Tonight I went out to dinner with some friends to celebrate a couple of birthdays. We picked a place in East Austin for tonight – Justine’s on E 5th – a casual french bistro. It was my first time here. The food and wine was delicious. I recommend the scallops, though the sauce was a tad bit spicy.
The place was crowded and hopping after about 8 o’clock. And it got very noisy by the time we left about 9:30. Apparently this is a hot spot hangout for lots of the beautiful people in town. 🙂
It’s starting to get warm these days, but it was still cool enough to sit outside. In their courtyard they had a huge neon sign of a burlesque dancer that I wish turned out better, but here ’tis.
When we bought this house, we went from a yard that was about 1/10 of an acre to one that was about 3/4 of an acre. I enjoyed taking the first walks around the back to discover the trees, flowers and other features that came with the deal. One of them was a tiny little cactus, which uncharacteristically started growing in the very shady wooded part of our back yard. But, still it was my first cactus, and the only one on our property, so I wanted to keep an eye on it. In that first year it was pretty small, and ended up being run over by the lawnmower a couple times (you can see a cut on the top of one of the pads in the middle of the plant). So a couple years ago I marked it with stones.
Several years I’ve had to go out and dust it to deter an infestation of cactus-sucker-bugs. The droughts have been tough, too, but, hey, it’s a cactus. This is the 6th year since I discovered it, and this spring it is covered with lots of new pads. And it’s finally getting some height. The spines on the new pads are soft and green… but will soon turn into those horrible little spikes that you never want to touch.
The birdhouse sat on the table next to the couch for a long time, because Keeto liked to perch on it while we were all sitting in the gameroom. But I finally hung it up outside about 6 weeks ago.
Well, I couldn’t help myself, so I finally peeked inside and saw a nest and an egg! My friend Doray said it could be a bewick wren, when I described the momma bird to her that has been keeping watch in the birdhouse and nearby. I looked it up online and sure enough, i think it is a bewick wren. Just one egg, though. But, I’m so excited to see a birdie in residence.
I was also happy to see mom come back to the birdhouse afterwards. I’ll leave them in peace now and resist the urge to take another look.
Yesterday I joined a bunch of friends at Painting With a Twist – my 2nd time. It’s a BYOB painting studio where everyone in the class follows along with the instructor and paints the same picture. I have had my eye on this red landscape for a while. I knew exactly where I wanted to put it… the blank wall in our (not so) recently remodeled master bathroom.
So, today I hung it up. It’s smaller than what the space calls for. But, I like it!
Wow, the last day of the month already! March is a beautiful month, here in Austin. Everything pops to life. I’m always sad to see it go.
We had a very busy day today, on monte’s first day of retirement 🙂
We hit the backyard early…mowing and raking and de-thatching and weeding. Tomorrow we will hopefully get fertilizer down to help nurse the lawn along.
At the end of the day, we headed to a friend’s house for dinner. As we were driving down Mopac, a huge, shiny sunset was teasing me with glimpses of it between buildings as we passed. I took about 10 shots, and finally got a good one! Or, at least one without any buildings or cars in it. Not bad for going 65 miles an hour, through the car window.
Today is also the drawing for the Mega Millions lottery drawing, and the jackpot is up to over $640M! We usually do not buy lotto tickets, but hey, who can resist? We can all use a little help. (or a lot!)
I’ve blurred out the winning numbers above, so that we can continue to live in anonymity as mega-millionaires, after the drawing 🙂 Heh, heh.
My cousin, once removed (i had to look this up…my cousin’s daughter) is visiting Austin this week. Alison and her boyfriend Zac came over for dinner tonight. Monte slung several doughs and we made a bunch of pizzas. My cousin, Devitt, also joined us. We had a really nice visit. What great kids!
Alison and Zac are both amazing musicians. They were playing Rachmaninoff – from memory! Our own house concert. 🙂
Back at the marina, today, we saw Pam & Mark and visited with them for a little while, then packed up and schlepped our stuff back up to the car. We popped into Shades for lunch. They are finally open for the season, and this was our first time in this year.
Ok, back home now and getting ready for Monday. *sigh*
But what a fun weekend!
It’s hard to believe the lake was once at about 701′ (about 62′ higher than it is now!). But just to jog memories… here’s a pic from the July 6th flood of 2007… the old Aunt Tilly’s sitting in the same spot as Shades.
Yacht Harbor Marina - July 2007. Lake level @ 701.
Now you know why the new restaurant has its kitchen, bathroom and office in trailers that can be driven away before the next deluge.
It’s that time of the year. This weekend was the first raft-up of 2012. And it was a doozie! We had 14 boats, 31 people and 2 dogs. I don’t have a picture of all the boats, but I took this one of 12 of them as we were coming in to tie up, and Joe arrived later.
It took quite a while to walk from one end to the other. Some of the boats’ lifelines couldn’t open, so it was a gymnastic feat crossing from boat to boat …with one hand free 🙂
Let me see if I can do roll call….left to right, we had Mark & Sarah on Serenade, Gray & Debbie on the blue hulled First, Bartlett’s parents’ Catalina, John & Claudia & 2 others on the brand new Solace, Tasha & Robert and Tony & Michelle (visiting for the weekend!) on Voodoo, Danny & Casey on the Beneteau 31, Rory & Greg on Sapphire, Camden & Terry on MoonRock, Kurt, Wally & Kevin on Dancer, John & Deanna on Caribbean Run, Mike on Allegro, Lori & Dave on Camelot, Monte & me on Cupholder, and last but not least, Joe on Prelude. Whew!
As much fun as these are, we did have a rare, bad experience on our way to the cove. Some <expletive> motorhead nearly crashed into us as we were under sail. Coming within about 5 feet of us, and going about 30 miles an hour. As they passed, they turned their boat, pushing up a wall of water that dumped into our cockpit, drenching both of us, and pouring water into the cabin, v-berth and lockers below.
Monte immediately got on the cell phone and called LCRA dispatch, gave them a description of the boat and their heading and … they pulled them over. Goobers. It could have been very bad. I guess it’s good that we only got wet.
Anyway, we didn’t let that spoil our evening.
In true B-dock fashion, the party went on into the wee hours. A good time was had by all.
It’s truly wonderful to have this bunch of people to play with. Everyone really enjoys being out on the lake together. We are very lucky.
I picked up this orchid at the store a couple of weeks ago. I’ve never had one before. It has about 8 blooms on it, and this is a new one that opened since I brought it home.
May the blessing of the rain be on you—
the soft sweet rain.
May it fall upon your spirit
so that all the little flowers may spring up,
and shed their sweetness on the air.
May the blessing of the great rains be on you,
may they beat upon your spirit
and wash it fair and clean,
and leave there many a shining pool
where the blue of heaven shines,
and sometimes a star.
I have several large pots filled with dirt in various spots in the back yard. They are leftovers from plants that have either died or been replanted, and I haven’t gotten around to planting something new in them yet. Two years ago (or maybe 3?) I noticed a shoot growing in one of these pots. Another volunteer. I let it go for a while and realized it was a crepe myrtle. The first year it grew a bit and leafed out. The second year, it had a few more shoots and it even had a few flowers. This year I want to start to shape it into a taller tree, rather than a bushy shrub. So, a couple of weeks ago, I pruned it back to two bare, woody stalks about 3 feet high.
In the shot above, you can see some of the big buds that have popped out along the main branches. Glad to see that I didn’t kill it. 🙂
Sheila365 