HUBBY'S GOT DA RED, WHITE & BLUES

Poor Hubby. His celebration of The Fourth did not go at all as he had planned. As I may have mentioned before, Independence Day is much more his thing than mine. Since it fell mid-week this year, and we couldn't be with family, I didn't bother to plan anything. This was totally unacceptable, as far as John was concerned. He went to his computer to do some digging around, then came up with an idea for one of his little adventures in Austin. I love his little adventures!

Soon as I laid eyes on his lunch locale selection, I started getting excited. Frog les, fried pies and fabulous garden funk? Whooooo-doggie!

The closer we got to the door, the more excited I was -- until I got close enough to read the little sign that said "We will be closed for lunch today." Well fuuuuuuuudge.

No problem. Hubby had a back up plan! We wandered around for a good long while, until he finally spotted the little hole-in-the-wall joint he'd been looking for, tucked into the middle of a residential street. I think it was called Live Oak Barbecue, or something like that. The smell that greeted us was heavenly, and I was really tickled to see that they posted where each of their meats was produced, and by whom -- all in Texas, of course -- but I got a wee bit worried when I had to ask for barbecue sauce. Even more so when he ladled up something that looked more like beef broth than sauce. The brisket and ribs were actually pretty good -- or would have been, if they'd had a decent salt-lick-style sauce to go with them -- but Hubby and I agreed, the sausage tasted downright funky. Doubly sad, considering how seldom he gets red meat these days.

Our next destination was to be the Alamo Drafthouse on S. Lamar, but we had about an hour to kill, so he decided to stop and take a walk along the shores of Ladybird Lake -- one of his new favorite things to do whenever he's in Austin. What he did not realize though was that, due to the holiday or an event or something, they were charging you just to get into the dang parking lot! Ne-ver mind.

When we walked into the theatre, we saw one of those huge snaking lines of people who had their tickets, but hadn't yet been allowed into their particular show. John said "I sure hope they're here to see Spiderman, and not our show." "Oh, they have to be. Moonlight Kingdom has already been out for a while, and it's an oddball art house flick. Plus, we're way early. We won't have any trouble getting tickets." I walked up to the counter and told them what I wanted. "We're completely sold out for that one, but I've still got a couple of seats left for the Spiderman that's about to start." Yeah, seats on the very front row. I think not.

Hubby was so bummed out by the time we got home, I really had no choice, now did I? I just had to take him here, for one of these.