Biiiiig weekend so far

A pretty good weekend so far. Friday night we braved the heat and went to Central Market to see the Malford Milligan Band. There was no need for bravery, we got a shady spot right by the stage and it turned out to be a beautiful night with great music, and the sound was good too! Not bad for a grocery store event! I love Austin. Lots of people got up and danced, mostly children, and they are so much fun to watch. This boy had his ukulele and was looking really cool playing it. Another boy was really hamming it up with some dance moves. Fun! Had some really good food and a bottle of wine at a grocery store price (vs. a restaurant price... biiiig difference).

And speaking of biiiiig, this morning (Saturday) we went to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. They had the Big Bugs sculpture exhibit that I wanted to see. Really cool big bugs, completely made out of wood. All very beautiful. Here's the spider. I am arachnophobic so seeing a spider this size is probably therapeutic, although this one is not hairy-legged and drooling. aaaaakkkkk. The mantis (above) is something I was phobic about as a child. It's only because my mother and grandmother told me that a praying mantis would spit tobacco juice in your eye, so when we were in Hawaii (when I was only 2-3 yrs. old) I got cornered by a mantis... well maybe not cornered, but I needed to walk past it to get home and it wouldn't budge. So I was stuck there (it was a balcony deck) for what seemed like hours, waiting for someone to help me get past this mantis without a tobacco juice incident. Relatives!! What would their job be if it wasn't to scare the hell out of you as a kid, or embarrass the hell out of you as an adult? So anyway, my mantis phobia is long gone, and I visited the guy above without even a flinch (although I am still terrified of tobacco juice). No problem with these ants either. They had 3 of them positioned way out in the trail/field behind the center looking very much like "Them" had arrived.


- Austin -