My Pops

I want every one to know that I love my Pops. I have always loved my Pops. I can't remember a time in my life where I didn't respect and care about my Pops. If you aren't familiar with my family allow me to inform you that "Pops" is what my brothers and I call our dad. I can't really tell you for certain when we started calling him Pops but whenever that was it stuck and we have been calling him that ever since.

Anyway, I really do love my Pops. We've never had "issues". I never resented him for anything he did while I was a child. We've had one semi-serious argument since I was 12 and we both admitted we were wrong and hugged and made up within 20 minutes of the dust up (for the record, I was more wrong than he was). Basically, we'd make for a really boring episode of a day-time talk show.

My Pops never claimed to be the smartest man alive, but he was always ready with an answer for any query we threw at him. I remember a time when we were driving down interstate 5 in central California and I asked him what the giant stands with the large propeller things were for. He quickly told me that they were called windmills and they kept the earth spinning on its axis. A little farther down the road we saw the other kind of wind mills, the kind that look like giant egg beaters. When I asked him what that kind was for, he without a moments hesitation told me that they kept the air in our atmosphere circulating so that we wouldn't breathe stale air. In other words, my Pops was a creative genius.

I would like to tell you about an event in our family's history that has become a story that will be passed down from generation to generation until it is only spoken of in distant memory but with the utmost respect for my Pops.

One day in 1992 my Pops came home from work and told my mom he needed to speak to her privately. Now this was weird because in a family of 7 privacy is a foreign concept. But he stressed that it must be private and it must be now. He led my mom back to their bedroom, closed the door behind them and told her she had better sit down. What happened next is legendary.

My Pops had a very concerned and pained look on his face. He began pacing back and forth in front of my mom and wringing his hands. He kept muttering things like, "I need to tell you something important."; I'm not sure how to say this"; "This will be hard for you to understand."

My mom is a worrier. She (not unlike me) can see the worst possible outcome in a situation and it makes her nervous and causes her discomfort. She is not a worrier to the point that she stays up at night wondering and troubled about unimportant things. But when something gives her adequate cause for concern it will bother her. As she was sitting there on the bed a million terrible thoughts were rushing through her mind: Is he having an affair? does he have cancer?did Tom Selleck die? (you'd have to know my mom to understand that one).

My Pops just continued pacing back and forth. He was completely distraught at how exactly he would drop this difficult news on his wife. His worry was how she would look at him after she knew his secret. The pain of the task that lay before him was evident in every aspect of his demeanor. His countenance had dropped. A line of perspiration had appeared across his forehead. He was so fraught with worry and anguish.

At this point my mom was really concerned. She was trying to gather herself, to summon all of her courage, in order to pry this troubling information from him and begin to deal with the fallout. In her best "calm" voice she said,

"Rod, just tell me."

My Pops stopped in his tracks. He turned and faced her. He leaned in close, and with an ashen face and in a raspy voice he told her his secret.

"Kay....I'm Batman!"

Yep, that's it! My Pops is brilliant. This maybe the greatest practical joke a man has ever played on his wife. This story is often rehearsed in our family, usually with a tone of awe and raucous laughter. My Pops is a comic genius! I love seeing the expressions on people's faces as I share this story. I wish I could be sitting next to you in person now just to see your face when you read the line above.

I love my Pops for many reasons, but I will always fondly recall this moment of triumph. Every time I think of it a smile spreads across my face and my heart swells with pride. I wish everyone had the same kind of relationship with their dad that I have with mine, but let's face it, not everybody grows up with batman as a father.

My Montezuma's Revenge

Have you ever met one of those people who always orders the same thing at a restaurant? It doesn't seem to matter that they've been there eleventy-hundred times, they will without fail order the same exact thing. It doesn't matter if the restaurant were to mark up the price a bazillion times, they'd either quit eating there or shell out the money! Do those people annoy you? Do you find yourself wanting to grab them and shake them and scream, "For the love of everything sacred and holy, will you please just pick something else!"? If this is true of you, putting aside your obvious need of therapy of some kind, you may want to discontinue your perusal of my blog. For yes, as you may have guessed, I am one of those people.

If that bothers you then I am sorry that I don't really care about your personal issues. If you haven't caught on yet, this blog is not about you--unless you have the misfortune of being one of those people that annoy me enough to write about. In which case, it is very much about you, but not the way you probably hoped.

As I mentioned earlier, I am one of those people who gets the same thing every time I go to a particular restaurant. If I may (which again, this is my blog, so yes I may), I would like to let you know why I have become such a creature of habit. Pure and simply put, I find security and comfort in it. If I don't try anything new, I am never disappointed. Every now and then at the behest of my wife, I will sample a new entree and almost every time, I am disappointed.

Despite my predilection to culinary invariability, I feel that I would make an excellent food critic. You may scoff at such conjecture but what I lack in variety I more than make up for in ability to aptly describe what I am eating and can be very persuasive when called upon. If you are one of those narrow minded sorts who thinks that you have to have a variety of experience to know what's the best, I would just ask, Who is more of the fool-the man who knows what he likes and orders that or the man who tries a hundred different things, only to settle upon the exact same thing that another man chose at once?

However, my point is not to tout my own prowess, but to pass on to you what I have learned from my trip to several different Mexican food eateries. First off let me state, I lack the consent of these places to mention them in my blog, therefore I will be giving them fictitious names. However, I will be leaving clues so that you might surmise the identities of these establishments and steer clear or patronize them at your leisure. Secondly, I would like to say that my findings may be somewhat tainted as I am a fan of tex-mex and not Mexican food in its traditional form. I have been to Mexico and I feel that we in America make it so much better. ( I here illustrate my point by directing your attention to Chinese food. It was just mediocre until they brought it to America and some genius said, "Why don't we try deep frying it?" and a succulent sensation was sired).

Let us now turn our attention to the first restaurant (these are listed in order of my favorite from least to most). Let's call this restaurant "The little bull". This restaurant is considered tex-mex but it may be more accurate to refer to it as mex-tex because it is far more Mexican-y than it is Texas-y. Here I ordered, the taquito/flauta platter. Mostly because I don't like this restaurant very much and feel it is next to impossible to mess up a taquito. I will say that they were good and the Mexican Cesar salad was delicious (the pine nuts add a special twist). I would have quite enjoyed my meal if it hadn't been for the woman seated at the table next to us. I am not sure how old she was but I am quite certain that she is too old to be that plastered at 5:00. She was so tanked that when she had finished drinking her meal, she refused to tip her waiter, preferring instead to give the money to the bus boy who had been shuttling the drinks she was imbibing from the bar, fueling her booze soaked repast. Overall, I give the restaurant 4 stars (out of a possible 100). It was good, but if you want me to return you'll find someway to quarantine the alcoholics in the bar!

Next on my list of lunch is a little restaurant we shall call "Blevy's". Some people think it is named thus because it was founded by actor Blevy Chase, but that is just an urban legend. Here, I ordered the flautas and empanada platter (are you beginning to see a pattern?). The food was terrific. I especially like this restaurant because if it is your birthday they give you a big sombrero with "Blevy's" written on it. The thing I wish to address here is the hostess. When we walked in the man with whom I was eating said to her, "Tres, Senorita!" She looked at him perplexedly and said, "I am sorry, I don't speak Spanish." I interpreted for her and we somehow made it to our seats. As much as I love Blevy's, I am concerned that they employ such people and am forced to ponder-if this is who they have as the face of their company, what kind of mental midget is working the grill?

Much of my young life I considered Blevy's to be my favorite but only because I hadn't learned that our next restaurant existed. As my #1 favorite restaurant I give you, (drum roll) Over the Boarder! They have the best empanadas, flautas, nachos and pretty much anything else you would find at a tex-mex restaurant. If you have noticed, I have mentioned multiple items because this is one of those rare instances in which I was not disappointed by venturing outside of my comfort zone. As a matter of fact, I have never been disappointed by Over the Boarder. Their food is excellent, I have never met a waiter/waitress, host or cook I didn't like. They are even selective in their clientele. They don't let just any one eat there. If you choose to eat there, you are obviously a person of high taste and astute discernment.

Well, I suppose I have ignored my boys long enough. They are threatening to get me banned from Over the Boarder if I don't stop and play with them. I know they're probably bluffing, but that's not a hand I'm willing to play!