Mrs. Backhouse needs shade

An old man judging daffodils once took the time to explain to me, a mere layperson who'd wandered inside out of the rain, why a ribbon-winning arrangement of daffodils in a cowboy boot should actually have been disqualified from competition. Let me say first that the boot display was impressive. Its flowers were bright and well formed. Its narrative was both more developed and more cohesive than, say, the beach scene or the gardener's hat entered in the same field. Let me say also how glad I am that people care about things, all sorts of things, and especially things so varied and minute and gloriously irrelevant to almost everybody as to only exist for the scattered smattering of people who happen to take an interest. So while I don't expect it to come up often, I appreciate the education. I like that I can now say with authority, with the full endorsement of the Texas Daffodil Society, that the point is to present the flowers to best advantage. Be wary of distractions. The boot is just a vessel. The lasso and the sand and the taxidermied rattlesnake drawn back ready to strike, well that's all just a step too far.

For Your Safety

1. "Do Not Climb on Toads"
2. "Non-Service Animals Prohibited"
3. "Use Of The Water Feature If Ill With A Contagious Disease is Prohibited"
4. "Do Not Drink Water From The Water Feature"
5. "Use Of The Water Feature When Ill With Diarrhea is Prohibited."

Frankly, they had me at "Do Not Climb on Toads." As much as I would like to report that this is just good advice for all of us anywhere (and clearly, it is), I should perhaps mention that these signs are not posted throughout Dallas. There is, in fact, only one, and it's worth the price of admission to visit the Dallas Arboretum and see it for yourself.

There are, actually, any number of reasons to visit the Arboretum. It is a world class garden, for starters. The spring tulips, innumerable in quantity and variation, are breathtaking, even in the rain. The summer lawn concerts—did I mention the summer lawn concerts?—include an evening of Elvis Tribute Artists. The delightful glass squiggles and blobs of the Chihuly installations will float and sprout and fan until November. But among them all, only the sign is perennial, its particular collection of wisdom a marvel I return to, one season to the next.

Filmed on Location

I once went to a rooftop theater in Athens, the acropolis lit up on the hill to my left, and saw the street where I learned to parallel park, a few blocks from my elementary school. In South Korea I went to a matinee and watched the Santa Barbara mountains as I sat in front of four Buddhist monks. It is, I had come to think, the birthright of Californians to travel the world and yet always have the movies ready to take them home.

This lasted until I'd lived in Chicago long enough to recognize it when it showed up on screen. There was Spider-man web-slinging from El car to El car in the Loop, Will Ferrell laid up in a hospital room in the Wrigley Building, the Dark Knight speeding through a chase scene on Lower Wacker Drive. Ferris Bueller' Day Off, it turned out, was a love letter to the city, had been the whole time though I'd never stopped to notice. 

Before I left for Iowa, I was visiting my parents, and they called three different video stores before they found one that had State Fair. This movie was what they knew about Iowa, and they had decided it was essential preparation for me. It was. And no sooner did I have an Iowa City library card than I was checking out Field of Dreams and The Bridges of Madison County.

Which brings us to Texas. A friend recently offered to watch with me every episode of Walker, Texas Ranger we can find on YouTube. It's worth noting that the Dallas Museum of Art is offering a series of movie nights this summer in the same spirit. Obviously I need to catch up with the new Dallas. Heck, I need to catch up on the old Dallas—both the 1980s television series and the 1950 Gary Cooper film. 

But before we all get our Benji-Robocop-Logan's Run on, let me thank, retroactively, the good people at Tween Studies for our recent screening of Slap Her... She's French, Kate Murphy for first introducing me to Office Space out at the farm, and Dr. Robert Archambeau's bowling film festival for including Bottle Rocket. And, especially, let me thank my parents who didn't stop my State Fair education with the 1945 version set at the Iowa State Fair, but made sure I saw some car racing before we turned off the 1962 Pat Boone/Bobby Darrin/Ann-Margaret State Fair, which of course is set, where else, in Dallas.

Pegasus City

If you're one to believe a city's nickname, Texas is home to the Rose, Chile, Spinach, Turkey, Wildflower, Watermelon, Mohair, Horned Lizard, Cowboy, Cutting Horse, Goose Hunting, Fruit Cake, Leap Year, Blackeyed Pea, and Execution capitals of the world. None of these distinctions belong to Dallas.

The Big D is neither the "City of Champions" nor "Where Yee-Ha Meets Ole." We do not pretend to be the Polka or the Cheeseburger or the Dinosaur capital of Texas. Wikipedia claims "The Jingle City" and "Triple D" are nicknames of Dallas, though I've never heard them said out loud; which only underscores the fact that we have not managed a sobriquet as colorful as such fellow Texan cities as "The Town Without a Frown" and "The Town Without a Toothache."

This is inexplicable to me. Dallas, if anyone was bothering to market it to eight year old girls, would clearly be known as Pegasus City. This could have started as early as 1934, when the Magnolia Building, already Dallas' tallest skyscraper, crowned its own glory by erecting on its roof a red neon flying horse. It must have been stunning. They say you could see it for miles.

Now, the Magnolia Building is no longer the tallest skyscraper in town, just as the Magnolia Oil Company (the building's namesake) is no longer the Magnolia Oil Company. Nonetheless, the trademark of what is now Mobil Oil is also no longer just a corporate logo. Long since adopted as a civic symbol, the pegasus is used to mark bike paths and public trash cans and signs pointing motorists toward downtown attractions. You can, if you are in the mood, visit Pub Pegasus and Pegasus Bank, just as you might enroll at the Pegasus Charter School or read the Pegasus News.

But, while I am all for a collective pegasus pride, I like to think not everyone's noticed the iconic sign at the top of 108 S. Akard Street. Urban pegasus spotting is a fine hobby indeed, but ever so slightly more than I like discovering each new pegasus in my city, I like to think there are people who earnestly call up the very real businesses of Pegasus Solutions or Pegasus Logistics or Pegasus Advisors and, having no reference at all for the mythological name, imagine, just for a moment, that a pegasus will answer and all their problems will be solved.

Fireside Pies' strawberry shortcake

The first time Dustin and I went to Fireside Pies, an estimated 45 minute wait stretched into an hour and a half. And just as we were getting ready to make a break for it, to cross Henderson for the somewhat dubious looking Uptown Deli and devour whatever it was willing to sell us, someone called our name and whisked us off to the back porch. We were pretty sure that despite our hunger, nothing we ordered would seem worth the wait. Two bites into the Texas Bibb Salad, we were convinced otherwise.

We've never had a wait since, but I'm prepared for lines around the block as diners discover the strawberry shortcake now on special. I am a sucker for bread pudding, but I am a connoisseur of the shortcake. And before Wednesday I would have told you the best strawberry shortcake anywhere is at Boccali's in Ojai, CA. I would, in fact, have given you very specific instructions: sit outside, order the homemade lemonade, split the lasagna but get your own side salad, and then shortcakes all around! The strawberries are local, the whip cream whipped there, and the biscuit-style shortcake soaks everything up. You won't want to share more than a biteful. If you find yourself in California, I still recommend you stop by. But if you want the best anywhere, come to Texas.

I have instructions for Fireside Pies, too. Share a salad, share a pie--listen to the server when she says the white pie with mushroom and arugula is even better with prosciutto. And then prepare yourself, and ask for the strawberry shortcake. There's sugar in the crust of the biscuit, in fact it tastes a smudge like cake. The berries are fresh and sweet and vibrant red. The whip cream, whipped there of course, is whipped with a lavender simple syrup, which you won't quite be able to identify until the chef comes over to see how you like it. The chef is a beautiful young woman, I would think too young to be so accomplished, but the proof is on the plate. She asks what we think. We think we should order a second one. And for the next two months, for as long as they can get the strawberries, I think we will.

Milk & Honey

I like to think of my brain as a problem-solving sort of brain, except that once it has a task there is no calling it off, even if the problem is solved. For instance, two years ago my brother got married. Standing up as his best person, I needed something butter yellow to wear. That sounds easy enough, but I looked for months and there was nothing the right color, nothing the right cut, nothing the right mood, nothing the right size. Eventually I found myself in a yellow sleeveless shirt and black capri pants and there were lots of pictures and my brother was married and all was well. Except that I still couldn't pass a yellow thing in a store without giving it a second look. Except that my brain was still looking for the perfect yellow dress to wear to my beloved brother's wedding.

In the period of time while I was visiting Dallas but didn't live here yet, there was a jewelry store called The Shining which displayed its wears on taxidermied desert animals. The jewelry wasn't really my style, but I admired their spirit, and I brought it up whenever anyone asked me what there was of interest to be found in distant, dusty Dallas.

The Shining closed, even as I was opening the moving boxes in the new apartment, but something else has cropped up in its place. Milk & Honey is one of those rare clothing boutiques that has both snazzy new duds and a price point so reasonable it is its own conversation piece. And it is here that I find the butter-yellow summer-wedding dress I've been searching for. It is a sleeveless light cotton with a thin tie at the waist and a big butter-yellow cloth flower on the left shoulder strap. It might not actually have been formal enough for a member of the wedding party, but it was an early afternoon wedding in Southern California, and at this point I'm going to split hairs. This is a dress that makes my brain think, "We found it!" And just in time to celebrate their two-year anniversary--which, by the way, actually is the "cotton anniversary."

Calle Doce

Pat has been telling me about Schlitterbahn. Pat has been telling me generally about being on the water in Texas--in lakes, in waterparks, anywhere you can sit in an inner tube  and maybe tether along a second inner tube to hold your drinks. And then the subject turns to food.

"Do you like seafood?" Pat asks me.

"Who doesn't?" I reply gamely.

Well, for starters, Pat. Pat's recommendations are amazing in this regard. Do you like brisket? Pat doesn't, but she knows a place you shouldn't miss.

I actually don't have strong feelings about seafood in general, but fortunately for all of us, Pat's husband does. And after dinner on Wednesday, I have to agree: if you have even a passing interest in seafood, Calle Doce is a must. The frozen margaritas alone might be worth it, but what a shame to miss the shrimp cocktail.

Pat is a Dallas girl from way back. And even if she and Ed live outside of town now, she hasn't lost touch with things that make this city great. "Have you been to Blue Goose? You have to go to Blue Goose." "You want tamales? My mom has this lady." She is up on every festival and art faire and parade. Even her stories about the nuisances, about the neighbors that used to throw unauthorized birthday parties in their backyard when they went away for the weekend, are so good you have to be grateful for them, too.

Fireflies

Dallas has fireflies!

If I'd grown up in a place that has fireflies, that sentence ends would a period. But the bit of California I was raised in was and is and ever will be lighting-bug-free. So it is a shock and a delight every time fireflies turn up. And indeed they turn up everywhere: in Illinois and New Hampshire and North Carolina and Iowa, an element of maybe every summer I've spent since I left for college. Yet still I think of fireflies as the exception rather than the norm. Even last night, when I walked Dustin home from the light rail station and halfway home we spotted the first lighting bugs of the season, as if it had never happened before.

Sometimes the things I love about Dallas are not the things unique to Dallas, but the good things I know from somewhere else and am fortunate enough to find again here. I think about them whenever I pass porches with rocking chairs and porch swings, or trees in the front yard with rope swings dangling from high old branches. And I am thankful for every firefly.

Jimmy's Food Store

I am only a little disappointed to know that the Italian grocer/deli on Fitzhugh does not actually go by the name "Jimmy's Meat Store." Dustin has been suggesting we go there, to Jimmy's Meat Store, for ages and I've always been rather taken with its focus and frankness. We've had good intentions, indeed it featured prominently on the itinerary when my dad was coming to visit, but somehow we never found the time to go cold cuts sight seeing until last weekend. It turns out, of course, that Jimmy's is not just a Meat store but a Food store, and all this time we were waiting for some sort of prosciutto event or salami spectacular to occasion a trip, we could have made any number of other excuses. Indeed, Jimmy has anticipated not only our meat needs, but our desire for fresh pasta and pickled vegetables and imported candies, as well.

Jimmy's could sell anything and it would probably be worth it just to hang around and listen to the regulars discuss their sandwich orders, whether to sit inside or outside, how the weather has been so unseasonal lately. There's a way people can talk, especially when shopping, that takes the role of a critic while assuming a sympathetic audience, because we all can agree it's still a little too early for tomatoes. Indeed, it is tempting to become a regular myself, to be party to that same easy familiarity, and so far I haven't even found the nerve to order something from the counter. A friend once explained to me that New York City isn't rude, it's just a place that has no tolerance for inefficiencies; and there is nothing more inefficient than not knowing your order when your spot in line comes up. Jimmy's strikes me as the kind of place that doesn't have time for the amateur hour, even on a lazy Saturday afternoon where nothing seems to be happening with any great speed.

Which is fine. I'm not feeling up to the adventure of selecting an unfamiliar cut of meat, and there are aisles of Italian and Texan products to keep me amused. In honor of Easter, Dustin and I take a package of bunny shaped pasta and the big tub of "homemade marinara." Out of sheer curiosity, I buy "La dolce Fattoria fondente." La dolce is shaped like a small football, or rather, a small football wrapped in a sheet of blue mylar printed with cartoon farm animals. A cardboard label showing a cartoon farm with the smiling disembodied heads of a cow, pig, sheep, and bunny cinches collars the mylar at the top so it fans out like a floral arrangement in a football-shaped vase. La dolce does not rattle when I shake it, but then, not knowing what it is, I don't shake it too hard. I have my choice of farm animals with a pink background or farm animals with a blue background, and having little else to go on, I pick a blue one because someone has just handed a blue one to a little boy being held by a tall man talking to someone else. Clearly, the blue ones are worth having. After dinner, we understand why.

That La dolce is in fact a big chocolate Easter egg does not come as a big surprise, but the fact that the chocolate is dark and delicious does. It is good chocolate in its own right, but it is shockingly good for chocolate that both comes in a novelty shape and is accompanied by a toy. The toy is a surprise of its own: first that there is one, and then that somebody somewhere decided that a toy in the shape of an insect belonged anywhere near a food product. I like to think that it is traditional, that somewhere there is an Easter Bug. Technically, it is probably an Easter Arachnic--the monochrome mint green color doesn't suggest a special commitment to accurate representation, but there are eight segmented legs extending from its notably egg-shaped body and the chelicera are convincing. Why this bit of molded plastic is hinged so it can make a clicking noise is beyond me, but maybe it will make sense next year, when I buy another one.

The Princess Party

I was not invited to this party. I could not, in fact, tell if this princess-themed soiree was a little girl's birthday party or a grown woman's bachelorette party.

I take my evening walk along Swiss Avenue because it has broad quiet streets and well-tended flora in front of some rather big, beautiful old houses. It is quiet at all hours, and at night lit not only by street lamps but by lights high in the branches of grand old trees. Not a few of the houses resemble tasteful little castles, a likeness I was pleased to see had not gone unnoticed by the occupants of this one house in particular, where a red carpet had been rolled from the front door down a big S-curved walk to the concrete steps that meet the sidewalk. Pink arches of little Christmas tree lights crowned the walkway, and with a pair of Disney castle balloons greeting you at the sidewalk end. The front door opened and a woman walked out as I turned to ask Dustin, "What if we went in?"

Before he could answer, a second woman opened the same front door and called after the first woman, "Do you want to take some pixie dust?" I haven't any idea what that means, and I didn't hear the reply, but I was satisfied enough to walk on.

Ottomans of the Inwood Theater

They have couches.

Couches! Couches and giant easy chairs and big old ottomans and not one seating surface that isn't big and plush and pale blue. I am such a fan of the ottoman that this might be news in itself, but all this furniture is in a movie theater, theater #1 of what I can only assume will be my new favorite movie theater: Dallas' own Inwood Theater.

I might have suspected the Inwood Theater was a nifty place when I saw the listing for a midnight show of The Princess Bride. And had I originally googled "Things I love about Dallas" instead of "reasons to love Dallas," I might have realized the theater's draw that much sooner, as Suzy Bank puts the Inwood right there, at #8 in her September 2003 Texas Monthly article "25 Things I Love About Dallas."

For Ms. Banks it's the retro martini bar, the Perry Nichols murals, the nostalgic 1940s architecture. I would add that there are Texas Twist pretzels. And it doesn't hurt that the Inwood held the 1975 world premiere of Tommy, or that it hosted a two year run of The Sound of Music. All this is true and lovely and worth knowing, but how is this place not famous for the couches alone? I can only imagine what theater #2 and theater #3 have in store.

In the mean time, let me just say: you have not seen the new 21 Jump Street until you have seen it with your feet up.