Okay, when I left off, Martha and I had just attempted to look after Miles and Hazel while his Mom and Dad were doing some chores, but Miles had noticed his parents weren’t around and went into hyperdrive, supercharged, sound-blaster, sonic-cannon screaming mode and we had to call his parents to come home...thus damaging, forever, our chances for being the resident babysitters, even though that’s what J.D. Vance assures us that we’re built for. I.e., us “post-menopausal women” and senile old farts. The latter one being moi. Sigh.
Anyway, the kids and grandkids decided to stay in, so Martha and I headed out for a quick ride. We ended up in the center of town visiting a new coffee shop (like we’d miss a coffee shop) called “Bitter Sugar Cafe.”(1)
It was a pleasant place. As the cafe’s webpage says, it had “Coffee. Community. [and] Cozy Vibes.” And it *was* very pleasant, and the coffee (when it came), was good. But...the wait was long. It seemed interminable. That appears to be a theme in Marfa. The food’s good. The drink’s lovely. But you have to have the patience of Job to get them.
About the photos: First, a giant Chicken (okay, a Rooster) that was in front of one of the buildings near the AirBnB. I believe the building was part of an art institute. In any case, the rooster is an example of the unexpected art you encounter in Marfa.
Second, an interior shot of one of the cafes in town. Believe it or not, this is a photo which I’ve tried to make look like a painting with Adobe Photoshop. I wanted to protect the identity of the people in the picture.
Finally, here’s Martha in March of this year. Believe it or not, we were looking at wildflowers along a much traveled road. Texas has magnificent wildflowers in spring. Unfortunately, many of them are along highways and byways, and you end up sharing them with high-speed traffic. Ah well.
Oh, and I should mention that there’s another constant in the town. That is, it can be kind of difficult to get, well, you know, just ordinary stuff here. For instance, downtown, there are a couple of speciality, gourmet food shops. At them, you can get everything from French wines to Italian cheese to Korean kimchi. Hell. I didn’t check, but I bet if you looked hard enough, and peeked into a few barrels, you’d find yourself a lovely slice of Icelandic Fermented Shark, a.k.a., hákarl, just ripe (very ripe) and ready for the holidays.(2)
But...say you want to get just some 2% milk for your coffee in the morning. That’s another story entirely. There aren’t that many places you can shop in town for just, you know, ordinary, everyday stuff. There’s a Lowe’s Market (at 717 San Antonio Street)--and we ended up making a lot of trips there. But, that’s about it. Do a Google search for “groceries in Marfa,” and you’ll find the gourmet shops I mentioned, and the Lowes, and...a Dollar General, which doesn’t count as a grocery store in my book, at least.
So, again for example, you’ll remember I said we were all cold in the AirB&B? Well, there was a fireplace and David’s a master of fire-craft, and so we figured, no problem, we’ll just fire up the fireplace. Except...there wasn’t any firewood. And when we went to the stores around town to get some...there was none to be had. At all. None.
I mention all that not because it rather annoyed us (we ended up just putting on more blankets and fighting with the AirB&B’s temperamental furnace, and we would have so loved to get a fire started) but because there’s more to the story here. Sometimes, in town, you felt there was a tension in the social life of Marfa. A sort of gap...
...between those who end up getting their Julien Sunier Fleurie 2019 at the gourmet boutique...and those who end up shopping for food at a dollar store...maybe because otherwise they’d have to drive for miles and miles...or, maybe, because that’s what they can afford...
And I’m guessing that, sometimes, in this town, in spite of what may be (or may not be) the best of intentions on both sides...there is a bit of a problem in that chasm. Even something dangerous.
And I sometimes fear that that problem, that danger, is not restricted to Marfa, to some little town in West Texas...but is everywhere. All places. Particularly in this nation conceived in liberty...but somehow allowed to drift elsewhere...toward a world in which power and wealth have been criminally concentrated in ever fewer hands...
While the vast majority? More and more, it seems they are allowed only their resentment. And ever increasing rage.
But I am drifting off into politics and away from my story. So, mid-course correction. Let me get back to our adventures in Marfa. We finished our coffee. Then we toured a few shops. Then we realized it was getting on to lunchtime. We started looking for a restaurant. That was when we recalled that...oops!...it was Sunday.
We toured several of fancy restaurants that we’d seen in the area, but they were closed. Then, we used our cellphones (and limited signal) to locate a few more. But, they, too, were closed.
What to do?
Then we remembered. Of course! There was the Dairy Queen out on Route 90, a.k.a., West San Antonio Street. That would do nicely. So off we went, and, a few minutes later, we were devouring burgers, fries, and milk shakes. And it wasn’t bad at all. Or, at least, we liked it.
Which only goes to show, I suppose, that you can take the boy out of the bourgeois suburb of Albuquerque, New Mexico, c. 1968...
But you ain’t a’gonna take the bougie outta him.
Until next time.
Footnotes:
1. Bitter Sugar ’s webpage is here: https://bittersugar.cafe/
2. Famously, even the late, great Anthony Bourdain couldn’t abide hákarl. He said it was “the single worst, most disgusting and terrible-tasting thing” he’d ever eaten. And given some of the stuff he wolfed down on prime-time TV, that’s saying something. See here: https://www.urbandaddy.com/articles/37834/this-is-what-fermented-shark-tastes-like-one-mans-brush-with-icelands-most-unusual-food
Copyright©2024 Michael Jay Tucker
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