I Can't Get No Respect

My elaborate road-trip plans having fallen through today, due to softball tournaments that did not (despite all the frogs in the known universe) get rained out, late-night drinking binges, parental visits, emergency haircuts, and other reasons not particularly worth going into, transpire (read it again, it actually does make grammatical sense), Tony and his friend Josh took me out to lunch today at Magnolia. I'd already eaten.

You can always find something worth having at Magnolia Cafe, though. This is one of the very first echt-Austin establishments I was taken to, at the tender age of 17, by my then-30-year-old boyfriend, when I was a little freshman newbie to Austin and he was the creature of the world, showing me the ropes of the place. At that time, I remember, Magnolia Cafe had a mural depicting (among other things) Superman with a Hitler mustache. I expect that was meant to be a Nietzsche reference. Whatever it was, it's gone now.

So today I had cottage cheese and a flamingo sandwich (tomatoes, avocadoes, swiss cheese, and alfalfa sprouts on grilled whole wheat bread - I removed the sprouts), and the boys had more substantial fare, and polished off my discarded alfalfa sprouts, to boot. They're big muscle men. Of course.

Then we went to Redbud Island. I've lived in Austin - and adored it with my whole heart, which probably goes without saying - for about 23 years now, minus the year I spent back with my parents in northern Virginia, and the two years I had the insane notion of living in Corpus because it has a beach. I'll tell you what: rotting seaweed, dirty sand, the occasional stinging jellyfish, and zero nightlife make for a lousy beach. Go for the weekend, if you will. Several of us will be down there, getting drunk and possibly less-legally impaired, and painting the town some chic and unexpected color, for my 40th birthday in May. But live there? I can't recommend it.

Redbud Island is really nice. I would have liked to be led to know beforehand that we were going, because it's a beautiful leash-free park with decomposed granite trails, plentiful poison ivy, gorgeous rock-studded river vistas, and joyful, exuberant, incredibly wet dogs, and I was in a skirt and high heels. No matter: the views are incredible and the atmosphere is so relaxed. Tony, Josh and I climbed around for a bit, then settled ourselves on a bench in the tree-dappled sunshine, some twenty feet from the water's edge. A guy was resting at the shore about fifteen feet in front tossing sticks to his slightly oblivious dog, which I don't think ever actually retrieved anything. We chatted in desultory fashion about dogs, animals, turtles (Tony's pet of choice), cats, and things that sneak in through the pet door, such as raccoons and possums.

"Oh, you have to watch out for them," chimed in the guy sitting by the water with his dog, "they can be really vicious!"

We got to talking about parallel parking (finding parking at Redbud involved, I might mention, rather a significant amount of obscenity from Tony, despite his Lenten vows); and Josh - about 10-12 years younger than Tony and me - said that he never had trouble, because his Jetta's side mirrors automatically adjusted to point at the curb when he parallel-parked. Tony and I were slightly outraged. When we were his age, we didn't have amenities like that.

"Did they even have cars when you were my age?" Josh teased me; but before I could wind up for a proper smacking, the guy on the shore turned around. "Oh, they did," he said, "but they were the kind where you had to stick your feet out the bottom and run."

Oh! No! You! Di!N'T!!!!!!

We left the park - me, flowing skirt, high heels and all - and got a latte at Mozart's on Lake Austin. Where this thing happened, about which I am about (are you ready?) to blog.

Tony and Josh and I had coffeehouse drinks, and as I was polishing off my iced latte, enjoying the cool early spring weather, a guy at a neighboring table got up to walk inside, but turned and gave me a brief, but fairly dark, significant and serious Look.

"Oh my God," I said to Tony, as the guy walked away and went inside, "that guy is really cute."

Tony turned and looked. "That guy," he said calmly, "looks an awful lot like (you-know-who, dammit)."

"Oh. Shit," I said, putting my head in my hands, because the guy (who didn't really look all that much like him, but had that certain quality of Somethingness by which we tend to group the people we meet in our heads, thereby figuring out in quick order how to deal with them) was unarguably of that type. He looked a bit like a loner, like the type of guy that people tend to misunderstand: intelligent, capable of great insight and humor, defensive, and (as far as my experience goes), perhaps not entirely sane.

Whatever that means. Like I'm claiming I am.

I thought of Agatha Christie, and Miss Marple, and was talking about this still when our neighbor returned to his seat. "Miss Marple's theory," I was explaining, "was that there are really only a fairly limited number of Types of people in the world; and that therefore, as you become older, and get to meet more and more people - however limited the society you live in - you get to recognize and understand them, and to predict the way that the new people you meet will behave, based on the way the people they remind you of have acted in the past.

"And therefore," I went on - probably within earshot of this incredibly fascinating guy, who on second examination did not look that much at all like the person he reminded me of, "we should go ahead and leave, maybe now."

Which we did. As we walked out I turned back briefly and caught his gaze again, and there was that brief electric shock again. Hello, I thought. I had someone to psychologically torture me, and I seem to be fresh out. How about you?

I need a road trip. NOW.

Trail's End

You know that path that runs along MoPac just north of the river? I tried to get to that today, but I couldn't find it. How do you get there?

I don't know why I'm asking you. I've got Google Maps same as you have. And I call myself a geographer!

It's fun to enjoy the hike-and bike trail from a different perspective for a change. Normally, of course, I walk on it, along a very specific stretch - as far as I can get from my office and still be back in one hour. My path includes the Statesman, the Congress Avenue Bridge, the South First Bridge; Auditorium Shores, wet dogs, and Stevie; the railroad bridge, pedestrian bridge, and Lamar Bridge; up to Lou Neff Point and back. I scaled it in Arc once - the round trip is about three miles.

On a bike, of course, you can go a lot further, but you have to watch out for obstacles like double-wide strollers, joggers engrossed in their iPods, and dogs - who aren't terribly concerned about whether you run them over or not. The dogs along Auditorium Shores bring down a lot of bikers. But this is perfectly normal, and nothing to be concerned about.

When I ride my bike at lunch, I turn around at the pedestrian bridge under MoPac; but I've always wondered where the trail goes from there. It turns out it doesn't go far, petering out altogether at Eilers Park. What a pity - what I was really hoping for was to find that trail along MoPac and maybe hop up to Camp Hubba Hubba and drop in on Tony and Pinche Robert, who actually went in to work on Texas Independence Day. And they call themselves geographers!

Patriots, I meant to say patriots.

No luck there, but it was still a good day for me. I bought a new pair of shoes - flats, I'm sorry to say, but my jogging shoes were wearing out and there are some things even I won't do in heels. Then I had to go on a nice long walk around the neighborhood to break them in. Keep moving... keep moving...

And I did in fact move all the plants in the world back out front to their summer headquarters, so I hope the weather won't let me down, unlike old blind Romeo, who I can't help noticing is pooping in a potted basil as I type this. You probably don't want to eat pesto at my house.

Happy, happy spring - if it is spring! Here's to new beginnings.

Alternative Medicine

Vampires, like dogs, vary widely according to breed. You've got your gross, bald, pointy-eared Nosferatu type, and your brutal, ugly, rip-your-face-off Alaskan vampires. Some are sinister and dour, like Bela Lugosi's Dracula, and some are pale and glamorous and erotic, like Anne Rice's creations. They seem similar enough to belong to the same species - though taxonomic classification is a bit problematic, what with them being so elusive and all, not to mention undead.

So maybe, like dogs, they're just different breeds. Maybe there are even toy vampires you could carry around in your handbag. Wouldn't that be cool? As long as it was made of UV-resistant fabric.

You see, I'm thinking about this because I've got these weird marks on my neck lately. The doctor said it was eczema and put me on steroids, but this has had no noticeable effect except that my thigh muscles seem to be bulking up nicely.

So I'm wondering if perhaps I've fallen victim to some vampire that saps its victims' lifeblood very, very, very slowly, by scraping lightly at the skin and getting just a tiny bit of capillary blood from the surface.

I don't see why not, do you? They would have to subsist primarily on regular food, because they wouldn't get enough nourishment from such a small amount of blood. So maybe they aren't actually undead. Unsick, perhaps - with a general desire to nibble on someone attractive, a philosophical objection to organized religion, and a tendency to stay up too late, then feel kind of crappy when the alarm goes off in the morning.

Maybe I should swap out the steroids for holy water.

This Is Only a Test

The other day I was at lunch with two good friends, one of whom is licensed to carry a concealed dachsund. "Can you drive with your wiener in your hand?" asked Diane as we headed out to the restaurant.

"Oh, I do it all the time," he replied casually. "Would you like to hold my wiener?"

"Just put it here between my legs," she said.

One of the reasons Diane is such a cool friend is that, when she's around, I can take a load off* without worrying that any entenuendres** will fall through the cracks.* No: she's all over that.* She's also cool because she buys me lunch when I'm broke.

My earlier freakings about not having anything to do at work now that conference is over appear to have been groundless. For one thing, I'm tasked with writing all the thank-you letters to all the sponsors, a task which alone could keep me pretty well occupied until the time comes to dive full-speed into next year's conference. I've written so many thank-you letters today that I can hardly see straight. This is not to imply ingratitude in any way, it's just that I feel as if I'd just gotten married. Well, except I don't have to exchange anything. Not even the groom!

We also got hit by a somewhat unseasonal hurricane, which kept me very busy with emergency response personnel. This was just a mockup. In the event of an actual emergency, I would have consumed significantly more coffee. I almost had to deliver a mockup baby on the mockup highway over email today, which, let me tell you, never happened in my old job.

If people would just keep their wieners to themselves, I wouldn't have to worry about this sort of thing.

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*heh heh
**An absolutely breathtaking portmanteau of "insinuate" and "entendre." Whoever said you shouldn't get all your linguistics from The Daily Show?

The Enchanted Trail

It was yet another perfect day in the most perfect city on Earth, in this best of all possible worlds!

Well, let's not get carried away. And if you're a Californian who's considering making the move, I should clarify that "the most perfect city on Earth" is used, here, in an ironic sense. This town is a shithole. For real! Now go read TMZ.

Cheryl's Bitch and I met up on the hike-and-bike trail for a nice leisurely stroll in the sunshine. The weather couldn't have been more perfect (though I hear it's much nicer in California), and everybody and their dog were out enjoying the day.

I'm a cat person, of course. Cheryl's Bitch is more into turtles. But the hike-and-bike trail has taught me to be fond of dogs: they're so infectiously happy, running, playing, swimming, fetching, and sniffing the living bejeesus out of each other's butts. You can't help but smile to see them. At the water station under the MoPac bridge, a few of them came up to be petted, exuding eau de wet canine, panting eagerly, and slobbering in my lap.

Makes me feel a bit better about not having a boyfriend.

Austin's turtles come out in droves to enjoy the sunshine, too, piling up like flapjacks on the rocks and logs lining the shore, turning their heads lazily this way and that to observe the passerby. Cheryl's Bitch got so excited I thought he might dive into the water in pursuit, and I have to admit they are a lot cuter than I ever really noticed before. One caught my eye, his neck craned back to look at me, one leg stretched out behind him in the sun, toes extended, beaming blissfully.

I was overcome. "Ooh," I cooed, "isn't him a pretty boy! Yes him is! Yes him is!"

This felt surprisingly natural.

Along the portion of the trail running parallel to Cesar Chavez we could see the tents and booths set up for the Art City Austin festival. And on the bridge over Shoal Creek, the most amazing band was playing: something folksy, with an Eastern European feel to it (I thought), but I wouldn't be able to guess what it was, aside from beautiful.

Who were they, anybody know? They had their backs to me, so I couldn't make out any words, and can't find reference to them online. Were they Greek maybe? The music was incredible. I settled myself on the bank to hear them finish their set, while Cheryl's Bitch roamed to and fro, ogling turtles. A black swan with a vivid scarlet beak and orange-red eyes glided up, easily within arm's reach, peeping hopefully; I wasn't sure if she were quacking at me, or just had the hiccups. She clearly thought I might have something nice for her to eat. Alas for lack of foresight! You should never leave home without your pockets full of bread crumbs. Waterfowl always enjoy a snack, you know; and besides, you never know when you'll find yourself lost in an enchanted forest.

If the band's set hadn't ended, I'd be sitting there still. What could be more perfect? Aside of course from California. If only I were in California. This place blows.

The Lost Berliner

Most people's kids bring home an abandoned baby bird or puppy or squirrel at some point. Leave it to Eric to bring home a German.

This poor kid is an exchange student at Eric and Katie's school, and today was his first day. He's in Eric's Algebra II class. There was some miscommunication with his host mother, so he tried to find a bus home, but of course he's in an unfamiliar city and an unfamiliar country. So he walked here with Eric and Katie, who couldn't find a bus either (they're transfer students).

It's not an unmanageable walk, but it's not short. "How far is that, anyway?" I asked Eric. "About four miles?"

"Maybe two," he said.

"Oh, I'm sure it's more than that," I insisted. "It's got to be nearly four, anyway."

"I don't think it's more than three," he said.

"Three and a half," I told him, "and that's my final offer."

We shook on it.

Anyway, three and a half miles, in Texas late summer heat, can't be pleasant for an uninitiated Northern European, so of course I offered to drive the kid the rest of the way home. He wasn't sure where the house is - he just got here two days ago - but remembered the address, so we google-mapped it, and good grief, it's halfway to Dripping Springs. I'm not sure why he's going to my kids' school at all.

Traffic's always a bitch, so I didn't get the poor guy home until nearly seven. His host mother came running out of the house, out of breath. "He should never have tried to get on a bus," she said. "He doesn't have my phone number. He doesn't have anybody's phone number. The police are on their way. - I mean, thank you. But he is in so much trouble!"

Her dog, concerned with matters of more immediate material interest, calmly jumped into my car.

I hope the kid gets a break. I remember how huge Austin was when I first moved here in 1986 to go to UT - at the age Eric is now, actually - and it's a hell of a lot huger now. I came here from Madison, Alabama; whether this is more or less of a foreign country than Germany is probably open for debate.

At least everyone is now safely back where they belong, because I did not, in fact, bring the dog home.

Everybody's Got a Story

I have this neighbor - he lives on my street, just on the other side of the cross-street three houses down from me. I see him most mornings when I'm on the way to work. He's a small, wiry guy who runs with his dog.

He doesn't jog. He runs. Like hell. He runs, the dog in full turbo-blast mode ahead of him, as if the dog were dragging him along and it's all he can do to keep up. Yesterday he appeared completely unprepared for the exercise, as he was wearing sandals instead of running shoes. He waves when we pass each other, but doesn't speak - I should imagine he's a bit out of breath.

It can't be fun. Why does he do it?

Perhaps his girlfriend is a high-powered lawyer who puts in 80-hour workweeks and doesn't have time to walk her dog. When they started dating, he was a bit intimidated; so to impress her, he told her he loved animals (he actually can't stand them) and volunteered to walk her dog for her. It worked like a charm and he's now moved in, but at what a terrible cost! He must go out twice a day and run breathlessly for miles, tethered to that miserable dog, which appears to be some kind of cheetah mix. He waves to the people he passes just because he can't speak; but what he's really trying to say is "Help me... please... for the love of God, help!"

When he and his girlfriend met he weighed about 300 pounds.

This story can't end well, because, you know, he's already quite skinny. He's only going to get thinner. He has to eat vast quantities of calorie-rich food just to maintain as much weight as he does, but eventually the battle will be lost and he'll dwindle away altogether. Poor guy!

And his girlfriend, having wasted away the life of yet another victim, will sing her siren song over at the nearby state agency and pick out a new one. Oh no! Run away!

Of course I suppose there's an outside possibility that's not really his story. But I've never talked to him, so it'll have to do for now.

The Long and Breakless Day

I'm at work as I write this, and not enjoying it very much. Robbie is out for the rest of the week. He got a baby kitten last night, and has named her Bullock. He's staying home for a few days to take care of her, and get her acclimated to her new surroundings.

Wait for it... wait for it...

He's out on caternity leave!

Bill's out in the field. We three are all that's left of the Three-Martini Break Group. Oh, there are a few emergency back-up members, but I don't really count them. I'll go to break without Robbie or without Bill, but without both? Forget it.

How did I ever get through the workday without three-martini breaks?

At least there's the lunchtime walk on the hike-and-bike to break up the day. It's lovely out, though summer begins to rear its fevered head. And you catch the most interesting snippets of conversation from other people. "Elective dog surgery," a man was shouting into his cell phone just as I passed.

Band name!

Many of the joggers have dogs in tow. Sometimes literally, in the case of a few of the smaller dogs, which are clearly not ASPCA-rated for use at that speed. Most of the joggers call cheerful encouragement to their pets: "Here we go! Good boy! All right!" But one man was barking orders like a drill sergeant. "Get GOING, dog! Come ON!! MOVE YOUR ASS!!!"

I just don't understand dog people.

Oooh! Robbie just texted me to tell me that Bullock had her first poopy in the litter box. He's very excited. He took a picture.

Maybe next week I can get him to bring her to break!