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The final show of the Hills/Kvet TX music series was TX legend Ray Wylie Hubbard. I've seen RWH several times, and he's always entertaining. so even though i was mighty tired that night, i decided to venture out and see his show. (good thing... i can't believe i actually went a whole week w/o seeing a show! is that right? seems like it. hmm...)
My old buddy Bill once described RWH as "an old coot". that description is appropriate. RWH has lived a bit of a wild life, and makes references to it in some of his stories and songs. and he puts on a rockin show. RWH is a bit more TX blues than some of his songwriter counterparts, but definitely can write a good song.
i've seen him once acoustic, and and once rockin. wednesday was rockin. the band sounded good and raucous. they played a couple new songs, which i enjoyed, and some old standards, and some in between. at one point a kid got up on stage. oh crap. i sort of hate it when performers let kids come up and sing a song. granted, it's sometimes cute, and the cheesewhiz nature of it is sometimes endearing, but i won't admit. so i hate it. but this kid didn't get up there to sing. he was there to play. he strapped on a guitar, and shredded on it. 2 or 3 songs. just shredded. the crowd loved it. i loved it. he gave RWH a knuckle bump and headed off stage.
RWH then thanked the middle school coach for ending practice early and letting him come out to play. turns out the guitar prodigy is his 12 year old son Luther. luther can play. very very cool.
RWH ended the night w/ his signature story and song "up against the wall redneck mother". i always love hearing the story and song. it's a fun sing along.
it's also fun b/c i love to see and hear songs like that that someone else made famous. i've seen jerry jeff walker, who made the song famous, sing it numerous times, and it's cool to see RWH do his version, since he wrote it.
i also got to hear Ray sing the song he wrote with Hayes Carll "Chickens". i just saw Hayes sing that 2 weeks ago. synchronicity is cool.
The Geezinslaw Brothers were scheduled to be one of the final acts for the Hill's Cafe, KVET, TX music series, which is an awesome event that takes place for free every wednesday night for like 6 months or something. i love austin.
I try to see the Geezinslaws every time i come to Austin. I'm usually one of the younger persons in the crowd, but i don't care. i'm old at heart. i watched the geezinslaws for years on the Ralph Emery Show on the Nashville Network when i was a kid, and love seeing them.
They're kind of the older, country version of Tenacious D. seriously. They are very talented musicians who sing mostly funny songs, and tell jokes in between. The bizarro thing is that they've been doing it about forever. For over 40 years they've been making music. They are major minor celebrities. all the old school folks know who they are, and sammy is now famous as one of the morning DJs on KVET. but everyone in the know knows them. they are good buddies with Willie, and Kinky, and Billy Joe, and tons more. the last time i saw them at the broken spoke back in december, there was Jerry Jeff Walker, just sittin at the bar hanging out.
i'm tellin you--- good stuff.
and they don't play much anymore, so i try to see them when i can.
but on my limited budget, i probably won't go to many of their monthly $10 shows at the Broken Spoke.
a free show at Hill's sounded perfect though.
mary and i grabbed a little BBQ at Hills before the show. the bbq there was alright, but nothing noteworthy.
then we headed out the patio for some good geezinslaws music.
i don't have any deep, insightful words to write about the performance. with the geezinslaws, you just go to have a good time. they forgot some words, told some jokes i'd heard before, sang some fun songs, and i loved it. all of it. mary says i love cheesiness. guess i do. it makes me happy. sometimes it good to just have some fun.
san and son, the geezinslaws, are good at providing it.
mercy. where did the weekend go?
not like it matters really as i don't have other stuff to do today really.
the weekend was good.
friday night was low-key. mary went down to san antonio so the gus and i just chilled and watched some tv.
saturday i drove down to new braunfels to eat some free bbq and meet mary there and explore the town. mary and i were supposed to meet at McD's. she went to the wrong one. oops. at least i got some free BBQ. and it was GOOD. real good. i also got some smoked turkey. that was mighty tasty too. i had a nice conversation w/ an older gentleman from San antonio who recommended the turkey. i'm glad he did. it was good. and i got a free t shirt. big day!
saturday night we went to san marcos for a little festival there they were having. (reviews available soon over in the concert review section).
sunday was a fun day. we hung out and watched some tv, then headed into Austin and met up w/ Brad and Gwen. we went to the Lance Armstrong Festival Party Extravaganza. he's from austin, and wanted to thank the city for all the support they've given him thru the years. so he threw a big party, and there was music by bob schneider and sheryl crow. (imagine that). it was a ton of fun. mary actually had a good time too. and it was all free, and you could bring in your own beverages and snacks. total fun.
we got home at about 8.30 and were totally hungry, but too tired to make anything. before we could even start attempting to find something to eat, there was a knock on the door. it was MK and RM, our 2 pals on the complex. RM had cooked up a ton of food, and they invited us over. woo hoo! perfect timings. we filled our bellies w/ brisket and a spicy mexican bean dish. good stuff. we heard a billion more great RM stories that i'll have to relay later. i swear. i should write a book about this guy.
MK remarked that he got to ride on the back of the golf cart the day before. he said he'd seen me go flying by the other night, and was jealous. ha! he said he'd been sitting outside in the dark, and saw the cart go whizzing by w/ me holding on for dear life and ducking my head down. awesome.
MK said he's been to the Devil's Backbone Tavern and that it's fun. he said there's shuffleboard. he described the place as a "daytime bar", where the regulars are ready to start drinking at 11. cool.
MK told us that he and RM went to the Cypress Creek Cafe the other night and MK started talking to some girls. turns out they were call girls. and RM knew them all. ha! but one of them got mad that he didn't remember her name, so RM had to sneak out the back, but then he got lost.
call girls in wimberley. who knew?
Another day, another study i didn't get in to.
Mary and i both went for a screening for another research study. I was DQ'd b/c i've been using my nose spray. Mary still has a shot at getting in. let's wish her luck. we need some loot!
on a good note though, i found another facility that does studies too.
that doubles my chances.
which decreases the chances that i'll have to work.
which increases my happiness.
these studies are silly. i desperately want to get in, but i'm desperately scared of giving blood. at least yesterday i got kicked out before the vampires took my blood. and it's funny--- as much as i need the $$, for a moment, i was relieved to not have to give the blood. it was like i managed to get out of jury duty or something.
then i remembered i needed $. and then i was sad.
but then i remembered that our plan was to not start working until October 1 anyway. we're right on target. as long as something lines up soon.
so i was excited for yesterday.
i have been craving pizza. i haven't had any since i've been here, so mary said we could go to cici's yesterday since we were going to be in the big city.
timing seemed good. my screening was at 8.30. it should have been done by 11 or so. perfect time to eat some pizza. problem so, since i didn't get in, we were done at 8.54. that's too early for pizza. so we went to 2 thrift stores to look for modems. no luck. I NEED TO GET THE COMPUTER HOOKED UP AT HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
it's been fun to stroll down to the library to get on the internet, but i'm tired of it.
time for internet at home.
i need a modem. for cheap.
so, anyway, we got done at the thrift stores and it was still only 10. still too early for pizza. so we started heading home, we stopped in the town of dripping springs at 10.30 to run into their grocery store. in the same shopping complex was "Grand Slam Pizza" which featured a lunch buffet and a dinner buffet. woo hoo! it wasn't cici's, but it was on the way. cici's was 15 minutes out of way, which means 30 extra miles of driving. we figured we'd go in and check out. as we got to the door, i was confused. it said "tuesday special, teriyaki chicken, egg roll, fried rice". we went in anyway. a nice asian man greeted us. what the heck? was i in the wrong place? ummm...what time does your buffet start? 10 teel 11 he says. how much is it? 5 fiffteee. he says. 5 fifteeee. i tell him we'll walk around and come back in 10 minutes or so. he says we can sit. we go walk, and head outside to weigh the pros and cons of eating here. it is closer, but i've been craving cicis. but cicis is so far away. are we even sure it's a pizza buffet, and not a chinese buffet? i seem to remember there being the little paremesan cheese and red pepper shakers on the tables, but maybe i imagined it. we go back and peek in the window. yup. red and white checkerboard tables, w/ the little shakers. everything inside looks like a pizza place. except for the owners. and the special listed on the door. mary is scared to try it in case i hate it and throw a fit since pizza was to be the highlight of the day for me. i say let's just try it.
we go in.
we eat.
not bad.
mary liked it more than cici's.
me, not as much as cici's, but not bad at all.
and soda is included w/ the buffet, so it's about the same price as cicis.
the end
On the 20th, my concert calendar said i was supposed to go see Billy Joe at the Cheatham Street Warehouse. i'd been to a # of shows in recent days, and i didn't have anyone to go to this show w/ me, and it cost a decent amount of $, so i contemplated skipping it. i thought about it all day, and decided that i had to go. shows like this were what i moved to TX to see. BJS is one of my favs, it'd be stupid to not see him, especially since he was playing on 15 minutes away (much closer than Austin). so i put on my best cowboy attire and headed out.
I figured the place would just be some old saloon, w/ people packed in, and that it'd be pretty easy to be insconspicuous there. boy was i wrong. i walked into the place and it was tables. just tables. tables everywhere. people sitting at tables. my heart sank. it's hard to sit at a table by yourself. i didn't know what to do. i wasn't drinking that night, so i didn't really feel comfortable standing w/ the couple of people that were milling around the bar. over by the pool tables were some seats, so i sat there a little, but soon enough people wanted to play pool so i had to move. i was not enjoying the experience in the least so far. i was so stressed, i didn't even get to pay much attention to the opener Adam Carroll's set, and i've heard some really good things about him and had wanted to check him out.
just as despair was about to set in, i saw a lady that looked familiar. there's a couple really hardcore BJS fans on the internet (amongst which i'm one), and 1 of the biggest was supposedly going to be there that night. i had talked to her several times before, as it was her that i helped out by selling merch in DC for BJS last fall. i'd seen pics of her and BJS, but didn't really remember what she looked like. a group of people come in, and one looked like it might have been what i sort of remembered her looking like. stupidly, surprisingly, i just tapped her on the arm and asked if she was who i thought she was. she was! woo hoo! she was excited to meet me, and invited me to join them at their table up front. thank goodness. the night was much easier after that...
i got to listen to a couple adam carroll songs. i liked what i heard. i want to hear some more of him though. i do have one comment about him though--- he was wearing tevas. sandals. what the heck? now maybe it's just me, and maybe it sounds superficial, and maybe that's just who he is, but in my mind, if people don't really know you, and you're playing an old country bar, and opening for a country legend, maybe you should wear boots. i would. but maybe that's just me.
tevas kind of struck me as dissrespectful or apathetic. if you get famous, where whatever you want. hell, one of my favorites, Todd Snider doesn't even wear shoes when he performs, but until then, dress the part. that's what i would do. he sounded good though.
as for billy joe, most people know what i think about him. (if not, you can read an old review i wrote about him here: this was the first time i'd seen him with his new band, and without Bob Brown, who sadly, unexpectedly passed away while on the road the Billy Joe and band last year. i had heard great reviews of his new band Diamondback, and heard they were more in the style of the late great Eddy Shaver. and i don't know. maybe i just miss Bob, but i didn't enjoy this performance as much as the others i've seen. billy joe sounded great, despite admitting he was mighty tired after a whirlwind publicity tour for the new cd. i have no actual complaints about Diamondback. they seem like a super bunch of guys, and very talented musicians. the show just wasn't as good as others i've seen. by my count only 16 songs got played, which is a little short for a cd release party. but that's ok. i still had a great time.
and truthfully, about 2 songs into the set, i was just sitting there listening and my mind started to wander a bit. and for the first time since i got to TX, i really felt like i belonged. like i was where i was supposed to be. everything felt right. and that was really cool.
one of my favorite moments of the night was when billy played "star in my heart" for Eddy, and played it solo acoustic. Diamondback did not leave the stage, they simply lowered their heads and turned their backs out of respect for Eddy. at the end, one of them took off his cowboy hat and gave a little salute. very very cool.
all in all a super fun night. i met 3 hardcore Billy Joe fans. i thought i was pretty hardcore, but they have me beat by a long shot. all 3 were heading north and see Billy Joe again in the coming days. the new songs that Billy played sounded good. and for only playing with Diamondback for a couple months, the future looks wide open. it's apparent that billy joe really enjoys playing with those guys, and that they enjoy playing with him.
and since i'm so late in writing this, i have now since found out perhaps another reason why billy joe was a little tired that night. it appears he was planning for his wedding, as he just got married last weekend. congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Shaver.
may they have many years of success!
there's no food lions or Krogers or Harris Teeter's anywhere.
instead there's HEB stores. and HEB is everywhere.
and that's ok w/ me. they have good offbrand stuff. and on a budget, everything we buy is offbrand.
of course there's no HEB in Wimberley. Just the Brookshire Brothers. It has a pretty limited selection of stuff, but at least it's here.
it's hard to find a 2 liter bottle of soda here. everything is 3 liters. no foolin. 3 liters! who in the world can drink that much soda that fast. texans i guess.
there are SUVS everywhere. SUVS and huge trucks. they laugh at my truck i think. not me. i love it. with it's cassette deck, old fashioned radio w/ only 5 presets--the kind that you have to pull out--- and 2 of those 5 are for AM. the truck also has no clock. that is taking me some getting used to.
I just discovered a Dollar General here in town. I'm quite excited about that. You might scoff, but when there's no Target or Walmart to get anything, it's nice to have the Dollar General for some cheap options. Besides that, you have to buy everything else either at the grocery store or the hardware store.
squirrels here have reddish/brown hues to them. hardly see any gray squirrels running around.
today was an exciting day. we discovered a different route to walk to and from town. at the thrift store i also got a giant storage container for my cds for 50 cents, and 50+ feet of phone line to HOPEFULLY get the internet hooked up at home. cost of phone line: 50 cents. (at the hardware store it was $12)
mary and i go for a screening tomorrow for another research study. hopefully 1 of us gets in. we need some $$!
today saw the infamous black fawn that we had heard about. the new walking route that we discovered took us right past 4 deer. "look, deer" i pointed out. the deer just stood there and looked at us as if to say "look, humans".
i took Gus over to see the cows today. he wasn't as excited as last time.
Gus got to walk lots today since the weather was so nice. he got tired. i had to carry him a couple times.
more tomorrow...
it finally feels like fall here! its very cool outside to (relatively speaking) and it feels great. we took the Gus on a longer river walk this AM, and then walked to the library. i didn't even break a sweat!
Gus traipsed through several areas of the river today. he loves getting in the shallow water. he got in a little bit deeper water today, and didn't like it as much. i picked him up and took him back to the shallow part, and he ran thru it. he's funny.
all of a sudden there's pumpkins all over town. guess you can't really put out a pumpkin when the temp is 103. today must be the magic day. pumpkins everywhere. there was a scarecrow on the Rio Bonito property this AM. it scared me.
so i never told you one of my new least fav. activities. i mentioned it briefly in one of my concert reviews, but i know some people don't like to read over there: rounding up chickens. that's right. hard as it is to imagine me rounding up chickens, i did it. my buddy M had/has helped us out immensely w/ settling in, and the other week were we going to a show together. he asked if i'd be willing to help him round up some chickens for a friend of his (who happens to be a pretty famous TX musician). since he'd helped me out a ton, and since it seemed like a fun adventure, i said ok. holy crap. it wasn't fun. i hated it. we showed up and all the chickens were gone. 12 or 13 missing chickens. i guess usually you just go in the yard and shoo the chickens towards the chicken coop and lock the door. today all of the chickens except for 2 or 3 had made a daring escape and were sitting exactly 10 inches from the fence, but on the outside of the fence. they were a lot less willing to go back into the yard and into the coop. they ran through the woods and tried to fly and just basically did what they wanted. i was wondering before we got there exactly how you round up chickens. i found out it's mostly luck. the woods were full of thicket (does that sentence make sense? it doesn't seem right, but it was). so it was hard to run thru the woods. chickens are significantly smaller than humans, w/ the exception of little people and pygmies, especially the 3 humans that were trying to round them up. so anytime we'd try to "direct" the chickens to go one way, they'd duck under brush and sticks and escape. chickens make me mad. it was really hot too while we were doing this. and i thought my friends had done this before, and truthfully i think they had, but it had apparently never been so difficult.
somehow, we finally got them all rounded up.
then we left and went to rock out.
i don't think i like chickens anymore.
Here's some more random thoughts for you on this fine Wednesday morning:
I've been loving nature so far. but sometimes nature is scary. the maintenance guy, RM, who is now our friend and will just be known as RM, showed up last night. he said he wanted to show us something. from the back of his golf cart he picked up and held up a LONG dead snake. "this is what a copperhead looks like" he said. "just wanted to let you know". they had killed it that day behind Cabin No. 3. Cabin #3 is close by. I don't like snakes. RM told us what copperheads look like, and also what water moccasins look like as both live in TX apparently. yuck. one of the 2, i don't remember which, he said looks like a rattle snake, but the rattle snake you'll hear the rattle. i hate snakes. apparently there are also scorpions and tarantulas around too.
maybe i won't go outside anymore.
here's a list of some of the characters we've met so far:
RM: the maintenance guy. he rocks. he's a mexican w/ a well sized gut, has a little goatee, loves to tell stories, loves to cook, loves to drink beer. rides around in his golf cart or white truck. has a dog, Deuce, that is really laid back and cool. as RM drives through the night in his golf cart he says that Deuce leads the way. "Lead Deuce" he yells, and i hold on to the back of the golf cart for dear life as he speeds off into the pitch black darkness. He tells stories of Deuce--when he has parties, Deuce just chills, but Deuce gets tired of people sometimes. When this happens Deuce walks over to RM, and puts his paw on RM's leg, and RM lets Deuce into his room (Deuce has his own room) and Deuce goes to sleep. Deuce enjoys hunting racoons and guarding the house. 2 days RM invited us over for BBQ. we knocked, and there was no answer so i opened the door and said hello. i heard a weird sound. it was Deuce on the couch growling. we decided to go eat some leftovers instead. turns out RM was dead asleep-- i woulda been too after workin in 105 degree temps. i told you some of his other stories. the train that he robbed apparently had food on it. lots of food. he told us that there was an empty apt in the projects where he lived and they put all the food in there. no one was hungry for a whole year he says. he told a story about teaching his girlfriend all the various ways to kill or hurt someone. then she used it against him. hard lessons to learn. perhaps my favorite were his drunken stories. he told 3-- 2 about forgetting his brother was there and that he was supposed to be taking care of him, and 1 about forgetting his girlfriend at the grocery store and she waited while he was at the bar. the bartender asked him "hey where's your g/f?" oops. he raced to the store. she was waiting outside w/ her shopping cart. RM didn't see her anymore after that.
MK: lives beside us. nice guy. one night mary made some pistacchio cake (thanks for the recipe DP) and we took him over a couple pieces. "just in time" said MK, and he gave us a huge plate of BBQ to take home. cake for bbq: good trade. MK just moved to the rio bonito a couple weeks before we did. his cabin is WAY nicer than ours. his is really really nice. it made me jealous. i'm sure he pays more, and he did bring all of his own furniture and stuff with him, but still. ours isn't so nice. rustic. it's rustic. that's what i keep telling myself. and mary. i think mary is getting tired of it. MK sells antiques in town. i noticed that he had a Neil Young picture and ticket stub hanging on his wall so i tried to talk about music. he started talking about music, and said he likes it, and somehow started talking about Ozzy's other daughter in the music biz-- Joan Osborne. Mary said she didn't know that that was Ozzy's daughter. MK said yeah, not too many people knew, as she tried to distance herself from the family. i was pretty sure there was no relation. i looked it up. i was right. oh well. not everyone can know as much as me. MK likes the Gus. that's good enough in my book.
Guy at Bar: Our first week here we went to Chuy's for their free nacho bar. every weekday from 3-7 they have a free nacho bar. Free! free is good. and the nacho bar rocks. not just chips and salsa like most places. they also have queso, refried beans, and ground beef. all for free. and drink specials. that place rocks. we ate up a lot. anyway, at the bar, the guy next to us commented on my billy joe shaver t-shirt. anyone that likes BJS is alright by me. so we started talking. he told us all kinds of cool things: music to check out, places to check out, best places to go for seafood, and he told us the secret to good margaritas. he said the secret is "agave". if it doesn't have pure agave it's "rot gut". he said everyone thinks jose cuervo is so good. not so. he said if you'll drink it, you'll be hurting bad the next day. "rot gut". he mentioned rot gut several more times. he felt very strongly about this. good to know though. he told us the best kind to buy for the $, but i don't remember. he said the main thing was to look for 'pure agave' though.
shoot. too bad we don't have a road trip to canada planned anytime soon. when we went over july 4th we stopped at Duty free and filled up our trunk w/ so many good, cheap, bottles of liquor.
we want to go to mexico soon. (it's only 5 hours away). i bet they'll have some tequila there.
and that's it so far.
there's HP, the fruit stand guy. everyday he sits in his truck and waits for customers. we finally went there this AM cuz mary wanted some fresh tomatoes. we've been told that whatever HP has, is the best that there is. we got 2 tomatoes, 2 limes, and 2 zucchini. grand total $1.50. i'll report back to list if they were the best or not.
i got my credit card bill today.
holy crap.
not good.
time to find a job SOON. yikes.
i finally signed up for a bank account last friday. we were just on a walk, and the bank was about halfway, so it seemed like a good stopping point. the lady probably thinks i'm a bum. (she might be right). she asked about employment. ha! she asked some other stuff i didn't really have answers for either. i got the account anyway. AND, they had free donuts. i love donuts. especially when they're free. it wasn't as good as a blueberry Spudnuts, but it was pretty good. i went back on monday to see if they had donuts again (and to drop off a residence verification so they could activate the account). they didn't have donuts. maybe it's just a friday thing. or maybe it was a one time thing. i'll go back on friday to see though.
i'm trying out "books on tape" for the first time.
well, not multiple books, just one.
i've listened to 2 chapters of The Davinci Code. i don't know what i think about listening to someone read to me. it makes me feel like a kid, listening to those little animated books where you turn the page as the voice reads to you.
i can't read.
i have the attention span of a fruit fly.
i like skipping rocks. it provides me a small amount of pleasure.
oh--the website for where we live is www.resortriobonito.com. we live in the "Log Cabin".
snakes have no arms.
that's why they don't wear vests
In case you didn't know, TX is in the central time zone. I've never lived in the central time zone before. My friend Liza moved to the central time zone a couple years ago, and i was just flabbergasted that such a thing even exists. You know on the commercials when the announcer says "8/7 central"? i never knew what that meant. so liza moved to wisconsin and told me how wacky it was to watch primetime tv at 7pm, but here's the thing, and i don't know whether she came up w/ it, or i did, but we were both perplexed: see... everything comes on 1 hour earlier in central time. on the surface, that sounds fine. 9pm shows come on at 8, 8pm shows come on at 7, etc. BUT, the 6 o clock news is still on at 6. And then 8pm shows come on at 7. So you may ask. So? So where's jeopardy? Liza looked forever. She found it at 4.30 in wisconsin. 4.30. who wants to watch jeopardy at 4.30? most me are still at work then. (not me of course, but most people). it's just kind of bizarro. oh, you should check out liza's blog by the way. she has lots of random thoughts posted there: www.wiscolizard.blogspot.com
yesterday was a traumatic day. i realized that my routine didn't make much sense. everyday i head to the post office and library at 9.45, and return around noon. what i discovered yesterday, was that in doing so, i miss out at price is right at 10 am, and Magnum PI at 11am. most people, mary included, might think this is stupid. but when you do nothing when yourself, it's good to revolve your life around good (or at least watchable) tv shows. i have lots of practice at this.
see---NOTHING good comes on my 15 channels of tv in the afternoon. so it would make more sense to watch Bob Barker and Magnum, and then go to the library at 12.
Price is Right coming on at 10 presents another interesting dilemma for me. when i was younger, and would go to the beach or something, my self-made rule was that you couldn't drink alcohol before Price is right came on, which is typically 11 o clock. that sounds bad i guess, but often at beach trips, people are just inclined to drink and drink and sleep. there has to be limits! and i set mine with Rod Roddy and Bob Barker. no drinks before they call people to "come on down". and 11 o clock, might be frowned upon as a time to start drinking, but it's certainly better than 10am. yikes. it's sad when a rule i've held so steadfastly too for years gets changed...
maybe i have too much free time.
Holy Crap.
TX is hot. It supposedly turned to fall. The fall has always been my season. I like the fall. It doesn't feel like the fall here.
To put things in perspective, on Sunday in Death Valley AZ, a desert, typically one of the hottest places in the US, it was 98. On Sunday, here in Wimberley, it was 106. That's hot.
Yesterday (monday) at 6.30pm it was still 104.
We sit in the river.
Up until this weekend we had never really gone into the water. This weekend we decided to. We walked downstream to get away from all the people and found a deeper spot, and a rock to sit on. We brought our cooler with us filled w/ beverages, and stayed out there about 2 hours each day. Sunday as we were sitting there i heard a commotion, and looked up, and just down the river, only about 10 yards away, 4 deer came running out and ran across the river and up the bank. Right in front of us. Very very cool.
Yesterday on our walk we saw 2 turtles. 1 pretty big one, and 1 really small one. the really small one was about the size of a quarter. at first i thought it was just a rock. nope. it was a turtle. mary picked it up. it was cool. hopefully she doesn't get e coli or salmonella, or whatever it is you get when you touch turtles.
Today as we were walking to town 2 deer ran across the road. 1 behind us, 1 in front of us-- 2 separate times. Nature is wacky.
Guess i haven't mentioned yet, but the property gets packed every weekend. During the week, it's just us, our neighbor, the maintenance guy, and the owners. On the weekends, people from Houston come down and rent out all the cabins. Weekends are busy. Weekends are stupid.
Every day is the weekend when you don't work.
Mary and I tried to get into some research studies, but didn't get it.
We might try again. They pay good money.
We turned in our applications for substitute teachers. We'll see what happens.
I learned a valuable lesson this weekend: people are nicer to you and you get more stuff if you have a pretty girl with you. mercy. i don't usually get much stuff just handed to me. now all of a sudden, i'm experiencing some. some guy had to come out and fix mary's motorcycle cuz she couldn't get the brake cylinder back on. he spent about an hour. total cost: $0. that's a good price. especially since we're on a budget. the maintenance guy R, who has become our friend, invited us over for lasagna the other night. it was good. he loaned us 4 dvds to watch. he told us all kinds of great stories about his days as a Bounty Hunter and how he'd have to go down to Mexico all the time to go pickup bond jumpers, and how Dog the Bounty Hunter wanted to meet him and work with him. He apparently also worked in a morgue once, and robbed a bank, and robbed a train. At least that's what he says. Stories are cool. He's a nice guy. He lives on the property here, but farther up the road. After supper, he loaned us some DVDs, and let took us home on his golf cart. Mary rode in it and i rode on the back. it was pitch black outside. golf carts don't have headlights. some of it was fun but some of it was scary.
just friday or thursday we discovered it's not too far to walk into town.
so we've been trying to walk if we get up early enough.
i need some kind of exercise.
i want to see lots of concerts, but don't want to spend lots of $.
decisions are hard.
i'm trying to go to as many as possible.
I wish Austin wasn't so far away.
it's about 40 minutes or so, which isn't bad, but sometimes that seems far.
i definitely don't want to live in Austin though.
traffic there is crzy.
we need to visit San Antonio soon.
maybe this weekend.
i like nature. seriously.
i like trying to live a simpler life.
oh- guess what else i did this weekend for the first time ever?
i washed my clothes in the kitchen sink.
no foolin.
there's no washer/dryer here.
closest laundromat is 15 miles away.
so i washed my shorts in the sink and hung them outside.
it worked.
and was kind of fun.
i have enough t shirts and underwears to last a while before i have to wash any of them.
i wear flip flops a lot.
i don't shower often.
i shave rarely.
in VA i took lots of ibuprofen for headaches.
i've been here 2 weeks and a day and haven't taken any.
not working agrees with me
i like it here.
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