The Story of the Sandwich

Bird in the Bush, originally uploaded by carolsLittleWorld.

After posting on Saturday about the Austin Art Space Gallery, I realized that I forgot to explain about the sandwich.

A few weeks ago, Scriber’s Web and I both received a call for entries about an upcoming show. The show was going to be called “What Texas Means to Me” and it was exploring the artist’s impressions of any aspect of Texas, past, present, or future. The juror was announced-it was Jerry Seagle, an artist with strong Texas ties whose works have been featured in articles and books on experimental painting and who has over 200 solo-exhibits to his name. Since the juror was reputable and the Gallery was a bit new, we thought we would go over and check it out when we dropped off our entries.

As it turns out, the Gallery is in a tiny addition to the back of a local mall, not the greatest of places to have a gallery, but it’s a big space that features a lot of paintings. It’s a little ways from work, and we had both missed the mail-in deadline, so we decided, since it was a Wednesday, we would drive over and just drop off the work. We got there and nobody was in, but there was a sign on the door that said, “Hand Delivered work can be dropped off on Friday.”

Great, we thought. Friday’s always a busy day and there always seems to be no shortage of people who want to go out to lunch on Friday so we were both a little upset that we would have to sort of ‘blow off’ a Friday and go there again.

Well, Friday rolled around and neither one of us really wanted to go there but we somehow managed to drag ourselves out that way. The artist at the Gallery was really nice, and we did get to walk around inside to check out the work. There were some collage and mixed media pieces as well as some nice abstract paintings and actually some really nice work. It’s a working studio as well as a gallery, and so there are a lot of artist’s stations and we enjoyed poking around a bit.

On the way back, I told Scriber that I knew of a sandwich shop near there. “Blimpie,” I told her it was called, “they are quick and clean so that we can get back pretty fast.” Neither one of us was looking forward to eating a sandwich, but we were out, had to have something quick, and so we decided to go there. Blimpie was located in a strip mall, not too far from the Gallery and, as it turns out, this is the same strip mall that was the scene of the horrible yogurt shop murders back in 1991.

Turns out Blimpie had gone out and a new sandwich place had gone in. We were both a bit disappointed, since Blimpie had some good sandwiches, but decided to try this new place. Called Jimmy John’s, we we’re overly impressed, but it looked clean and so we went in. They were really quick with our “to go” orders, which was a blessing, and so we grabbed lunch and headed back to work.

A few minutes later, we’re back and work, and I get this instant message from Scriber. “I don’t even like sandwiches,” she said, “and this is very good.” It was a really really good sandwich. In fact, I’d have to say, as I told her then, that, “I shall now we addressed as Misses Jimmy John’s because my sandwich was so good I’m going to hunt that man down and marry him or, at the very least, chain him up in my kitchen and get another good meal or two out of him.”

It was a really, really, good sandwich. It was just one of those sandwiches that you have dreams about after you eat it. It was one of those sandwiches that makes you want another sandwich. It was just so really very tasty, words fail to describe it at this point. I mean, we’re talking top turkey here, it was that good. The bread was so fresh and just right in so many ways, all of the ingredients just sort of melted in your mouth, God, it was like a dream, that sandwich was.

I don’t know what it is about that strip mall, I mean, that’s where the yogurt shop murders happened. It has really strange karma over there but, somehow, really really good sandwiches. Blimpie had some really good sandwiches too and now Jimmy John’s was there serving up a top sandwich too.

After dropping off our work, we had to wait for the juror’s results. It sometimes takes weeks for results to come in because, as you can probably guess, they have to pour over entries, and they get sometimes (literally) hundreds of these things. The whole time we were waiting, I was thinking, no not, “I hope we both get in,” but rather, “I hope we get in so that we have another excuse to go over there and eat one of those sandwiches.”

I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m happy we both made it into the show, it’s a wonderful gallery space and all but, damn, I really want another sandwich. (I think they cater. Imagine if we brought a tray of sandwiches to our opening. We’d surely never be rejected from a juried show again and there would probably be a crazed mob at our opening reception.)

Oh, that sandwich was really, really good, I tell you.

Until next time…