Dairy Queen / Home Depot / Walmart

I ordered some items online and thought they would email me so I could track the package. I went to the post office since I had not picked up the mail in over a week and luckily my shipment had arrived.

It was after 2:00 p.m. and I had not eaten so I stopped at Dairy Queen to try out their Cheesy Steak finger combo.

I like Dairy Queen and Whataburger and while I can only speak about the Del Rio franchises both are either hit or miss. The Cheesy Steak fingers were very salty and almost burnt. I decided to buy a hand-dipped cone to clear my palate. 

The darn thing was barely dipped in chocolate, I should have saved my money and gotten a regular one. I seldom give feedback but I will online tomorrow. I did not complain because we only have one franchise and I do not want them to retaliate the next time I go.

I headed to Home Depot to purchase some clear containers that are on sale. I spent most of my time trying to find a salesperson to get them down from an upper shelf. I was going to purchase a 27-gallon container but settled on two 17-gallon ones.

Home Depot is located across the highway from Walmart...so paid them a visit. The YouTube channels I follow mentioned that canned corn and various green beans continued to be on sale for .50 cents each. That is a good price and bought several for my preps.

I bought a bag of mesh avocados (five) for $3.74. I usually purchase mine at HEB where they are cheaper but with prices changing every day who knows?

Checked out egg prices to see if they had dropped with Easter on the horizon but they had not. Needless to say, I did not purchase any.

A carton of 18 large 
eggs $3.88

A dozen brown cage-free
eggs for $3.14

They had a good price on Great Value individually packaged tuna...80 cents each.

Gasoline prices at Murphy USA this afternoon...Unleaded was $3.129 a gallon while Diesel was $3.429 a gallon.

Good night. May you all have Terlingua Dreams.

Aunty Acid

Food for Thought

Pissy Ants / Weeds / Baby Mesquites

Much like everything else climate related pissy ants and weeds arrived earlier than usual. We had rain two weeks ago and once again last weekend...that was all that was needed for the weeds and the pissy ants to thrive. 

These ants are blondish and tiny and you can easily bring them inside your house.

Homemade remedies do not work in the West Texas desert and I can not use commercial sprays because of my cats.

The pesky baby mesquites are very green now...

The larger trees behind the cinder block fence are on my empty lot and are a nuisance.

I am going to enjoy the cooler temperatures because, in the next few days, it will be in the 90s.

Good night. May you all have Terlingua Dreams.

Aunty Acid

Food for Thought

Another power outage / Preparing for severe weather

I am so sick and tired of our power going out and not being able to do anything about it. I was looking forward to a 9:30 a.m. program about the Mexican version of Big Brother VIP that updates what happened the night before as well as Big Brother Brazil where there was a member interchange between the two houses. However, the lights went out at 9:14 a.m. even though there was no bad weather or severe winds...those are expected this evening. The power was not restored until 11:25 a.m. but I lost the cable signal in the kitchen and have not been able to fix it.

We are expecting severe storms this evening including strong winds, hail, and the possibility of tornadoes. Yesterday I went to HEB looking for large cardboard boxes so I can protect dad's old car but found only a few. I am out of old towels, blankets, and bedspreads as I used the ones I had for the cats' winter bedding. I, therefore, do not have enough cushiony items to protect the body of the car.

It has been hot this past week. Saturday we reached 96 degrees.

Sunday...88 degrees...McAllen, Texas reached the century mark.

Del Rio reached 87 degrees this afternoon...the temperature in Amarillo was 33 degrees where the cold front had already entered the state.

I was watching ABC World News Tonight with David Muir where they opened with the breaking news of the tornado and hail that was hitting Dallas/Fort Worth. The bad weather will hit Del Rio late this evening or early Friday morning.

Good night. May you all have Terlingua Dreams.

Aunty Acid

Memes

Covid-19 is still alive and well in Val Verde County

Reports of Covid-19 numbers have mainly disappeared from print as well as the news media. I was checking Ciudad Acuña's online newspaper El Zocalo when I found this article. https://www.zocalo.com.mx/reportan-99-nuevos-contagios-de-covid/

As of last week, the numbers reported were 99 new Covid cases in Val Verde County. The majority of the cases are comprised of people in the age group of 60 to 69 years of age. Second place those 50 to 59 followed by a third group of 20 to 29 years of age. There are infants one-year-old to seniors 90 years of age included in these figures.

We have 179 active cases in the county. As of the start of the year, there have been 1075 cases reported. I will continue to wear my mask even if some people give me funny looks.

Yesterday I had to pick up even more fallen branches from the latest windstorm and drag them to the curb and glad I did because the county truck came by and picked them up.

We had a warm day reaching a high of 87 degrees per the 5:00 p.m. news.

Good night. May you all have Terlingua Dreams.

Aunty Acid

Strong winds / Power Outage

I can not say we were not warned...we were...that is why I spent a lot of time yesterday afternoon batting down the hatchets. I made sure to secure items that might become projectiles with the strong winds and wind gusts that were expected today.

Last night some parts of San Antonio and surrounding areas were pounded with baseball size hail the worse being in Dilley, Texas. That poor town (literally and figuratively) took a beating. Car windows,  windshields, roofs, and house windows were shattered.

I was getting ready to go outside to feed the cats but I was not able to open the kitchen door due to the pressure on the door (the door opens toward the outside like in Florida). As my luck would have it at 4:30 p.m. the strong winds began. It was more of a terrible dust storm. Exactly one minute later at 4:31 p.m., the power went out. It is a good thing I made sure I had my solar lights charged as well as our phones and my tablet.

Ordinarily, not being able to watch TV would not be a big deal but I wanted to watch the 5:00 p.m. news. I thought with the Spectrum App that I downloaded today I would be able to do so either on my tablet or phone but to my surprise it told me that I had to access my "Home Wifi". That would be fine and dandy...but without electricity, I had NO Wifi!

It looked weird with no visible lights and all the houses in the dark. Finally, at 7:43 p.m., the power was restored. The winds had died down some by now but they started up just before the 10:00 p.m. news.

Once again there was hail in the San Antonio viewing area...

Even at 10:02 p.m., KSAT-12 was showing 500 households without power in the Del Rio sector.

I like to watch several networks and  KENS-5 was reporting wind gusts of 53 mph at 10:00 p.m.

Today we reached a high of 95 degrees but Eagle Pass had a high for the area of 102 degrees. I would later learn that Eagle Pass was the hottest spot in the nation.

Tomorrow we are going to remain with high winds and under a red flag warning.

Good night.  May you all have Terlingua Dreams.

Aunty Acid

Recycling Center / Plaza del Sol Mall

I have been carrying my recycling items for far too long in the trunk of my car. Decided today was the day to take a trip to the City of Del Rio Recycling Center and unload them. 

I wanted to go check out some stores at Plaza del Sol Mall mainly Burlington Coat Factory. The last time I was inside one was twenty years ago in Houston. This new store is located in the former Beall's department store but it somehow seems bigger than the former store was. I looked around but did not find anything I could not live without.

I am glad Burlington set up shop at the mall because even before the pandemic stores have been closing right and left. Today I saw a lot of vacant spaces. I walked over to Ross also located inside the mall and found a couple of Baggallini purses. I do not know what has happened to this brand but the quality of their purses has been on a steady decline.

Then I walked to the opposite side of the mall to Marshall's but again found nothing I could not live without.

I started watching "La Casa de Los Famosos" which is the Mexican version of Big Brother VIP.  This is a very addictive show which is streamed live 24/7 on the Internet. With my insomnia issues, I have been watching it on my old cellphone and/or my tablet but after a while, my hand hurts from holding it or the electronic gets warm.

Ollie's is having a sale this week on Pillow Pads for your small electronics for only $5.99 but you could not remove the cover to wash it. I opted for a Cozy Tablet Buddy by Total Vision that has a detachable and washable cover, space for a wireless keyboard, and five small pockets for storage of accessories for only $9.99.

I was surprised that Ollie's already had window air conditioners on sale. Perhaps I should not be because it has been hot lately though today I did not watch either the afternoon or the evening news so do not know the actual temperature we reached but I did have to turn on the car A/C.

Good night.  May you all have Terlingua Dreams.

Aunty Acid

New businesses open in 2023 in Del Rio, Texas

Even though Texas and the nation, in general, are not having their best economic moment...Del Rio has attracted new businesses and the accompanying jobs that this area so desperately needs. 

I had gone to my bank that is across the street from the back of the mall (we only have one mall) when I noticed that the former Beall's store was going to become a Burlington Coat Factory.

At the time I took this picture, they were also building an Arby's and a deli whose name was not familiar to me.  I have not been out this way since so I need to drive by and get an updated photo.

They also remodeled our local Wendy's which if you went inside was rather dingy and the floors were always dirt and sticky,

We attracted a new hotel to town with the added bonus that it is two hotels sharing the same building.

It is a La Quinta and a Hawthorne hotel.

The store that really had me excited was the opening of a second Dollar Tree. This one is closer to us thus putting it at a disadvantage since it is located on the road that leads to the Del Rio International Bridge. What I mean by that is that it is always packed and it does not have sufficient parking space. People are even parking in the red zone usually designated as a "no park fire zone".

I have only gone in on one occasion and unless it is as empty as the day I took this picture I think I will just keep patronizing the original store on the north side of town. It is larger and has plenty of parking spaces. Another advantage of the other one is that Ollie's and Harbor Freight are in the same strip center.

Both yesterday and today it has been overcast and cold. This morning we had a short-lived shower..but never fear...next week we will be in the 80s and might reach the 90s...per the weather forecasters.

Good night.  May you all have Terlingua Dreams.

Aunty Acid

Funny Memes (according to me)

Hot, cold, and warm again...

In my last post exactly a week ago I was saying that the weather had been on a roller coaster ride as we reached 95 degrees (Feb 15th). The next day Thursday, February 16th we had a 24-hour swing in temperature of 27 degrees.

The following days were cold and windy. So much so that several branches from the pecan tree that succumbed to the drought and the big Texas Freeze of 2021 came down.

This made the cats happy...

I had no choice but to move the branches out of the way since it was blocking the driveway. Even though I did not have plans to go anywhere you never know when an emergency can arise. My only regret was that not a single pesky mesquite branch fell...😢

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were cold but on the positive side, it allowed me to sleep like a baby. I even closed the vent in my bedroom to keep it as cold as possible. Friday I slept for 9 hours...when you suffer from chronic insomnia...that is definitively a gift!

Yesterday, while some parts of the nation experienced freezing temperatures...Del Rio registered 92 degrees and that was not even a record-setter, that happened in 1996 when we reached 100 degrees. The weather lady noted that it was 2 degrees in Fargo, North Dakota making the difference between them and us 90 degrees!

Believe it or not, just like a week ago we once again registered 95 degrees per the 4:00 p.m. news.

The five o'clock news showed we tied with Laredo for today's high. 

I suppose while the rest of the nation is under winter storm warnings we have unofficially begun Spring?

Good night.  May you all have Terlingua Dreams.

Aunty Acid