Another Round Of Ice

This weekend cooking chili in Oklahoma was kinda nice. It was my birthday weekend and it was good to get away, even if it was for only a day and a half.

The thing about cooking competitively in Oklahoma is that I am from Texas. Everyone knows the rivalry between the two states and yes, it goes all the way down to chili cooking. There were four of us from Texas and twenty four of them. I have seen worse odds, but I can't remember when.
The chili was cooked and turned in and when they started calling the top ten, the first three were Okies. There were cheers and laughter, chest bumps and high fives, taunts and whistling all from that side of the room. Our side was quite, we only had four, talk about segregation, but we sat patiently. One guy even hollered across the room, "TAKE THAT TEXAS." I just gave him a thumbs up and waited.
Sixth place, Texas. Fourth place, Texas. First place show, Texas. First place chili, TEXAS.

There was no need to gloat, no need to hoot and holler, no need to jump up and run around the room with the Texas flag. We all knew this was going to happen. In the end I thanked them all for Oklahoma sucking so bad because if not, Texas would fall into the Gulf.  

We were planning on staying another night, but an ice storm was coming in. Last time we were away we got stuck out in West Texas and almost didn't make it back because of such a storm. Now if I was to be stranded somewhere in an ice storm, I sure don't want it to be Oklahoma so we headed back Saturday night.

The storm did come through and I was sure glad we made the decision to go back home early. All day

Sunday and Monday we were iced in with nothing to do. The wife got bored and made up another four dozen tamales. It's an all day process and I watched her from the couch. My only job was to keep the fire going and I did that well. If they gave a medal for the person who kept the fire going the best, I would have won first place.
She did a great job and now we have enough tamales to last a long time.



It's back to work today and now I am a year older, a little slower, a little dumber and a lot more fatter than I was only a year ago.    

See y'all down the road,
Jerry