Keep Austin Weird

I am slightly jealous of my son. He lives in Austin, and the non-conformist in me would love so much to live there - let my inner-hippie out. If you stay away from I-35, you really get to see cool Austin - piercings, a lot of hemp, eat a lot of veggies and the best part - you slow down a little. My son lives in Southwest Austin and the husband and I spent Friday and Saturday morning doing 'authentic Austin' - rather the UT Austin which I'm pretty tired of.

The husband is a UT grad, and if you've ever known one... it can be insufferable. They really DO think the sun shines on them just a little bit brighter - and sometimes the combination of the range of the color orange they wear does force you to shield your eyes - but not because they have a special glow. Some ranges of orange just are not meant to be mixed - but I defy you to say that to one of them...not a pretty picture.

Anyway, I digress. We went to the Shady Grove in South Austin for lunch and sat with our fellow hippies - well, we were hippies in our head at least but most of the folks around us were real ones. Old ones too - there is something fascinating to me in being around elder hippies - I'm amazed that they had the courage and conviction to really look and live like that their whole life.

Next was the Hula Hut on Lake Austin where we enjoyed a cold one, out on the deck, in approximately 105 degrees. We needed to take a nap after that...

Dinner was at Trudies - so good, still south (only near the dreaded I-35) and so incredibly crowded. If there is a recession in Austin, and we hear there is, you could not have told by the crowd waiting to eat. Food so good - worth the wait.

Saturday morning was the quintessential Austin experience - the Sunset Valley Farmer's Market which is just on the other side of the highway from my son's house. He loves this market and has friends from college who sell gulf shrimp AND sell their ceramics. Funky stuff like this. And then truly unusual pieces like this stunning rock. These artists/botanists create all these pieces of 'live art' called waterstones. They seek out exquisite rock sources, this one happens to be shale from Arizona, and craft the stone in a way that it can house what they call 'Air Plants'. These plants have developed to a point that they take their nutrients from the air, no root system. If we take good care of this little plant that resides attached to this rock, by misting it every three days and not letting the part that is adhered to the rock rot, we can expect this little plant to bloom and re-bloom for years.

This will be the husband's job. He is excellent with plants - his parents have both been gone for over 7 years and he has kept alive plants the family received from their services. This is in preparation for our taking possession of some plants my mother is ready to pass on that she got out of may grandmothers house when she passed - in 1983.

We also bought some Feta cheese that we will eat with the homegrown tomatoes we also purchased - for this I cannot wait for dinner tonight. All and all, an awesome way to spend 24 hours.