when it’s hot outside.  This past week we had a friend visit from the Land of Hot: the country that borders the United States and Mexico…
the country known as Texas.
I learned a thing or two from my pal that y’all gotta realize is significant and forever and ever ever-lasting, and Ima gunna tell ya, there’s an entirely different language; an entirely different spoken word down thar and it grows on ya when ya spend a week with such a lovely Yellow Rose whose knowledge of history and cultures, and her love of language, is stronger than the toughest, biggest steer or the darkest, Shiner Bock Beer whose slogan is COME AND TAKE IT.  
Both steer and brewery(Officially known as Spoetzl Brewery or the little brewery down thar) are within spittin distance of her little yellow hobbit house on Rural Lane.   Shiner Bock is Texas beer...hands down.   Ima  gunna shoot my wad at the brewery and Ima not goin home until I say so.  No soap.

“the little brewery in Shiner”









So my friend brought me a Shiner Bock wind chime:



…and a Shiner Blonde tee-shirt:



With a pal like her, who needs Friends Anonymous?  The population in Shiner is 2,007 and the Shiner Brewery is their claim to fame; that and the fact that Shiner is only 178 miles from Crawford. 



yelp reviews



“…Second stop, Shiner Brewery.  It was spring.  We drank with 5 older guys there, some in cowboy hats, then ate our sandwiches on a grassy hill overlooking the brewery…

We sang songs on the way back.”


In Tejas, as mis amigos across the border call it, if you gossip about your neighbor, simply make sure you insert “Bless her heart” at the appropriate time in the gossip sentence:  “Y’all know Leslie, who had the affair with the mechanic down in Huntsville, bless her heart, well, 
she's such a controlling, vindictive woman, especially when it comes to her kids, but bless her heart, can you blame her?” 

I learned so many damn sayings that I can use both in the park and out in the real world. Things like:
That dog don’t hunt” and “ No soap.” and “First rattle out of the box.” And let me just say 
these are sure to come in handy.

When I was 9 years old, my mother and I would shop at the market on Fifth and South A which is now called La Reina Mercado but I can’t recall the name in the ‘60’s, but anyway, when we got to the checkout stand she’d say, “Well, we’d better get out of here because we’ve shot our wad.”  I went to the fourth grade repeating that and the first time I said it to the group of popular kids, they laughed in my face so hard.  It was then and there I had my first anatomy lesson about the male penis.

Here's an example of Texasisms and Slangs  out of Rice University…

coke 

This may be confusing, but in Texas "coke" can be a general term to refer to any kind of soft drink.  It doesn't just refer to Coca-Cola (which is also called "Coke" here).  Here is a sample conversation at a restaurant:

Waitress: What would you like to drink?
Person: I'd like a coke please
Waitress: What kind would you like?  We have Coke, Sprite, Dr. Pepper, 
7-Up, Orange Crush, Pepsi… 
Person: I'll have a Pepsi.


I have to say, when I began writing this blog, I had a plan and that plan included a beginning, middle and end; complete with details but first rattle out of the box, I have no damn idea 
what happened!
I think the moral of the story is this:
To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very high up.

 Appreshate y'all from high in the saddle and loving every one of you rascals!

~tpg

3 comments:

  1. Well, doesn't that just beat all.

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  2. As you may remember both of my parents were born in Texas. Just love that little "bless her heart". Don't Mess with Texas! Gotta love em there in the lonestar state they do have a language all of their own. ~ Elida

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  3. Bless your heart is better than:
    Well, its better than a sharp stick in the eye.
    I've been saying that for years......bless my wayward heart!

    ReplyDelete