Our Little Family

So we have now been in Austin nearly 2 months. I am, however, still unemployed. Dave has dabbled in a few different positions; mover, line cook and now prep chef. He's working for a company that prepares and delivers veggie boxes, which results in Dave getting to take home excess. I have been holding out for one job in particular for which I have already had 3 interviews, plus given a presentation. It started by them sending me a questionnaire loaded with quirky questions, then 2 phone interviews, followed by 2 hours of interview, presentation and skill tests. I have one more interview, next week, and this I am told is the final step. I'm admittedly getting impatient with the process as I applied for this position within a couple of weeks of arriving in Austin. But they seem like a cool company and I'm hoping my patience is rewarded.

In the meantime much more interesting things have happened. Dave and I went out with a couple of mates and had a great time. We went to our first live, free Austin gig. We found an amazing pizza place set up on a farm and next to a brewery, complete with stage and wooden dance floor ready for the texas two step. We

found some of the best swimming holes in Austin. This was a surprise to both of us. I knew that there were springs all the way through Austin that are protected as the Austin Greenbelt, which is great (although as we can see in England, the greenbelt will eventually make way for urban development). This city has so much to offer, and now that we are down to our last pennies we are denying ourselves the greatest pleasures until we can do so guiltlessly. The picture to the right was taken on one of the highest points in Austin, hence being called Hill Country. There was a woman walking in front of us, up the stairs to the top of this hill. She was decked out in gym wear - not the type you would expect to hear complaining about the 20 steps we had to surmount to get to the top of this hill. I have never heard anyone complain so much about a menial amount of exercise. At least the really fat guy behind us just kept quiet and panted - and fair play to him as he obviously had more dignity than the high maintenance woman in front. Anyway, I shall kick my pedestal aside.

There was one thing we could no longer wait for though. It's something we have been talking about since we arrived in the states. We had always decided against it as our logic always won. But this is the first sign of  growing up for me. We got a cat. A beautiful, loving, playful little guy called Chester. We went to one of the many rescue centers around Austin and nervously walked in. We were both scared - taking on another life is not something Dave or I take lightly. This little bundle will be our responsibility for a long time. Not just his health, but his happiness and comfort. We had arrived on the day that they had started rehoming pets again after a particularly bad virus strain had hit the cattery. It was a sign. We went through lots of cats, and nearly didn't see our man at all. He was in a cage all his own and hadn't been pointed out by the staff. We instantly had a rapport with him. We were told he was 2, but found out later that he 5 or 6.





He was instantly at home with us. He had a look around the flat and then settled down to watch TV with us. Within minutes he was on my lap, purring contentedly. He's cuddly, but also playful. He gets in little moods if he doesn't get his way or if he's made to remove himself from a lap. He is an indoor only kitty - we were told he has FIV, which is a feline version of HIV. He should lead a full, healthy life as long as he doesn't pick up infections or viruses from other cats. I couldn't help but think of him in some alley with other alley cats, needles falling out of his paws as he sat in an opium induced ecstasy. But anyway, that's the crazy cat lady in me.

It has occurred to me that this cat is going to be around for all the next big things in my life. Getting married, having kids, perhaps taking up a space in a trailer with us! While many of my friends are already a few steps further up of the ladder of life, this is my first step onto the rung of responsibility. And you know, this will do for now. Actually, this will do for a while!

I promise to make my next post a little more interesting to other people. I'm working on a piece that's trying to get certain thoughts out of my head. America is a confusing place, and I feel I am particularly vulnerable to a particular kind of confusion. However, the more I read, the more I find out I'm not alone. So my next post will be a little more, or well, a little less...actually, just wait and see.

But in the meantime, I think one more picture of Chester is necessary to push it into the realm of a truly annoying cat post.

Keeping it weird

Trail of Lights

After speaking with my Dad, I realized there was an important part of our travels that I missed out. How, I don't know as it was more than a little amusing. While we were in Kingman we thought we were going to be able to tow the rig over to a dump station as our site didn't have full hook ups. We used the toilet on occasion because of this. It soon dawned on us that this was not going to happen, but we had to empty it out! We chose our day wisely - Thanksgiving, when all the staff were off. We were pretty sure we'd be told off for what we were planning. We found a site close enough to us that was empty and had full hook ups. The job was to slowly empty the black water tank into a bucket, carry it over to the vacuum hose sized hole and pour. As Dave's constitution isn't as strong as mine in matters such as this, I volunteered to do most of it. To be fair, it mostly my, um, product, that we were trying to get rid of. So I started carrying very full, very stinky buckets full of piss and shit over to the hole and chucking it down. While I'm doing this, a gentleman who has hired a cabin starts to come in and out tending his BBQing turkey. He catches me mid-dump - there was very little doubt over what I was doing. Our eyes catch, I look away and hurriedly finish the bucket. From that point on I had to coordinate my bucket dumps with his retreat back into the cabin. In the end, the tank took about 30 bucket loads to empty. Dave finished it off once my arms started to get tired. Mission successful albeit shitty.

Now, back to the present...

We are now beginning to get familiar with Austin. We have been on a bar crawl down South Congress where we had amazing pizza from Home Slice. Before this amazingly drunken pizza experience, we went to a fried chicken place called Lucy's. We decided the chicken was too expensive, but tried their fried deviled eggs. Incredible. More than incredible, I nearly cried. Anyone who comes to visit will be dragged along to Lucy's to try these heart stopping treats.

Don't get me wrong - we're still not employed. I've had an interview, which went well but they decided to promote from within. I was told I made it a very difficult choice, which provides some solace, but not as much as a job would have. Dave is being thrown offers left and right, but we're trying to find jobs that will make us happy as well as put food on the table. So, Dave is now currently waiting to hear back about a job as a driver for a moving company. I've got a couple things in the pipeline, but moving over from the service industry into anything else is a challenge. It is one I'll win though, by hook or by crook!

We tried to get some proper Austin BBQ. We looked up the reviews, made our decision and headed out only to find the bloody place was shut. Just down the road was a BBQ fast food joint - I'm still tickled that you can get drive-thru BBQ! It was infinitely better than anything you get in the UK, but I'm pretty sure it's scraping the barrel around these parts.

Christmas came and went in a very drunken style. We decided last year that bloody marys upon waking is a fairly sound tradition to start, so we kept it up. It was a fun day of trying to feed the meowing cat on the balcony above ours by throwing treats at it, drinking, cooking and I don't remember quite what else...

New Years was much of the same. New Years to me is an occasion to celebrate with good friends. As we don't have any of those here yet, we made do with each other and headed down to the local bar. We ended up chatting to some people and nearly went on to another party with them. We were then informed that the woman driving didn't want to take us, so we left a bit dejected. We went home, had a quick chinwag with the neighbours below us and went about our drunk business. It was the fireworks going off that alerted us to the dawn of the New Year.

We finally sold the RV. We took a bit of a hit on it, but it feels good to have that over and done with. It was a sad moment when we realized we would never see Damon again. We loved that vehicle like a family member, despite only a brief encounter. I guess sometimes that all it takes. It shared an important part of our history, so thank you Damon. We forgive you.

So far we like Austin. Apart from not having jobs, which makes things a little stressful, everything else is going well. We have an obnoxious neighbour above us who likes to turn her music on between 12 & 3 AM, and that is our biggest complaint. People have been more friendly here than in Seattle, and I have a feeling we will have a much different experience here. It'll be harder to save money as there is always something to
go out and do. Austin has something like 140 people moving to it every day. A lot of locals are getting pissed off at this mass migration, but there is very little they can do to stop it. The place is drowning in hipsters, admittedly. But hipsters never hurt anyone. If anything they provide an infinite amount of comedy as they constantly parody themselves without realizing the irony with which they do things ironically. Oh hipsters, how I love to hate thee.