Cats, Javier's & Dallas

For her birthday and Mother's day, Tara got tickets to go see the musical "Cats" and dinner at her choice of restaurant in Dallas. After hearing Mary Beth rave about it for years, she chose to go eat at Javier's. Javier's is a swanky Mexican restaurant that serves authentic gourmet Mexican food (not Tex-Mex). The food was great, but we observed two things there that will be commented on in the "Dallas" section of this entry.

Cats was...interesting. We like musicals and have seen quite a few. Most musicals are stories. Unbeknownst to us, Cats isn't - it's a collection of poems by T.S. Eliot. So, we spent the first half of the show trying to figure out what the story was. They were throwing out all these words like "Jellical cat" and explaining how cats get their names, like "Rum Tum Tugger," "Rumpelteazer," and "Jennyanydots." We were so lost. At intermission we looked at each other and Tara said "Please tell me there isn't a story because I'm so lost!" We looked in the flyer and found that it is a collection of poems. Once we stopped trying to determine a story line, we enjoyed the show so much more. It was a lot of fun and we recommend it, but if you go, don't expect a story!

Living in Arlington, we've gotten used to the Tarrant County lifestyle. Those of you who have never spent extended time in DFW can't understand how opposite Dallas and Ft Worth are. The entire culture seems to change at the Tarrant/Dallas County line and Arlington is in Tarrant County. Two examples from our 1 hour at Javier's.

We got to the restaurant at 6:00 so we could have time to get to the show on time. When we pulled in the parking lot was empty. There's free valet, but with the empty parking lot, Ryan signalled to the valet he would just park. But they said we had to be valeted - ok, no problem. But when we came back out our little red Toyota Matrix was not in the parking lot. Instead, it was full of BMWs, Mercedes, Jaguars, Hummers and an Aston Martin. Our car was two blocks away parked on the street. Apparently the Matrix doesn't make the prestige cut!

Most of the couples in Javier's spent their time of their phones, not actually talking to one another. There was a couple about our age at the table next to us. We first noticed them because the guy had his Blackberry and a rolled up wad of cash sitting on the table next to him. It was very strange - when have any of you carried a roll of cash and then set it on the table? Then, when their order came, they both looked at their food for a second, called the waiter over and sent it back. Not because it was wrong, but they just decided it didn't look good. The guy pulled out a credit card, they paid for it and left. What?!?! That was at least $50 of food that they just threw away. That's Dallas.