Rain and other random Sunday thoughts

Rain. We need it. We have not gotten much of it lately.

I watched, both on TV and out the window last night as the storm coming in from the north slipped right around the City of Bastrop. It got kinda stormy looking tonight but as with one other night this past week, despite the thunder and lightening, no rain.

These 100+ days have been kicking my rear end. I don't like them. You'd think I'd be used to them, having lived my entire life in this part of Texas where 90's and 100's with loads of humidity are common. But it seems every year, I wilt a little bit more when faced with outdoors activities during the 100's.

Bastrop often seems to be in a weather warp as far as rain is concerned. Although Bastrop was recently ranked as one of the top 9 in Texas drought stricken counties, there has been some rain around this summer that we have not got at my house. Several weeks ago, we had the marvelous evening long rainstorm, and several of my co-horts remarked they were tempted to dance naked in the rain, it's been so long since they've seen a good drenching.

Everyone's yard looks like hell, except for those with lots of shade on the grass. Parts of my yard, like many others, are surviving but it's taken it's toll. Just a repeat of last summer. Then the yard looks like hell throughout the winter. This spring, we had a bit of rain, and the yard began recovering. I watered and fertilized and tended and even raked some of the dead spots to get the grass to spread in faster. Just as it was looking good, and just as we had the herb and tomato garden producing, whammo. No rain.

The garden held on, with daily watering, until about mid-july. My neighbors peach trees normally bear some fruit, no matter how dry, but this year the growth process didn't even happen. My watermelons never really did anything, but we got a few loads of tomatos and lots of different types of herbs and peppers going until everything just wilted. The intense heat and lack of natural rainwater just took it's toll.

Just like last summer.

I'm big on tomatos, you see. I like them to smell like tomatos and taste like tomatos and it's rare that you can find a decent tomato in the stores. I hardly found many at the Farmer's Market this year, except for some way overpriced heirloom tomatos but they sure were good. On at hot day, coming back to the office, there's nothing like biting into some fresh tomato slices glazed with some sea salt. Maybe a little italian dressing and bleu cheese if you wanna get fancy, but on occasion I've been known to eat a chilled tomato like an apple, if it's good enough.

We've developed a slight addiction to Jalisco's breakfast tacos on Saturdays at our house. The lack of good breakfast places on the weekend in Bastrop is lamentable. There is always The Texas Grille, or Maxine's on Main and then a couple of mexican food places have both american and mexican breakfast fare.

I like the City Cafe breakfast buffett but the main problem is that it's in Elgin, which means driving on the suicide highway, State Highway 95 that runs from Bastrop to Elgin and back. We don't much care for that highway, and it seems like someone is always getting killed on that highway. People speed, they pass like idiots, they tailgate, they talk on cell phones with their car seats all laid back like it was a massage parlor and they literally scare the crap outta me every time I'm on that road. I avoid it whenever possible.

It just seems like there's always someone getting killed in car wrecks in Bastrop, and often not on Hwy 71 but on Hwy's 20 and 21 and FM 304. Entire families have been wiped out in the recent past. Some of it is alcohol related but much of it is dumbass related. Someone is breaking some traffic law and driving fast enough that a bad wreck happens and someone dies.

One thing Bastrop has no shortage of is BIG TRUCKS with EXTENDED CABS. Many of these trucks are the super-duper heavy duty trucks and are often diesel powered. They range from the utilitarian to the ridiculous in tire size. I realize many folks in Bastrop have either travel trailers or horses and livestock that need to be pulled in trailers and that trailer pulling requires horsepower and torque.

But I see lots of fashionable type folks who have no more of a need for a F350 Super Cab than I do for a third foot. I work with some of them. I listen to them gripe about their poor gas milage and the high cost of diesel. Trucks so big that they have to take up two spaces due to their width and length. Trucks so big that the "aw screw it" mentality of many of their drivers is evident upon seeing the horrible parking job they do in parking lots.

I am often unlucky, having some erstwhile cowboy truck parked so close to the drivers side of my car that I can't get in the drivers side. It's happened more than once at HEB and Walmart where I enter the store and when I leave, some humongous truck that could tow a small school building is parked literally as close to the driver's side of my car as it can get without touching the car.

So close that opening my driver's door is impossible. So you have to enter from another door and climb over the seat. In some cars, as you begin to become well-established in middle age, climbing over seats and across seats is a much bigger deal than it was just 10 years ago.

These super big trucks remind me of vanless vans, if that makes sense. In some of my mispent youth in the 1970's, I can recall "cruising" in custom vans owned by a couple of friends. The super big trucks are often luxurious but lack the best part of a big vehicle: The back part of the van.

I often try to imagine my more country friends who drive these behemoth trucks and wonder what kind of custom van they'd have if they didn't have a truck. For sure, most of them would sport some kind of longhorn horns on the front. TV's inside for watching Jerry Springer reruns. Most of the fellas I know would be extra proud to have some sort of water bed in their van, just as they would have back in the day.

I've been trying to intimate to several of my big truck friends that what they really need is a 4wd heavy duty Ford or Chevy van, something that would tow their load of livestock but also provide some sort of rolling bar for their continuing exploits.