Sunday, April 29, 2012

Footloose Weekends

I am spending more time away from home than ever before.  Work is frequently taking me on the road these days so I feel the need to maximize my experiences when I am home.  Mostly, this means spending time with David who is probably feeling more and more like a week-day bachelor as the weeks go by. 

Here is my gentleman standing at the Gentleman's entrance to a historic hotel in downtown Grapevine.  We thought it was the entrance to a bathroom.

After spending a week away from home just down the highway, David and I went to the Fort Worth Arts Festival - my third time in three days.
I loved the Kinetic Art.  I would have brought this home but it was more than $5,000 and David wants to eat while I am out of town.

David is a woodworker/turner and I wanted him to see some of the booths displaying that type of art.  There weren't may of those so after a quick lap of the art booths, we head to Granbury.  Granbury is a small town 37 miles southwest of Fort Worth. 
The Hood County Courthouse in downtown Granbury. 

Our plan is to check out some shops on the square, have lunch and retrieve Grandbaby #1 who is in town with her mom.  The stores on the square weren't anything special, our solitary purchase was a packet of Tylenol.  For town squares in Texas I have experienced so far, I prefer McKinney.  I say so far because a lot (not all) of the squares are in the county seat (where the square goes around the courthouse) and there are more than 400 counties in Texas.  I estimate I may have seen around 10 so I have a few left to visit before I make a final decision.
When I don't know the area, I always think it is a good idea to ask a local for advice on where to eat.  We ask a woman at an art gallery and she directs us to The Brazos Smokehouse.  She tells us we can sit by the waterfall in the back if we ask.  It is really nice she says.  I imagine a nice stream with a little waterfall and on a fantastic day outside, that sounds just right.

Sometimes what you picture in your head and reality are VERY different.  This fountain with a goggled plastic frog is the waterfall we were promised.

Fortunately, the food was good and they played Bob Wills music so we would probably eat here again despite the false advertising about the fountain. 

I had smoked chicken and David had a Shiner and smoked sausage.  If you are ever required to be in Granbury, I would recommend this restaurant.  I really can't recommend a trip to Granbury just for the food and the "waterfall" though.

As I prepare for 2 weeks on the road (home for the weekend between), I am trying to stick around, watch some baseball and do some things David likes to do.

David's favorite thing to do is go to the movies.  I might go out on a limb and say any movie.  Footloose was playing at The Palace Theatre in downtown Grapevine.  This made David's 39th time to see this movie in a theater.  I don't know how many times he has watched it on video (VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray) or on television.  Let's just say a LOT.

I was more entertained by the two 70-something women in front of us than I was by the movie itself.  They giggled as much as the herd of teenage girls also in attendance.  Every time I see Footloose I am struck by how cute and normal Sarah Jessica Parker looks, what happened to her?  The best thing about movies at this theatre is it that it is never crowded.  There were more people in Reverend Moore's congregation than there were in the theater.  David and I are looking forward to the Palace's next offering: Big starring Tom Hanks.
My poetry/photography workshop will be over by the time I return.  And just to prove that I can write something different that might make David smile and hopefully assure him that I don't plan to poison him:

I left my pen on your desk.

Don't lose it.

Don't use it.

It was made special

just for me

hand-made 

so the ink-stained words

would be magic words

that the craftsman

would hear on the wind

and in his dreams.


David makes all of my pens on his lathe.  The top one is wood, it belongs to him.  The bottom one is red acrylic and it is one of mine.  I think I have 6-7 pens in various locations.  I keep one with me at all times along with a small notebook where I write down things like observations, notes for future posts and yes, this poem.

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