Really want this week to end. Just found out that on the same day of my parents' car wreck, a friend of mine, Joyce, had a heart attack while driving and wrecked her car (no one else involved or injured). She was taken off life support yesterday.
Joyce was a Texas woman in the Ann Richards mold, though her politics were probably different. She had plenty of ranch life under her belt and could shoot out a zinger faster than a gunslinger could get off a shot.
She and I were part of a group that shared a house in Santa Fe during the Chili and Wine festival about 10 years ago, and I got to know her a little better then. My sleep area was the floor by the dining room table and she would come in early in the morning to fix her first cup of coffee, so we would talk a bit before anyone else got up.
She could keep up with me in both food and alcohol department, and she loved the years of practice that she had put in on both. But that didn't make her pretentious. On that trip, I really wanted to go to a burger joint I'd heard of, Bobcat Bite, and despite a full schedule, we managed to squeeze in a visit. It was my birthday, as I recall, and Joyce and I were the only two who could eat the entire burger, which I think was 1 pound and was beautifully rare. The rest split theirs. We then went on and had four other wonderful meals that day. And we talked about that burger for years thereafter.
