Only Perfect

So last week I scored a couple of awesome wooden rockers from my neighbor.

Fabulous, no?

I walked by those rockers day after day, and every day I wanted to ask Angel if he was getting rid of them, or wanted to sell them, but I never saw him out there.  I was so worried one day they'd be gone and I'd have to knock my head into the side of a barn -- if there were any around here -- and ask, "Why? Why? Why?"

But then one day Mistah and I were driving by Angel's house when he was out, which saved my fool head. "Hey Angel, you don't want to sell those rockers, do you?" (That was Mistah; I would have said, "Hey, Angel, you do want to sell those rockers, don't you?")

In any case, Angel answered, "You can have them" and walked them down the street to our house before we had parked and gotten out of Subie.

They looked like chipped-paint crap, those rockers, but they were solid and they were true. They just needed some good old-fashioned TLC, Ellie-Style.

First, the sanding:

First one . . .

. . . then both were done.

I went to Home Depot and bought a quart of "Old Vine" paint. Sounds perfect, right?

First coat on one . . .

. . . and then the other, and then second coats on both.

So? Whaddya think?

Sigh. I know; I agree.

The color is just not quite right. There's too much blue and not enough black in that green. They're too light.

I tried to make it work, though. I tried to like them.

A couple of friends came over and checked them out.

"Well, they're not terrible."
"I think you can work with them."
"They're going to age well."

All true, of course. They weren't terrible. But you know what else they weren't? Perfect.

My Dad loved to finish a project and have it come out just exactly the way he wanted it to. He'd measure and saw the last piece of wood to fit into its allotted spot, screw in the final nail, use the level to check for straightness, and deem it finished: "Only Perfect."

That's what I wanted from my rockers. Perfection. Not too much to ask, I don't think. I wanted my rockers to be Only Perfect.

So even though those rockers were carefully and patiently and thoroughly painted with two coats of exterior semi-gloss Old Vine, I went back to Home Depot to get a sample of the next darker color because I clearly had lost what had been my previously 100% successful color-pickin' mojo.

See that? See the new paint on the left arm (well, the left arm if you're the chair) and the back and that one vertical slat?

That's Fresh Pine. That's the color I was after.

So I went back to Home Depot to get more.

And I painted one . . .

. . . and then the second of my new-old fabulous front porch rockers. And you know how they turned out?

Only Perfect.

I guess we have to call Dan a man

In addition to my lovely and talented girl Jane, I had another inside line for the 4-1-1 on Austin. I had somehow wound up on the top floor of this particular Sheraton, and those of you in the know will know that top floor equals club level. The club level is beyond awesome. Not only are you invited in to the lounge for a delicious breakfast every morning and a delectable assortment of hors d’oevres  and inexpensive cocktails every evening; you also have access to the lounge itself 24/7, and can help yourself to all the bottled water, granola bars,  fresh fruit, and mac daddy single serve coffee drinks you could ever dream of having. There was also soda and juice, if you’re the type to dream of that sort of thing. For me, it was all about stuffing my bag with endless adorable little water bottles, and dizzying amounts of caffeine. Sadly, there was no bathroom in the lounge. 

My first experience in the club lounge was early in the evening before Jane arrived. The hors (as affectionately referred to by Corey types) and drinks were being attended by a young, thin white guy with side burns and chunky glasses.  Have you ever been to Austin? That description fits roughly 49% of the population.  He was a very nice and helpful boy/man (God, I’m old…he was such a boy but he was serving drinks, so I guess I have to call him a man), and he was also very chatty. Jane arrived in time for us to catch the tail end of the grub that evening, so we hightailed it up to the 26^th floor and no one else was in the room, so we sat down for a proper chat with Dan the Man Boy.  He pumped us full of ideas for places to go that night, and we had a few laughs and a few Shiner Bocks and everything was lovely and then Jane abruptly shunned Dan, and that was a bit of a conversation stopper. 

Anyway, Dan was spot on that first night in suggesting great places for us to eat and drink, we had ourselves a great time, singing his praises.

 I think Jane even felt a little sorry about the whole shunning thing. The next day we ran into Dan in another part of the hotel, and we thanked him for his great suggestions and mentioned our plans for the evening. We were going out for fancy dinner then on a quest for live music. Quest is definitely too strong a word for the act of seeking out live music in Austin. You‘d have to work really hard to avoid live music at any time of day or night in that town, but Jane told me some weird story about a guy playing guitar with his tongue last time she was there, and that was something I was willing to avoid, so our quest was more about just finding the sweet spot with music that we wanted to hear.  Dan was a musician (of course he was!), and told us that he was going to see a band on 6^th… but then Dapper Dan’s wan face fell into worry as he warned us not to visit 6^th Street that night. I waited for Jane to shun him, but instead she asked for an explanation. Dan explained that there was a festival in town that weekend, and the crowd on 6^th would be very “urban.” We promptly shunned his nerdy racist ass. 

Jane and I enjoyed a delectable dinner and then made a point of ignoring Dan’s exhortation and headed right down 6^th. 

And straight into perdition.

We’ve already established that I’m old, and Jane’s my older sister. So we’re both old, but we’re also extremely cool and awesome and gorgeously fierce babes on the prowl, so it’s not like we were peering over our granny specs through the veil of our cornettes. The street was blocked off so it was all pedestrian traffic, and sweet 8.6 pound baby Jesus, that crowd was strutting. We walked about half a block before Jane said: “I don’t want my daughter to go to college here.”  I just kept repeating: “Her vagina is out!” 

Oh, those girls. Those girls! I wanted to simultaneously drape them with cloaks and wash their faces and slap them silly and call their mothers.  I don’t even know how to describe this without sounding like Regis Philbin, it was just so shameful. Beautiful girls with bodies of all shapes and sizes, shoved into the most disturbing get ups that barely covered their dainty bits. I don’t mean mini skirts, I don’t even mean booty shorts  – I mean no pants at all! Outfits that Rhianna can just barely pull off when performing. Teetering on stilettos, talking smack, taunting the boys who lined the sidewalks to watch them go by.  It was bewildering. It was humbling. To the mothers of girls, it was terrifying. 

We got the freaking frack out of there and stumbled toward home, almost giving up on our quest just because the sobering effect of the experience had actually made us sober (damn it). But then, just across the street from our hotel, we found this crew

And Austin promptly redeemed itself. 

I’m sorry for doubting you, Dan. And also for the shunning.

Party peeps

Now what fun would Easter be without peeps? None at all, I tell you.

And the peeps at my house? Well the peeps at my house had one hell of a time. The peeps at my house had a house party to kill all house parties.

The kind of party that draws all the peeps, from far and wide. There's not a peep who's willing to miss it.

They arrive by any and all means possible....

By truck,

by train (Hi, Ellie, it's me Thomas!),

by boat,

and sailing ship.

Via hot rod,

and helicopter,

and, yes, even elephant.

This is a party not to be missed.

This particular peep party started out as most parties do, with the chics in the kitchen and the men, well, elsewhere.

But as time went on, and more libations were imbibed, the inevitable mixing occured.

The dancing began.

The lampshade came out.

 And the peeps started disappearing,

What? A peep's gotta poop!

and pairing off

Until they were so partied out, that they laid their heads down to rest and dream of the next peep party.

(Well, except for that one tweaker on the porch.)

Party on, peeps! We'll see you next year.

Oh!

So here's what happened around here this weekend:

Mr. Dibble preached to the choir . . .

We ate sushi . . .

. . . except it wasn't sushi at all . . .

. . . and oh, the awesome accouterment we had . . .

And oh, the clouds. . .

. . . and oh, our birdie . . .

. . . and ohdeargodinheavenabove . . . .

. . . oh that salmon.

And oh yes . . .

There was also that Opening Day Weekend Sweep.

Oh, yeah.

Noah

While I was tooling around Ausin with Jane, her boy Noah was making his way west for a spring break visit with his San Diego cousins! Jane and I had planned ahead, natch, and arranged for every detail to ensure that Noah was safely transported from the care of one dad in Chicago to another one in California. We distracted ourselves from considering innumerable complications that could potentially land Noah in Zimbabwe by chasing a million legendary bats, and were soon pleased to learn that the eagle had in fact landed.

I headed home the next day to find my kids and their cousin deeply entrenched in frousin hyjinx. I was so excited to see them all together, and looked forward to joining the fun.  It took me a little while to figure out that I was the parent in Peanuts, all: "wha WHAH wah wah WAH wah" in their ears, a pesky intruder who'd forgotten her place. My place was to produce food

and take them to places

We spent a glorious Sunday down at Mission Beach, where the kids spent hours traversing high ropes and scampering up coconut trees and blasting through laser mazes and arcade games. I had prepped some kibbe that morning and packed a lunch, thinking we'd have lunch down there and then enjoy a big, late dinner at home. Everything was going according to plan and I produced lunch on demand. While they enjoyed their sandwiches, I happened to notice that it was 5pm. I though: "huh," and floated the idea that we could always save the kibbe for Monday and stay down at the beach. I wasn't sure what Noah actually wanted, he was being really polite and monosyllabic, and I wasn't sure if he was saying what he thought I wanted to hear or really telling me what he preferred. But when I mentioned that if we stayed, we could enjoy sunset at the beach,  no amount of teen  indifference could disguise his delight at that idea. So it was settled!

As I told my family in an email that night:

Noah was psyched to see the sunset, and of course my spoiled beach children were ambivalent and kept going for one more activity with their wristbands. I was keeping an eye on the time, and when sunset was 5 minutes away, I told the kids to run for the beach. Have you ever seen Noah run at full speed? Oh, what a sight. There are more angles on that kid than one can imagine is possible, and they were all flying in every direction. Head down, arms pumping... awesomeness.

Awesomeness

It was one of those sunsets... in a word?  Perfect.

I just couldn't get enough of those three and their interactions together. And their height differentials.

At one point, they RAN up the beach to tell or ask me something ridiculous. I hollered:"what are you doing? The sun is setting! Get back down there!"

So they RAN back down to the ocean. With all of their angles.

Just in time

Perfect.

Weekend 3-Way: just deserts

Westy under the stars, Anza-Borrego Desert

Madman over the desert, Palm Springs

Underage driver in Jeep, Sedona