Gruene and CATS

We spent Wed and Thurs nights at Gruene recently and had a wonderful time. This trip was planned a few weeks before with the Thompsons inviting us to join them in their annual pilgrimage to the quaint little town. They had not stayed at the Gruene Mansion bed and breakfast before, but always wanted to. It is in the center of everything and within walking distance of shops, restaurants, the river and the famous Gruene Hall.

This is the oldest continuously operating dance hall in Texas and has been the place where young singers hoping to “break-into” the business- perform. Pat Green was one of the many to begin here.



We traveled in sseparate cars to Gruene because we had a side trip planned for after we left Gruene on Friday morning. Lily did well on the drive, playing and talking and too excited to nap much. In fact she was a very well behaved young lady during the entire trip, except for waking up at night and not knowing where she was, getting a little (?) upset. She did not sleep well for that reason, and as a result, neither did her parents. She has just discovered blueberries and has declared them her favorite food. She is easy to placate with a handful of blueberries.

The Gruene Mansion B & B is made up of various old buildings which center on an old two story plantation style home. Each of the outbuildings contains several guest rooms—some housing 2 people and some able to sleep 4-6. Our room had a living room and two bedrooms and 2 baths. The second bedroom was up an interesting set of spiral stairs (16- and yes, I counted). In total The Gruene Mansion B & B has 30 rooms and from what I hear, they are full most weekends. Since we were there mid-week, there was not a huge number of folks around.

This is where I slept and I’ve never before been in a room with a ceiling so low that I couldn’t stand up—I could in the center, but not on the sides.


A very comfortable room- until nature called at 3 am and the stairs had to be navigated. No problems, no accidents.

Lily liked the spiral stairs and would have liked to try them out, but for a girl of less than one year, not the most logical plan for her. She sat on the bottom one, but was not allowed to try to go any higher.

We had a lovely porch overlooking the Guadalupe river, where tube riders were floating along. We also saw an inquisitive coral snake who slithered by our walkway to the porch.

I said it was a B & B and the breakfast was a real treat. We had a buffet with fruit, eggs, sausage, various kinds of muffins, sweet rolls, quiche and of course, coffee and juice. We enjoyed this both mornings—my only complaint with the breakfast was that it didn’t begin until 8:30 am, and those of you who know my morning habits, will realize that I prefer to have breakfast around 6:30-7. Oh well, if we do this again, I’ll take breakfast snacks to tide me over til 8:30

We shopped for t-shirts, books, toys and gifts. There were “antique” shops (more like old junk—but I suppose that is another definition of antique), an unusual toys and gimmicks shop where N bought a birthday gift for a favorite cousin, and a shop that consisted of one shelf of pickles—original recipe, but just one shelf of pickles.


Several shops boasted large antique furniture—I need no more furniture. Nor do I need any gypsy clothing.


We ate at the Gruene River Grill, a large restaurant with a varied menu. Good food, but they didn’t have teaspoons. Or at least when we asked for one for Lily, all they brought was a serving size spoon.


The river was a drawing card for Billy who wanted to introduce his daughter to the cool running water--she loves baths. They waded a little, but didn't spend much time there.

We met one of N’s college friends who lives nearby for supper at the Gristmill—the most famous eatery in Gruene. The food was very good, the company congenial and 10 year old Helen (Lisa’s daughter) became Lily’s best buddy.


One thing we did every day was visit the ice cream shop. We got huge dips of Blue Bell and enjoyed every spoonful.

After our Gruene experience, the Thompsons drove back home a different way, stopping for lunch at the Jersey Lilly, guess why.

We drove to Kerrville for our next adventure. Our niece, Kinsey, is in CATS, the musical and we needed to see her performance. She had to be at the theatre at 4, to practice her “flying” and to get into costume and makeup. We had supper at Mamacitas, a renovated and very interesting looking Mexican restaurant. Of particular interest was the condiment brought with our chips and salsa. It looked like pale guacamole and tasted like sour cream and was in fact a combination of the two, heavy on the sour cream.


We went back to D’s house to chill for awhile, got dressed for the play and arrived there about 15 min before curtain at 8:30. The play is taken from a group of poems about cats, with a very loose story. Kinsey’s character, Magnificent Mr. Mistofeles, is a magician cat who, in this production at least, is a dancer. And Kinsey was wonderful.

Added to the director’s conception of the musical were 10 “kittens”. ---Children from 6-10 yrs old flitted around the stage, were the “pekes” in one scene and generally filled in areas of the stage. According to Kinz, they sometimes get in the way, and a time or two I knew one or two were too close to the “manhole/orchestra pit” and might fall in. No one fell in, but I held my breath more than once. See picture below--manhole far right at bottom of stage. Looks dangerous to me.


This is an outdoor theatre and several practices had been rained out. It was soooo muggy when we attended that N and his brother were miserably hot and uncomfortable. I, needless to say, was fine.

After the production, Kinz came over and we talked theatre for awhile. We were up and dressed to leave Saturday morning, bought some Fredericksburg peaches, and Pecos cantaloupe in Kerrville and headed back to Arlington.

A really fun few days, Let’s do it again. And oh, yeah, we came home to a really unhappy cat.

Tarrant Area Food Bank

I spent a very intereting morning today working with 4 ladies from Westminster Presbyterian of Arlington at the Tarrant Area Food Bank in Fort Worth. We met at the church and rode together in 1 vehicle to the rather-difficult-to-find food bank location. We signed in and were ushered in to a huge room with maybe 8 "stations" containing metal tables for sorting. Our first chore was to sort bread from pastries. I am guessing at the size of the boxes of baked goods--probably 5 ft. X 5ft by about 3 ft high. These boxes were filled to overflowing with baked items donated from grocery stores. There were rolls, french bread, bagels, jalapeno bread, etc to be separated from cakes, pies, muffins and danish. Everything was wrapped and dumped in the huge boxes to be sorted by volunteers at each station. We made up smaller boxes containing either pastries or bread. Then the sorted out box was placed on a pallet with like items, to be hauled away by a "hand truck" when the stacks were 5 high and 2 wide.

This went on for awhile--do I need to mention that we 5 manned 2 stations of the 8. Young people (teenagers or 20somethings) were there along with what appeared to be other church groups. It was VERY noisy with folks slapping wooden pallets down on concrete floors and general conversation in each group. Rarely was there conversation between groups. At one point the gentleman in charge, Nate, decided we'd separated enough baked goods and we sorted canned goods.
Let me stop here to say that from what I understand, these sorted boxes we created are "sold" to area food banks for pennies per pound. This is more of a clearing house than an actual dispensing food bank. This place was a beehive of activity with some folks bringing in empty boxes (some in pretty bad shape) and others hauling away full pallets of boxes.

Our group was scheduled to work from 9am to 12 noon with a 15 min break somewhere in the middle.
When we began sorting canned goods, we had another set of guidelines to observe. All soups and pastas (ravioli, etc) were separated into a completely separate bin--I'm guessing to be sorted by others on another day. We had a scale and each box should be between 40 and 42 pounds and have a variety of items in the box. We were taking cans from a large (about the same size as the bread) plastic bin filled with miscellaneous canned goods which had been donated by stores. We had green beans, corn, peas, baked and chili beans, tuna, olives, tomatoes, potatoes, vienna sausage and various fruits On our sorting table we organized some cans, wiped the tops, checked the expiration dates and trashed any which were "too" dented or old.

After we had a properly filled box between the desired weights, we put the lid on, and taped a label showing the date packed (today) the weight of the box and the packer's initial. This was then put on a pallet for someone to cart away. Sometimes two of us carried the box to the pallet, other times we commandeered a young man to move the box for us. They got heavy after awhile.

I am sure this is a worthy and necessary activity and that it eventually helps food to get to those who need it, but it lacked the personal satisfaction which I derived from working at the Good Samaritan Food Pantry in Brownwood. Maybe I'm spoiled having been an interviewer who saw the need and helped to fill that need as well as we could.

Westminster's usual schedule is to work there the 3rd Tuesday and 3rd Friday of each month. No volunteers were needed from Westminster on Friday, so no one went, but the group was asked to come next week. I don't think they will--most had other commitments next week. I wouldn't mind, but I'm not going by myself. I couldn't find it for one thing and don't want to do this alone for another.

Anyway--it was an interesting experience, and I got to know 4 really nice ladies . We'll see what next month brings.

Apple store

I’ve been to the Apple Store in Ft. Worth 2 other times. Once with Nikki (and Lily before she was a month old) and again by myself to return what I bought the first time.
This time we had an appointment with an Apple technician to talk about a repair to my 3 yr old (and out of warranty) trusty lap top. Occasionally the screen would go all wavy and nothing could be seen but white , wiggle the monitor up and down and the problem would stop. It has been more and more frequent lately, hence the appointment.

When we arrived at the store, you would have thought they were having a huge sale, so many folks were there. Not so, just lots of people interested in the newest “i gadgets”. Walking in the door, we were met by a young man asking to help us. He finally found our “reservation” after some looking (the appointment was made over the phone and the Apple person misheard N’s last name) Anyway, he said “look around and the next available technician will find you. It seems that he typed in descriptions of us, so Shawn would be able to know who the “Tykes” were. That’s how our name was spelled.

We browsed, played with ipads, iphones, and all sorts of computers from teeny to really huge. They even had a children’s table set up for little Mac-freaks-in-training to play.

Shawn found us, checked the lap top out and, declared it fixable. Then he gave us an interesting option. If it went to the “hospital” far, far away—all repairs (no matter how extensive) would be one price. If they fixed it on-site, repairs would be charged separately. Since we had more than one “issue” with the machine, we opted for the far, far, away scenario. He will be gone for 7-10 days and I will be using an elderly iBook which must have a C clamp attached to the left side of the base in order to function. Doesn’t everyone have an antique iBook sitting around waiting to be pressed into service? It is slow as molasses in January, but it works- most of the time.

That accomplished we left the store which had become more crowded as we were being assisted. We had been told about a frozen yogurt shop next door to the Apple store that is a serve-yourself place. Generally, I prefer to be waited on, but in this case it was really fun and interesting. This place is called Menchies and your dessert is paid for by the ounce. You smoosh out the soft serve goodness— into a cup (waffle cones are extra)--maybe 12-14 flavors, then you choose and dispense toppings and fresh fruit. ( You might want to consider that jelly beans are appreciably heavier than teeny little sprinkles--remembering that payment is per ounce- if you care)
I got cookie dough flavor, vanilla and cookies and cream--so much for staying away from sugar this week ( blood test problem--another story for another day) We sat and ate and watched others serve themselves. More later when the repaired “almost good-as-new” laptop comes back to me.

Uncle Bob

If we didn’t have so much STUFF, we wouldn’t need to store it.

I once knew a man who said he could move at a moment’s notice because he didn’t own more than he could get into his pickup. I envy him his Spartan lifestyle. AND I wonder if his wife was happy.

Much of our settling in to the new house has been “where will we put this” We made multiple trips to dumpsters to throw away things as we were moving, N cleared out the storage house and threw much of that stuff away. We auctioned a big pile of our miscellaneous things. The man at the donations door at Good Samaritan and I became buddies as he was amazed I could get so much stuff in the Smart Car time after time, after time, after time. All this is said to begin a discussion of STORAGE, ----in this case- boat storage.

Nick sold his old boat while we were in Bwd preparing to move and was planning to buy a new one cuz he’s never had a new boat.

Son-in-law suggested he look on Craig’s List online because he might be able to find a real deal that was almost new. AND HE DID. He is thrilled with his "new" boat that has obviously been garaged and protected for 16 years, being used very few times in the interim. It is as new as possible for a 16 yr old vessel. Perhaps I should say “she” since boats are generally thought to be female.


N's "new" boat at the lake

Anyway, the boat has been behind the fence in our backyard, and has a new custom made cover, to keep it looking new. The back yard is not arranged for boat storage and it was really sort of “in the way”, so N looked online and in the phone book for boat storage. He found a few but they were not in the neighborhood or near the lake, so he continued his search. He phoned some folks who did not have one long enough—boat is 17+ feet and trailer extends beyond that w/ back and tongue. Then while driving to the neighborhood hardware store, he saw it ---Uncle Bob’s R.V. and Boat Storage, right there all along and he hadn’t seen it. AND IT WAS NOT ONLINE. You are thinking, well, poor old uncle Bob probably doesn’t have a computer. Uncle Bob is a national chain of storage facilities and why “he” isn’t online is beyond me. Or maybe it is just our lack of searching skills----anyway doesn’t matter. N talked to local Uncle Bob employee and they told him to phone the 800#. All arrangements are made—interestingly enough if you sign up for 6 months, the first month is free and the second month—you tell them how much you want to pay---3,4,5 and 6th months are at their price.

We drive boat to the facility and the rains began. Number one problem, there is no place at their office to park anything longer than a car (note to self—if we do this again, drive there, do the mountain of paperwork, get the entrance code—then go home and get the boat) We parked about a block away in a bank parking area—I’m sure they were thrilled—and N slogged up hill to the office in a pouring rain and I waited in the van. And I waited, and I waited, and then I waited some more. I wish I’d checked my watch when this all began, but my guess is 30-45 min. When N returned, still slogging thru the rain, he had all the paperwork, but had accidentally left his glasses in the office. He said that Bob’s employee was way chatty and told him more than he wanted to know about his life—that’s what took so long—along with the computer going down, having to be rebooted, and trouble with inputting the information a second time.

We drove to the entrance gate and N got out (still raining) to input the code, which does not work. He put it in again—Nothing. He phones the office w/ my cell—the guy says, “Yeah, I’m seeing on the computer and on the camera that you’re having trouble” Does he offer to come help (in the rain), NOPE. But he does give us his personal code to get in AND IT WORKS. Hallelujah

Nick drives in and we look for our slot # . It is in a good location and it is nice and deep to accommodate the trailer. And Nick backs and straightens and backs. (I am worse than terrible at backing, and N is pretty good—but I’m a pretty good guider.- at least I’m loud when I yell WHOA)

We get the boat situated –it needs wheel chocks, which N will take tomorrow- and we proceed to the exit gate. In the meantime, he chocked the tire with my metal first aid kit from the van. It's always good to carry a first aid kit. (And when he replaced it with wooden chocks on Saturday, the metal box was a little squished.) The exit is a different gate from the entrance gate and our code WORKS! Maybe it just needed some time before being used--- who knows?


The storage facility has an interesting collection of items inside. Business trailers which are probably not used every day,

limousines (about 4 or 5)

a really old bus,


empty boat trailers, RV’s of every size and description,


and yep, more boats. This is an open air, but well covered enormous space and I’m certainly glad Uncle Bob is so handy to our house and the lake.

NICK'S BOAT all snug and safe and dry



Thanks to Nick for sharing his pictures.

Ingvar Kamprad

Lily and Nikki took me on a shopping expedition across the Metroplex today. Our destination was IKEA.
When we went to Scandinavia, we saw IKEAs everywhere and as I understand there are not too many in the United States (maybe 3 in Texas and about 10 more across the US). For the uninitiated, IKEA is a basically a Swedish furniture store that sells soooo much more than just furniture. To begin with this is the most “child friendly” store I’ve ever been in. On entering, we headed for the family bathroom where free diapers of all sizes are there for the mother who ran out or forgot to bring any. There is a playground for kids only, and a very kid friendly cafeteria which has high chairs (natch) and bibs and small cutlery and dishes. Altho we didn’t try the cafeteria, my guess is very child friendly food is also available.

The furniture sold in the store is mainly wooden and is sold in “put it together yourself” boxes. Display models of the available items are set up like rooms, but what is purchased is downstairs in a huge warehouse. Scandinavian furniture has very simple functional "clean" lines with no fussiness about it. There are however some interesting color choices--a white cabinet with a bright red (or blue) door.

Some unusual items found there which aren’t furniture would be: toys, dishes, pots and pans and cooking items, lamps (semi-furniture) bedding and curtains (called textiles)

A scary looking toy

Lily fell in love with a kitty toy (not the frightening one pictured above, but a sweet gray tiger-striped kitty ) so he accompanied her throughout the shopping trip. Another visit to IKEA, several years ago, gave us the opportunity to purchase a “money tree”, which Nki gave to her grandpa Pike (family joke here) On leaving the store Swedish packaged food is available for purchase. We didn’t get any today nor did we see any plants.

Why is it called IKEA? It is an acronym for the founder’s name Ingvar Kamprad, the Swedish name for his farm (the E word) and the name of the county where he lived. Simple! So it really doesn’t MEAN anything.

I was asked "Didn't we buy anything at IKEA"? And the answer is of course, but nothing huge and no furniture. N bought the little gray/black kitty and some sippy cups. I looked for several items and only found a few. I got a cool turquoise colored dishwashing brush, which Lily immediately upon arriving at her house decided was hers. I found a duvet cover to use as a bedspread, some baby sized clothes hangers, a small (7 inch) skillet and an even smaller pyrex type dish (6 x 6) for baking purposes. I had a fairly long list of items I was looking for, but so far the majority are still on the list.

And before the IKEA visit, we stopped in at the Blue Mesa restaurant for lunch. The chips w/ salsa were a real treat, being of 3 types. Regular corn tortillas, blue corn tortillas and sweet potato chips. Lily really enjoyed the sweet potato ones.


The food was very good and portions ample, we enjoyed this lunch and our waiter was very attentive.

As we were leaving the restaurant, I saw Sam Moon in the distance and commented that altho’ I’d heard of “Sam Moon”, I’d never been there. Nki decided that I should experience this unique place, so we went after our IKEA visit. It’s a good thing we didn’t take Lil’s stroller in, because one part of SM has a sign “No Strollers Allowed everyday”. Wonder how many customers turn around and leave because of this sign. I saw one family who did leave.


Sam Moon’s is best described as luggage and accessories. I am lumping purses of all shapes, sizes and types into the luggage category. Another description for it would be Eclectic Stuff. There were hair bows in multi-colored packages of a dozen, all sorts of necklaces and rings (the “blingier” the better) Scarves were prolific, and one entire wall was taken up w/ hair-pieces/wigs and there was a sales lady there to assist in matching, if you so desired. If you need any tiaras, this is the place.

It was a busy place on this Thursday afternoon and one man was overheard saying “What is this? Disneyland for Women?” Another comment which was overheard (and which I’m not sure I understand) was “I think the integrity of the other is better”. Two ladies were discussing the merits of a possible purchase. I'm not sure I saw anything in the store that had a great deal of "integrity", but that's just me.

Since I’m doing research an the origins of names of stores, I’m not sure why Sam Moon is called that. My source says that the founder’s name is David D. Moon. Maybe he named it after his dad or his uncle or his son?

We didn’t find anything there that we couldn’t live without, so we left without any purchases. But now I’ve experienced Sam Moon.

Just a side note, on the way home I got tickled at the name of a road we passed until Nki told me the correct pronunciation—How would you pronounce HUFFINES? (Shouldn’t it be huffy-ness?)