Sunday, December 24, 2023

Road Trip from Austin to Glastonbury Part Deux

Four days on the road with daughter, dog and hand puppet

Day 3: Wednesday, June 28
The yin and yang of coal country

I wouldn't say the road was taking its toll, maybe it was the motel bed. In any case we awoke once again on Day 3 of the trip in strange-yet-sorta-familiar surroundings. Tousled, groggy, in another dog-friendly hotel near a Major American Highway (MAH). This particular edifice was situated in the Lexington, KY, environs. From there we rejoined the road eastward. But first: breakfast.

This could be any one of us in this "just got out of bed" pic. Extra points if you can put a name to the mane.

Gotta say, from stay to stay, as we arced west to northeast like an ever upward line of profit on some CFO's aspirational spreadsheet, the quality of the "free breakfast" served at our roadside inns arced in its own direction, downward, a trajectory that featured corresponding descending flavors, nourishment and aesthetics. And this, The Most Important Meal of the Day™. There is no photographic evidence of breakfasts after our feast of Day 2; suffice it to say things became more industrial and less organic as onward we went. The food, mostly.

After breakfast, we hit the road and continued on our journey through rolling green hills along the top edge of Kentucky.

On the road again. The rolling green hills of Kentucky afore, beside and behind us on a hazy morning.

It wasn't until reviewing this trip I noticed how close we had got to the Ohio River as we pressed on. This was a theme-in-retrospect; ours wasn't a tourist trip, we were on a mission to ARRIVE IN CONNECTICUT, so we missed tons of road-adjacent points of interest. We weren't making any detours; if it wasn't in our line of sight, it wasn't on the itinerary. C'est la guerre.

After the lovely rolling hills of the verdant Kentucky countryside, we passed into West Virginia. In front of us, more rolling hills of green. But as we crossed out of Kentucky, we had to pass a vast, hideous industrial site. You couldn't see it as you approached; it was hidden from sight — unless you were heading west.

A refinery, in all its (un)finery, the poisonous infrastructure wouldn't have looked out of place in Texas, where it would be visible for miles and miles in all directions — a point of Texas pride. This massive man-made horror was hidden behind the hills, and sprawled like a fallen drunk beside the Big Sandy River, as if the entirety of Kentucky's industrial ugliness had been confined to this one desecrated chunk of real estate, and thrust as close to its neighboring state as possible. The thoughtful people of Kentucky had dumped this scar of horrific petro-chemical chaos in a place where only West Virginians could see it.

Catlettsburg Refinery, vast and hideous. The photo doesn't do justice to its vast hideousness. Thanks, Kentucky!

And so on and into the weird and wonderful state of West Virginia.

Hello, West Va!

West Virginia was sometimes breathtakingly beautiful, sometimes scarred with some random industrial ugliness of its own that sprouted randomly between the pretty bits. On our route, we encountered mostly the pretty bits.

Pretty hills in West Virginia

More pretty hills in West Virginia

More...you get it...

At some point that morning, we zoomed through Charleston, the capital, a thin strip of a city that snakes along the north bank of the Kanawha River, squeezed between the river and lumpy hills too steep to bear a cohesive municipality. The city is maybe a mile or two wide before the hills get high. If you're an Austinite reading this, imagine Zilker park as the only thing on the south bank of Lady Bird Lake and the city limits demarcated by 15th street with nothing else north of that. Weird. As we peeled off I-64 for I-79, the Capitol and its gold dome could be discerned down-river, so there's that.

The lanky city of Charleston, West Virginia

So it went. Lovely rolling hills, sprouts of ugliness. We focused on the hills, as the photos attest. Then, out of nowhere, appeared what looked like a space station or shiny new NASA outpost. Officially a tech hub, nothing about West Virginia suggested, as we drove along its backwaters and frontwaters, that there could be this sort of 21st century scientific vigor occupying such a vast chunk of real estate in them thar rolling hills. To the elitist traveler from the coastal elitist city of Austin, Texas (not all that far from that science-averse state's own NASA tech hub in the great city of Houston), it looked as if all this tech had been appropriated from somewhere where science is real, perhaps a galaxy far far away....

Give Joe Manchin his due, the gleaming white and steel modernity reeked of pork, no doubt beneficial for the local economy. That man Manchin had brought home the bacon to his state. Well done. Now piss off into the deepest darkest coalmine of forgotten history, Joe. I hear its "Almost Heaven."

Heck, maybe I'm being too hard on jinkin' Joe and it was the other senator from West Va who porked this tech-loin.
Points if you can name him/her, cos I sure as hell can't.

On we drove, crossing into westernmost Maryland somewhere in the mountains.

Welcome out of West Va. ;O)

Not far along was the highest point on our journey. I looked it up for you (fellow) road-n-map nerds: Keysers Ridge, 2,880 feet above sea level. We stopped for gas a few miles later, just past Grantsville, at a pit stop on Chestnut Ridge Road, where we met...an old-timer from Houston who had arrived to fill up in his monster-sized (Texas-sized) pickup truck. A friendly fellow, he noticed our Texas license plates and sauntered over to say hi and ask what brought us up to the ridge.

The gas station, to our non-resident amazement/amusement, doubled as a liquor store and, apparently (discovered when I did the road-n-map nerding) a gun-seller. Suddenly the Blue Laws of the South had given way to the practical needs of society; I don't know exactly the hours when it is permitted to buy booze in the mountains of rural Maryland, but if you want your hooch, and a telescopic sight for your hunting rifle, head to this here filling station.

The Cumberland Ridge liquor store. Filling station. Liquor store. Filling station. Duck season, fire!
P.S. That is not the Houstonion's truck; his was a big black behemoth F-350 with leather interior and room for a field of wheat in the bed.

The gal behind the counter was friendly as all get-out, I was her "darling," at least while I paid. Maybe that's why the ex-Houstonian was up here, for some old-timey, friendly chit-chat with a friendly filling station/liquor store/gun store clerkette. And for a million gallons of gas for his monster truck.

Kait walked Alaska while I filled up Ronda the Honda. Man, it was cold up there! We climbed aboard, and off we went down The Old National Road, down literally and geographically; this was the start of the l-o-n-g and often steep descent toward the coast.

As noted above, among the things we drove blithely past in blissful ignorance along this narrow corridor of west Maryland: to the south, the Potomac, and to the north, the Mason-Dixon Line. We slinked between both on the thinnest of state panhandles, unaware of how close these sights were. Sure was a pretty part of the country, though.

Near Friendsville, MD

Near Accident, MD (no pun intended, well not initially...).

When I captioned the photo above, I thought to myself, "Did we pass some highway carnage in Maryland that I've blurred from my memory?" It's been a hell of a year, and my memory of events between, say January 1, 2023, and, well, now, isn't all that reliable. The answer to the question just posed, though: Nope. "Accident" is just the name of the town.

From here, our eastward journey shifted north-north-east as we crossed the Mason-Dixon Line out of the South between Hagerstown, MD and the prosaicly monikered State Line, PA. The sign encourages new arrivals to PA to "Pursue Your Happiness" — a fortune cookie admonition if ever there was one. I suppose that's exactly what we were doing, on this our road-trip adventure.

Come on get happy...y'all are in the North now.

Pennsylvania undulated in its own low-key(stone state) way, more farmland than the pastures of Kentucky and coal-bump mountains of West Virginia. Didn't see any obvious taxpayer contributions to local boondoggles, either.

Pennsylvania Pharmland

With most of the best bits of the journey, the stunning and/or dramatic countryside, behind us, we rolled into our hotel just outside of Allentown. There, we detoxed (retoxed?) with a local happy hour brewery beverage while Alaska made friends with the adjacent group sharing our patio. Fresh from some work junket, they had commandeered the barbecue and were roasting up a ton of meat on the grill, none of which we let our hound sample, though they did ask if they could toss something her way.

Kait chills, meat grills, Alaska prepares for any scraps that might come her way.

Day 4: Thursday, June 29
Wayward in Westchester

We woke to the well-worn sights of a morning in another roadside motel.

Yup, this could be any one of us after a night's sleep in another anonymous roadside motel...

After a breakfast that continued the previously noted downward trend of aesthetics, nourishment and edibility, we hit the road. Like modern day Washington astride his narrow canoe, we soon encountered, then crossed the Delaware River. Unlike the preternaturally well-balanced cherry tree ax-murderer in his boat, we were heading in the other direction. Into New Jersey. On Interstate 78. Things were about to get vaguely, then definitely, familiar. And then completely unfamiliar all over again.

The first of the last three welcome signs...Hello, New Jersey!

We still had some hills to descend as we made our way through the verdant western part of the Garden State.

Yahweh! It's Mahway!

Central New Jersey's main artery is the Turnpike, and I have many many many many memories of driving up and down that road, but Kait, Alaska, Cookie Monster and I stuck to an interior route, missing out on the lovely cities of Newark and East Rutherford and the swampland between 'em. There are nicer bits of the 'pike farther north where my grandparents used to live up in Bergen County — Englewood, to be specific. In a colonial style house not too dissimilar from the one we were heading toward in Connecticut.

But we were in a hurry and crossed into New York, skirting New York City as we continued up the IH-287, now the Gov. Thomas E. Dewey Thruway. Guess Dewey won something after all...wonder if there are any roads named after Harry S. Truman in the Empire State...

Gov'nor Dewey welcomes you to NY

At this point, things were definitely getting more familiar as we headed up IH-287 toward the Tappan Zee bridge, now the "Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge." Evidently, if you become governor of New York, you get some extensive length of tarmac named after you. The bridge is not as I remember it; now its suspended in the modern architecture- and, presumably, engineering-style. Felt sturdy enough...

Engineered in the modern style and rather impressive.

Once upon the eastern shore of the Hudson, things got unexpectedly tricky. We figured we were a couple hours from Glastonbury, but due to accidents on one of the two interstate highways that leads out of New York, we opted to swap our planned coastal route (IH-95, for you road-n-map nerds keeping score) for the inland one (IH-684 to IH-84, for you road-n-map nerds keeping score). Sadly, upon arriving at the ramp to the 84s, we discovered that this road was also jam-packed with the accident-prone. Our goal of avoiding hours-long traffic jams ended up with us spending all those hours on winding country lanes as we navigated our way out of Westchester County. Or tried to navigate. For some reason, it felt that we were zig-zagging up and down the edge of New York state, Connecticut tantalizingly just a country-lane away, but without any means of crossing the state line.

Westchester, pretty, and practically inescapable.

Not quite Lost in Yonkers, we spent what seemed like hours trying to Escape from New York. Sure was a pretty drive, though. Of course, all the up and down and back and forth meant an unanticipated pit stop. Here is Kait having tripped over the curb while taking Alaska for a bathroom break.

Kait on her keister in Westchester

Finally, we found our way into Connecticut and headed in a Hartford-ly direction. Glastonbury is just south and east of the capital, on the other side of the Connecticut River. When I lived in the Boston burbs, this was a familiar drive, through and around Hartford on the wee roads with hairpin entrance and exit ramps.

Hidden behind all that greenery was the "Welcome to Connecticut" road sign...
practical and unassuming, pretty much like everything else in the Nutmeg State.

That's about all there is to say about the trip. We got to the house in the mid-afternoon and settled down on the back deck in the sunshine for a well-deserved rest in excellent company!

Post-script

New experiences abound for the hound. For Alaska, a flight of stairs posed a new challenge in getting to and fro. Well, up and down; she's figured it out now. Mostly.

Surveying the new route down from the top of the stairwell.



For y'all who haven't seen the house, it's a "European" Colonial. European because its exterior is stucco. It was built in 1929. Come on up for a visit sometime.

Casa Polgar del Norte



And finally...Our fellow traveler on his new perch in the studio.

Saturday, September 30, 2023

Road Trip from Austin to Glastonbury Part 1

Four days on the road with daughter, dog and hand puppet

Day 1: Monday, June 26
The sun has riz the sun has set...

Daughter Kaitlin arrived mid-morning from North Carolina to help finish loading the Honda CRV, Ronda, and share driving duties as we left Austin for the four-day road trip to Glastonbury. I picked her up at the airport, we ate a last meal at Maudie's, got home, stuffed what was coming into the car and off we went.

Accompanying us for the journey, Alaska (dog) and a Cookie Monster hand puppet to relieve spells of boredom.

Alaska calls "shotgun"; Cookie assumes his seat in the navigator's bunker

We hit the road at 2:30 in the afternoon with the goal of crossing into Arkansas for our first overnight stay. We planned on stopping about every two hours to swap seats and give all three of us a chance to relieve ourselves as needed. First stop, some barren highway rest stop between Jarrell and Belton. Windswept, dry, hot, but clean facilities. Gotta give Texas points for clean rest stop restrooms.

Rest room stop #1

It's truly miles and miles of Texas with nowt much to look at. Alaska's default position was to sleep most of the trip.

Alaska assumes the (default) position

A couple more stops, including a picnic dinner and then Texarkana. Our initial goal was to get the hell out of Texas for our first overnight stay. Well, Central Texas is an accurate description of just how buried in the middle of the state Austin is, and we just couldn't do it. So we pitched camp inside a rather pleasant Fairfield in.

At this point, it's important to point out that while Kait and I drove, my sister, mom and Michelle were coordinating our overnight stays, a helpful distant assist from "Mission Control." All we travelers had to do was find the (dog-friendly) hotel they picked, pull into the parking lot, check in, and head up to our room. It was always up. This meant using the elevator, which was a new experience for our canine companion.

Alaska was fascinated by the elevator at first, though as these overnight stays progressed, she started to dislike the weird small room. The sliding door that sealed her (and us) into the small space promised something only she could explain, and disappointed when it reopened somewhere else, not a park. Plus the weird small room emitted beeps at regular intervals at the floor vibrated. I think these vertical mini-journeys started messing with her mind. By the night of our last stay, she was elevator-averse. Cookie Monster spent nights in the car, and never opined one way or the other about his situation.

More fascinating than the elevator, however, was the porcelain self-filling water bowl in the bathroom. It was as if Alaska had never encountered a toilet before; I mean, we had them in our old house... For whatever reason, on this night, at this hotel, the glowing white ever-filled font was too great a temptation, and our pup slaked her thirst. A lot.

Alaska samples the eau de toilet...

Day 2: Tuesday, June 27
Life is cheap for a purple car in Tennessee, but way too expensive in Louisville

"A decent breakfast" - though in this photo, it's almost impossible to discern just what wound up on my plate.

We woke, cleaned up, ate a decent breakfast, then encountered rain as we crossed into Arkansas. A lot of rain. Enough to slow us down for an hour. Sometime, finally, in the late morning it cleared out, and we meandered up IH-30 toward Memphis.

Rainclouds dissipate over Arkansas

A key discovery we made after a gas station stop: no matter how you feel about the coffee at a Starbucks, their bottled mocha frappuccinos are amazing. Kait and I limited ourselves to one a day, knowing the potential addictive power of the bottled bliss. I suppose our reaction to these caffeinated sweet-bombs wasn't that much different from Alaska's fondness for that hotel toilet...

Cookie Monster stares at Frap bottle

The Mississippi is big and wide, and the Memphis skyline feels as if it is pushing toward the big river because that's where the money is to be made. I'd been through Memphis once or twice, but hadn't recalled how much development fronted the river, including the aberration of a grotesque, shiny pyramid ("Egyptian Revival" architecture). Once an events center, now it's a giant shop for galoshes and guns, with shooting ranges inside, from standard pistols to archery. Welcome to Tennessee.

Egyptian Revivalist eyesore on the Mississippi

Traffic was diabolical as we headed through Memphis, even though it wasn't rush hour. At one point, some souped-up purple muscle car, weaving erratically and fast through slow-moving traffic nearly clipped us, then a semi, then swerved to avoid a nearby car, and zoomed away. Good riddance. Outside of Memphis, the drive was more pleasant, that is, less peopled with maniacs. Arriving mid-afternoon in Nashville, Kait and I opted to get off the highway and eat a decent lunch in the trendy 12South neighborhood. We hunted a good barbecue joint, sans galoshes or bows and arrows, Edley's, where they even brought a water bowl for Alaska. We stuffed ourselves and got back onto the road, aiming for our next overnight stay in Louisville.

Would you buy brisket from this man? Maybe not, but his grandson cooks up some good BBQ

If traffic in Memphis was slow, it was practically at a standstill for the first hour or so as we tried to get out of Nashville. Everybody was heading north. As we drifted along, a familiar sight appeared, weaving in and out of the slow-moving traffic: the same daft purple muscle car, which swerved and cheated death over and over as it picked its way between cars. We lost sight of it when it veered off onto an east-bound road we were not taking. Ours was the road more traveled, and it was a forever-feeling stint before we hit the outer suburbs and could drive at a reasonable pace. Finally we hit the rolling hills of Kentucky.

A farm in Kentucky, one of many...

Our target for night two was Louisville, but as we ambled up IH-65, Mission Control was reporting that the cheapest hotel room they could get at such short notice was $800. What to do? We were approaching Elizabethtown, where we'd have to make the decision to push on toward Louisville and take our chance$ or turn east onto the Blue Ridge Parkway toward an alternative overnight stay in Lexington. About five miles before our exit, we discovered why the hotels were so expensive. Taylor Swift was performing that night in Louisville and local businesses were hiking their prices accordingly. The Femme Fatale of Kapital had struck again. She's a one-woman economic engine (c.f. Sweden or Travis Kelce's jersey sales for more on the Taylor Swift market effect).

But the ride, though longer than we'd planned that day, was pretty. The Parkway lolls along the Kentucky countryside. Not a bad sidestep, plus it moved us farther east; extra time spent on this leg meant less time on the next, right?

The sun sets on the Blue Ridge Parkway

To be continued...

Girls ready to hit the road!

Monday, March 8, 2021

Kaitlin Paprikash (Paprikash Kaitlin*) - A(nother) Recipe

Previously, I published this family recipe for matzoh-ball soup. It’s nearly Passover once again, so maybe give it a try for your seder!

More recently, daughter Kait requested my recipe for krumpli paprikash (paprikash krumpli*), a Hungarian dish that translates exactly as “peppered potatoes.” Want to say it out loud? KROOM-plee POP-ree-kosh (POP-ree-kosh KROOM-plee*). Easy to say. Even easier to make. To whit:

Ingredients

    1-2 lbs Red Potatoes, cut into wee cubes (or more, especially if you want left-overs)

    1 Yellow Onion, diced

    1 Green Pepper, diced (optional, because they cost so damn much)

    1 Red Pepper, diced (optional, see “Green Pepper,” above)

    8 - 10 Hotdogs, sliced into bite-size cylinders that want to roll off your cutting board; Do Not Let Them Roll Away, the little bastards, for they will try.

    Olive Oil, to coat cook-pot

    Paprika, lots. No, more than that. No... No... Okay, but you’ll probably want more. One “chef” well known to this correspondent has often plopped an entire spice jar of the stuff into this dish. Then added more.

    Cayenne (if you’re not using “Hot” Paprika, and I am talking “spiciness,” not whatever you youngsters think I’m saying), a pinch. Or two. The missus and I once used too much Hot Paprika and I swear our LIPS were on fire for HOURS.

    Garlic Powder, to taste (duh, garlic)

    Salt and Pepper to taste

    1 cup Water, Eau, Agua, Wasser, you get my drift


The Alchemy

Part the First: The Roux

In a large pot over a medium flame, bring olive oil to a roaring flagration. No, kidding. Just warm it a little, then add the onions and (if using ’em) peppers of multi-colors. Cook until onions are that wonderful gooey, not quite overdone-ness...“translucent,” that’s the word cookbooks like, translucent. Then add paprika, salt, pepper, garlic powder, cayenne and stir. This is the roux.


Part the Second: The Rest of Instructions

Add the potatoes, hot dogs and stir until covered with the sweet, salty, onion-peppery goo. Roux. I meant to say “roux.” Then stir in one cup of water and cover the pot. When the contents begin to cry out that it’s too hot/it starts to boil, turn down the heat. Check that you have enough paprika in there. Do you? Well? You’re not looking to create a red that mocks the storm on Jupiter, more like a Saharan sunset, tending toward orange, but still hot. Spice-wise, I’m still talking spiciness, not whatever you youngsters think I’m saying.


Let simmer, stirring occasionally until the potatoes are “done” (like, 40 minutes, who the hell knows, potatoes are notoriously unyielding). You’ll know when you stick a fork in ’em and are they creamy — neither stiff and flaky nor still hard as small pretend rocks (what did I say about notoriously unyielding)? It’s best if they’re tending toward creamy and yet, sorta solid-y, too. IMO. Hey, you asked, right? (notorious...)


At any time, do a taste test and adjust for #TheAmountOfPaprikaYouUnderMeasured because quite likely #YouUnderMeasured. You can  also add more water BUT JUST A LITTLE if it looks like the potatoes are holding out on you, texture-wise (notorious...). Remember: we’re not making SOUP, here, though a little soupiness is good. Contradictory, yet, optimal.


An Aside

Do not be tempted to taste a hotdog morsel at any time, especially now, when it all Smells So Good, please, just one, please? No. PLEASE? NO! Not because it’s unsafe because they’re “not cooked all the way through yet.” Hotdogs come pre-cooked, so you could, technically speaking, eat them straight out of the pack, sans warming, but, ugh. Yuck. Are you nuts? Eaten that way, they’d be Vienna sausages, and NO ONE likes Vienna sausages. No, keep your paws off the hotdog morsels because at some point in the meal you’ll go back for thirds or fourths and There Won’t Be Any Left because you were tempted earlier! Just warning you now, so you won’t be disappointed later. Balance is all.


End Game

When the potatoes are post-flaky, about-creamy-and-solid-y and you’ve convinced yourself no additional paprika could enhance this effort, give the contents a final stir and breathe in the aromas of your home-style, foreign-named fancy hotdog dish.


Scoop some into a bucket and eat. Wait. Strike that. Spoon some into bowls to share with your friends (or just to sample from different crockery if on your own). Enjoy.


A Second Aside

Pickles go well on the side. Also, chunks of artisanal bread, especially some doughy French thing. Hungarians know loads about confections and bakery delights but eff-all about French bread, despite the centuries of connection between the Hapsburgs and Bourbons. Look it up. Okay don’t. You wanna start a war or something?


A Note about Wine

Duh. Yes. Red. Plenty of.


Disclaimer: Instructions for making krumpli paprikash (paprikash krumpli*) are aspirational; individual chefs may discover avenues of exploration not disclosed in this recipe. My advice: Go For It.


*Because in Hungarian, you lead with the last name.


Tuesday, April 23, 2019

How I Wrote the Song "So Cruel"



There was a time when I stopped writing songs. As if my ability to put words to music and music to words had upped and left me, and I might never pen a half-decent tune again.* 

It started right after I had moved to Austin for graduate school. Here, in the self-proclaimed Live Music Capital of the World, I was experiencing a prolonged songwriters block. Im not entirely sure what was blocked, as I was hard at work on other creative endeavors. It was just the songwriting bit that had evaporated. The duration of this musical blockage overlapped with my pursuit of my master of fine arts degree in theatre directing, which kept me busy for three solid years, followed immediately afterwards (well, overlapping that final year, truth be told) with the co-founding of a theatre company, The Public Domain, which was even more time-consuming and just as creatively demanding. So while I was pursuing all sorts of creative arts projects, an arts business and a degree in the theatre arts — ironically, often overseeing the musical aspects of the on-stage work — my songwriting foundered. It turned into a four-year void in my musical creativity, and I was at a loss as to when, if ever, I would write anything worthwhile. 

Then came this song. 

It isnt all that much. A story about a misguided love affair that leaves her bruised at the hands of a brutal him. Not particularly edifying, but as soon as there was the slightest sense of traction, I made the conscious decision not to interfere with whatever combination of words and music were duking it out. I got out of the way. As the thing began to take a rudimentary shape, I thought about that category of Elvis Costello musical missive in which nice young women encountered not-nice men to ill effect. This sort of omniscient author songwriting was a bit alien (I tend to go for first-person narratives), but I gave in to the storytelling and let the thing go wherever it wanted. I tagged along and cleaned up bits as needed. Plus it was short, clocking in at around two minutes long. I could get through that, right? Nothing epic, nothing with great meaning. Just a short, sharp, sonic shock to my idle creative self to jolt it back to what I had known. 

It did the trick. 

Once I finished this little number, I began writing (what I consider) some decent new material, and plenty of it. Immediately after “So Cruel” came “The Bitter End,” Falling Down, Extra Ordinary and Idle Infatuation. You can hear “Extra Ordinary” on 2017’s Thug Nation EP, and I just submitted a new recording of “Idle Infatuation” to NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert Competition (there is a sonically meatier version here). My daughter Ari took the recording of “The Bitter End” and turned it into this video. Maybe I’ll do an updated recording of Falling Down next.

*Wags out there might opine I have yet to write a quarter-decent tune, let alone a half-decent one. Let them all wag, I say.

So Cruel

She wasn’t looking when he caught her eye
All of her friends said he would make her cry
In the time it takes for explanations
She got her hopes up, he got expectations

She’d kid around afraid to face the truth
He’d deck her out in shades of black and blue
In the time she takes to make her mistake
His grip tightened, she plotted her escape

She turned away and said she’d had enough
He spun her round and started acting rough
In broad daylight in the middle of a crowd
Later that night, all alone, she cried out loud

Why do you have to be so cruel
When you’re the one I should be running from
You break more than the rules
But I’ll break that spell to get from under your thumb

She packed her bags and tried to get away
He let her go after he made her pay
In the time she’ll take to recover
He’ll wreak havoc with another lover

Why do you have to be so cruel
When you’re the one I should be running from
You break more than the rules
But I’ll break that spell to get from under your thumb