Veronica

Great is the fortune of he who possesses a good bottle, a good book, and a good friend. ~ Moliere

[Veronica @vevecurl]

The Amtrak Sunset Limited train goes from El Paso to Los Angeles overnight, and I can't say enough good things about it. 🩶

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

How U.S. interstate highways are numbered

[🎞️ geoglobe_tales]

[Veronica @vevecurl]

@FOXSports Harry Sussex and James Corden giving their opinion on sports is the equivalent of Harry being complimentary handed a Legends of Aviation award, a Pat Tillman award, and the Please Give Me Any Sort of Platform At All Wiener award ..... total bullshit.

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

In Texas I was taken to a grocery store called H-E-B.

I asked what the letters stand for. My friend said, "Howard Edward Butt."

I waited for the rest of the name. There was no rest. The man built an empire on his actual name, and the empire did not flinch.

Inside, a woman in a red apron said, "Welcome! Finding everything okay?"

I had been inside for eleven seconds. I had found nothing. I had not begun to look.

"...I have only just arrived."

"Well, let me know if you need anything, sweetheart."

Sweetheart. From a stranger with a price gun. I held the cart handle with both hands and tried to proceed as a man who had not just been loved at the produce section.

The store was clean in a way that suggested someone cared about it the way my grandmother cared about her kitchen floor. Not for the guests. For the floor.

A man named Dale in the meat department was cutting brisket behind glass. I watched him work. He held the knife the way a calligrapher holds a brush. Each cut landed in the same place twice.

I bowed slightly. I could not help it.

Dale looked up. "You want a sample, boss?"

"...I was paying respects to your blade work."

He paused. Then he cut a piece, put it on a toothpick, and handed it over the counter.

"Well, that's a first. Most folks just ask if I got any ribs left."

I ate it. It was perfect. I told him it was perfect.

"Appreciate that. Twenty-six years behind this counter."

Twenty-six years. The same counter. The same knife. In my country we would call this man a living national treasure and put him on television. Here he wore a red apron and asked if I wanted it wrapped.

Then the storm came.

I do not mean this as a metaphor. A hurricane was approaching the coast, and I learned something about this grocery store that I did not believe until I saw it with my own eyes.

H-E-B has mobile kitchens. Disaster relief trucks. A full-time Director of Emergency Preparedness. Over a hundred and fifty thousand employees they call Partners, and when the wind starts to build, the Partners do not go home.

They drive toward it.

During Hurricane Harvey, this grocery store fed thousands. They sent trucks into flooded towns before the government arrived. Before the Red Cross set up. Before anyone asked.

A grocery store. With a meat counter and a bakery and a sign that says HERE EVERYTHING'S BETTER.

Texans have a name for H-E-B during hurricanes. They call it the FEMA of Texas. I have confirmed this. Multiple Texans said it to me without smiling, the way you state the name of a general who does not lose.

I asked Dale if he had worked during Harvey.

He stopped cutting. He set the knife down, which I had not seen him do.

"Drove in at four in the morning. Water was up to my truck doors. Store was the only thing open for nine miles. We made sandwiches till we ran out of bread. Then corporate sent more bread. Then we ran out again."

"...How long?"

"Sixteen days."

I stood there holding a package of brisket in both hands and tried to find the word.

"...You are not a butcher, Dale."

He picked up his knife. "Sure I am."

In my country, a man who feeds his village through a disaster is honored for the rest of his life. In Texas, he is called a butcher, and he goes back to the counter on Monday, and he does not mention it unless you ask, and even then he picks up his knife before he finishes the story, because the brisket is not going to cut itself.

The store was founded in 1905 by a woman named Florence Butt, who put sixty dollars' worth of groceries on a shelf on the ground floor of her family's home in a town called Kerrville. That was the whole store. One shelf. One room. Sixty dollars.

A hundred and twenty years later, the family still owns it.

I walked out with four bags. A boy in a red apron carried two of them to my car. I told him I could carry my own bags. He said, "I know you can. But I'm already here, so."

I did not tip him. He would not let me.

I drove home past the highway where the flood line was still visible on the guardrail, three feet up, and I thought about Dale, and the bread, and the knife, and the name Howard Edward Butt, who was not embarrassed by it, because the name is not the point.

The shelf is the point.

Florence Butt put sixty dollars on a shelf in 1905. A hundred and twenty years later, when the water rose and the power died, the shelf was still standing, and there was bread on it.

A store is not its name. A store is whether the bread is there when you need it.

The bread was there.

[Veronica @vevecurl]

@QLoTII Of course they are, the Sussex have little income and big bills to pay. It will be more of the same, complaining and trying to justify all the negative stuff they've said & done. Harry and Meghan Markle's reputations are in the gutter, and they are probably f'd financially.

[Veronica @vevecurl]

@BarkJack_ It is doing exceptionally well. Personally, I'll give it a pass. But there are millions of theater kids to whom who plays what role is no different than men playing women in Shakespeare's time.

[Veronica @vevecurl]

@BarkJack_ I believe she is unstable enough to have convinced herself that PW desires her. In reality it's laughable, but we've seen that MM lives primarily in her own head. And when hit with actuality, she goes mia and sticks her head in the sand. Just like last week.

[Armstrong Williams 🇺🇸 @Arightside]

A massive digital board is being built beside the Lincoln Memorial for an undertaking unlike anything America has ever attempted.

For one month, it will display the name of every American who has died in service to our nation since the Civil War. One name after another. Hour after hour. Day after day.

There will be no speeches powerful enough to match what that screen will say in silence.

Every name represents a life given, a family forever changed, and a debt the rest of us can never fully repay.

Freedom has always carried a price. For one unforgettable month, America will watch that price pass before its eyes…one name at a time. 🇺🇸 AW

[Veronica @vevecurl]

@BarkJack_ I don't believe it. First, I doubt Markle would leave him alone with another female. Second, Harry is the only thing that gives her even a semblance of prestige, without him she knows all doors are closed and bolted. No way is she withdrawing the grip her claws have on him.

[Sachin Jose @Sachinettiyil]

Meteorologist Bill Taylor of KENS 5 paused during a live broadcast to pray for those affected by the devastating Texas Hill Country floods.

[Veronica @vevecurl]

@fyek1213 On Aja, I stand corrected.

[Veronica @vevecurl]

Race is the excuse. Caitlin Clark is targeted because she's good, she's better than them all put together and they hate her for it. Envy is a dirty b.

[Eric Daugherty @EricLDaugh]

🚨 AWESOME! Caitlin Clark has just STUNNED the haters and the left, surging to a RECORD 45 point, 10 assist game despite being targeted for brutal fouls and horrible treatment from the refs

"Showing the world just how elite she is."

Targeting her because she's white didn't work!

"Prove them wrong through performance, and she DID THAT."

"Look how many people were there to watch that game."

[Veronica @vevecurl]

@LizzieLoves2laf @BarkJack_ For one, he said Trump never surrounds himself with strong, intelligent women because they are intimidating to him which is not only a lie but COMPLETELY disrespectful to women period. He's a masochist masquerading as a progressive.

[freddyzur @freddyzur]

¡FUERTE DENUNCIA! 🚨 El creador de contenido Diego Saúl Reyna expone públicamente al gobierno de Venezuela desde una zona de desastre. Acusa a las autoridades de "robarse lo que ni el peor ladrón del mundo se robaría": el crédito y el honor de los rescatistas voluntarios.
Según Reyna, mientras los ciudadanos se rescatan por su cuenta y el gobierno bloquea ayuda internacional, las autoridades se dedican a tomar fotos de personas salvadas por voluntarios para colocarlas en anuncios gigantes en las autopistas y alardear de un trabajo que no hicieron.
"Es la peor asquerosidad en el planeta Tierra ahorita... se lo están haciendo a su propia gente", sentencia en el video. 👇 #Venezuela #DenunciaPública

[Veronica @vevecurl]

@BarkJack_ There's a little saying I like to repeat often: American by birth, Texan by the Grace of God. 🇨🇱💪

[Veronica @vevecurl]

@mattlawson99 @oliverhenry I'm in El Paso and it takes less time to get to Los Angeles from here than it does to Houston. 🤦🏻‍♀️😭

[Veronica @vevecurl]

@BarkJack_ Because on X you're held accountable. People who don't want you asking questions or they have to have the last word can't handle X. Like Meghan Markle, we will never ever see her on here because she's got lizard skin.

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

GiGi, Dorothy and Tula enjoy a super yummy lunch and sweet Tula takes a break to thank her caregiver.

[📹 Liberia Chimpanzee Rescue & Protection]

[Veronica @vevecurl]

@Canellelabelle When Catherine kneels to speak directly to her, the girl starts nodding repeatedly in agreement. Very connected. That was heartwarming.

[Veronica @vevecurl]

@BarkJack_ I agree. Also, its kind of preposterous to think Charles would never again see his son & grands. Markle probably only got to tag along because it was literally the only way to keep her muzzled. She leaks more than a porcupine's raincoat.