Is it just me, or was Tuesday a really, really bad day for American democracy? On the same day that a group of representatives from one party broke into a secure area with unsecured cell phones live-streaming what they saw, the lawyers (the real ones, not bag men like Rudy) argued in court that it would be unlawful to even investigate the President, let alone indict him. Obviously, I’m not a neutral observer here, but if the other party were to behave that way, I genuinely believe I’d be not just appalled, but terrified as well.
I expect it’ll get worse before it gets better.
On the plus side, Tuesday was also our wedding anniversary. This is a Very Good Thing Indeed. When the other stuff around me is, at best, swirling chaos and, at worst, things I cannot discuss in public, coming home to Nicole keeps me going. I hope I am as good for her as she is for me, but that bar is incredibly high and I don’t want to ever take her for granted.
I took the week off of work to celebrate and we took off for the unlikely destination of Seguin, Texas. The resort-ish grounds we stayed on were perfectly nice, very quiet, and not far from a really nice small Texas town. There are essentially two types of small towns in Texas. The majority, unfortunately, are suffering from all the young people moving out as soon as possible. The storefronts on the town square are largely boarded up. There’s the sense of slow, inevitable decline. Dollar General is a big player in these towns.
However, there are some which have managed to keep the younger people and, thus, the businesses. These are usually towns with small colleges. The town square has dozens of new-ish businesses mixed in with the old ones which are still doing well. Dollar General is a big player in these towns too, because, well, this is sort of Dollar General’s wheelhouse, but other than that? They’re nice. Refreshing.
Seguin is very much the second sort. It’s not too far from Austin and quite close to San Antonio, New Braunfels, and San Marcos. The coffee shop on the square was aces, and there’s an HEB. If you’ve ever lived in central Texas, then you understand the importance of being near an HEB. We weren’t expecting much, but we really liked the area. It’s more of a place to live than to visit if you know what I mean.
It’s fall now. We went straight from summer, with temperatures in the 90s, to this: Highs in the 50s, low gray clouds all day, and oh so much drizzle. An interesting feature of the the central Texas autumn is that the live oaks shed their leaves all at once. They go from waxy green to waxy brown overnight and just dump the entire lot in a wet, slippery pile. They don’t even have that earthy leaf smell you might associate with this season; they just get musty and ugly and last until spring.
It’s my understanding that it isn’t like this everywhere, but my experiences with non-Texas fall are extremely limited. At least we have root vegetables a-plenty to look forward to at the farmers’ market. This is definitely my favorite food season. Who knew that parsnips were delicious? Probably a lot of you, but it was news to me.
Ok, that’s about it for now. I’ve had a lot to work through (and probably will for the next couple of weeks as the office is packing up and moving), so things are a little scattershot in my head and, thus, on the page. Thanks for bearing with me.
-RK