My favorite outing in New Orleans was to The Kupcake Factory. It was a small, uncommercialized-type establishment with many different flavors from which to choose. We actually went for the gelato – mine was a mixture of cake batter and rosewater champagne.

However I loved the sight of the cupcakes behind the case.

Labels: towns

We have never really detoured on our usual route through the middle of Louisiana, but Saturday we pulled off unexpectedly to look at the Adai Cultural Center.

I find more and more as an adult that things don’t really happen to me anymore. I have to happen to them. However, when we take a byway or detour, things happen to us. We have ended up touring a Masonic lodge with the Grand Master, walking amid decades-old weeds growing through the cracks of abandoned Route 66, interrupting a strange ceremony in what appeared to be a public book shop.

This byway I will actually not ever forget.

We stopped first at St. Anne’s Catholic Church.

Then we walked among the old graves. You know me, I love an old cemetery, especially when there’s sun-bleached silk roses on the graves.

This was not an above-ground cemetery, though some of the graves had a cement covering.

We remarked on the beautiful, unusual names, particularly “Marsalena” and “Bustamento.”

After this we visited the Adai Cultural Center. It was completely empty, but we both had to use the restroom and made a run for it. When we emerged the gift shop was suddenly populated. We talked a little bit with the curator about the museum, and another lady was very talkative with us. A man came out of the museum part with a camcorder, who was no other than the Chief of the Adai nation. I heard the curator address him as such and so looked to her once he and his Queen were gone, and she explained that he was in fact their tribal leader.

I must admit, I felt very lucky, and the state and life that Native Americans lead today was impressed on me as I visited the center and looked at the things the Adai artisans make today.

Many of the names mentioned in the exhibits were the same as those on the cemetery graves, and the short video we watched mentioned St. Anne’s Church as an establishment which had converted many Indians to Catholicism.

The experience impressed some sadness on us both, but mine came later in the day when we had dinner. I felt sickened and sorry for everything, even for eating in the Cracker Barrel, though I can scarcely say why.

In my adult life I have felt very emotional every time I have seen any clips of Native American dancing on television. I don’t want to undermine the fact that I am a big sap, for it is one of those things, like “Bed of Roses” or Sarah Brightman’s “Siren,” that causes me to cry immediately, sort of like watching a clip from The Nutcracker will cause me to fall asleep immediately.

I despise dancing actually and never, ever do it unless I am alone, because for me a dance is like a journal entry, only relevant when it is personal and genuine. I have only ever known dancing to be for purposes completely unimportant, such as social posturing, competing or acquiring a mate, however temporarily. I have never seen beauty in a dance before, so that when I see a Native American dance, I am overwhelmed.

Native American dances are not to show off or acquire anything. They are religious, personal and moving. I would dearly love to see one in my adult life in person. They have them quite a lot at the Adai Cultural Center, but we came at a time when nothing like that was going on.

I was very impressed with the spiritual similarities to Buddhism and Zen, and when I considered those pure principles against the brutalities of white people I was sickened. I know that however many millenia since the Native Americans traveled from the East to populate America their culture is related to those principles which I have been studying lately. I was even more impressed with how different was the Native American philosophy from the European and how little defense they had against the search-and-destroy tactics the Europeans employed.

I asked my husband if he thought one day there would be no more Native Americans. He said, of course there wouldn’t be. He is so good about giving it to me straight. I said, of course not genetically, because bloodlines are in constant flux and there is no reason to ever keep a bloodline “pure.” I wondered if there would be no Native American culture some day. He said he thought some of it would always stay around. Well, there doesn’t seem to be any reason that there will ever be more of it than there is now.

To think that there is something from which we could learn, that is dying away, though these individuals carry on however confidently, while the majority of us eat at the Cracker Barrel Country Store and watch So You Think You Can Dance? I am still not over it.

Labels: towns

Every time we eat at a favorite restaurant, I ask myself, will this be the last time? When we move, we will be far away from these places. We have been going to King China BBQ for at least five years now. It is my favorite Chinese restaurant. I have never eaten Chinese food quite like they do it here. It is not breaded or fried, but marinated with different flavors which are delectable. In addition to their huge menu selection, they have many different drinks, most of which I’ve had, I think. I don’t drink milk tea or jelly tea any more due to calorie concerns, so I had their soymilk last weekend, which was wonderful and grassy.

Could it have been the last BBQ?

Labels: Arlington, restaurant, towns, treo photos

Labels: Arlington, river legacy, towns

For Nathan’s birthday we went to Cafe Madrid in the Bishop arts district in Dallas.

Our tapas selections were two different cheese platters, chorizo, quail, salmon and the Salvador Dali dessert (there were three of us).

I love the atmosphere of Bishop Street and Oak Cliff in Dallas. It’s been a long time since we’ve been to Dallas. It’s really hard to believe I was once there every day. I love the older places in Dallas that have a sense of urban arts, like Oak Cliff and Deep Ellum. I don’t know what’s in Deep Ellum now. There’s really only one eating place where we still like to go, but we never get there anymore, since we’ve lost touch with the Rasputina/Les Claypool concert days.

When I start writing like this I get to feeling sad and rebellious. But whatever we do in the future, we’re going to do it our own way. I love our life, where we can express ourselves creatively, openly thwarting expectations, or whatever we think are expectations, of others. But I think we do it lovingly.

Labels: Dallas, restaurant, towns

Recipe book with recipes from 1920's-present, a cookbook periodically published by the Fredricksburg PTA. Many German recipes I am longing to try. (Not pictured)

Antique reproduction cookie stamp from Kuchen Laden. I reversed the image for a better look. The Kuchen Laden merchant explained they are used to make Springerle cookies (there is a recipe for them in my cookbook), which are able to receive a detailed imprint. As the unbaked cookies sit overnight, the imprint becomes distinct. According to her, they are meant to be rock-hard and dipped in one's beverage during the long winter. There were many creepy stamps. One had four frames like an antique cartoon, telling a story I could not understand. There was a dog sitting in a chair like a man eating in one frame.

This stamp was our favorite though. I will have to share some of the cookie with my bird.

Black delight violas from Wildseed Farms. On our way out of Fredricksburg, we made a stop. I also bought a cocoa rose plant, which is supposed to bloom chocolate-brown.  

Labels: towns

Day dress for a pioneer hausfrau in early Fredericksburg.

I loved the idea of making my own cross stitch and embroidery samplers in German. I don't speak German, so I photographed what German text I could find to collect phrase ideas.

However, they do still speak German in Fredericksburg. Our museum docent told us that German is spoken in her home as it always has been. As Fredricksburg expands, interest in the German language is waning, but older townspeople are doing what they can to maintain the tradition. 

Hair jewelry made from Fredricksburg women.

Lovely German sampler.

Detail from a very large wreath made of beads and hair behind glass.

I have never seen a cross-stitch like this before. The background is punched paper, which was very interesting to me since I have never seen an old example of cross-stitch on paper. The stitching is laid over in gold thread, fine ivory cutwork and pressed ferns.

Very cute, I would love to make one of him.

I love the year in paper at the bottom of the brown needlepoint bag.

The larger piece was labeled, I think, a caddy or pouch. I was not sure if it was meant to be worn. However I think the design would make a wonderful embroidered girdle. The small pillow or chatelaine was made to match it.

Labels: towns

I loved the face of this angel. In person he looked straight into my heart. But I did not feel like he was a Catholic, more of a Greek god.

I loved his arm. Broken, repaired with marble? It looked like a wound.

The Confessional. It looks like a guillotine.

When I was younger I was enamored of Catholicism, like the sensualist Modernists were. The dark, perfumed sanctuary decorated with decadent art. The suffering, the drama.

However, my feelings are different now. I almost didn't say this, but this is my journal. I can say what I want to. I don't like Catholicism, and I never will have an immature sensualist fascination with it again. Guilt hung on my heart like lead as I looked at the stations of the cross high above me, images of Jesus suffering cartoon-like at the hands of villains. Then, dismay. I muttered some disparaging things but didn't say a hundredth of how I felt.

My heart is free. God made it so. I felt those pitiful faces and bowed forms in painting and sculpture attempting to bind it in misery. I hate guilt and self-imposed mortification. I hate some things I used to love. I see them differently now.                

Labels: towns

After our day in Fredericksburg we walked in Enchanted Rock park until evening. Trails encircled the rock, a large structure of pink granite appearing to shed layers like an onion.

Labels: towns

In a music store we found a collection of autoharps on display. I have never heard the sound of one before; unfortunately there were none to play.

In the old schoolhouse.

Scenes in an early pioneer home.

Labels: Texas, towns

As I had peeked through a Cloud,
To see that which was not allowed,
Like the flash from a Falling Star,
Winged Messengers appear so far.
We're ascending up a narrow Path,
Which are to make one realize that,
A Place of peace and love does exist,
To be taken in whole, do no resist,
As the Pearly Gates are opened,
Arch Angels shall be summoned,
On a tree branch sat a White Dove,
Welcoming you to the world above.

Labels: Texas, towns

Road trip to Colorado, day 2.

An abandoned house off I-40 near Soncy exit. We looked for the Cadillac Ranch on two different days and never found it. However we drove out into a pasture to have a closer look at this house.

There were crows in the bare trees surrounding the house.

The doors were open to visitors. The floor was covered in muck. It looked as though cows had wandered freely throughout the house.

View from the window, an abandoned paddock.

The front room.

The kitchen.

Room at the rear of the house.           

Labels: Texas, towns

Freemasonry has been a subject interesting to me since I learned that my first Texas ancestor, Napoleon Storey, was a freemason. So it was with great pleasure that I took the opportunity to enter and photograph a masonic lodge, informed by the local masonic leader about the organization as I did so.

This was a composite of famous American freemasons.

I was able to look and photograph all I wanted. The masons offered no explanations as to the meaning or use of the objects in the ceremony hall; nor did I ask them.

In the center of the hall.

The dining hall. This was my favorite place. There was a lingering smell of sandwiches and good country cooking. On the wall are members of the Order of the Eastern Star, a related organization for men and women dedicated to public service.

This was the founder of the order in Grand Prairie. His portrait was very high on the wall above my head, and it was difficult to get a good picture. I found his appearance, emblematic of the mid-19th century American Romantics, striking.

Since my tour I have noticed several other masonic lodges in my area. Everything I learned before and since confirms much of what sensed, that freemasonry is very much a part of the history of Texas, most prevalent in smaller and once-larger towns. Due to its place in Texas history and undoubted influence on the towns where I have lived as well as my ancestry I want to know much more.

Labels: freemasonry, Texas, towns

  
Beautiful dresses in a shop window.

Masonic Lodge. We toured the interior on invitation from two masons standing nearby, one of whom was the local head of the organization.

Labels: Texas, towns

Labels: Texas, towns

Labels: Texas, towns

Labels: Texas, towns

Labels: Texas, towns, treo

 
Weatherford, TX

Labels: towns

Labels: Texas, towns