Tag Archives: Mexican food

Cousinly Love

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One of my friends on Facebook is my cousin, Carmelita.  Her posts are always funny and clever and interesting.  And here’s the thing, I had never met her before.  We’re fourth or fifth cousins, and we met through her work on the family genealogy.  Carmelita lives in Austin, so I wanted to meet her while I’m here.  We arranged to meet at her house, where she could show me old family photographs—old like from the 1800’s some of them.

I gave myself an hour to get to her house, which the GPS said was plenty of time.  It wasn’t.  A smart device like that, and it didn’t take traffic conditions into consideration!  I arrived about 20 minutes late.  Carmelita wasn’t upset about that because she was working from home, so she could just continue working while she waited for me.  She came out and hugged me in the driveway.  Then she said, “Gosh!  I hope we like each other!”  I said that I didn’t have any doubt because I already like her, based on her posts.

We went into the house, and her house has lots of great photos taken by her husband, and lots of cool very Texan stuff.  I love her house!  And she has three very affectionate cats.  Yes, Cousin Carmelita and I are definitely compatible!  She brought down the panoramic picture of the 100th family reunion, and I showed her Mom and Daddy and Grandma and my older son.  She knew my branch of the family very well.  Our family descended from a Texas pioneer couple who had thirteen children.  The family grew exponentially from that beginning, so it is a very large family.  I’m from the oldest daughter, while Carmelita is from the fifth son.

Then I discovered that we have even more in common: Carmelita writes.  Today she is starting a novel for National Novel Writing Month.  The idea is that you write a 50,000 word novel in one month.  It doesn’t have to be a good one, but it must have a beginning and an end.  This is not her first time to write a novel for the contest.  I was impressed.  I’ve written two novels three-quarters of the way through, and then lost interest.  For me, the problem is that I find real life so much stranger and funnier, more tear-jerking, exciting, gut-wrenching, and unpredictable than anything I could possibly make up.

Since I am making up for a severe Mexican food deficit, she took me out for dinner.  The food was not traditional Tex-Mex, but excellent and unmistakably Mexican.  We were surrounded by pirates, witches, fairies, and zombies—it being Halloween.  Austin people celebrate their weirdness and encourage each other to do so with the ubiquitous bumper sticker: Keep Austin Weird.  I’m sorry, but I think the rest of the world is just not weird enough.  I love Austin!

We returned to the house, carefully dodging trick-or-treaters, and I met Carmelita’s husband, Nigel.  They seem to be a really good match.  He’s just as funny and nice as she is.  Before I left them, Nigel took our picture with our great-great-great-great grandparents (well, a picture of them).

CunninghamsWe meet at last!

You know, I think Cousin Carmelita and Nigel like her eccentric missionary cousin from Italy.  I certainly like them!  God is good!

Meeting Missionaries in Texas

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In a few minutes, I will be meeting Nadia and Buck, who I stayed with in Sofia this past winter.  In the meantime, they have moved to Texas.  I will give them this year’s two books, since they figure in four chapters in one book (Dancing in My Dreams), and the entire first part of the other book (more than 50 pages of Graceful Flight) was written at The Promised Land, owned by Nadia’s brother-in-law, Bobby.

It will be interesting to see how they are adapting to life in the US.  They met at seminary here, but since marriage (more than 20 years ago), they have lived in Bulgaria.

–        Later     –

Joe T GarciasJoe T. Garcia’s–a Fort Worth experience!

They were going to pick me up at my hotel, which is close to their apartment, but they went to a different location of the same hotel brand from where I’m staying.  That little snafu was typically American, and sort of indicative of how they’re managing in the US.  Instead, we met at the restaurant that I had suggested: Joe T. Garcia’s.  I discovered Joe T’s before it became the hotspot that it is today.  Back in about 1980, when I was working as a law office runner (messenger girl), a co-worker told me about Joe T. Garcia’s.  Her husband was a cop in Fort Worth, so he got around a lot and knew all the really good places.  In those days, it was a tiny restaurant in a clapboard house in the neighborhood of the Fort Worth Stockyards (not the nicest part of town).  There was no menu, you just ate whatever they were serving, but that was always excellent.  And you had to walk through the kitchen, past the cooks stirring steaming loads of beans in big frying pans, to get to the dining room.  Now they have added on and added on, and have taken over the next couple of blocks for parking, and it went from funky to fancy.  Now Joe T. Garcia’s is very popular, and has photos of celebrities from all over the US who ate there on their visit to Fort Worth.

I can report that their food is still excellent.  On this, my first day back to Texas in over a year, I was suffering from a severe Mexican food deficit.  My fellow Texan agreed that it had been hard, living in Bulgaria without a Mexican food fix.

So over a great meal, we caught up on all the happenings in their lives and mine.  We commiserated about sensory overload at the grocery store and avoiding the mall at all costs.  Nothing good can come from the American culture of consumerism.  It creates a perceived need that develops dissatisfaction in people, whereas, I’ve noticed that I’m happiest when I remember to be grateful.  Plus, they had moved from a really nice apartment in a nice part of Sofia, where they were paying a lot less for a lot more than they are paying here.  They were surprised that Fort Worth is as pricey as it is.

But despite all that, they and their family are getting along fine.  Now all they need is to get that green card so that they can both work.  It will take both salaries to make it in the US.  But God provides for His children, and they have enjoyed some very wonderful and miraculous provision—praise His wonderful Name!  God is good!