A (pre) Christmas Miracle!

Hiya, toots!

This summer in central Texas has so far been seasonal from the before-times of the late 2010s. It is just now consistently getting into the 100s during the day, whereas last year that started in May. We were saved from like 10 weeks of the blistering heat of the recent past, and I appreciate it!

We've had enough rain in the general are that the lake is 8 feet up (though it's still just under 40 feet low) in the past 2 weeks. 

Mal and I have been taking advantage of our PogoPass, glad that we paid for those before James got laid off. 

Last Sunday, Mal's friend was out of town so instead of meeting him like we always do, we went to Typhoon Texas. It was raining when we arrived, and there weren't a lot of people there. We were able to have the place practically to ourselves!

 

I got to use my awesome new shrug to protect my scar from sun exposure!

Then later in the week, we went to the LBJ Library. That one wasn't on the PogoPass last time we had it, so this was the first time Mal's visited. He loved it as much as I expected he would. Given his Five Nights at Freddy's obsession, the LBJ animatronic was one of his favorite parts.

We've gone to Indigo Play, Inflatable Wonderland, The Thinkery, James took Mal to Pump It Up Round Rock... we still need to get down to Wonder World to take the cave tour, and to San Antonio for the Witte and Zoo. Did I mention that I only paid $50 per pass? Just going to the water park and kids museum paid for it!

One down side to the great weather is that the mild temps and rain have super-charged the grass. I mowed on a Tuesday, and needed to do it again by Saturday. Then I made it until yesterday (Friday) and mowed a third time in under 2 weeks! I was thinking, "That's it! It's all going to go dormant now!" because we're heading into 100s every day and no rain in sight. But then this afternoon, it poured rain out of nowhere for an hour. Good. And bad. But mostly good. And also, I should be grateful for an upper body workout; pushing a giant battery up the hills of our back yard is not a joke (and, yes, it could be self-propelled but that drains the battery faster).

Mal's homeschool gymnastics class starts back at the end of next week, and his classes start back in just over 4 weeks. He's ready to get back into his schedule and so am I.

Of course, he'll miss a couple of weeks of everything when we go on his 10th birthday trip. Please send us your good vacation mojo because our travel is exactly as far out right now as it was in 2020 when we realized that Covid was going to cancel everything. And, yes, I got travel insurance this time! We were lucky to get back every single penny we'd paid 4 years ago, but I don't anticipate businesses doing that again. (Also, the CrowdStrike outage freaked me out about flight stuff; fortunately, for this trip, we're on Southwest.)

 

 

The Lost Week

A week ago today, I started to write about Winter Storm Uri. I just couldn't get through it. I'm glad James beat me to the punch (apparently he finished his the day after I started, and I just haven't had the oomph to log back in until this morning). Now I don't have to. But I'll share a couple of things that I want to remember.

First, our neighbors were absolute heroes, and I've heard the same about neighborhoods across the state. My parents' friends who never lost power picked my parents up at the end of their first full day with no electricity, when the house had gotten down to about 50 degrees. Knowing that they were somewhere safe helped me be able to narrow my focus on our household.

For us, our next door neighbor was amazing. James mentioned that he gave us wood. The following morning, he was driving up and down the street with cut wood in the back of his truck, asking people with chimneys if they needed any wood. This was after I'd asked him, "Will you guys have enough to get you through this?" and he admitted, "I don't know. I can't really tell."

Also, Mal's friend's grandma, who lives a couple of streets over, saved our butts. James mentioned a plumber getting here on Sunday, February 21... but that wasn't the plumber I called on February 14. THAT plumber has not been out yet (today's the 27th). We'd be closing out two weeks without water if it weren't for this neighbor.

We'd gone on a walk last Saturday, and she mentioned that the builder who's bought several of her vacant lots and built houses on them was sending out his subcontractor plumber to check the new homes for leaks after the freeze. I wondered if he'd check our house. She texted the builder. The next morning, when I was at my parents', she asked me if I'd heard back from the builder because the plumber was in the neighborhood. I said I hadn't and that if I were home, I'd walk over and talk to him myself. 

She took it upon herself to put our name, phone number, and address on a card and take it to the neighbor's house. James explained the rest; while he was in the neighborhood, the guy came to our house and capped the leak, allowing us to turn the water back on.

We've been fortunate on many counts. Luck, having good neighbors, being part of the actual rolling blackouts (as opposed to many in Austin whose power was cut and left off for almost a whole week), having been prepared for no water, and being in a healthy household situation so that being even more isolated at home than Covid usual was tolerable.

But it was an intense week. The not knowing: how much longer will the power stay on? will our heater be able to keep up when the power is on? what damage is happening right now that we won't know about until later? will the forecast change for the better (or worse)? what will happen if we run out of food and drink that Mal likes (the rest of us could lump it, but he's a little... less stoic than the adults in the family)? is this still a rolling outage or did something else happen? 

I remember thinking, "We only THOUGHT that the lockdown was an intense change. This is out-of-body."

We did have some fun, though, and ultimately we're fine. Here are some pictures from the week.

After the first ice storm on Friday night/Saturday morning 2/13.

Monday, 2/15

The birds were prepared; fat and more than happy to have supplemental snacks.

A couple of sunny days were nice, even with highs in the teens.

Snow ice cream!

No electricity, but we had some battery-powered string lights from vacation.

We slept in front of the fire one night, then realized we were only having rolling blackouts and the bedroom, with its smaller size and lower ceiling, was warmer overall, with periodic power.

Tuesday, 2/16. Our walk to the park in the snow and sun made us sweaty!

Tuesday night; last night of rolling blackouts.

Then it just stayed cloudy and mostly under freezing for the next 3 days.

On Friday, I remembered that we had 40 gallons of water in the front and back yards! We could flush!

Throes of Summer (AKA Pit o'Hell)

In the past month, James has blogged more than I have! Can you believe it?

I keep thinking of things to write, but once I get a few minutes to sit with my computer and my thoughts, I just want to veg. I want to watch "The Story of God" on Netflix, or some late show bits on YouTube.

Because my brain is fried, ladtlemen and gens.

First, there's the fact that we're closing out our second full week of +100 degree temperatures. Our grass is crunchy, the lake is so low that they've closed the first dock, and I'm watering our poor sad fruit trees every dang day. Actually, the fig tree looks fine; the apples are iffy. If they don't make it through to this fall, I think we should pull them out and get something better suited to this area of Texas, like volcanoes or flame-throwers or something. I guess just because they sell a particular tree at a local nursery doesn't mean you can actually expect to grow them here. Sigh. We're $120 in at this point, and I'm not replacing them if they don't both make it... and you do need two apple trees for at least one apple tree to be healthy and produce the best fruit. At this rate, if we ever do get real apples, they'll probably look like those projects we did in elementary school where you carve a face in an apple and then "shrink" it through dehydration. Anyway, heat = shrunken BRAIN.

Second, I have an extremely high-energy, high-needs 5-year-old who is either talking, singing, or making sound effects literally every waking moment. I have difficulty thinking whole thoughts, much less getting out an entire sentence most days. I remember thinking, when D was this age, that my brain might melt toward the end of the day. And that child went to bed at 7 PM and got up at 7 AM. My second goes to bed between 11:30 and midnight and wakes up anywhere from 9 to 10 AM. So he's getting markedly less bed time than D did. My applesauce noggin feels it. Also, I'm repeating a theme from above totally unintentionally because my head can't bother itself to think of another example.

Third, everyone seems to have at least a little pandemic fog. We're still being pretty insular, staying in and seeing few people. We've seen my immediate family somewhat regularly, and have met a friend or two at a park. But the park stuff is over with for a while, until we can go out without turning into puddles of goo. Today I saw that a guy who works construction here in Austin drinks 2 gallons of water a day at his job, and he never has to go to the restroom. So that's what we're dealing with heat-wise (which, I know, I've already mentioned; but that's one reason we've curtailed even MORE what we were doing two months ago). School (such as it is) has mostly started back, so the public pools are closed. (Actually, a splash pad is open but you have to make reservations, and I just booked Mal a two-hour window for a week from tomorrow. That's how desperate people are to get out and do stuff like this.)

Basically, everything is a little more repetitive than usual. We're super fortunate: James is still working, none of us has gotten sick. We're fine. But the days bleed into each other with no major difference in them.  It can get kind of "meh," even as I acknowledge that we've only been inconvenienced and not truly put out, let alone harmed. But there have been numerous articles detailing this common "pandemic brain fog" experience. They seem confident that this will all pass once we're back to "normal," but no one knows when that will be. 

In related news, the city of Austin and Travis County (I live in the latter but not the former) just extended the mask mandate through December 15. I'm sure this is to cover the first semester of in-person schools, and our numbers are still high enough that I absolutely get it! But it seems SO far away. 

After the State Fair of Texas canceled for this fall, I planned an alternate little road trip, since James already requested time off. (He'd requested off for April and just canceled that since no one was going anywhere in April.) I decided to assume everything would still be operating weirdly and planned most things for outside. The one thing I did tag as a "maybe" was the Science Mill in Johnson City, but I think I'll pull that and we can visit again when we don't have to wear masks. I might feel differently when it's not 412 degrees, but just waiting to checkout at the grocery store yesterday, I was so warm and steamy in my breathe-holes that I felt intense pity for the people who work 8 hours a day and have to breathe into those things. 

As an aside, it's completely ridiculous that the wearing of masks has become a politicized issue. First, this:

That's pretty simple. Masks 1) keep some droplets from getting away from you and 2) slows the momentum of the droplets that DO get out. So until we know what's going on (and the better part of a year into this, we still don't), it's one of the easiest and most effective ways to keep others safe (hopefully they're also keeping YOU safe). 

Anyway, all of that to say that I'm glad that there are mask mandates. Before the cities and states had legal mandates, it was harder for stores to enforce their company policies. In case you're reading this in 2030 and don't have much context, look up "people freaking out over wearing a mask." People are yelling, attacking retail workers, committing vandalism, shooting into stores, and generally seem to believe that somehow their civil rights are being violated by being asked to have a little responsibility in this effort to curb the spread of COVID-19 until we can get a vaccine/herd immunity.

Even with governing authorities coming around to put some teeth in mask orders (our governor resisted for a long time, even prohibiting local authorities from enforcing mask-wearing with any kind of penalty at all after an initial warning; but eventually Texas became a hotspot and I think he realized he had to do something), people are still losing their minds over being required to wear a mask or leave. It's embarrassing. I'm embarrassed for them.

I recently watched a video where a lady was running around a Trader Joe's calling everyone else there "sheep" for wearing masks. Well, I'm sorry, but why did YOU decide NOT to wear a mask? That wasn't just your independent idea. She's talking about breathing her on CO2, which she definitely heard somewhere. And I think people genuinely wouldn't be as angry if they didn't believe the mask stuff was some kind of power grab by the government. But they are getting that idea somewhere. We're all following someone; we just choose different sources as credible.

All of that to say, I HATE wearing a mask. Especially the one time I got out wearing my glasses. It's just hot and uncomfortable and as much as I love going places with Mal, I'll almost always leave him home because trying to manage myself AND continue putting his mask back on him over and over (he can't seem to figure it out) is exhausting. 

It's kind of funny that I felt the need to post a vehement defense of wearing masks before I said that I personally hate it. But that's because of how heated this has gotten politically. I absolutely agree that wearing masks masks us safer as a community. And they're uncomfortable and I will be happy when we don't have to anymore.

Also, I know... many Asian people wear masks as a habit when they go out. I'll say they're made of stronger stuff than I am. Amen and amen.

Finally: This weekend is my 8th Austinversary. I cannot express enough my absolute joy that I moved here and met the people I've met and live where I live now. Sometimes, I come across news or bits of a conversation from people I used to know, and places I used to frequent, and I wonder if I'd still be "the same" if I hadn't left. I feel like I've grown as a person an incredible amount in the past few years, and so much of that has been the influence of this place. I don't know exactly how to explain it, except that I've seen examples of people genuinely trying to be the best versions of themselves and encouraging me to do the same. But I could stand it without the heat.

2-day Stay-Away

James had Friday off of work; D was asking, "Is there any time you're all going to be gone for a while?" because of projects that require spreading out in the common area of the house; and it was supposed to be 100 degrees all weekend, and Mal and I were ready to SWIM.

Magically, last week, I got an email from Omni Hotels that all stays were 30% off through early September. I booked us a two-night stay at the downtown Austin Omni. My thought was that we could just hang out there, swim in the rooftop pool, and walk to a few places like B. D. Riley's Irish Pub for take-out meals. Then COVID-19 cases in Austin started reaching new records daily. I canceled that reservation and moved us to the Southpartk Austin Omni, which isn't really anywhere. It's located at the southeast corner of the intersection of 35 and 71/290, which I guess makes it moderately convenient to travelers needing airport and downtown access, kind of? Anyway, seemed likely that there would be fewer people to bump up against.

Friday, James went out to a late breakfast while Mal and I got stuff ready to go. On the way through town, we stopped at QT for a caffeine-free Diet Coke for Malcolm. All of the stores and the Sodastream website are out of the caffeine-free diet soda Mal likes, and all of the grocery stores are out of name and store brands, too. Yay, pandemic! (I know, these aren't true problems. Just and inconvenience. I DO have perspective.) Happily, I was able to get a free fountain drink with the Quik Trip app!

They have a lot of sauces. I put none in Mal's drink.

I had called earlier and knew our room was already prepared for us, so we checked in around 1:40. Of course, the first thing Mal wanted to do was SWIM!

He had a straight face in the first picture, so I said, "Can you try to look just a little happy to be here?" This was that.

The pool is large and winding. It also has a smaller indoor portion, which you can access via a swim-through hole. We stayed mostly outside because the inside is well air conditioned, and the water itself is cool enough that it felt a bit too chilly in there.

As you can see, there weren't a lot of people. Everyone was being mindful of the distancing requirements.

After our first swim, we explored the hotel a bit, played hide-and-seek, and then got some late lunch/early dinner. James and I had Taste of Ethiopia II and Mal had McDonald's, natch. Our dinner was so tasty, and the portions were ridiculously ample. Needless to say, we had left-overs.

Bread, baklava, shiro wot, lentil sambusa, zimamabojat, and tomato salad. 

Full up, we were ready for another swim! James went with us this time.

Mal and James heading under the bridge.

We had some nice down time after that, and a quiet night's sleep.

Saturday, we got breakfast from Hideaway Kitchen and Bar. We got takeout as with the rest of our meals, but they had such a neat patio and it was empty, so I kind of wish we'd eaten there. Anyway, the food was absolutely delicious and Mal still has a pancake and scrambled egg he hasn't deigned to finish.

James got the queso and chips, and then their bacon jalapeño cheddar Benedict.

It was either chicken and waffles or their peach pie pancakes. I made the right decision. Perfectly-fried juicy chicken, fluffy waffles, and a pecan bourbon syrup.

Hey, want to guess what we did after breakfast?

Yup! More swimming!

After an hour or so, we dried off and took a short break from the hotel.

It was hot, and Mal was NOT interested in going, but he ended up having so much fun! We were a little early for our appointment, so we got him Chick-fil-A on the way, then we took him to see the Cathedral of Junk for the first time.

When we first arrived, Vincent came out to greet us and Mal said, "I'm sure you recognize my parents." He said, "Oh, yeah. Those guys." Then Mal kept saying, "I read about your place in a book we have at home!" It took me almost until we left to realize that he meant the photo album of our wedding.

After a few, he realized that there are themed "rooms" and kept offering us tours to see the red room, and the yellow room, and the green room.

We haven't been since our wedding 7 years ago, I believe, and a lot has changed! The ladder we used to get up to the top has been closed off, but there are two new(ish) staircases to access the third floor. He also built a tile slide.

We were super sweaty but so very happy when we left. I'm glad Austin has this gem and highly recommend visiting if you're in the area. You just have to call to make an appointment. That's always been the case, but it also sounds like he's just allowing one group at a time in order to maintain social distancing.

Here's a picture of James and me yesterday in the same spot we took a picture when we first visited almost 8 years ago (when it was a lot colder and much less sunny). Haven't changed a bit, right?

July 2020 vs. November 2012

We had planned to hit up Soursop for more take-out, as it's very near the Cathedral, but we still had so much food left over, and were still super full from a big breakfast, that we couldn't justify it. We ended up eating the stuff we had in the room for dinner.

Then guess what we did after that?

One final swim before calling it a night.

We're on the 11th floor, facing south, and we were able to see a good dozen separate fireworks displays from our room. I was surprised that there were so many, given that right now there's a statewide order banning gatherings of more than 10 people, even outside.

Hard to tell because of the lights, but James is looking at at least 4 different explosions right here.

After that, Mal and James both fell asleep pretty quickly. I had run out of Gatorade and drank some soda late in the day, so I was kind of wired for a while longer. And I woke up at 7 AM, so I'll likely go to bed early when we get home tonight.

We've had a fun little break, and I'm sure D has, too.

Next up: watering the fruit trees at home. It's been a sunny and hot couple of days!

Long Weekend in the "Woods"

About a week ago, James found out that his company was gifting the employees Friday off as well as Memorial Day. Normally, I do. not. travel during high-occupancy times, but this seemed like the perfect time to get a little break from the monotony of everyone's being in the house and in the neighborhood 24/7.

At first, I booked a cheap room in Port Aransas, which we love. We haven't been there since Mal was newly two years old. But then I thought about how many people would likely be there, and how enjoying the beach when it's empty is so much fun. So I canceled that and pulled up the "camps" I'd saved earlier this year when I was doing research for "staycations."

It just so happened that I was able to book a lodge room a Jellystone Hill Country. A lot of the activities and amenities were curtailed due to CDC guidelines (the arcade, indoor activities like dance parties and crafts, etc.), but the park was open, and, importantly, so was the pool. Yes, rain was forecasted for the whole weekend. But, whatever. It was a chance to get away for a few days, so we went for it.

In a couple of days before the trip, I received a call that the lodge room I'd booked was still undergoing refurbishing, and would I mind being moved to a Cindy Bear Cottage? MORE room, a private fire ring (rather than a common one for all 4 lodge rooms) and a covered patio? At the same price? Yes, please!

This is Lodge Room 17, still very much in progress.

On Friday, we drove to my sister's, which is a little less than half way between our house and the park. Sarah fractured her wrist and likely a rib when she got into a (very heavy) bicycle accident, so we took them some lunch and they lent us their marshmallow-roasting skewers, then we headed out.

We got to the park two hours before check-in, but they let us go ahead and get our golf cart, and even though it was HOT, we enjoyed looking around and getting familiar with the park until we could get into our cabin.

In order to maintain "social distancing" at the pool, they were only allowing 43 people to swim for a two-hour stretch, after which they emptied the area for fifteen minutes and did a complete cleaning of all surfaces. Knowing this, we reserved the 5-7 slot as soon as we got checked in. Then we were ready to check out the cabin!

It was nice. There was "room" for 8 people to sleep: a queen-sized bed in the "bedroom," a full-sized futon, two mini-twins in a bunk room, and two twin beds up in the loft. We've stayed in a cabin with a loft before, in New Braunfels, and Mal and I almost sweat to death. In these cabins, there's a separate window unit upstairs. We didn't sleep up there, and probably couldn't have because the a/c was on its way out and quite noisy, but it did keep the cabin much cooler during the day (and we turned it off at night). I wouldn't recommend traveling with 8 people and staying in one of these cabins, though, because it was tight just with three of us. Still... more room than I'd paid for, so, yay!

We swam for nearly the whole of our two hours, and, man, it was NICE only having to share with a few dozen people!

They were limiting guests at their bounce pillow to 4 at a time, with blue taped squares on the pad to space people out... but two brothers left as soon as Mal got there, so he was able to enjoy it all on his own.

We went back to the room and ate snacks we'd brought (James ate gas station food because he realized that everything in town shuts down as soon as people can't rent tubes anymore), watched TV, and took a few golf car rides to see how the campsites looked in the dark.

Saturday morning, I got up and went into town to get breakfast. I left the park right before 8, when the restaurant was opening, and noticed some people sitting outside of the ranger station... we'll get to that in a few minutes.

I had read about the Wildflour Artesan Bakery and Grill before we left, and it did not disappoint. We got: Hill Country Tenderloin Hash (crispy hash browns topped with pan-seared tenderloin tips, onions, bell peppers, 2 eggs your way topped with hollandaise and green onion), Hill Country Omelet (venison sausage, duck bacon, tomatoes, sautéed onions, and smoked provolone), and for Mal a pancake with scrambled egg.

When I got back, there were many MANY more people at the ranger station. It was 8:30. I had breakfast with James, then went over at about 5 'til 9, when the station opened. By the time I got to the front, the only swim times left were 9-11 AM, or 6-7:30 PM. I booked us for 6, and we spent the whole day listening to Mal ask when we were going swimming.

Well, not ALL day. We also did a scavenger hunt.

We had a picnic with food from the Pic-a-Nik Basket on-site... at our covered patio seating! That's also not something we would have gotten if we'd rented the lodge. As you can see from the scavenger hunt picture above, there are tables, but they're just out on the lawn. It was VERY hot when the sun was out, and super nice to have a shady place to eat. Oh, we got a fabulous pulled pork southwest "salad" (I guess the salad part was the beans and corn? Anyway, it was GOOD), a "grown-up" grilled cheese with tomatoes and bacon, and loaded waffle fries.

We also played with the Plus Plus set Mal had picked out from the ranger station, and we played a few rounds of Slap Jack and the Matching Game from a set of 6 different kids' card games we bought just for the trip.

We were told that we could check in at the pool to see if anyone had left and there was room for new swimmers. We tried 4 times, but no one was heading out early. Mal wore his bathing suit a great portion of the day, though, and we did get ourselves wet at the sluice, which was refreshing in its own right.

Finally, it was almost 6! We went down to the ranger station to watch for the cleaning crew to take off. Then we crossed the street and Mal ran ahead, eager to be the first in. He somehow tripped over or slipped on or lost his balance coming off of a speed bump and landed face-first on the concrete. He scraped his nose a little and his philtrum a lot. He also scraped up his left elbow, and his top teeth gouged a hole inside his upper lips. He was bleeding from the gums, and he said that his teeth were loose.

The staff was great! One guy ran into the restaurant to get us an ice pack (which I knew Mal would refuse). The other ushered us into the restaurant bathroom so I could clean up the blood and assess the damage. Turns out he was an EMT, and looked at Mal's lip when we were calmed down and back outside. He said that it was all superficial and he'd be fine.

Meanwhile, I was super hoping he'd maybe knock those two front teeth out. One of the caps has come a little loose so is wonky. I think we had the worst dentist, and I'm ready for the work she did to be out of his face hole. It's almost time, so it wouldn't have been more than a year or so until new teeth grew in. Oh well. I'm glad he's fine.

And we were off to the pool, where he quickly forgot that he'd gotten hurt at all, even though his upper lip was swollen for the night.

The next morning, guess who walked up to the ranger station at 8:15? While I was waiting, I learned that, although the ranger station opened at 9:00 AM, they were taking reservations starting at 8:30. I got us a prime spot at 11:15. So far, the thunderstorms predicted for the whole weekend hadn't panned out, though it did rain heavily for about 2 minutes twice before we swam. It just made the water even cooler, and we got plenty of vitamin D.

I left a few minutes before James and Mal did, so I could take a shower in the comfort station. We had a shower in our bathroom, but it was small and I also didn't want to steam up the cabin. At about 2:00 PM, we went...

... right back to the Wildflour because their food had been so amazing. This is the first time we've eaten together inside a restaurant since the middle of March, when it had seemed a little weird that IHOP was dispensing syrup via your waiter rather than allowing customers to touch the containers and risk contamination. It was very spaced out, and there were only 4 tables inside the dining room. We had been willing to sit wherever, but were indoors.

James got Geraldine's Tomato Pie (puff pastry filled with layers of tomato, white cheddar, parmesan cheese) with a side of white cheddar poblano soup, I had the salmon burger (house-smoked salmon blended with onion & bell pepper complimented with chipotle aioli, lettuce, tomato on a toasted cheddar jalapeno bun), and Mal got chicken tenders with fries. We ended up taking home, respectively as above, blueberry cheesecake, cheesecake, and chocolate cake. James and I had ours for breakfast before leaving Monday morning. Did not disappoint.

Back at the park, we got some wood and planned to have a campfire. It was the coolest day so far, and thus seemed an appropriate time to try to make some s'mores.

Shortly after James roasted his second marshmallow, the promised deluge arrived, and we slept to the tune of thunder and downpour all night.

This morning, we took our time clearing out, drove around one last time, and turned in our golf cart. Then we drove over to Canyon Lake Dam to check that out. Mal was not happy to have to walk around at all, but it was pretty nonetheless.

Dam side.

Back side.

Beach. We did not make it down there. See above.

Finally, on our way out, we stopped at a hydroelectric station on the Guadalupe. It was gorgeous, and we were chased to our car by heavy rain. Perfect ending to a great little getaway!