Social Distancing, Day 14

It was just two short weeks ago that James took Mal to burn off some steam at the mall play area, and here we are now... seventy-three years later. It was another time, friends. Do you remember it?

Mal is basically feral. I am doing laundry a lot these days, but typically none of it is his. He might change underwear every day or two, but not shirts and no shorts. He's just a half-naked wild child living his best life traveling everywhere within Mario Odyssey with zero true idea that the whole world is shut down. This is an advantage to having a relatively small life, I suppose. You just don't know what you're missing out on.

But, really, are we missing out on much?

We decided to follow Jimmy Kimmel's wife's idea and do Formal Friday two nights ago. Who knew that all it took was a global pandemic to give me the time to actually fix my hair again?

On my way to get our dinner! Dig my favorite earrings!

James and Mal both dressed up: James dressed way up for Austin, and Mal played dress-up. We're very fancy.

We got food from Longhorn Steakhouse and enjoyed our nightly dinner on the front patio. Afterward, James got to hang out for a while with his mom's side of the family (he's currently writing a blog post about that) online.

Yesterday, we decided to take a road trip to nowhere, since that's the only place we're supposed to go. We wanted to see the wildflowers before the grass overtakes them (which will likely happen later this week). The entire road between here and Marble Falls was an absolute dream. 

Mal and I had driven to Round Rock to meet my sister Friday morning, and 1431 was absolutely stunning. I'm convinced that nowhere is more beautiful than the Hill Country of Texas during the very early spring (which started in late February this year). I mean, Glacier National Park, probably. But, man, the wildflowers here are something else.

We didn't stop much on our drive, because it's a two-lane highway with no shoulder in most places. But we got to see so much beauty. Here are a few pictures from places we got out of the car...

We got lunch at Chick-fil-A, as did half the population of Marble Falls. We took it to a tiny air strip/museum in Burnet, and, keeping things honest, as we do, Mal was not happy. I took this picture of James that looks so peaceful.

  

But I took it from afar because Mal cried THE WHOLE TIME we were there, wanting to come home and eat a cake I'd made for him. I was trying to get him away from James, so at least James could enjoy his spicy chicken sandwich.

This was Mal's basic attitude whole time.

Maybe he was just in a foul mood because he had on the clothes of a human child? We still enjoyed the drive home. Once he was in the car and not having to walk, thus tiring out his knees (this child's knees hurt way too much for a little kid... then again, he could just be complaining; it's his favorite hobby), he was fine. 

And don't worry! Malcolm got his cake. 

Not my best work, but still a tasty cake. It's my new go-to cake recipe for sure!

Today, we've mostly hung out around the house. For dinner, I made Caribbean beans with not-rice. It was supposed to be brown rice, but I thought freekeh sounded better. It was DELICIOUS, even though my dried beans hadn't softened quite enough (also, in the recipe I have, it said to add 1 Tablespoon of sugar and 1/4 teaspoon of salt to the rice, which I recommend). We ate on the front porch, then went to Andy's Frozen Custard for dessert.

Mal really wanted to eat outside on their patio, but there are signs at places like that and Sonic asking people not to sit to eat on-site. So we drove across to Walmart, where there's a weird sunken island in the parking lot. I'm assuming it's for drainage. 

There are three picnic tables there, and no signs telling us not to sit there, so we still had our custard picnic... until it started raining.

Now it's 64 degrees and I can still hear water dripping from the trees. We have our windows open, and Mal and James are playing "find the bad guy."

It's easy to forget that the world is a mess right now. At least for a few minutes.

No, he's not napping. He's pretending to nap. Sigh.