Anonymous Donor

A box addressed to me (Sophie) arrived on our porch this morning, and these two engraved beer boots were inside - one with N on top, and the other with S. No note, no return address, no nothin'. Generally it's safe to give credit of any anonymous gifts to my mother, but after calling both her and my dad, it's still a mystery.

We have gone over all of the possible gift-givers... could it be Molly for thanking us for letting her stay last month? Or Nick's Aunt for thanking us for helping with family stuff? Or our landlord because we are helping her brew some beer? Maybe an early Christmas gift from another family member?

The problem is that we feel presumptuous and weird asking anyone if they are the gift givers. We don't want anyone to feel inferior when they answer "No, I did not buy you those awesome glasses. Should I have?"

So, dear beer-boot-buyer, if you are reading this, please show your face so that we can give you proper thank you. We love them.

You know you're in Texas if...

We've now lived in Texas long enough to make some Jeff Foxworthy-esque observations about how people live in these here parts.  The most interesting "you know you're in Texas if"?  Parking lots.  Apparently you can learn a lot about the patrons of a given place of business from the cars they leave outside.

Exhibit A.

This little number was parked half in, half out of a handicapped parking space with open windows, two snarling pitbulls, no license plate, and you guessed it, no disabled parking tag. Now to be fair, I recognize that it is probably a foregone conclusion that the driver of this clown car has some pretty major deficiencies, but I personally find it disturbing to think that this jackass is given license to leave his group home without his parking pass.

Exhibit B.

(Above: the sticker on the right says "To Do List: Pray, Vote, Buy More Ammo") I think this one pretty much speaks for itself. All that you need to know is that this truck was parked in the "compact car only" space at our local uber granola hippy provisions grocery Central Market. That's pretty much all you need to know about Austin--it's the home of both Whole Foods and this guy.

Thanks to these helpful reminders I stay aware of just where it is I have chosen to call home (at least for the time being).  So here's to you parking lot douche bags, you keep me grounded.

Thanksgiving

We spent Thankgiving at Nick's Aunt's ranch in Oklahoma.  After stuffing ourselves on Thursday afternoon, Nick and I decided to go on a walk to help with the digestion of about fourteen pounds of food.  The frost was still dripping off the trees from the night before as we made our way on the path.  Though I really miss my family, I am thankful to be living closer to some of Nick's.

Giving Thanks to Fiesta Market

Dear Fiesta,

Thank you for being you.  Thank you for being open 24 hours a day and being within a five minute drive from our house.  Thank you for your clean bathrooms and for hiring every pregnant teenager in Austin.  Thank you for your weird spices, the curries in your Asian section, and your wide selection of disgusting sodas (like Peanut soda).  Thank you for selling gold rings, fresh tacos, and paintings of Jesus.  More than anything though, my dear Fiesta, thank you for your English section and for your awareness of the importance of Christmas.

Thank you for every foreign Christmas cookie imaginable.

Thank you for your vast selection of mince pies, fruit cakes, and Christmas puddings.  (Even if one of them costs $28!)

Thank you for your Panettone shrine.

Thank you for your imported Heinz baked beans, your Ribena, your Irn Bru, your Bird's Custard, your Marmite, your Crunchie bars, and your Hob Nobs.

Thank you for making us look like idiots on Supermarket Sweep, putting everything in sight into our basket.  Thank you for allowing me to share my first love (English junk food) with my second love (Nick).

Thank you, Fiesta.

Love Always and Forever,

Sophie & Nick

PS:  Please start selling malt loaf.

Mexico

We took a trip to Mexico a couple of summers ago.  We walked across the border in Arizona with only what we could carry on our backs, some money saved up, and six weeks to kill.  I can only imagine what the locals of the Mexican border town were thinking, wishing they could do the same but in the opposite direction.  Someone might have tried to warn us "Stop! Go back! You will regret this!" but our Spanish is on the level of a developmentally disabled second grader, so we kept on.  We found the bus station, bought tickets to go South, and started our adventure.

Adventure is really the only appropriate way to describe this trip.  When people asked us how it was, we would answer with something like, "It was an adventure!"  This answer saved us from the details, because no one wants to hear "Well, I now know what it feels like to overflow a toilet with only my own bodily waste and no water!" or "We spent 36 hours straight on a hot bus, and now know how we would each smell if we were to become homeless."

Of course now, two years removed, I think back on the trip fondly.  I remember watching the sunrise over the rainforest in Guatamela, the tacos that didn't make me us sick, the beautiful clear ocean water, the Lucha Libre in Mexico City, meeting the Chavez' in Oaxaca.  And I have conveniently forgotten the overnight bus rides, the hurricane ravaged towns, the constant fear of being ripped off, the frustration of a language barrier, and the amount of officials we bribed.  That's the beauty of human memory; it's a filter that over time removes the bad parts.

These photos are about half of all the photos from the trip.  I just found the negatives and was able to scan them to see the photos for the first time.