Six Days on the Road

The vacation is over. I'm back in my home office, wishing I'd made strong coffee when I got up this morning.

Yesterday, we went into Houston to visit with a sister, a brother, and a niece and her husband. We all met at my sister's place and had to stay there for lunch because of some medication she is taking. That was fine, though, because it gave me an opportunity to go with my niece and her husband to seek out lunch on New Year's Day. After discovering that a Mexican restaurant my niece suggested was not open, after all, we went to Connie's, a Mexican seafood place nearby. I bought lunch, which consisted of fried shrimp with tartar sauce, a salad, and miscellaneous other stuff.

While we waited, I noticed a guy sitting at the bar filling an ice-cold mug with a Corona beer...but the mug already had about an inch of red liquid in it, so the result when the beer was poured was a translucent red brew. I asked my companions what it was...they had an idea, but where not sure exactly what was it in. My niece's husband, a Paraguayan who speaks Spanish as well as Guarani, asked the Hispanic guy what it was. Micheleda, he said, and offered to let me taste it. I took him up on his offer and found it really excellent. In what I have come to believe is a common Hispanic response to expressions of appreciation for something someone else has, the guy offered to give me the rest of his drink! I thanked him, but decided to buy one for me and for my niece's husband, instead. My niece found this wonderful drink foul and appalling, giving me cause to wonder whether, in fact, we are related. At any rate, I have become a fan of Micheladas. And Connie's sells its "secret" mixture for Micheladas in bottles....I did not buy one, but should have.

Back at my sister's place, we got online with my brother's son and his son's wife. I got a picture of the whole group, including the online couple, that I hope to post here sometime soon. But, I took it with my brother's camera, so I'm not sure when I'll get a copy.

We left about 2:00 pm to head back to Dallas and made it back into town not long after dark. We stopped at Luby's cafeteria for dinner, where we could have black-eyed peas and other good things for not much money. And then, finally, we were back home, able to kick back and relax. And curse the fact that our so-called vacation lasted only six days.