ALRIGHT, ALREADY!

OK, now I'm getting nervous. Why does everything always have to be so extreme here in Texas? Must we always swing from drought to deluge, with nary a pause in between? Truly, I do appreciate the rain we've had since Wednesday (7 1/2 inches!), but the forecasters said it would be letting up by now, just in time for my sisters' arrival. In fact, it was supposed to be clear and warm by the time we hit La Cantera Resort over in San Antone tomorrow, a thank you to my sister for taking care of the folks in their not-so-golden years. It's built at the top of an abandoned limestone quarry, and I hear it has a fabulous hot tub that wraps around the side of the cliff, with gorgeous views out over the Hill Country. We were planning to do some serious lazing by the pool. So why did I wake up to find it raining cats and dogs again? If this keeps up, our creek is gonna flood the low-water crossing, and they won't even be able to get to me, or me to them. Now wouldn't that just be sucky?

P.S. Many thanks to fabuloustravel.com for the above image.

YEA BBC! FARM FOR THE FUTURE

Do yourself a huge favor. Shut off the TV for a few minutes tonight, gather your family round, and watch this instead.

MY BOOMERANGS

I can't believe it - my baby girl is actually coming back to Texas! Oh, she's been talking about it for ages, but it's awfully hard to break away from a good job, to head into the unknown. To tell you the truth, I'm amazed that she managed to keep her job in San Diego this long. The only thing that saved her company, when the building trade tanked with the economy, and other interior design firms were dropping like flies, was landing a huge project in China. But that was also the main reason Alexis couldn't resign. She felt she owed it to her boss to see it through to the end, since they were going to need all the help they could get when it came time to go to China for the install.

The owner of her company recently married an Australian architect. His company keeps an office in San Diego, and he goes back and forth. He allows Lex's company to work out of the space rent free. Lex understood why her boss has been somewhat distracted, what with planning an Australian wedding and honeymoon, but she was a bit surprised when her boss came back to work afterwards seeming more distracted than ever. Plus, she didn't seem to be working very hard at rounding up projects for after the China job's completion. Lex started updating her resume' and portfolio, just to be on the safe side. Sure enough, her boss announced yesterday that the Chinese client had made cuts, and was unwilling to pay for the entire crew to travel to China for the install. Not only that, they only had enough work left to keep everyone working full-time through October, then hours would be cut. And, oh yeah, her husband was closing his California offices, and she'd probably be working from her home after that. She just couldn't understand why Alexis had a big huge smile on her face at the news!

The smile faded a bit once reality set in. Her finances are still a tad shaky from the last time her boss cut everyone's hours for several months, just to keep the business afloat, and moving is never cheap. She was really hoping to already have a job waiting for her, before she cut her ties and made the leap. She was also hoping to be able to add "licensed designer" to her resume' before she sent it out, but she's not taking the exam until next month, then you must wait 14 weeks before they tell you whether you passed or not! And, though Austin's economy has fared better than California's, who knows if anyone feels secure enough to be hiring right now?

S'kind of funny when you think about it. John's partner is really pleased with the contract work our son has been doing for him, and wants to bring him on full-time, but first, he needs to land a couple of firm contracts for the program that Austin is helping him to develop. Until then, it looks like sonny boy will be residing at the townhouse with John. Meanwhile, unless Lex manages to land a job in Austin in less than six weeks, she may end up downstairs in the guest room here for a while. I guess it's true what they say, though I did my damnedest to avoid it. This new generation is like boomerangs. You toss them out into the universe, and they come right back! Looking on the bright side, the holidays are going to be stupendous this year.

Come to think of it, maybe I should toss this out into the universe: Lex's real dream is to find work in the green-building industry, so if you have any leads or contacts, feel free to send them our way!

SWIMMING UPSTREAM

There are two questions that have nagged at me for years, and now, thanks to the blogosphere, I finally have my answers. My questions were:

• Where have all the hippies gone?
• Why would anyone want to home-school their kids?

As it turns out, the two questions are somewhat interrelated. I began seriously puzzling over the first dilemma around the time of the Enron debacle, and my disgust continued to grow as one company after another got toppled by greed and dishonesty. Many of the CEO's and CFO's of these companies were of my own generation - the Flower Power generation. So what on earth happened to all that wonderful 60's idealism? When we said we would change the world, this certainly wasn't what I was picturing!

The second question, about home-schooling, came up when we were living overseas. We had a friend - an extremely nice, intelligent lady - who had two young daughters, and a third on the way. We also had an excellent school on the compound, with really wonderful teachers. So why on earth would she want to be stuck at home playing teacher, when she could be playing bridge, tennis, golf, quilting, or hanging out at the pool? I finally realized that their beliefs leaned towards fundamental. Since they didn't do Santa Claus or Halloween and such, I figured they kept their kids out of school to avoid them being bombarded with all that year round, and pressured to join in, thus making their lives much simpler.

When I moved here to Wimberley, and started trying to live a simpler, greener, more satisfying life, I began to meet others in the area who were trying to do the same. Then I started discovering blogs written by even more, all on the same path. Many of these writers were parents of school-aged kids. Interesting tidbit: Know what one thing a majority of them had in common? Home-schooled children!

So, here's my theory about what happened to all the hippies: They sent their kids to public school. Then, said kids started coming home almost every day with a note saying "send money" for this or that. Even if they were tough enough to resist the pressure to buy the latest fashions for their kids, or to give them a shiny new car when they turned sixteen, it was much, much harder to resist the insidious fear that if you didn't pay for music lessons, or gymnastics, or special tutoring, or SAT prep classes, and on and on, they would never be able to hold their own against all the other kids, who had private lessons every day after school, sports every weekend, and special camps all summer long. Eventually, these formerly idealistic parents got so caught up in paying for all of this, that they completely lost track of their lofty goals, and making money became their obsession.

I suppose the moral of this story is, if you aspire to live the simple life, don't move to the burbs and send your kids to public school, as we did. Surround yourself with people who hold similar beliefs and ideals. Otherwise, you'll be just like the salmon, struggling to swim upstream.

P.S. Many thanks to sinaicentral.com for the above image.

THE MOST EXPENSIVE MAGAZINE EVER

One good thing that came out of John's time at the endodondist, was the "50 Best Burgers" issue of Texas Monthly, which was lying on the table in their waiting room. They let him take it home for free. (well, if you don't count the $300 it cost him not to get a root canal there) Thanks to that magazine, we ended up here at Counter Cafe in Austin last Saturday, having a mighty fine lunch. The menu was quite a surprise, including not just hamburgers, but also quail, crab cakes, and polenta breaded oysters, which is what I had. Extremely yummy! I'm only sorry we didn't nab a seat at the counter, better for watching the ballet being performed by the two bandana bedecked chefs. Be prepared for a bit of a wait on those benches outside, though. The cafe is exactly what you'd expect from its name - a long counter and a few small tables around the edge of the room, and we are not the only ones to have read that article ranking theirs the 2nd best burger in all of Texas!

HEALTH UPDATES

John: Not sure where I left off on the tooth saga, but the cardiologist did finally give permission for the root canal. Then John had to wait until the endodontist in Austin could fit him in again. When she finally got to work on the tooth, she said "Oops, this isn't good. There's a crack that goes all the way down the root. No point wasting money on a root canal when you're going to end up loosing the tooth anyway." So she cleaned it out, packed it up again, and sent him on his way. By this time he was very tired of coming to the Hill Country for all these different appointments, so he scheduled one with our old dentist back in the Houston burbs, who then had him schedule one with an oral surgeon. The surgeon pulled the tooth, and packed the space that it left in his jaw with bone chips taken from a cadaver. (I know - EEEWWW! I try not to think about it when I'm kissing him.) Hopefully they will help the jaw to grow new bone, so that in three months they can install a rod in the socket, and then three months after that, attach a tooth to it. John has had such a fun year!

Guinness: Our son's puppy dog had several days of normal poop action after chewing up and swallowing her "gentle leader" so we were finally starting to breathe easy. Last night I got a call from John. He and Austin went to a movie, and when they got back they discovered another little pile of hardware. This time, it seems, she somehow managed to take her regular collar off (a much larger, thicker piece of strapping than the other item) and proceeded to eat it as well. I suppose she had a taste of freedom, and liked it! What's next? (besides a trip to the vet with a bowel obstruction, in all likelihood)

SHE'S HERE! (Oops - make that He's Here!)

Someone just left a comment on my previous post, saying that it was misting over in Austin, and one of the news stations claimed Wimberley got an inch of rain. Alas, faulty information once again. I just put on my hooded raincoat and went to check the gauge myself. We did not get an inch of rain, we got FOUR INCHES. El Nino has arrived! The rain gods must have heard my siblings were heading this way, and decided maybe it was time to send us another little flood, just to break up the monotony.