When I first met Ed, he did keep the tradition of giving something up for Lent. That’s how he had quit smoking a few years before I met him in fact. By the time I met him, he traditionally gave up alcohol for Lent. Or so he said. The first year I knew him, he gave up alcohol for a bit, then came up with some excuse to drink. The second year, he gave up alcohol for one night, and then we went out to an Italian restaurant where two priests were having wine with dinner, and he decided that if the priests were drinking, he could have wine, too. After that, he seemed to drink more than he usually does, and I proposed that Lent would henceforth be known as “Lentfest”. He has not given up alcohol for Lent since (I should hasten to point out though that when he gives up alcohol for dieting reasons, he has no problems whatsoever).

A few Facebook friends have mentioned what they are giving up for Lent today. My favorite is a Cajun friend from Lafayette, Louisiana, who says he is giving up his New Year’s resolutions.

A Mexican friend who is always hardcore is giving up all of her favorite things: candy, red meat, soda, and Chinese food. Which reminded me of a story she told me years ago; she listed all of the things she had given up, including tortillas. I said well, tortillas, I love them but I could go six weeks without eating them. And she said “No Susan, you don’t understand. We eat tortillas with every meal. The other night we ordered takeout Chinese food, and I heard the microwave going, and I said “Papa, why do you have the microwave going, the food is hot?”  And he said “I am heating up the tortillas.”

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.

Frey Thanksgiving on Vimeo.

2004: One of Ed’s darts team teammates opened a bar with a backyard that had a great view of the Houston fireworks, which are great but really crowded. Watching from here solved that problem.

2005: We went to a party at Erica’s boyfriend’s dad’s law office west of the Galleria, which had a view of downtown and the west suburbs. Erica’s boyfriend was attending the Air Force Academy at the time, so he wasn’t actually there.

2006: Santa Barbara! We watched the fireworks from a sailboat belonging to someone Kevin knew in the harbor.

2007: We had just moved into an apartment in Dallas, and had no idea where to view fireworks (the city doesn’t have any!). We went to the top level of our parking garage and watched some distant suburbian displays from an abandoned power boat that looked like it was from “Some Like it Hot”.

2008: After a potluck at our across-the-street-neighbors’, the entire party walked over to Lakewood Country Club (about three blocks), which has a great display.

2009: The White Rock Boat Club had a party out on their pier, with a band and a keg and grilled meats. We could see both the Fair Park and Lakewood Country Club fireworks, plus some random suburbs’ and illegal lakeside displays.

Who knows where we’ll be next year? I think we need to make a point of trying something new.

What a difference a good neighborhood makes. This year, we got up and went for a bike ride, and on our way back got caught up in the Lakewood Fourth of July parade. Lakewood is the nice neighborhood between our house and the lake. Their parade is a good old-fashioned one, with kids on bikes, homemade floats, classic cars and even one art car.

Later, some neighbors had a cookout for a bunch of people, which was fun. And add one more thing we can walk to from our house: fireworks! Lakewood Country Club, which is just a few blocks from our house, has a nice display. We walked over with a bunch of people from the cookout, and it sure was nice to walk right through the traffic jam afterward and be home in three minutes. The cutest thing was our neighbors’ two-year-old granddaughter, who walked over in bare feet, yelling “fire! run! everybody wave flags!”. She got the spirit of it, anyway.
Happy Fourth of July! Everybody wave flags!

Here’s the quote I liked:

“You were born on third base and your parents put you there, and you think you hit a triple. It’s not true.”

Thanks Mom and Dad! I sure do appreciate everything you did for us.

Anyway, here is the Google Earth file from the Santa Fe Century. I will post the pictures when I have a chance.

We had a nice relaxing Memorial Day weekend. Now that we don’t need to do long training bike rides, we can do a quick one-hour ride in the morning that is still quite effective. Our lake loop is about 15 miles, and has good hills, some wind, and is interesting. If we do that every day, we don’t die from the heat, but stay in shape until fall when it becomes more fun to exercise. It is a better setup than in Houston, as the lake loop beats anything there.

Usually we go for a drive on Memorial Day, usually to an old cemetery. We had a cemetery plan today, but in the end just decided to go for a motorcycle ride in town. Then we stopped for a beer at the Ginger Man (Dallas!), then went to a movie. It was a nice day, felt like ten years ago. Memorial Day is a good holiday!