Spring Cleaning in Dallas

Last week, I flew to Dallas to visit family, pat numerous cats, and help with spring cleaning.

Much junk was hauled from the house, including three couches, boxes of papers, and a variety of mildewed miscellany. I thinned out twelves grades’ worth of papers, drawings, and weird artifacts from my youth, enjoying the memories they brought back. I found a stash of Mad Magazines, mid 90s computer gaming magazines, and an assortment of Calvin & Hobbes, Far Side, and Fox Trot books.

Allergy medicine was necessary, but I think the sneezing was mostly from dust.

Dangling.

Big Boy standing proud.

Seeds and clippings.

Translucent lamp.

Wielding grandfather’s Central American jungle slicers.

A load of junk.

Tulips legit to quit.

Smooth tree criminals.

Stout statue.

A bad split.

Bawls, flare and flamingo.

Feline path and the alpha male.

The den of a wise man.

The petting chair.

Little sister.

Purrby.

Cactus bug guarding her eggs on the prickly pear.

Saturated.

Pandemonium.

My Dordle Card’s only retail presence.

Shrine to optimism.

The park over Woodall Rogers feels like it’s from another city.

Empty courtyard.

A lunch with an old friend revealed that another friend was going to be in town the following day. I joined him and his gal to walk from Fort Worth Ave, to Oak Lawn, and across to Knox/Henderson. The 6.5 mile walk was mostly without shade. No one walks to get anywhere in Dallas, especially the route we took.

Small Ft. Worth Ave. failure.

Barricade.

Building bumper.

Ghost motel.

Trailer.

Crossing the mighty Trinity.

You take the high road. I’ll take the high road too.

Shiny underpass.

Red white and feeling blue.

Sunburned sign.

The brightest sign in the whole world.

Find me in the club.

I’m into semanas, not making love.

New Yorkers.

The mysterious door.

The gentrifying of Dallas continues, spilling into Oak Cliff. I guess all it takes is an expensive Spanish bridge and some bulldozers to make an area desirable to jumpy white people. The upside is interesting businesses like The Foundry bar off of Fort Worth Ave. What was once of compound of falling apart metal buildings has been turned into a popular bar with ample outdoor seating, fire pit, and optional valet parking. It’s a spacious, relaxing, and unique. And the “charm” of the old buildings was largely kept intact.

Corrugated wall leading to The Foundry.

Me.

Nature finds a way.

Wild onions thriving in the front yard. I brought up their ancestors from the creek when I was a kid.

Homemade pizza is the best pizza.

Blossoming tree.

The oak I planted as an acorn.

Living the life.

Foam.

Louisiana style curtain.

I found my old hotel soap and shampoo collection.

Labeling system.

The best team.

I also found a working vacuum briefcase I made in high school.

I really want to rebuild this.

A colorful place to eat tacos.

Old pharmacy wall.

Quote the raven, “Ointment.”

No other places relaxes me like home. Only there can I lie in the grass, watching the ants go about their struggles, the cats play. The chimes jingle in the breeze. There is no fear of the future. I’m in limbo between fond memories and the unknown, sneezing and squinting in the sun.