Happy Easter Everybody!

This is going to be a really long post. It’s covering everything since my arrival, so read at your own risk.

Also, I'm too full and sleepy to proofread it, so I'm sorry if there is something indecipherable.

As I’m driving in on Friday night, I check Twitter to find that my friend Molly is coming into town at the same time. After a brief text conversation, we decide to try to meet up later that night. I was excited about seeing her… she is the definition of cool. I get into town and head immediately to Robyn’s house to see what’s going on. I’m a little hungry, so she says we should try this place around the corner from her place called Hyde Park Bar and Grill. Apparently, everyone else had that idea too. There was a crazy line outside, so we decided to try this Mexican dive next door called Julio’s Café. I probably should have realized that Julio had very few guests for a reason. I asked the lady at the front desk what the best thing on the menu was, and she of course recommended the first thing on menu. “Our chicken enchiladas are the best,” she said. “They come with a green sauce.” I assumed she was talking about a salsa verde, of which I am a huge fan. I ordered the enchiladas along with a Shiner Bock, and Robyn got a margarita. It took forever for the food to come out, and it wasn’t amazing. The margarita was deplorable. The fact that it was $6 made it even worse. The whole experience, besides the company, was underwhelming.

We left the restaurant and went to pick up some booze before the Risk party. We got to Coby’s, where I got absolutely decimated because I was determined to take all of North America. It was a bad idea. Not soon after my loss, Molly gave me a call and raised my defeated spirit. She and some friends were looking to go get some drinks, so Coby told us about this cool little pub called “The Duck and Dog”. It was a fun little place that had a really good selection of beers. It felt like an Americanized English Pub, but had a harshly lit outside area. Molly, a fantastic photographer, made it very clear how she felt about the entire lighting situation. J The night ended after many beers and some excellent conversation. What a great start in Austin! Things were looking great… and Molly is still the definition of cool.

Now when you move, you want to party with all your friends one last time. Fortunately but unfortunately for me, I have quite a few friends in Lafayette. Therefore, most of the nights before I left, I was happily sloshed and well seasoned. I was definitely feeling this yesterday, so it was thankfully uneventful. I spent most of the day looking for a place to live and feeding my ridiculous internet addiction. By the way, I’m tired of stupid women thinking they can approach polar bears.

A nice break in the day was lunch with Robyn before she left for Waco. Determined in her quest for Hyde Park B&G goodness, we tried again. It was a fun little place with a pretty diverse menu. I’m just going to put it out there right now. They had some of the best macaroni and cheese I have ever had. The noodles were on the border of al dente, the sauce was a perfectly creamy consistency, and the flavor was a great mix of cheeses with Gouda taking the forefront. Topped off with some crispy cracker crumbs, it was the definitely the highlight of the meal. The mac and cheese did have a little competition from the Crispy Parmesan Polenta. It was a hefty portion of crispy polenta cake served with grated parmesan and split cherry tomatoes on a bed of a tasty pesto. The theatre of a delivery truck actually scraping the roof of the restaurant made for a pretty exciting experience, though at some points our server seemed more concerned about the structural integrity of the roof and sobriety of the delivery driver than actually taking our order. We had a great time, though they pretty much had me at “$3 Mimosas”.

The rest of the evening was filled with more of the shelter search and watching True Lies. I don’t know what kind of idiot would be married to a man the size of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and think he was JUST a computer salesman.

Plot FAIL.

 

 

I woke up this morning to go and have some breakfast with Anne Olson, before she left for Tennessee for a few days. I had been hoping to meet up with her as soon as I could, so I was pretty excited. She told me to meet her at Kerbey Lane Café; somewhere I had been to before with her, but had a less than spectacular experience. It was right after a Kings of Leon concert, and the mediocre food was not helped by the fact that I was in excruciating pain from a cracked tooth. Though, I was with my favorite people in the world, so I was more than okay with it.

I’m so glad I gave it another chance. I had the most spectacular omelet. It was grilled Portobello mushrooms, red bell pepper, and feta cheese inside a fluffy layer of egg. The basil pecan pesto that it was topped with was absolutely delicious and had a great slightly nutty flavor. Couple that with a nice cup of Jasmine tea and their “Sticky Muffin” (Which was great, but I only had a couple bites because it was so sweet it made my teeth hurt). The service was great, but that may have been to the fact that Anne knows most of the early morning staff personally because of her regular visits. ;)

 

It was great seeing Anne again. It always is. I leave it at that, because I know I can.

She was pressed for time, seeing as that she was flying out to Tennessee in a few hours. We walked to our cars in a slight drizzle, departing after the obligatory hug and well-wishing. I wish we would have had a little more time, but she chose the perfect time to leave. The second I closed my car door, it started to pour. Once I’ve been somewhere, I have a pretty easy time finding my way back. So instead of pulling out my phone to get directions, I pull it out and put on some Owen. I really think he writes his music for the rain.

As I’m driving back to Robyn’s, thinking about the enjoyably innocuous conversation Anne and I just shared, I start to pass a church. People are huddled in the narthex, front doors open to the heavy rain outside.

Now I have a hard time remembering much of my childhood, but I do have little snippets of extremely vivid memory. I remember the house we were living in… the one with the diagonal floor. My mother and I were in the kitchen. It was raining pretty hard. Suddenly, the rain slowed and the sun showed bright through the window we were next to. “The devil is beating his wife,” Mom said. That was the first time I had heard that phrase, and for some reason the visible association stuck hard in my little head.

…and that’s what happened.

I see the rain slow, and the sun show bright through even the tinted glass of my car. “The devil is beating his wife,” I heard in my own grown-up voice. The same imagery that popped into my head as a little boy, returned for a second. So I stop, and let the Easter churchgoers cross the street in front of me. Every single one of them. I was expecting the line of cars forming behind me to start honking with frustration, but I didn’t care. They didn’t either. Once the road was clear enough for me to pass, I saw the car behind me stop yet again for another large group. A million thoughts bombarded my mind. The existence of God, the Easter holiday, my new city, and the authenticity of a situational emotional response all bleed together into one mess of a mental dialogue.

Yes, I do believe in God, just as much in the genuine consideration of people. People that, even if it’s not Easter, will generally care enough about the people they share this space with, that they will be patient and loving. This city will be just like any other city, and the emotional response I felt from the situation could happen anywhere. It was authentic here, in Austin, at that moment. I anticipate more of that, and I look forward to it.

“If only these broken bodies were ours forever…” ~Owen

Bags Of Bones - Owen