i just booked our tickets to austin, september 23-29. kirk's brother kyle is getting married on the 27th! the ceremony is about 2 hrs away, but we are staying there for the first three nights and then driving to college station, which is where kirk was living when we first met, and it's also an hour closer to the church.

i've never been to austin! things i am excited about:

good tex-mex
specifically, mesquite chicken
college station friends
family! my new niece!
little road trips
fun austin exploring
(sadly, no roller derby games that week)

we might look for a b&b in austin...in college station we will hopefully stay with kirk's friend jason because allllll the hotels seem to be booked up. must be a football weekend! i actually miss that crimson color and that crazy aggie spirit. (okay, maybe also i miss wings n more.)

ETA: wonderful, we managed to pick three nights in austin right before the austin city limits music festival. b&b = FAIL. i am so not a music festival person, but for some reason i am really bitter we can't see alison krauss, gogol bordello, manu chau, other amazingness. sad.

this weekend:
lemon curd cheesecake (first cheesecake i have ever attempted!)


our family's traditional easter bread


ogling the country sheep

kirk is at work, i am at home tucked into bed with sleeping cats and books and papers. i wish this had been a magically productive weekend, with the paper draft i'd planned, along with 100+ completed pages of reading. but yesterday we drove to connecticut for canadian thanksgiving, with aunts and uncles and cousins and such. my senile grandfather claimed not to recognize the house, or anyone in it. he constantly makes a hissing sound, air rushing through his teeth, and he can't use silverware anymore. both my dad (in town from oregon) and my cousin were playing guitar while things were cooking; they played nice classical or low-key music, but as soon as they stopped, my grandfather would say, "thank you. jesus god that was awful."

i also heard a number of stories, a propos of immigration class and wanting to know things from my grandmother. she showed me a new box of old old photos, newly inherited: great-great aunts and uncles dressed in victorian muttonleg sleeves or bright white 1920s dresses in chicago, postcard prints and formal portraits, and a business card from my great-great grandfather springer, a housebuilder in fort wayne, indiana. i (re)learned that her family is three-fourths german (charlottensberg and berlin); and that my italian great-grandfather immigrated through ellis island instead of through canada, as i had assumed.

towards the end of the night, before we drove back to boston, the old ali baba toy basket was dragged out from the back bedroom, and the toy telephones and things were pulled out one by one, and my cousin danielle and i laughed until we cried remembering the ritualistic "who's in front of who" we chanted while running in circles on the yellow rug when we were four.