January

A year ago today we were in Big Bend, seeing a part of Texas we hadn’t seen before. The next day, New Year’s Day, we drove up to Fort Davis and went for a hike in the Davis Mountains. Then we visited the McDonald Observatory, which was unfortunately closed for New Year’s. But I still got to go into one of the big telescopes, because, well, it wasn’t locked. No lights though, and I didn’t want to start flipping switches. Before leaving West Texas we also visited Marathon, another quirky little old town. We had coffee in a little shop that had stacks of the Santa Barbara Independent (!) to read. Another surprise that day, I ran into my old friend Quinton at a gas station near Abilene!

We also made a quick trip to Orlando for Ed’s birthday, right in the middle of grapefruit season. Yum! And we saw manatees!

I attended a fascinating class taught by Edward Tufte.

February

After our wonderful trip to Taos last year, we decided to try skiing there this year. On the drive there, we got to see the Cadillac Ranch covered with snow, and a herd of mystery animals which I later found out were pronghorns (Texans call them antelopes, but they aren’t really). We saw another herd of these later – they really are beautiful.

This time we rented a house on the Rim Road. A great house in a good location for skiing, but the roads were snowy and Rim Road is called that for a reason. Did you know I have a phobia about going over a cliff in a car? We did not die though.

The skiing was fantastic, not crowded. We also snowshoed one day. While we were having lunch in the lodge one day, our neighbor texting me a photo of our house with snow falling furiously. It snowed 13 inches in Dallas! I was sorry to miss that even though we were enjoying even better snow in New Mexico. When we got home, every other house in Dallas had a snowman in front.

We saw John Prine in concert over at SMU; he was very good (and funny, as we knew he would be).

March

One of our favorite restaurants burned down.

I took Mia to Dallas’ St. Patrick’s Day parade, which is pretty raucous and fun.

April

Ed and I took a Saturday morning bike ride over to the lake, had a great 22-mile ride, but on the way back as he signaled a left turn, he hit a reflector in the road and went over the handlebars, fracturing his collarbone pretty badly. It required surgery, and still bothers him. Quite a setback, as he was trying to get back into shape.

But, I got an iPad!

May

Mom and Dad visited for the world premiere of Moby Dick at the Dallas Opera, and I think they would say it was worth the trip. How the heck can you make a stage set about a whaling ship? Well they did it, and it was spectacular.

June

So hot. It got up into the 100’s early this year. I was going to try riding my bike every day again this summer like I did in 2008, but gave up.

July

Ed, frustrated by not being able to exercise and continuing to gain weight, decided to go on a diet. I, who had gained weight in sympathy, agreed to join him. We cut out alcohol and most of the usual things you don’t eat on a diet, and lost weight rather easily. Who knew?

August

Still hot, so I went to California! It was great to see the Steeles. I arrived during Fiesta, which was something I hadn’t seen before. There were cascarones (confetti eggs) smashed everywhere. In Texas you only see those on Easter. We attended several dance performances and ate some great food. I also went kayaking one day at Campus Point (with Kevin), went to the Botanical Garden (with Aidan), biked down Gibraltar Road and at Ealings Park (with Nico), went on a few hikes (with Linda), saw the movie Inception and went climbing (poorly).

September

By this time it should be obvious that we really like Taos. We went back yet again for two weeks. This time we rented two houses for two different experiences. The first week we stayed in town, which was nice because we could walk to restaurants and into town. The second week we stayed at an isolated house up a private road in the foothills near the ski mountain. This house was phenomenal, we liked every detail. It had a little writer’s cottage out back, and we tied our camping hammock out there. One night we slept outside on the second-story deck under the stars. In the mornings we could see the hot air balloons rise and then dip into the Rio Grande canyon. The only downside of the house was it was a one-mile drive down a very rutted dirt road just to get to the road to town, which was another six miles or so. The road was not bikeable (up anyway).

So this trip we went on several hikes and one backpacking trip. It was cold backpacking, but we were well-prepared. We even brought our iPads and watched a movie in the tent (just to say we did it). We went biking one day, Ed’s first time on the bike since his accident. He had a tough time; it was windy and he didn’t feel stable on the bike. We tried to bike another day, but after driving about 45 minutes, we got out to start riding and he felt it was too windy for him, so we drove back and I rode by myself up to the ski area, which is now an annual tradition for me. We also both bought new climbing shoes, and went bouldering. I feel better about my limited climbing skills now; it had just been so many years since I had climbed anything.

Yesterday one of my friends on Facebook posted “When was the last time you did something for the first time”? Well one thing I did for the first time this trip was fly fishing. Ed has wanted to do this for a long time. I thought I would be bored to tears, but I actually loved it. It’s nothing like regular fishing. You don’t stand in one place for long, you have to be smart and use strategy and skill, and the scenery is beautiful. And, I caught a fish!

Last year I was successful in my attempt to get cheap tickets for this year’s Austin City Limits Festival. They give out a few hundred for $50 (regularly $185), and I snagged two by watching Twitter and refreshing the page constantly. The festival was fun, we saw Black Keys, Spoon, Beach House, Broken Bells, Phish, Flaming Lips, Mountain Goats, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, Sonic Youth, Gogol Bordello, Pete Yorn, Lucero, Black Lips, Manchester Orchestra, Temper Trap, Deadmau5, M.I.A., Devendra Banhart, Portugal, the Man, Trombone Shorty, Robert Earl Keen, White Rabbits, Blind Pilot and Lance Herbstrong.

October

The two big October events here are the State Fair of Texas and Halloween, and we participated in both. The Phantom of the Opera was back on Swiss Avenue:

We were invited to Ed’s cousin Nicole’s wedding in Buffalo, so we combined that trip with a visit with Mom and Dad. I flew up ahead of time and spent some time with them, and then drove their jeep up to Buffalo and picked Ed up at the airport there. We stayed at the Roycroft Inn in East Aurora, something Ed has wanted to do for a long time. The inn was built by the Roycrofters, and Arts and Crafts guild. Ed’s sister Colleen stayed there also since we were. She didn’t know anything about it, thought it would be a regular hotel. The funny thing is that it turned out she used to work across the street from the place and didn’t know what it was.

The wedding was nice and it was nice to see all of Ed’s aunts and uncles and cousins again. I hadn’t been to Buffalo for a long time. We also went to see the Darwin Martin house, a Frank Lloyd Wright house. The main house is still being renovated, but we got to go into two of the other houses on the property. House house houses.

November

We went back to Austin to visit our friends Mike and Carla, and we had a relaxing traditional Thanksgiving with just the three of us. Last year it was just Ed and me, and we decided to do South American food instead of turkey with the fixings, but I missed it, so this year it was back to the old standbys.

For Erica’s birthday we took her and four of her friends out to dinner here in Dallas, which was fun.

December

It was a good year (fractured clavicles notwithstanding) up until the first of December, when Ed’s stepdad passed away. We made another trip to Orlando for the funeral. We were glad we have been going there more often lately, and Ed will always treasure the trip he took to Ireland with Bud et al three years ago.

Unexpected travel in early December means a rather frantic holiday preparation season (at least for me, who procrastinates until December). But I (kind of) got everything done by Christmas, and we had another relaxing day. We had to laugh at all the winter gear we got each other as gifts. We had lobster pot pie instead of fondue for Christmas Eve dinner, and prime rib for Christmas. Yum.

I think that’s it. I’ll try to do better next year.

I don’t know what we’re doing here, but it looks we were all having fun except the cat.

No kidding, Dallas had its first real white Christmas since the 1800’s this year. On Wednesday night when I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt I was thinking about making a joke post about how our chances for a white Christmas seemed to be slipping away. I really had no idea that snow on Christmas Eve was a possibility. Normally I would have been ecstatic to see a forecast of two inches in the afternoon of Christmas Eve, but this year, Erica had to work that day and was planning to drive home in the evening. And she doesn’t really have snow driving experience. But despite having to deal with snow the whole way, seeing two overturned SUVs and being delayed about an hour and a half by frozen overpasses, she made it home safely. So then we could enjoy a winter wonderland walk down Swiss Avenue, manhattans and paella.

Our Christmas mittens from Linda (as seen above) were a hit. Last week I went to my neighbor Mia’s Christmas play, which was about a little girl who lost a mitten while playing in the snow and hoped it would grow into a mitten tree. The play was adorable; her Montessori school includes preschool age kids who sang  the songs and then covered their ears when people applauded.

We all got great presents; Ed and I got top-grade cookware and Erica got a bunch of kitchen appliances. We should open a restaurant.

This Christmas was an exercise in flexibility. A lot of people in West Texas were stranded by the snow, including Mia and her grandparents, who didn’t make it home from a visit to El Paso for Christmas until late today and even then had to get creative with their route. Erica only had Christmas Day off of work. Our planned Christmas meals (fondue Christmas Eve and paella Christmas day) were disrupted by Ed accidentally having a huge ham dinner delivered here instead of to his parents’ house. So we had paella last night and tonight I had fondue and Ed and Erica had the ham. We all had the side dishes and desserts.

We only have patches of snow left tonight, but it’s cold again and Mia and I put out various freezing experiments: stacks of ice shards, bowls of water, leaves and seeds, etc. All the things northern kids traditionally do but southern kids can miss out on if nobody is paying attention.

A fun Christmas.

1. Tropical Storm Allison – 2001 This was my first (and hopefully last) time waking up in a disaster area. The anxiety caused by watching the water rise during the night followed by the shear awe of the devastation the next day was almost overwhelming. We were very fortunate, others weren’t.
2. Hurricane Rita – 2005 I can still feel the fear triggered by the satellite images of this monstrous storm headed right toward Houston … the reports that the hurricane was a Cat 5 … the frenzy of boarding up the house … and the anticipated loss of Galveston, which looked to be a goner, fear intensified by the recent impact of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans. Rita made me appreciate the value of having good, close neighbors who will help each other in the face of bad things, be it nailing plywood, handing out popsicles, arming the neighbors or having drinks together after a long day’s labor. I kept that in mind while choosing a neighborhood in Dallas. Again, we were very fortunate, others weren’t.
3. Hurricane Katrina – 2005 More specifically, the influx of thousands of New Orleans residents into Houston, the response of Houstonians, and the continuing social impact (crime, the controversy of long-term financial support, and some really cool new “evacuee” friends).
4. 9-11 – 2001 Obviously this would have been on the list no matter where we were living, but it is a defining moment nevertheless. Elements specific to my experience in Houston were the fact that I was working in a prominent skyscraper at the time, and our proximity to a military airfield meant there were a lot of disconcerting warplanes flying around. Also, for months I couldn’t glance at the Houston skyline during my morning drive to work without scanning for planes or smoke.
5. Snow on Christmas Eve – 2004 In Houston! I still can’t believe this happened.
6. Home tour – 2002 When we met one of our new neighbors in Dallas, she said “Now you know, you’re going to be asked to be on the (Swiss Avenue Historic District) home tour.” If that happens, I don’t know how I’ll react. On the one hand, being on the Heights Home Tour was a lot of work. On the other hand, it motivated us to make a lot of improvements to our house which ultimately helped us sell it, and I am proud that we did it. We’ll see.
7. Erica moving in with us – 2004 This had a huge impact on all of us, not only in the year Erica actually lived in our house and attended high school, but also in leading to her choice of the University of Texas for college and spending more of her vacation time with us than she used to due to proximity. It has also significantly strengthened her relationship with Ed, an effect that will no doubt last a lifetime.
8. Williams Tower Climber – 2002 The tragic fall (or jump, depending on whom you talked to) of Ryan Hartley from the 26th floor of the Williams Tower made me feel differently about the beautiful building I worked in for nearly five of my years in Houston. I am glad I did not witness the fall, but I am sorry I saw the aftermath. This was also my first (and hopefully last) time meeting with a grief counselor, recommended for managers of employees who had witnessed the incident as one of mine had.
9. Space shuttle Columbia demise – 2003 One thing I miss about Houston is the steady stream of astronauts that were trotted out at events to wave, sign autographs, or just be. NASA is a big part of Houston, and the Columbia accident really brought that home. And to top it off, it happened near Houston.
10. Dewey and Lizzie – 2001, 2003 I am writing this with former resident of the Houston SPCA shelter Lizzie purring in my lap. Our little native Houstonians are welcome Houston souvenirs.

Yesterday Ed and I went biking around the lake, then the three of us went to see a movie (Juno, which we all liked a lot). After the movie we had a drink in the theater bar waiting for it to get dark so we could drive around Highland Park and look at Christmas lights. The lights were good, although not funny like the lights in Woodland Heights in Houston.

This year we had our fondue outside by the firepit, which was nice. We had chocolate fondue, too. We had our karaoke Santa hooked up to my iPod playing Christmas carols in the dining room. Every year when we do this, I forget I have The Santaland Diaries in my Christmas playlist, and crack up when I walk in to see Santa lipsyncing to David Sedaris.

Ed decided to line the sidewalk and porch with tealights for some reason. It looked pretty. And wasn’t the full moon beautiful?
We had a modest Christmas morning this year, having gotten some of our presents early (spinning bike for Ed and me, plane ticket to San Diego for the Holiday Bowl for Erica), but Santa still brought a few things so we’d have things to play with today. Erica and Ed were surprised to find a Wii under the tree. Erica opened the Wii and said “ooh, now we need to get Guitar Hero”. Luckily, Santa had left Guitar Hero III, too! We also got some books, DVDs, cold weather bike gear, a large Buddha statue, a sailboat cover, a homemade candle, a high-tech cooking thermometer, a packaging opener, CDs, gift certificates, iPod accessories, straws to play with, and more. Oh, and Erica got all of the “good players” and the coach of the UT football team to sign a helmet for Ed, which is something he has wanted.
We had Christmas dinner with our neighbors across the street, who have lived there forever and tend to collect various neighbors for holidays. They probably had about twenty people come and go during the afternoon. Somebody in their family had received a ping pong table for Christmas, so they set it up in the front yard (temporarily) and held an informal tournament.

Now we’re back home, Ed is napping, Erica is playing Guitar Hero, and I am contemplating my next (and possibly last) move in the online Risk game I am playing with a few friends. Merry Christmas, everyone!

Ed and I tried to do a little Christmas shopping earlier, until his (I thought) whining about being cold turned into a very real onslaught of something that turned into shaking chills and nausea. He is in bed now, chills having turned into sweats. Unfortunately, he just got back from Mexico and fears food poisoning from some lettuce he accidentally ate on a tostada. I hope it’s something fleeting, as he hasn’t done any Christmas preparations. I will try to wrap up the Christmas shopping tomorrow assuming he can be left alone. Just as well staying in this afternoon in this weather.