Austin not Boston Part Two

I went out for dinner that night with Chris and his clients. They’d chosen a restaurant called The Salt Lick, which I’d been looking forward to after discussing it with Jessica.

“The meat falls off the bones,” Jessica said. “It’s basically a barbeque place, but the ribs are great.”

Then Chris called. “The Salt Lick’s off,” he reported. “They said it gets really nasty when it rains, because there are picnic tables out there.”

The next day when I mentioned this to Jessica, she said, “Uh, they do have picnic tables inside.”

“Yeah,” I said thoughtfully. “I did think it was kind of weird to have a restaurant where you can only sit outside.”

We moved on to Dan McKlusky’s for dinner, only to find an empty building and a sign on the door stating that the steakhouse had not been paying its rent and now all the locks were changed. And anyone who wanted to take over the place had to pay the $87,235,083.27 in back rent and fees before doing so. Luckily there was a Cheesecake Factory nearby so we headed there instead, since we didn’t have the $87,235,083.27.

The food was delicious, though I had an excruciating stomachache and couldn’t order any dessert. I sat next to Dave, a 25-year-old programmer who seemed very interested in food. I never did figure out whether he was more interested in the quality of food or mere quantity, but I left wanting to take him out to eat in Boston because I knew he’d appreciate it.

Plus I wanted him to see my family eat. None of us are really overweight, but we can certainly stow it away. As a matter of fact, buffets have a bad habit of going out of business after one of our visits.

On Friday I had no transportation, so I sat in the hotel room and watched the free cable. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed Animal Planet until Austin. When Chris got back from work, we drove to the Arboretum (kind of an upscale shopping area) and had a yakitori snack that Chris couldn’t stop talking about. If we hadn’t had a dinner reservation at Louie’s 106 that night with Jess, I think he would have just stayed there and had teriyaki sticks.

We went to pick up Jessica and found out that when she said traffic in Austin sucked, she meant it really, really sucked. We sat on the highway for 45 minutes before we got to her place.

The whole family was in the backyard, and Teo, the one child I hadn’t met yet, came skipping up to me. The other two seemed to instinctively know that I was the same person they’d met yesterday, and didn’t even bother looking at me. “Sure, she was fun yesterday, but today? We’ve got a whole new agenda.”

“Hello, Jane!” he sang out. He looked exactly like Massimo, save for a more mushroom shape to his hair. He started to offer me something — I’m not quite sure what, perhaps an opportunity to look at his swing? but Jessica quickly stepped in.

“We’re off to dinner, Teo, so Jane can’t stay,” she told him.

“Have a good time,” he said cheerfully. I wondered if I could hire the twins to host my next party, or at least ask Allegra to silently sashay across the living room in her green underpants, which would certainly liven up any party.

Dinner was good, although the waiter seemed to find me a bit odd. Maybe it was because I asked him if the fish was fishy, and then asked him to define a bunch of words from the menu that I didn’t understand. He gave us some bread and a tiny plate with miniscule shreds of basil, parmesan cheese, 2 garlic cloves, and some red pepper. When he refilled the bread, I wanted to ask him for another plate of the “tidbits,” as I called it, but I chickened out.

After dinner we picked up some local wine for Chris’s parents, and stopped by Book People. I was disappointed that there weren’t any people dressed up like books in the store, but I still had a good time, and purchased Sarah Susanka’s newest book Home By Design, and at full price, too!

The next day, Chris was supposed to play-test a game with a friend’s friend who programmed for a game company. His friend blew him off, so instead we tried to find a place where I could get my hair cut.

Chris was driving the rental car while I looked around for a place.

“Hey, the light’s red,” I said, just as Chris slowly cruised through it.

“Whoops,” he said. “I didn’t see it at all.”

He flicked on his turn signal. “I’m turning here,” he said.

I peered around him. “What for? There’s nothing there. I think the haircutting place is further up the street, isn’t it?” All I could see was some kind of hardware store and a few restaurants.

Chris turned into the strip mall. “I’m just turning here, because I don’t want anyone to find me,” he hissed. “I have to hide. I’m having a bad driving day!”

He drove around the parking lot for a bit.

Eventually, I said, “Are you over it yet, or should we keep driving around here? Or do you want me to drive?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I guess we can go. But I don’t think I should be allowed in public today.”

We turned back onto the street, and found a place to get my hair cut. Chris walked around the department store next door while I sat glumly in my chair. I’d asked for it to be cut like the picture hanging above my hairdresser’s chair, but just like all the other hairdressers I’d had before, she merely cut it so it looked like a bob.

I overtipped because I was frightened of her, and raced out to the car where Chris was waiting. We still had too much time, so we found a supermarket where I bought a pair of tweezers, and sat in the car tidying up my eyebrows. Then I went back into the store and returned them, because I already had 2 pairs of tweezers at home (bought during other Emergency Eyebrow Situations) and also wasn’t sure whether I could bring tweezers on the plane.

After that I called Jess, who suggested we walk around Town Lake. Chris and I had a nice walk in the sun, and went for bubble tea and lunch, stopping only to sign a UT Austin petition to allow gay marriage, but declining an offer of their socialist newspaper.

We hit the airport and headed home. The dogs were, of course, jubilant to see us, and promptly celebrated by trying to eat our noses in a loving way.

Posted by: ssjane | March 11, 2004 | 3:21 pm
Posted in: This Life