Cheesy New Year Fun!
I’m not a fan of big gatherings (anime cons nonwithstanding) and thus, I usually spend New Year’s Eve at my parents’ or at my apartment if I’m not up for making the drive to visit them.
A few years ago, I was living with my parents during some rough times, and it was New Year’s Eve. Thanks in part to the crappy job I had at the time, I had decided to just stay in and really not do much of anything. It was a pretty lackadaisical evening, and I soon had a craving…for CHEESE!
Not just any cheese, mind you, but melted cheese with Ro-Tel diced tomatoes made in a Crock-Pot with tortilla chips dipping into the melty cheesy goodness…mmmmm. I told my folks I was going to the store to get the ingredients, and suddenly inspired by the power of the cheese (or perhaps the power of the suggestion of cheese, but that’s being anal) they went to the store as well to get shrimp, cocktail sauce, vegetables, ranch dip, and drinks.
Soon, I’m cubing cheese, Mom is cutting vegetables, and Dad is going next door to invite family over. What began as a humdrum evening soon became a fun time with family and friends, and all because of THE POWER OF CHEESE!
Fast forward to December 31, 2009…I decided to stay at home for New Year’s Eve because there was an anime convention I wanted to go to that weekend. As I’m at my desk working (and seething over having to work on New Year’s Eve), I soon had a craving…for CHEESE! I was practically drooling as I punched in the ingredients list into my phone, intending to stop at the store on the way home.
I arrived home at my apartment, and went to rinse out the Crock-Pot before getting started. I figured it would just be me and the cheese hanging out at home for New Year’s, oh well. I then got a phone call from a friend, it seemed he and his wife had just gotten home from their holiday trip and were wondering what I was going to do for New Year’s.
I replied that I was going to make some cheese and probably play some Rock Band, so I figured what the hey and invited them over. They said yes, and a few invites sent via text message later, I had a group of friends over hanging out, playing games, and just having a good time…all because of THE POWER OF CHEESE!
Some folks have black-eyed peas for New Year’s, my mom makes menudo (which I sadly often miss *sniff*) but I’ll be whipping out the old Crock-Pot next New Year’s Eve in order to UNLEASH THE CHEESE!
Side note: I never use Velveeta, I have found that the generic/store brands (HEB in particular) have less sodium and more cheesy goodness!
The Night The Nueces Flowed Upstream
U.S. Geological Survey Report: “Odem Flood”
It was 25 years ago. In my hometown of Odem, Texas somewhere between eighteen and twenty-five inches of rain fell in a matter of hours. To this day, it is simply referred to as “The Flood,” and nearly every Odemite I have ever spoken to still has memories of that night.
The memories I have of that night are those of a child. Two months prior, I had turned eleven years old, and a month after that, I started the sixth grade. The playgrounds of elementary school were gone, and the steady march to becoming a teenager had begun in earnest.
I remember Tia Maria was in town visiting us, as she would do every so often. It was a Friday; and the skies getting dark as the evening progressed. The rain was welcomed at first, because we were in a bad drought. I remember wading through my backyard in waist-deep water to get to an aunt’s house, where we would stay the night. The power went out at one point, I remember a bottle of cologne being used as an improvised lamp. The water rose to the steps of my aunt’s house; some parts of the floor were wet.
I remember waking up late, my parents had already gone to the house. The power was back, I was told I had to stay at my aunt’s house, so I watched the Smurfs with one of my cousins. Once I got home, I saw the line on the walls where the water had been. My brother and I slept in bunk beds at the time, I was on the bottom bunk and my bed had been ruined by the water. My mother was upset, we had lost nearly all of our pictures, I remember stacks of ruined Polaroids; seeing rainbows of plasticky color where family memories had once been. Dad had already pulled out the carpet from the living room, he was not upset, instead he was very busy around the house, and talking on the telephone.
I remember throwing out stacks of wet magazines, and wondering if my collection of Atari 2600 cartridges would still work. I remember the truck from the Red Cross that went through our neighborhood that evening, and going out to the curb to pick up peanut butter sandwiches and lemonade. I remember hearing about the bus full of kids that got stuck and the man down the street that had to make a hole in the ceiling and roof of his house to get his family out.
The furniture and carpet would eventually be replaced, the house repaired and life would return to normal, but I doubt that anyone who lived through it will ever forget that night. Even though my own memories are the scattered remembrances of an eleven-year old, I know I won’t.