It was my last day in Austin. There was one last coffee at the Once Over, a boatload of tacos as an early lunch, a bit of a wander around the Herb Bar, and finally dinner with the lovely Kate Payne and her wife JoAnn.
When I got back to the Rose/Press house, Raina and Emmett were still up. I watched Em play with his magnatiles and then we headed to bed where I read a few books to the boy before he and Raina lay down.
I haven’t left quite yet and I already miss them.
Tonight, we had dinner at the home of some of Raina and Andrew’s friends. They live up in the Austin hills and so are in possession of a most glorious view of the city. I wasn’t really set up for trying to shoot the lights of the city, but I was quite happy with the way in which they look in this out of focus shot.
We did a lot today, but I didn’t manage to capture any of it with my big camera (I could tell you a long, boring story about how my purse is empty in the bottom of my suitcase because I carried a guitar onto the plane yesterday and so I’ve been walking around with just a phone and wallet, but I’ll spare you anything more than that). So moments before I climbed into bed, I snapped a picture of said bed.
The true picture that best represents today is this one that I shot with my phone, of being in the kitchen with my sister, making dinner. We cook together so naturally and it is such a pleasure.
Certainly it helps that we were raised in the same household and so learned to cook from the same person, but there’s something more than just that in play when we make a meal together. We share a rhythm, a culinary temperament, and a desire to balance flavor with virtue. It makes for darn good, fun food and I only wish we got to do it more often!
Today felt like two in one. I woke up a few minutes after 5 am, in order to shower and get myself to the airport for a flight to Austin, TX. After six hours of reading and doing a little work on an airplane (we stopped in Tampa on our way), Raina and Emmett met me at the airport.
Once I had retrieved my bag, Andrew drove around to pick us up with Trevor and Reese in the back of the minivan. (Trevor is an old camp friend of my sister’s who is in town for an Acro Yoga workshop. Reese is an old buddy of Andrew’s who came to see The Mother Hips perform). It’s quite the party at Casa Rose/Press this weekend!
When we were all tucked into the van, we had lunch at a Tex-Mex spot (that oddly, I’d eaten at once back in 2009 with some Philly people while in Austin for SXSWi) and then hit the Whole Foods mothership for groceries. After that, it was back to the ranch to play with Emmett, make dinner, and catch up. All told, I ended up being awake for nearly 20 hours straight.
It might be hard to tell, but the photo above documents the position Emmett worked his way into while sleeping. Because who doesn’t sleep best when their head is wedged underneath the arm of a foam armchair?