What? I didn't know you could even eat that stuff!

So we went to the mountain top flea market yesterday. They ought to call it the "hillside" flea market because it is on a steep hillside. You walk up or down, then once you hit a row, it's easy going to the opposite end. A good way to have a good time, buy someone elses crap, and get some exercise to boot. Marshall doesn't do very well at these things and there isn't anyone to dump him on so we pack him with us. I just wheel him around in his wheelchair. I don't mind because it also serves as a carrier for all of our junk. If you can't find what you want at the flea market, chances are it never existed anyway. It's cheap entertainment at the least, with a red-neck petting zoo for the kiddies to boot. Yesterday we saw some sort of large parrot that was making enough noise to wake the dead. I don't know what his problem was but he wasn't selling with that kind of behaviour. Kathy loves to see all the cute puppies. I'm glad they're so expensive. The last one of ours was free, these go for over $300 a copy. No thanks. I even saw a turkey that was packed in a 50# onion bag. He was trying to get out in earnest too. Sucks to be him.

This flea market is located towards the Eastern end of the state and is in the middle of nowhere. When we had seen it all and were about wore out it was time for some lunch. I chickened out on the flea market fare. The Mexican "roach coach" looked good and had a large crowd but I wanted something a little more substantial. On the way back we decided to head out of our way for 15 miles or so and try our luck in another town. There are only 2 restaurants between our house and this flea market:  Jacks or McDonalds. I figured we would roll the dice and also have a little adventure on the way. We made a right turn and headed out towards Albertville.

Kathy got out her new GPS after a while to see if we could find directions to a restaurant. She found a place right off called "Grumpys" and declared that's where we were headed. The directions to Grumpys had us going from the middle of nowhere to the land of the lost. But that GPS got us right to Grumpy's front door just the same. Only problem was that Grumpy's was closed. We were on the edge of a town that wasn't Albertville and wandered around for a little while looking for somewhere to eat (okay, I was looking for Chinese). Mexican was also up for grabs as a fail safe. We ended up at a tiny Mexican place called "La Autentica" or something. The menu didn't look like typical Mexican stuff so I asked the waitress for suggestions. We wound up with some mighty fine eats. There was one item on the huge platter of beef, pork, chicken, and shrimp we shared that I had never had though. It was cactus. She said it was very good for you especially if you were a diabetic. Also mentioned that it tasted like okra and quietly it might be slimy. I told her I didn't realize that cactus was edible. She said they ate it all the time. The waitress had Kathy pretty excited about the pork tacos  too so she also got one of those to try. I got a bite and it was the best taco I'd ever had. Pork, pico de gallo, flour tortilla, and a fresh lime wedge was an instant hit. The refried beans were very spicy as well.

The waitress really did right by us and we left a huge tip. Too bad that place is so far away. We found it by accident too. Maybe we'll head over there again. I'm gonna eat a big plate of shrimp tacos with cactus.

The lunch dare

There are many food shows on TV these days. The hosts travel all over the place to wow their viewers with tales of exotic and wild dishes in the oddest of settings. One show I enjoyed highlighted a lunch wagon (also known as a "Roach coach") in Sanfrancisco that served fancy Chinese dim sum with a flair. I watched transfixed to the screen as they created these exotic little wonders for the gathering crowd to ooh and ahh over. I told the wife that if we are ever lucky enough to get back there I wanted to find that place. Then I had a thought:  maybe there's some kind of funky wild exotic place right here in our neck of the woods we could try. Why travel 1,000 miles when the excitement is right here in your own backyard? Then I had another thought (I was on a roll);  what if there's some kind of funky wild exotic place right here in our neck of the woods and one of those overpriced TV hosts finds it before we do? We can't let that happen. We don't need no Hollywood tinseltown moviestar so and so telling us about our well kept secrets right?

Well, we have several. But we have one in particular. We call it "the bus". We've gone past this bus many times on our way to the Chinese place for lunch. And we've talked about trying it out. It started out as a joke because if you take one look at this thing and the area they park it you check the car door locks pretty quickly. The area is somewhat less than hospitable. There is a hootchie cootchie club just down the road and driving in this area after dark is not for the faint of heart. I've heard horror stories about the activities across the street and in the housing projects too. By the way, the bus serves Mexican food. We do like Mexican every now and then. Rumor mill said they had the best in the State. Really? We started having serious thoughts.

So a good bit of research was done. Try as we might, we couldn't find one single dissenting word about "the bus". There hadn't been any homicides in the 'hood that week so the next day off we went. Most of the usual lunch crew (from work) bailed on us so we did some outside recruiting.  Armed with an unsuspecting Husband and a couple of cute little kids we slid right in there. Who's gonna bother you if you have little kids? The ordering and eating procedure at this place is a little unconventional and if you hadn't already guessed, you better know just a little bit of Mexican. You have to walk inside to place your order and there is not much room. There are only about 8 chairs lined up along the walls with a skinny counter and the kitchen takes up nearly half of the space. Thankfully, the food choices had pictures and numbers, so you just pick out a number from 1 to 30 and let 'er rip. This place is known for super authentic Mexican dishes, and that generally translates the same way in any language:  a little weird. Authentic in Mexican is beef cheek (I didn't know you could even eat that part), tripe (guts), and tongue. Being the adventurous type,  I went with chicken, got a "chata" to drink (yes the drinks are authentic too) and smiled to myself that I had actually pulled this off and was about to enjoy a fine meal. Then things got just slightly worriesome when the guy in the kitchen started calling out who's order was ready. I couldn't understand a thing. I concentrated and realized he was calling out the orders in Mexican by the ticket number they give you. A quick rattle of my brains back to High School Spanish class got me where I thought I needed to be to get my order. Lucky for me, they were beyond the teens because I never could remember them, even back in school. Well, when my order came up he called it out in English;  I guess Gringos get special consideration. There was another guy there who was a cherry just like us and he was asking someone what/how to do. This is one of those places where you need to step back and watch what goes on in order to get the full good out of it. There is one long picnic table outside to sit at so we all plopped down there after trucking everything off the bus only to find out that the kitchen guy will hand it outside to you through the window. He's about 10' off the ground so you have to reach up over your head to get it and pray it doesn't fall on your head.  I never did understand one thing he said to the other customers either. In High School they teach Spanish, at the bus you have to speak Mexican.

So how was it? I thought it was great. I got a plate of enchilladas with beans and rice. There were some pickled carrots on my plate and some sort of wierd long pepper thing. Not like anything else I've ever had in the usual Mexican places. The "chata" was good too. I think it was made with rice milk and cinnamon. After 20 minutes or so that place was filling up fast. A bunch of geeky Engineers (you have to be one to be able to spot them) arrived and looked sort of worried/annoyed about how and where they were going to sit. Engineers are not known for their social skills and I chuckled to myself knowing that they were facing quite a dilemma at the thought of sitting at the same picnic table with a bunch of strangers. A few of them at the other end were even (gasp) Mexican. We overheard some of the conversation suggesting they drop the tailgate of somebody's truck. The picnic table would have easily accomodated another dozen people. I figure they took our spot the second we got up. I snapped a picture of the bus on the way home and a few guys inside waved at us while I took it.

Well I'm going back. I saw a guy getting some sort of sauce to put on his stuff and I'm curious about it. I'll have to brush up on my Mexican first though.

Mechanical mysteries of the Universe explained

The service manager stood there with a serious look on his face and told me that only the very senior mechanics did that type of work. They operated in the back of the shop where it was quiet and the rest of the place was told to leave them alone while they performed their magic. He further explained that it took years to learn how to do that kind of work and occasionally, a bright young man with a promising future and very high scores on his SAT exams would be allowed to apprentice with this senior craftsman/swami until his death when the torch would be passed along in high ceremony and 3 days of public mourning approved by the Governor himself. I bought this academy award winning performance hook, line, and sinker and decided I had best leave well enough alone or pony up the bucks and let the “technician” do it for me. I suppose at this point it would be sporting to let you know exactly what flavor of service I’m talking about. Today’s technical mystery of the universe is automotive instrument panels. What’s behind the dashboard, anyway?

Before I tell “the rest of the story” let’s hit a tangent and talk tires for a moment. I got the same “you can’t do that” story from the guy who worked on my motorcycle. Tires, it seemed, were only able to be changed and balanced by the professional who had invested $100,000 in tooling and knew just how to do it. And I was assured that even if I could change the tire, there was no way on God’s green Earth that I was going to be able to balance it. A couple of years ago I paid $800 to get two new tires and have my wheel bearings serviced. This lit a fire under my happy ass to find a way to do it myself and save some money in the process. I’m world renowned as a cheapskate and futhermore I was sick and tired of being held over a barrel by somebody who was really enjoying it. I bought my bike due to it’s reputation as being easy to work on and here we are with the “you can’t do that” from the very guy who recommended it to me. The little grin on his face didn’t help either. Well, in order to not turn this paragraph into chapter 5 of “War and Peace” I did my research, bought the necessary equipment (less than $400) and now I change all my tires myself. It’s already paid for itself and I not only save the labor cost, tires are about $40 less apiece when I buy them direct from a mail order place. So there.

Now, back to instrument panels. I was already determined that going to the dealership and having them tell me to turn around and bend over when the bill got there was out of the question. The instrument panel lights were all out on my son’s car. A check of the fuse panel revealed a burnt 5A fuse so I replaced it with a spare that was in the box cover. Still no soap with the new fuse. I faintly remembered the wife telling me that when this was her car, some of the lights weren’t working and could I look at it. Obviously, that was the point where I had the conversation with the dealership and decided it was easier to just tell her that it would cost more than it was worth (she got a new car shortly afterwards anyway). This time I decided I was going in, come heck or high water. Armed with resolute determination and a Haynes service manual, I proceeded to rip that dashboard apart into 1,000 easy pieces. I laid all the parts out neatly on a towel. The hardware was carefully organized into piles according to size and type. I nearly choked when the directions said to disconnect the speedometer cable at the transaxle but I found that dude and took care of business. When I got the panel down to it’s short and curlies, I had a heck of a time getting it pulled out from it’s lair but after further checks with the service manual and a couple of extra steps, it was in my sweaty palms. I turned it over and there they were, all exposed and vulnerable;  about 20 tiny light bulbs asleep in their ¼ turn housings. Each one was methodically inspected and tested with a voltmeter. I thought it kind of strange that out of all those bulbs, only 1 was bad. I put everything back together with a surgeons precision and care, even taking the effort to use glue to piece together some plastic parts that had broke during the extraction. This car is 17 years old and I expected to have a few casualties so the glue was pretty much factored into the repair as necessary.

After it was all together (6 hours later) I gave it a try and still we had a dark panel. I thought that perhaps there was another fuse that I had missed so I proceeded to check every single one of them, in orderly fashion of course. When I got to the new one that I put in that morning, it was bad. Uh oh. My spare had let me down. I managed to turn a 2 minute job into 6 grueling hours of brain surgery. Nevertheless, I felt vindicated that I had beat the dashboard, the car dealership, and my own fears of the monsters that lurk behind the speedometer cable. I think I’ll drive by there in the morning and thumb my nose at that service manager.