I got to Dean's at around 8:45. It was like, AHHHHHHH. After a quick tour of her new house we plopped down in the living room with drinks in hand. This was the break I needed.
Her new house is nice, mainly because her stuff is nice. Her old house was better. It was old and the floors made a pleasant sound when you walked on them. This house is newer and is built on a slab. She and Greg had done a lot of work on the old house. It had a nice rec room and a beautiful deck in the back yard. But they had to move because there were some unpleasant changes happening in the neighborhood. She said the neighbors are still fighting over it. Plus, now they are mortgage free.
But still, it's a nice house. It has a balcony that goes across the whole front of the house. The guest room has its own bathroom. The back yard is nicely shaded and it has a hot tub. They'll need to replace the deck pretty soon. It's a little scary to walk on. They'll probably do some work on the place to bring up the value and then move back closer to town.
The doggies are still the doggies. Gus is getting pretty old. The new girl pups are fun to be with. Eddie is still Eddie and I like Eddie very much.
Greg came home and we all had dinner. Then we did some mellow partying and stayed up late. Oh, it was wonderful. No Dad, no conservative political talk, no Texas accents.
On Sunday we lounged around a bit and then went out to breakfast. Austin is sooo different than the rest of Texas. Everything's cuter, funkier, more artsy, more like CALIFORNIA. Austin is more like home. The restaurant we went to was pretty good. I had a breakfast taco and these HUGE gingerbread pancakes. Lordy they were good.
Later we went to this place on the river called The Pier. It has a nice, big, indoor snack bar and a picnic area and a stage outside. People can dock their boats there and hang out listening to live music. We were there to hear the Fabulous Chevelles. They're a classic rock cover band and they're pretty good. They do a lot of the same stuff we do. We got some onion rings and drinks and sat in the shade and listened. We sat through a couple sets. They ended the second set with Orange Blossom Special which doesn't come across as well with a harmonica lead. It was the weakest thing they did. Then they invited their special guests, who weren't nearly as talented, to come up and play a few. When we heard the threatenings of a country song we left.
We went back to Dean's. Greg came home and fixed some freakin' awesome HUGE steaks for us. Dean and I watched ALL of Pride And Prejudice (about 5 hours) and had another mellow, pleasant evening.
In the morning we had leftover steak and eggs for breakfast. After doing a little more hanging out (We did a lot of hanging out. Fine with me) we went downtown to go to some stores and leave paper samples. I think I can legally write off my plane ticket for this trip. Then we went to the new Whole Foods for lunch. I left from there to go back to San Antonio. On the way I stopped at Garden Ridge Pottery and bought some stuff I don't need.
When I got back to the Butchers Dad wasn't there. He and Buddy had taken a drive out to Castell to check out the old family places and see some relatives. They got back just as we were sitting down for dinner. I'm glad Dad got to have a whole day with Buddy.
The next morning we grabbed a quick breakfast and headed for the airport. The flight home was mostly uneventful but Dad had to get in one more beastly episode just to make the trip complete. The woman sitting next to us wanted to get out when we landed because she had someone picking her up. There was no way she could have made it off the plane in a hurry because everybody was getting their stuff out of the overheads. But so what? Why not honor her request and let her by? Dad got testy. I tried to deal with it but he was just getting worse. I finally told him to just stop. UGH! After we got off the plane I walked ten paces in front of him to the baggage claim. I just didn't want to see his face anymore.
So that's it. I would really like for Dad to stay away from me for a while. He's come over a couple times to get help with diabetes stuff and Jim dealt with it. Jim actually had his own encounter with Dad that was upsetting. Dad came over and started pressuring Jim to give him all of his diabetes supplies. Jim explained several times why we were keeping most of the supplies here. Dad kept pushing like Jim was a car salesman and Dad was demanding he knock off a couple hundred bucks off the price. Jim finally told him he has to decide if he wants Jim to continue helping him. That's when Dad changed the subject. Jim did give Dad some more of the diabetes supplies which he took home and promptly lost. Jim went over there later and found them under a piece of paper in the bathroom.
There's more stuff like that that's happened. Dede and David are coming down soon and we're going to have a family meeting that doesn't include Dad. I think he may be moving into the next phase of his disease. But maybe it's just that he didn't have his meds and vitamins for almost a week. We'll see.
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