Thursday, July 31, 2008

My trip to The Market

Last week Mrs. Dada and I went to "The Market" in El Paso's Lower Valley. It was our first time there -- ever. We took a few pictures.

The morning began with a beautiful sunrise in the hood. Little did we know this would be an excellent day for a ride. That's because remnants of hurricane Dolly would blot out most of the sun for the next 3 or 4 very soggy days.

On the way to The Market, we stopped a few minutes at the Ysleta Mission. It's one of three missions established by New World Spaniards in the El Paso area after the revolt by Pueblo Indians routed the Spanish from New Mexico in 1680.

Photogenic, save for its garish silver dome, the Mission shares a parking lot with the former Ysleta's Speaking Rock Casino that our Texas senator John Cornyn successfully closed down (while serving as this state's Attorney General) by claiming "in Texas, Indian tribes are simple associations and have no more rights than a sorority or a fraternity."

The Tiguas have a different take on the reason their casino was shut down. They claim it was done because they contributed more to (then) governor George Bush's opponent than Bush in his run for a second term as the state's leader.

But what is worse than being screwed by self-righteous conservatives? Answer: Being screwed twice by self-righteous conservatives. That's what happened to the Tigua tribe of Ysleta after they lost their casino to John Cornyn. See, Dick Cheney's darling and former chief of staff, Jack Abramoff, screwed the Tiguas again with promises to help their tribe reopen the casino (for big bucks, of course). It proved good corruption can always find ways to profit more - even from beating a dead horse. But I digress, for this is a story about our trip to The Market. Not everything is political. (Or is it?)

Just a mile or two from the Ysleta Mission is The Market. Out front in the parking is this promising sign. Being quite large, it successfully competed for, and won, my attention. I had to think for a minute about what it meant.

I concluded it must be promoting meats served up by willing butcher's attentive to the customer's wants or needs. And that probably explains the huge sign out front. Because butchers are a vanishing breed. They no longer work in places like Wal-Mart super centers which some years ago did away with all butchers when they tried audaciously to organize a union!

Instead, what they got themselves was a royal throat slitting and gutting by Wal-Mart management. What a bittersweet irony: meat cutters getting butchered?

Once inside, we located the meat market. Everything there is brightly and colorfully displayed. I wondered if maybe for Mrs. Dada, who is a vegetarian, surveying the counter of exotic meats wasn't more like seeing a zoology exhibit of vivisections gone dreadfully wrong?

The Market is bustling with shoppers who can pause for a bite to eat from the multiple food and drink counters and shops. The choices were pretty overwhelming.

Mrs. Dada snapped this picture while I was looking over the menus and ruing my Spanish wasn't better. The sights and aromas spoke one word loudly: "Delicioso!"

The busiest area of the The Market was the produce aisles which were very crowded, often to the point of total gridlock. While hemmed in on the melon aisle, Mrs. Dada shot this photo of me examining a calabasa. I remember exactly what I was thinking when she took this: "What the hell is a calabasa?"

In all, our trip to The Market was a nice outing. As we reemerged outdoors into the bright sunlight, chiles were being roasted next to another little food concession stand. That's when I noticed a women's clothing store next door. I paused to take a picture of the topless dummies modeling blue jeans outside on the sidewalk.

(So OK, I realize this may increase Dada's Dally's hits from Google searchers. )

14 comments:

enigma4ever said...

totallly awesome...you can take us to market anytime ;-)

WOW......

eProf2 said...

Ah, I love the Mercados of Mexico and Latin America. And, to think, you have one right there in your home town. You're a lucky fellow for sure! Nice photos, too!

enigma4ever said...

whelp...I put you in my Thursday Roundup...had too....

D.K. Raed said...

Love the pics! I can almost smell the wonderful aromas!

But the Meat Market sign reminded me of the nursery rhyme ... "to market, to market, to buy a fat pig" ... (I know, Mrs. D will be appalled, but as a child, I never questioned what would happen to that pig).

enigma4ever said...

as I a kid , I thought that meant that someone got a Pet Pig...and my grandmother never corrected me...

( pretty naive...yup...)

D.K. Raed said...

LOL Enigma, that's what I thought, too! In fact, I thought a nice fat little pig would make a nice pet. See what your Meat Market sign spawned memories of, Dada? And we didn't even have to go into what "Full Service" might imply!

Billie Greenwood said...

WTF?? That's not the type of "topless models" I was looking for.

That @#$^%& Google!!!

enigma4ever said...

Border you Googled it wrong...

"Sexy tight jeans"

hehe

Fran said...

Just curious-- were the prices reasonable?
I saw watermelons selling for $8 bucks a piece in the produce aisle-- kind of skimpy watermelons, at that.

I wonder what's FUELING the high prices???

D.K. Raed said...

Fran did ya notice the price of those topless jeans models? $25!

Fran said...

dk a bargain on the jeans...although they appear a little pasty white for desert dwellers don't ya think?

One could have fun with the "topless" aspect of these manicans. Nothing to lose your head over, though. Clearly they could use a hand.

Dada said...

Thanks all for the nice comments, the photos compliment, eprof, enigma for plugging Dada's over on WG Summer, the memories Fat Pigs brought up and shared here.

And then there were the real off the wall (funny, shocking ~grin) by Border Explorer and enigma. I'll have to spend some time researching Google's 'sexy tight jeans' search results because the extra hits I was expecting from "topless dummies modeling blue jeans outside on the sidewalk" doesn't seem to be getting me the extra hits I was expecting.

To fran - for those incredible double entendres (ugh!). Honestly, Fran, I didn't notice the prices of anything while in El Mercado. That's because I was so wonderfully sensory overloaded.

The jeans, at 3/$25 were so temptingly priced, I thought about going in and trying some on, but from the dummies out front, it was obvious I could never fill them as nicely as they had.

enigma4ever said...

well dada- it was absotutely a pleasure to go to Market with you and the Mrs...with all the nice photos - felt like we were there...loads of fun...now if I could just find me some of them 23 dollar skinny jeans- well my life would be complete....sigh...

Hey meant to tell you - I got hooked on this photographer that you might really like- I will email you his photos- he loves taking photos of his car- and it is beauty....anyways hope it gets to you...

Dada said...

Enigma: Rec'd that e-mail. Thanks for the Google lead to "Charles W. Cushman, photos"...there's some excellent photos there. I spent awhile there this morning and only scratched the surface. There's some great "time pieces" of our past there.