Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Listen here -->
It’s been months since I’ve had a chance to drop a few gems
of insight on this blog. I’ve had no
absence of inspiration just an absence of time. Which sucks balls because it’s one thing that I’ve found so much solace
in these last few years. Unfortunately,
the Man has had his proverbial foot up my ass for a few months. But sitting here after having a conversation
about our recent journey to the Republic of Texas, I was reminded that there
are moments in life that need to be petrified in your mind so you never forget
how they made you feel. That’s what this
is about.
I went on vacation. And while that doesn’t sound like a big deal, believe
me, anyone who knows my work ethic knows that breaks DO NOT happen. But let me give you some context; this wasn’t
my vacation. It was my wife’s. I just got to accompany her. And….we needed this. That conclusion arrived
pretty innocently in retrospect.
My wife’s boss had a smoking year professionally; and so did
my wife. The week-long trip was a reward
for smashing leadership goals. She got
to pack along a piece of eye candy like me. You read that right. The
destination was a vacation home owned by her company’s CEO outside of Austin,
Texas. The choice week happened to be in
the more ‘enjoyable’ weeks in Texas. And
when I say enjoyable, I mean hot. Damn
hot. Dubai hot. Like 40 degrees C hot. That’s 104 degrees F hot
for Americans.
The house was on the Pedernales River/Lake Travis and was in
one word, epic. All we had to do was get
there. And the Man, while planting his
foot in an area where the sun doesn’t shine, rewarded me with sufficient
frequent flyer miles to subsidize our travel to a locale where the sun does in
fact, shine, a lot. And to up the ante
higher on this trip, our children found vacation lodging at their grandparents’
home. So we traveled with no live
animals, just our luggage, and our insatiable appetite for beer.
You may think “Austin in summer isn’t a vacation” or it’s
only a “little vacation.” Well, let me
tell you this; no kids, one full week, a $1+ million dollar home on the river,
all room and board paid, 7 days of sun and 100 deg F, Lone Star beer, AND your
best friend is NOT a ‘little’ vacation. Furthermore, the liberal oasis of Austin is the live music capital of
the known universe and has nearly a bottomless beer supply. I was pretty stoked to be there.
Still, I didn’t realize how important this moment in time
was. The beer, the music, the house, the
rental car, the heat and humidity, the food, the vultures, and the pickup
trucks were just the means to an end; that, being a much needed instance of narrow
focus on my very best friend. Two things
became very relevant during this trip. We needed to refocus on something core to our relationship. And, that I’m still very much in love with
her just like 10 years ago. Oh, and I
love Lone Star beer more than PBR. So
really, it’s three things.
Every moment with her was epic. And when we returned to reality, I innocently
stumbled on to a little tune that exactly captured how I felt during those
moments with her. Those who know me may
find this genre a stretch for a punk rock dad like me. But you also know that the soundtrack to life
is what moves me. And “Here’s to the
Good Times” playing here has petrified the magnitude of our time together in my
memory forever. It totally reminds me of
her and our trip together.
During the vacation, we joked about being ‘great
teammates.’ And it became obvious that
we’re great together. It started with
her saddled next to me in the econo-box rental car. She navigated us out of Austin-Bergstrom and
onto HWY 71 west. Everywhere we went,
she had the turns on lock for us. She
made fun of billboards with George Bush and his dog, discovered Poodie’s
Roadhouse, and wanted to stop and get her picture taken with an Electric Avenue
street sign.
We’re so similar. I
had a ton of recommendations on food and drink while in Austin but all we
wanted was Tex-Mex and beer. She and I
made it our personal challenge to sample chips, salsa, and beer at as many
establishments as we could find. And to
raise the game further, we made sure we used social networks to check in and
tag each other like two crazy teenagers.
And as a drinking buddy, she totally excels. We frequented as many local watering holes as
we could. We hit 6th Street
in downtown Austin. It was just the
right amount of d-bags for us to mock. We hit the Continental Club on S. Congress for southern soul and cheap
beer. The best dive bar and most
eclectic group of people we’ve ever seen (or mocked). And then there was Poodie’s. Along the highway heading to Spicewood, we
found it; an old roadhouse; like Patrick Swayze-style roadhouse. There were a couple of live bands very Johnny
Cash in style and I almost got in a tussle with a 70 year old cowboy.
But it’s more than eating chips and drinking beer. She can shop. And I don’t mean that in a pretentious materialistic way. She was always thinking of our children and
what they might want. We spent the last
day drinking and shopping for her and the boys. La Condesa for lunch with the best bloody marys and on to a fashion
store called Austin Rocks. Skulls and
guitars on everything, she was in heaven!
We hit three bars on that last day before getting on that
plane that would send us back to reality. By the time we boarded, we were clutching onto a buzz-worthy flight. Giddy like school girls, on the plane we
dropped into our seats and continued to laugh and flirt. There was a UT coed sitting next to me on the
flight home. In a moment of discomfort,
my wife leaned over and put the arm rest down between the coed and me. A brief
marking of territory which may seem irrelevant but reminded me of how much I
mean to her. I couldn’t have been
happier. Well, a Lone Star beer may have been icing on the cake.
There was one casualty on the trip. After ripping around some local trails on the
bike, I came back to the house for a dip in the pool. My phone jumped in with me. My water-logged electronic device had a bunch
of these moments digitized but now were gone. So I took the opportunity to draw them from memory on these cocktail
napkins.
This is my wife chilling out poolside in the sun with a refreshing drink
This is my wife riding a Jackalope at a watering hole of the same name
This is my wife shopping on S. Congress Avenue
This is my wife in bed at noon after a night of drinking
This is my happy wife after a great vacation
Looking back on it all, I remember sitting on the edge of
the pool during a sunset, watching her float by on an air mattress. There was some tolerable country music
playing on the outdoor sound system and I had a beer in my hand. I realized.
She is the most amazing woman ever. I didn’t need this vacation to realize that. But I needed this vacation to be narrowly
focused on ONLY that.
It didn’t take Texas to make me realize just how important
moments like this are. But what it did
do was align life’s little moments in a way that I could comprehensibly read
and reflect on the magnitude of a trip like this with her. Best. Vacation. Ever. Best. Friend. Ever.
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