Ornoth

Texas Toast

Thu, 06 Jun 2024 15:19:32 GMT

Eighteen months in Austin. Here’s a monologue about what I expected, or more properly the numerous things that surprised me, as a lifelong New Englander. If you’re curious, read on…

The Climate:

We knew Texas would be hot; it’s supposed to be hot. Guess what? It was hot. In fact, 2023 was Austin’s hottest summer ever recorded, and the driest year since 1910. In fact, it was hot enough that a friends’ house caught fire when empty wine bottles in his outdoor recycling bin spontaneously combusted!

But ya know what? We handled the heat. In fact, we handled it better than most Austinites, who surprised us with how much they complained about it. Granted, we do cherish our air conditioner, but even outdoors the lower humidity usually made the heat feel a lot less oppressive than we expected. It surprised us when Inna, a lifelong hater of hot weather and bright sunshine, caught herself complaining about a rare string of overcast days.

Still, when summer provides eighty days above 100°F, it changes how you look at things. The reggae song “96 Degrees in the Shade” by Third World doesn’t really justify its lyrical description of “real hot” anymore. It brings a wry smile when the Heat Miser – the main antagonist in the holiday special “The Year Without a Santa Claus” – sings “I’m Mister Hundred-and-One”. Pfft! Call me when it reaches 108°, dude.

With warm air baking the ground around our shallowly-buried water pipes, we had the novel experience of 94°F water coming out of our cold water tap, often warmer than what we got from the hot tap, where some water sitting in our indoor pipes got cooled by our air conditioning! And thanks to South Central Texas’ extreme drought, our tap water often tasted like moldy water from the bottom of a pond.

Another thing we had to get used to was that our two-story apartment has significantly different climate zones. Due to its open plan, the upper story is far warmer than the ground floor, both in winter and in summer. This has actually worked out for us, where my work space is upstairs and Inna’s is downstairs.

Another surprise was that even though it doesn’t often get very cold, the days’ length still shortens noticeably in the winter. Granted, Austin’s 10¼ hours of winter daylight is still 90 minutes more than I got growing up in Maine; but it’s still dark enough to discourage one from going out after 6pm in the winter.

That brought Inna some cognitive dissonance. She’s used to going out and being most social during the summer because that’s when the days are longest and the temperature is most comfortable in Pittsburgh. But in Austin, you have to choose comfort or daylight: either you socialize in the summer when the days are long but it’s too hot to be outside; or you force yourself to go out in the winter when temperatures are comfortable but it gets dark early.

And heat and drought aren’t the only dramatic weather we’ve experienced. A month after we moved in, Austin was crippled (and we lost both a huge tree and our water lines) in a destructive ice storm (writeup & pix). There are frequent thunderstorms which can be both intense and immense, and we recently had a two-day power outage after a storm fried two transformers on our street. The worst storms can bring sudden hail, and there’s nothing like being bombarded by grapefruit-sized chunks of ice falling at 180 km/h to get your attention (and that of your auto and home insurance adjusters)!

Nature:

Moving south, what did I fear most? Bugs! I expected all manner of nasty, poisonous, invasive critters. And yeah, we got a few, but there weren’t all that many, and they mostly stayed out of our house.

When we arrived, our space was home to a handful of ladybugs, but they were quickly removed and never returned. Yeah, we had to deal with a couple small German and large American roaches that found their way indoors, but they were a rare shock.

But one day we discovered one small scorpion in a ceiling light fixture – the first any of us had ever seen in our lives – which sent the entire household into a panicked killing frenzy. That underscored a Texas rule that we hadn’t been aware of: always check your shoes before you stick your feet into them!

There’s been ample wildlife in our yard, which backs up to a wooded creek. We’re plagued by an absolutely fearless herd of deer that own the area. And summer was an uninterrupted eight-month cacophony of cicadas. The fireflies were so numerous in spring that a neighbor called out the electrical company, thinking he was seeing arcing power lines!

We’ve had green anoles, hummingbirds, a ton of cardinals, and nesting hawks. On rare occasions we’ve seen garter snakes, armadillos, and even a coyote. Farther afield, on the bike I ran into actual vultures and real-life roadrunners!

Another completely unexpected delight were the flowers, which were profusely strewn everywhere. Spring is heralded by vivid bluebonnets and red Texas indian paintbrush that are seemingly everywhere. Crepe myrtle trees decorate the streets a little later. And brilliant fiery red and orange Pride-of-Barbados bushes bloom for most of the year. There were also flowers that didn’t open until October and November’s “second spring”. And after a hard freeze, our backyard frostweed plants were decorated with shockingly elaborate ice sculptures around their bases. It really was an amazing, year-long, colorful show; tho I’ll always miss New England’s lilacs and lily of the valley.

Government & Politics:

Speaking of New England, I grew up in Maine, so I’m used to being an urban liberal within an area where the countryside is dominated by conservatives. And I most recently lived in Pittsburgh, another progressive enclave surrounded by the election deniers who led the 2021 insurrection against the United States of America. I expected more of the same from Texas, and it mostly delivered, being about as full of rednecks as Western Pennsyltucky once you venture outside the city.

But it also surprised me in some shocking and disturbing new ways. I’ve never lived in a city that was so openly besieged as Austin is. The arch-conservative state legislature and governor make no attempt to hide their pervasive attempts to make the state’s liberal cities fail – and Austin in particular – in any way they can. This includes sending in state troopers (essentially military shock troops) to terrorize (“police”) the population.

They can do this because Austin’s police force has essentially abdicated its responsibility to ensure law and order. Like most places, Texas’ police officers are right-leaning, and would like to see Austin fall into chaos to prove that progressive ideas inevitably lead to social disorder. So after the violence of the Black Lives Matter protests, when there were calls to de-fund the police, many of them left the force, leaving it chronically understaffed, or stayed on but simply stopped doing their jobs… even though the Austin PD’s budget was never reduced, and has actually grown significantly.

Augment their quiet-quitting with an understaffed and underpaid 911 system, where emergency callers might wait on hold for 45 minutes before their call is even answered. Think about how this situation – continued over years and decades – plays into the hands of thieves, gangs, violent criminals, drug addicts and dealers, and everyday self-important egomaniacs unwilling to check their selfish impulses. Then you begin to understand the degree of lawlessness and sense of vulnerability that one has to endure living here.

It was an interesting coincidence that a thief ditched a car on our street and sped off on foot through our yard on the very day we moved in. And then there’s the need to make an appointment three to six months in advance to get anything done at the DMV. The state of Texas is fatally broken in several ways.

I wasn’t wrong to expect rednecks in Texas, but what really surprised me was the level of barefaced organized warfare against the state’s largest communities and their citizens. The resulting undercurrent of unsafety is by far the biggest negative we’ve experienced as part of our move. It’s profoundly scary.

Social:

Finally, just a few random observations about how things work down here.

I expected life in Austin to be way more dependent on motor vehicle travel than Boston or even Pittsburgh. That proved out. On the other hand, our house is in a great location: less than a klick to a major highway, but at the end of a small dead-end street that’s buried in a quiet, wooded valley. It’s really quite delightful. While it’s not required in our hilly northwestern suburb, much of the city needs to actively water the clay around foundations of their homes to keep them from moving and cracking!

I expected there to be more stuff going on in Austin than in Pittsburgh, and that’s been a mixed bag. There’s a lot of collegiate-level partying and drugs and soulless entrepreneurial ventures, but much less art and cultural stuff than we expected. Tho to be fair, Pittsburgh did very well with that for a small city, given its philanthropic heritage.

One surprising way that Austin is like Boston is that – although people are quite friendly – deep friendships are hard to form and usually quite casual and transient. Because there’s lots to do, people are usually already busy and booked up with their own stuff, and don’t respond well to ad hoc get-togethers. Because it’s a boom town with college students and young professionals constantly moving in and out, it discourages making permanent connections. So there are definitely challenges on the social front.

And every so often we have a little food dissonance. Sometimes it’s just that Thai restaurants here serve curries containing just meat… no veggies! Or perhaps it’s the Bumble Bee Jalapeño-Seasoned Tuna? Or the Heinz Jalapeño Ketchup?

Overall:

After reviewing dozens of possible landing spots, it was obvious that no city would be perfect. And once we settled on Austin, Inna and I knew there’d be some major trade-offs required. Some of our fears were legit, and some of the drawbacks make life here extremely challenging.

But we made our commitment and followed through, and so far, we have both been very happy here. Over the past eighteen months, Austin has fulfilled our needs, provided an exotic new adventure, and become the background for this new chapter of our lives. And we continue to learn new things about life here every day.

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Twist Away the Gates of Steel

Thu, 30 May 2024 20:41:17 GMT

Now that I’m 18 months removed from it, I’d like to reflect on my seven years in Pittsburgh.

Let me apologize in advance; this’ll be more negative than positive, because I want to talk about why I left. My intention isn’t to shit on anyone’s chosen hometown. There really is a lot to like about Pittsburgh and Western PA, many good reasons to live there, and lots of genuinely awesome people. But I also want to be forthright about why I was eager to leave.

By far the biggest reason actually had nothing to do with Pittsburgh itself; it’s just that I never intended to stay. When I left Boston in 2015, my #1 desire was to finally move somewhere warm, after enduring 50+ New England winters. Pittsburgh’s weather wasn’t much of an improvement, so I always knew Pittsburgh was a temporary stop on my way to something else. Even before I arrived, moving away was a foregone conclusion, though it did become more urgent as the years ticked by and my patience ebbed.

Before I moved to Pittsburgh, my impressions of Western PA were informed by two or three trips to the SCA’s Pennsic War, one DargonZine Summit, several trips to visit Inna, plus some trips to do database work with the local hospitals. Based on that, my pre-move image of Pennsylvania was of beautifully scenic wooded rolling hills and farmland, with Pittsburgh as a leading center of medical excellence.

After living there for seven years, I left with a very different impression: that of an exploited and poisoned environment, with more openly mean-spirited people than I was used to.

But let’s start with what I thought were some of Pittsburgh’s best features:

The countryside really is strikingly beautiful, when seen from a safe distance.
Pittsburgh has a compact, attractive downtown with a beautiful skyline that’s shown off well from its dramatic gateway entrance and numerous surrounding hilltop overlooks.
There’s lots of noteworthy architecture and cultural institutions, thanks largely to the philanthropic legacy of Pittsburgh’s oil, steel, and industrial magnates.
There is an easily-accessible and uncrowded casino whose state-stipulated blackjack rules are more advantageous for the player than nearly anywhere else.
The airport pipes in music from local classical radio station WQED.

Yes, citing a casino and crowd control music as top features is an instance of damning with faint praise, and I have a lot more negative things to say. But before I dig into those, I’d like to mention a few things about Pittsburgh that were both good… and bad. Let me show you what I mean:

Land and housing are extremely affordable. That would be delightful, except it’s due to the fact that Pittsburgh’s population has not grown in any 10-year census period since 1950, shrinking by 55% in that span, leaving a lot of underutilized, vacant, and/or abandoned properties.
The winters are slightly better than Boston, with considerably less cold and snow than Maine. Being further south, winter days have more daylight hours, and should have more sunshine and less oppressive darkness. But you actually see less sun during the winter. Although thankfully not inside the Great Lakes snow belt, Pittsburgh is close enough that there’s perpetual overcast skies and sporadic light flurries all winter long, and that lack of sun can be just as depressing as the shortened days up in Maine.
Pittsburgh’s airport is spacious and quick to get through… But that’s because it was built as a major USAir hub just before that airline’s insolvency. Today PIT handles a minuscule fraction of the volume it was designed for. You can’t escape the cognitive dissonance when the loudspeakers proudly announce “Welcome to Pittsburgh!” and it echoes down the vast corridors of an empty airport.
Pittsburgh is arguably the hilliest city in the US. As a cyclist, the upsides are intense physical workouts and memorable events like the infamous Dirty Dozen hillclimb; while the downside is a dearth of calm, relaxing routes, because all the flat land has been claimed by highways, railroads, warehouses, and industry. And if you’re a driver, those hills can be treacherous in winter.
There’s a very friendly cycling community and loads of interesting cycling events. On the other hand, it can be difficult to get around on a bike, as there aren’t many good options heading east or south or west of the city.

And now we get to the heart of the matter: the things about Pittsburgh that turned me off. I tried to whittle this down to major points while still making myself clear.

It’s dirty.

To be fair, there’s been a ton of progress in the 150 years since Atlantic Monthly described Pittsburgh at the height of its industrial output as “hell with the lid taken off.” But a lot of damage done to the land, water, and air by the coal, oil, gas, iron, and steel industries still remains. Western PA is the only area outside California that consistently receives all ‘F’ grades in the American Lung Association’s air quality reports, and often records the worst air quality in the US. Even today, the culture of fouling the environment still lingers, as can be seen in the preponderance of roadside litter and illegal garbage dumping. Having grown up in the Maine woods, the lack of respect for the natural environment disturbed me.

It’s blighted.

I’ve already mentioned the population decline and abundance of abandoned and condemned buildings, so I won’t belabor it, save to say that the amount of urban decay and blight is off-putting. I’m sure it didn’t help that Pittsburgh was in receivership for 14 years (from 2004-2018), despite residents paying an extra 1.5% city income tax!

Collapsing infrastructure.

Pittsburgh has some unique challenges that other cities don’t. The steep topography means that parts of the city get flash floods (Washington Blvd, Mon Wharf, the Bathtub, Millvale, Glass Run). And there are seasonal landslides that can close roads for months (Greenleaf, Commercial, Pittview, Route 30). But then there’s also numerous avoidable, man-made infrastructure failures. For example, during my brief years in Pittburgh:

The Fern Hollow Bridge carrying Forbes Ave over Frick Park collapsed.
Concrete slabs from the Swindell Bridge fell onto the Parkway North, forcing closures on I-279.
More concrete fell from the Greenfield Bridge over the Parkway East (I-376) , so the state built a semipermanent “bridge” underneath the main bridge just to catch the falling debris.
Several building facades collapsed in the Southside, Lawrenceville, and the Strip, including Kraynick’s bike shop.
A Pittsburgh city transit bus was driving along Liberty Ave in the heart of downtown when a huge sinkhole opened up and swallowed it whole.
An entire parking deck collapsed in the Penn Hills.
Repeated train derailments in the South Side, Harmar, and a dramatic moving conflagration as a burning train rolled on obliviously for twenty miles through Freedom and Harmony, PA.

So much anger.

I don’t want to overemphasize this, because I made a lot of wonderful friendships in Pittsburgh. But in comparison to New England, many Western PA locals seemed eager to take opportunities to be rude or mean toward one another, while hiding behind the anonymity of the internet or ensconced in their self-propelled rolling fortresses. Pittsburgh has a lot of schadenfreude, which was unpleasant.

A culture of unlawfulness.

A lot of cities found themselves at odds with their own police forces following the Black Lives Matter protests and de-funding rumors, but Pittsburgh already had a head start. Speeding has historically never been enforced; in fact, it’s still illegal today for county and local law enforcement to use radar guns to enforce speed limits! In seven years living (and riding) there, I don’t think I ever saw a state trooper, and saw only one or two traffic stops by local police.

The Covid pandemic provided another disincentive to conduct minor traffic stops. And the police reacted hostilely to BLM and de-funding protests. Then both the city council and even bike advocates asked the cops to stop traffic enforcement! All this made it much more dangerous to be a pedestrian, cyclist, or motor vehicle operator in Pittsburgh. Tho sadly, I now realize this is a much broader problem than just Western PA.

Monopolies in healthcare and groceries.

Healthcare in Pittsburgh is dominated by UPMC. Because it’s loosely affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh, this immense hospital chain does everything it can to take full advantage of its categorization as a non-profit. No one I talked to had a positive experience with them, whether as a patient or an employee.

Pittsburgh also suffers from a near-monopoly in grocery stores. You would think that when I lived in downtown Boston’s tony Back Bay, my groceries would have been extremely costly; but my food bill actually jumped 25% higher after I moved to Pittsburgh.

Misplaced regional pride.

I get it: every place needs to have a sense of regional pride. But it’s kind of lame that the “Paris of Appalachia” bases its sense of identity on things that are ubiquitous throughout urban America, such as putting a chair out to reserve a parking space, or trying to jump the green when turning left at a traffic light. Or rabid loyalty to a company like Heinz, which left Pittsburgh 20 years ago. Or mindlessly hating all the other cities in the region (Philadelphia, Cleveland, Buffalo, Detroit). Sure, take pride in your city, but make some effort to identify the things that genuinely make Pittsburgh special; the “Pittsburgh Left” ain’t it.

The food.

I just don’t know how Pittsburgh gained its reputation as a city for foodies.

Let’s consider the foods Pittsburghers take pride in: Beer. Ketchup. Pickles. Lenten fish frys. Pierogies. And sticking french fries into literally everything. None of these qualify as “cuisine”. If I were a Pittsburgher, I’d be ashamed.

And while I’m admittedly a culinary philistine myself, I didn’t find any places that impressed me in my preferred food zones, like burgers, Indian, and Mexican food. Thai was a wasteland except for Thai & Noodle Outlet. Pizza wasn’t “all that” but Aiello’s was tolerable… tho they (and their arch-rival Mineo’s) still refuse to deliver and require payment in cash. And the best Pittsburgh could offer for ice cream was Bruster’s (no, don’t talk to me about Page’s or Dave and Andy’s).

Toxic redneck culture.

I grew up among rednecks. A lot of my family were rednecks. Almost everywhere I’ve lived, there have been a lot of rednecks. And outside of Pittsburgh’s city limits, Western PA is infested with rednecks.

I just don’t fit into – or get along well with – that culture anymore. The rabid devotion to the local sportball teams (The Stillers, The Pens). The preoccupation with beer and alcohol. The gun fetish (open and concealed carry are both legal). The mindless nationalism. The constant othering and barefaced xenophobia. The utter absence of compassion or open-mindedness.

Several Western-PA wing-nuts played leading roles in the 2021 Trump-inspired attempt to overthrow the United States government. And in 2018, less than a mile from our apartment, the deadliest massacre of Jews in United States history took place. I hope I don’t need to tell you how offensive those are.

In closing:

Pittsburgh was a city of contradictions and trade-offs. Western PA was beautiful, if you looked past the pollution and decay. The cycling was great, but also quite challenging. It was inexpensive (housing), except where it wasn’t (groceries). I met plenty of wonderful people (undoubtedly including the Pittsburghers who are reading this), and about as many that were truly hateful.

Although the winters, as the natives say, “weren’t all that”, it was a fine place to spend a half-dozen years. I have a lot of very fond memories of Pittsburgh. Those include the many valued friends I made; the heart-warming meditation communities that welcomed me and nurtured my growth as a teacher; plus the people and landscapes and rides that I enjoyed while cycling. These will stay with me forever.

But from the very beginning, I always planned to move farther south, beyond the clutches of the Snow Miser. And as the years passed, I needed to move on to a warmer, sunnier place.

It goes without saying that Austin, our new home, came with its own set of pleasures and challenges… But that’s a story for another post.

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Austinitis

Thu, 19 Jan 2023 16:54:42 GMT

Our move over the holidays from Pittsburgh to Austin was a long, hard road… both literally and figuratively. Here are some of the lowlights (plus a couple highlights) from the hectic, stressful, and eventful month gone by.

Final week at Hobart Street

Boxing up Hobart Street produced an unanticipated cat fortress!

Closing the book on the Hobart Street apartment

Hell is real... especially in Ohio!

Home at last, after a 1,450-mile road trip

Orny broke a couple chairs out of the moving trailer to make the wait for our movers more comfortable

We successfully moved our huge pile of mess from one place to another

The lease on our new Austin home began on December 15, but there was no way Inna and I could finish packing up our belongings that quickly, so we made arrangements with movers for December 28th.

The overwhelming sensation in December was stress. All the packing, selling, giving away, donating, or trashing all our belongings took time and the dust we kicked up caused my asthma to start acting up.

Then there was the weather. A week-long arctic blast brought record cold and wind chills below -25°F, and of course I’d prematurely sealed up the box containing my winter coat and boots. It was like the northeast -- where I’ve lived for my entire life -- was taking one final, vicious swipe at me for daring to move south.

The brutal cold snap laid bare some of our old apartment’s frailties. The window in our spare bedroom fell apart in my hands. The jerry-rigged kitchen sink plumbing gave way on Christmas Eve, and the landlord’s Christmas Day repairs only revealed further downstream blockages, presumably due to frozen pipes, so we were left with no water in the kitchen. All this trauma happened while Inna was out of town for four days, visiting family. It made me very glad we would be getting out of that death trap, if only Mother Nature would let us! But all this sure made it easier for us to leave Pittsburgh.

During the bitter cold, I had to post no-parking notices and claim four parallel parking spaces in front of our house that would be required for the 28-foot U-Pack trailer that we’d be loading into. Although it was a nerve-wracking wait for other people’s vehicles to move on, I was finally able to clear the space and the trailer was dropped off on time.

That night before loading day, Inna and I stuffed our cat Begemot into the car to go set up a temporary household in her mother’s condo a couple blocks away. But in the middle of a quick stop to pick up Indian food on busy Murray Ave, the car refused to start! This did nothing to assuage my anxiety about setting off on a 1,450-mile road trip in a 14 year old car!

After some worried fiddling, we managed to get the engine to turn over and drove our reduced household over to our temporary digs. But Begemot immediately hid himself in an inaccessible corner of the basement. And after we fished him out and confined him in our bedroom, he kept us awake the entire night while he suffered his own sneezing/asthma fits and freaked out over being in an unfamiliar place.

That was our segue into:

Week at Mom’s

After our first sleepless night at mom’s, the cold snap broke, and we went back to the apartment to meet four guys from “Zooming Moving” of Salem, Ohio who would load our belongings into the trailer. They seemed smart and fast, taking 2½ hours to load our 155-ish boxes and pieces of furniture into less space in the trailer than we believed possible. It was magical watching our place rapidly clear out, then seeing everything stuffed trash-compactor style into a tiny section of our trailer (FYI that was a clever bit of foreshadowing, there). When we asked them at the last minute, they even squeezed in four chairs that Inna had feared she’d have to give away.

Once the trailer was locked and the guys gone, Inna called and arranged to have U-Pack pick it up. I visited my oral surgeon for a previously-scheduled followup that was painless but carried disappointing news. Afterward I circled back to the old apartment and found the trailer had been hauled away, so I pulled down the parking signs and went across town to visit El Burro: a favorite burrito joint.

That was on Wednesday the 28th, but we didn’t plan to leave Pittsburgh until the following Tuesday, to avoid being on the road over the New Years holiday. So we had a week to close up the old apartment and hit up some favorite places, which included ice cream at Bruster’s, lunch at Pamela’s diner, and dinner from Thai and Noodle Outlet. For Inna in particular, it was the end of an era, having lived in that apartment for 12 years!

On one hand, it was a major relief that we could stop working like slaves; all the packing and planning was finally done and over with! We even had time to run a load of laundry! And we watched with delight as our stuff traveled to Ohio, then spent the holiday weekend in Arkansas, and arrived in Austin on Monday, eight days earlier than our promised delivery date!

On the other hand, we found ourselves with too much time and nothing to do, combined with the uncomfortably cold temperature of Inna’s mother’s condo. The waiting was especially hard on Inna, who -- having committed to the Austin move -- was eager to hit the road.

And I had time to reflect on how even the holidays had been out to get us this year. Halloween featured my oral surgery; Inna twisted her ankle during our Austin trip over Thanksgiving, and our old apartment’s electrical panel went bad the night we returned; a frigid Christmas featured frozen water pipes and hectic packing while Inna was away visiting her father; and we were spending New Years living out of a suitcase at Inna’s mother’s condo, while our new house and all our stuff was already waiting for us in Austin!

But time passed, the calendar ticked over to 2023, and our long-anticipated departure date finally arrived.

The Drive

Between our fatigue, a stressed-out cat, and our 14 year old car, we allocated three days for the 1,450-mile drive down to Austin. We’d made reservations at Red Roof Inns along the way, relying on their open policy toward pets. Setting out, we were tired and nervous, but happy that things had gone as well as they did.

We left Pittsburgh on Tuesday January 3th in steady rain that tapered off the further we went. The three of us all fared well, and after nine hours we pulled into our motel in Nashville. I downed a terrible “jalapeno cheez chicken” from the Mexican place next door and settled in. The room was garbage, with broken lights, thermostat, and faucet. Bigi’s stress-response asthma was really bad. Then at 5am a group of assholes came around screaming and pounding on doors, and took three body-slams attempting to bust our door in. It was very reminiscent of our horrifying experience at our Austin motel in November. What the fuck is it with you Southerners that you turn into raving murderous assholes when you go to a motel?

After a horrible night we set out on the middle leg of our journey. Inna did most of the driving on a sunny day, enjoying the 75 MPH speed limit through memorable towns like Bucksnort, Tennessee. In the middle of Arkansas we had our one worrying car malfunction when our tire pressure monitor signaled too high air pressure. But it reset after we pulled aside for a lengthy stop, and we proceeded more gingerly. Our motel in Texarkana was less run-down, but I was so wary about the guys hanging out in the parking lot that I couldn’t eat. Fortunately we didn’t have any more overnight visitors, but the cat’s asthma made for another rough night.

On the final day we got up and showered, then faced our shortest drive of the trip, all of which improved our moods. After seeing a bunch of beaver-bearing billboards advertising “Buc-ee’s” truck stop, Inna decided to stop and check one out. It’s kinda of like Pittsburgh’s Sheetz -- a local favorite convenience store -- only with the ridiculous size, decor, and attitude of a huge casino. We definitely weren’t in Kansas anymore! Then, as Austin came into welcome view, we reflected on how well both the car and cat had done on the road trip; the latter experiencing only one outburst in response to Inna’s singing along with her chosen tunes.

Arriving midafternoon on January 5th, our first stop was of course the new house. After discovering that the real estate agent’s promised lockbox was nowhere to be seen, we found the key literally under the doormat and let ourselves in, giving the place a quick once-over. I got our fiber internet router set up while Bigi began to to settle in; meanwhile, Inna made a grocery run and tried to track down the king-sized mattress that FedEx was supposed to deliver for us.

We’d reserved a hotel in Austin in case we got in late, and decided that was preferable to sleeping on the floor, so we bundled poor Bigi back into the car. Our room was fine, but we had another restless night and checked out early the next morning to spend the day at home, watching for our mattress.

Taking up residence

Watching for deliveries proved very fruitful, as we received not only our mattress, but also Inna’s laptop, which we’d dropped off at an Apple store in Pittsburgh for repairs, and a huge grocery bag full of useful stuff (including notably non-Heinz ketchup) from Inna’s former Pittsburgh/now Texas friend Traci.

After making my own grocery run, I was hanging around and saw a kid park his car at the end of our cul de sac and jog between our house and the neighbor’s. I shrugged it off as a local picking up something he’d forgotten. But ten minutes later Austin cops swarmed the area, took possession of the car, flagged me to tell them if I’d seen anything, and started a manhunt complete with search dogs! Day One in our new house, and there’s both criminals and police crawling around our property. I’m afraid Bigi was the only one of who was feeling secure in our new home. But hey, it was January 6 and a delightful 78°F!

Over the next three days we worked to slowly make the place more livable. We didn’t have anything to sit on, but procured our new mattress, bed sheets, food, trash bags, a dish rack, and started laundering things. Bigi’s asthma receded and he became more adventurous, but – in characteristic feline style – he also managed to cover himself in ashes while exploring the fireplace.

Getting our stuff home

Meanwhile, our stuff had been sitting at a shipping warehouse for a week, and we were eager to have it delivered. Because our house is on a steep hill and a narrow dead-end street, U-Pack couldn’t drop our trailer off at the house, so we had hired another moving company -- a national chain ironically named “Two Men and a Truck” -- to transfer our belongings into a smaller truck and shuttle it from U-Pack’s depot to the house.

Since the trailer had arrived early, we got the movers to bump our job up to Monday, but when we met them at the facility, they showed up in a truck that was even bigger than the trailer! And that was the smallest truck they had. No way could they move our stuff, nor would they move it into a smaller rental truck like a U-Haul. We were completely screwed. After much wrangling, their chief agreed to use a company minivan the next day to shuttle our stuff from the top of our hill down to our house. To add one more frustration to the day, I grazed a low retaining wall trying to back out of our insanely un-navigable driveway and knocked an exhaust tip from our Accord.

The next morning – January 10th – we met up with the movers and they shuttled our stuff from the U-Pack trailer into their big truck. That was when we learned the downside of the “amazing” packing job that Zooming Moving did back in Pittsburgh: lots of damaged belongings. Three pieces of wooden furniture were broken and more than half of the 22 plastic bins we’d used had been crushed. Fortunately, not much stuff had actually spilled out, so I used plastic wrap to patch together the shattered bins. But our poor stone “Boo-boo Buddha” statue – so named because he had originally come with a chipped knee – was now fully decapitated! The only good news was that our two big glass desktops had somehow arrived intact.

After loading and the 20-minute drive to our place, I showed their driver why U-Pack hadn’t dropped our trailer in front of our house: the steep, curving descent down our street, the overhanging tree branches, the sloping narrow driveway, and the limited space in our cul de sac for turning around. While using a panel van to shuttle our stuff would suck, we thought it too dangerous to try to bring a huge moving van down that hill.

But the driver was a young Black guy fresh out of high school, and he fearlessly wanted to try it. I told him it was all on them, but he actually managed it. He parked the van at a precarious tilt and chocked the wheels.

The movers still had to carry our stuff down the driveway, but they were able to unload, saving us the extra time, expense, and damage that using the minivan would have required. It wasn’t quite as magical seeing all our stuff pile up in the living room. But despite all our pointless worrying, the entire job was done in just over four hours, leaving us shoulder-deep in a fortress of cardboard boxes, broken plastic bins, and randomly-scattered furniture.

And with that, our long-anticipated move south and the month-long moving ordeal was finally complete! Even after so much stress and all the trials thrown at us, we were now in our new place in Austin, complete with all our stuff, including Inna’s car and Bigi the cat.

Our next step was to begin digging out from the mess, but we put that on hold long enough to enjoy a well-earned celebratory dinner at Inna’s favorite: Lupe’s Mexican restaurant.

Life since then…

It’s been a week and a half since our stuff arrived, and we’ve had time to address most of the mess and begin getting comfortable in our new base of operations. In the wake of our move, there’s lots of organizing, arranging, and decorating to do, but we can thankfully say that the hard work is complete and behind us.

In addition to literally “getting our house in order”, Inna and I have made our first few expeditions afield, starting to explore all that Austin has to offer. We’re really excited to start going places, seeing people, and doing things… Finally building the new life that the two of us have dreamed about for so very long.

Stay tuned for our further adventures!

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Homing In On Austin

Tue, 06 Dec 2022 02:52:24 GMT

Twelve days in Austin. It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. Our goal was to secure housing, so let’s see how that went…

Prologue

When I left Boston in 2015, my goal was – after fifty New England winters – to move somewhere beyond the clutches of the Snow Miser. The reason behind my temporary stopover in Pittsburgh was to test whether Inna and I could make a partnership work (which we happily have done, for the past seven years).

Between our differing requirements and a lengthy delay due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we took years to decide where we’d like to relocate to. But after a visit this past April, we finally found a location we could both agree on: Austin, Texas.

The next step was a followup trip to look for an apartment. When Inna’s Austin-based Circling community scheduled a four-day workshop for mid-November, we decided to extend that visit to two weeks, spending the balance of our time house-hunting, then flying back to Pittsburgh on Thanksgiving Day.

Walking the Path

Q2 Stadium

360 Bridge from Mt. Bonnell

Mt. Bonnell NOTICE

Wendel Interior

Wendel Backyard

Wendel Brook

Sat November 12: Travel

Our flights down (via O’Hare) were fine, with only minor drama when our motel prematurely charged Inna’s credit card for our entire stay before we’d even arrived!

Wanting to be as central as possible, the motel we booked was located right underneath the main I-35 expressway. It was a dark, musty affair that was pleasantly inexpensive, except for the day of the University of Texas football game, when the daily rate jumped from $80 to $300!

Meanwhile, Google Maps did its best to keep us on our toes by insisting we take “Exit 236: Dean Keeton Thirty-Second Minus Thirty-Eight and a Half Street”. I’m not sure but I think that would be “Negative Six and a Halfth Street.”

After pizza at Love Supreme, we made supply runs to Dollar General and Trader Joe’s.

The evening was completed by the Pan-Mass Challenge announcing this year’s fundraising total: $69 million. That is the single biggest donation that the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has ever received. But it raised questions in my mind about how and whether I will be able participate in the event an 18th time next year, after our relocation to Texas.

Sun November 13: House-Hunting Day 1

Sunday was surprisingly cold (-2°C). We would have a few nice days in Austin, and a few showery ones, but temperatures were mostly a bit cooler than normal.

We headed to our first house appointment and met up with Alexandria, the awesome real estate agent we were using as our point person. We visited four units (4801 Ave. H, 1700 Perez St., 2200 Spring Creek, and 8607 Dawnridge Cir.), and accidentally checked out another from the outside (1126 Hollow Creek). Three were clear “nos”. Perez felt dark and a bit small but was a maybe, and Dawnridge wasn’t bad except it was quite a ways out of town.

After the shortest “30-minute wait” we’d ever experienced, we had lunch a the Bouldin Creek Cafe followed by a relaxing stroll down the bike path along Barton Creek. Then back to the motel to look at tomorrow’s itinerary.

Dinner was Chinese from TSO, a strip mall take-out joint where the door surprisingly opened directly into the kitchen, with no real pretense at a commercial “front”.

Mon November 14: House-Hunting Day 2

We hit three houses on a rainy Monday. 1309 Corona was cheap, dark, and claustrophobic. 11633 River Oaks was just way too far out, and next to a future development project…

And 3510 Wendel Cove. After two days of everything being on the flat, its hilly neighborhood was a bit of a surprise. After seven years cycling in insanely hilly Pittsburgh, I jokingly cried, “Veto!” when we encountered a short but steep rise on Hart Drive on the way in. But it only got worse, as the house was at the bottom of a very steep cul-de-sac. In spite of that, I really liked the house. Inna was a little more skeptical, since it felt a little dark and awkward, but we put it on our list of possibilities. More about that later.

With house-hunting wrapped up, we lunched at Clay Pit, our favorite Indian place, then stopped at the Book People bookstore. Unfortunately, Inna slipped and injured her ankle in the wet parking lot, so we spent some extra time coming down from that. I took the opportunity to pick up Sayadaw U Tejaniya’s “When Awareness Becomes Natural”, plus volume one of the “Cat Massage Therapy” manga as a gift for our tireless catsitters back home. I quickly read the latter in-store while Inna rested.

Inna requested a quick trip to Amy’s Ice Cream, then we stopped at the H-E-B grocery for an ace bandage and two frozen peas “ice packs”. We returned to the motel and let Inna rest and treat her painful ankle while researching more houses to visit.

Tue November 15: House-Hunting Day 3

On Tuesday morning, Inna’s foot was extremely painful and wouldn’t bear weight, so our first order of business was buying her a walking cane at CVS.

We only saw two places that day, because our third (on Blueberry Trail, aka “Blubbery Troll”) had been taken off the market that very morning. 1403 Springdale (aka the Pizza Hut) was decrepit due to being designated a historical property, and thus highly regulated. And 5202 Downs was an interesting but cheap and idiosyncratic modern unit (with 6-foot ceilings upstairs!) that someone had plunked down in their backyard as a cash grab. I bumped my head three times during the viewing!

Then, with the rain having passed overnight, Inna wanted to go back to Wendel Cove to check it out on a sunnier day, since it seemed to be our reluctant top pick. We spent a lot of time hanging around and thinking it through before coming to the conclusion that it was probably our top choice so far. Our showing agent, Alexandria, was incredibly patient and helpful, as she’d been all week.

I captured and showed Inna a video of the little stream that runs through the backyard that reminded me of my childhood home back in Maine. Coincidentally, Inna had also received a video: her mother had sent one of Pittsburgh enduring its first snowfall of the year. The timing of the contrasting videos made a silent but persuasive point.

As we left, we drove down a tiny private road off the cul-de-sac with another five houses (one displaying a Buddha statue). There were three deer hanging out in the road, and they showed absolutely zero fear as we drove up and turned around. That probably means no vegetable garden for us!

Then we drove around to get a feel for the area. We stumbled into a very shishi neighborhood called North Cat Mountain, and randomly drove up a street called Ladera Norte that was extremely reminiscent of Pittsburgh’s infamous Dirty Dozen hills. In fact, it features in Austin’sTour das Hugel, a 200 KM bike ride that includes 3,600 meters of climbing, which took place a week before we arrived.

We ate lunch at the Galaxy Cafe on Mesa Drive, then ice cream at the Amy’s in the Arboretum. Then we test-drove from Wendel Cove to Hyde Park, where Inna’s Circling studio and my meditation group are located, which was shockingly quick and easy.

We chose to spend the rest of the day at the motel, to give Inna’s foot a rest. We considered filing an application to lease Wendel Cove that night, but held off after Alexandria told us there wouldn’t be any benefit to being the first applicant. Instead, we both spent time scouring Google Maps and adding interesting features to our map of the neighborhood. At this point, I felt pretty good about where we were in the process.

Wed November 16: The Bad Day

Inna had a terrible night, so I let her sleep in late. Her foot was still bad, we were running out of house rentals in our price range, and the anxiety of making such an important decision was weighing on her.

We did look at one owner-listed place – 5113 Stone Gate – but it was a little run-down. We drove around Hyde Park a little bit, but Inna remained somewhat anxious, so I decided to bring her up to Mount Bonnell, a wonderful overlook that I’d been to a couple times, but was new to her. Being outside and seeing the expansive vista over the Colorado River seemed to ground her again.

Unfortunately, things went poorly from there. We tried to get dinner at one Ethiopian place, only to find it permanently closed. And a second one – in a windowless trailer – looked like an abandoned strip club. We finally stopped for dinner at the Oakmont Cafe on 38th, where we paid $60 for absolutely terrible food.

After that, we gave up and drove back to the motel. Inna called and messaged friends for support, which helped a little bit. But aside from Mount Bonnell, it had been an exhausting and emotional day.

But our trials weren’t over. At 2AM we were jolted awake by a group of four men slamming doors and screaming their lungs out in a foreign language outside our door and in the room next to ours. It was intensely aggressive and went on for more than an hour. It was so terrifying that I got out of bed, hid our computers, got dressed, and sat up with Inna’s cane in my hands in case I needed to defend us. Needless to say, we were both sleep-deprived and nerve-shattered.

Thu November 17: Solo Wandering & Mariposa Sit

After four days of house-hunting, we switched gears. I dropped Inna off at her Circling studio for the first day of a four-day workshop. So I had four days on my own, and my own list of things I wanted to accomplish.

My first stop was Wendel, where I walked up Wendel Cove and down Hart Lane and back, just to experience the hills. There were some people outside, a grey and white cat loped across the yard, and a cyclist passed me after coming down the next street over (Westside Drive).

Next I drove 5 miles up to Q2 Stadium, where Austin FC, the local MLS team, play. I stopped in their team shop and picked up a tee shirt and a magnet, feeling uncomfortably unfaithful to my beloved New England Revolution.

Two miles over, I checked out the Trek store on Research Boulevard, where Nathan and Dino gave me some great information about local rides, and even other shops! They suggested I also peek into the Specialized shop that had apparently sprung up in the Domain® pedestrian mall since our previous scouting trip six months ago. I got a good vibe from the place, and hope to join the group rides they run every other Saturday.

Another two-mile drive brought me to the Domain®, which was really difficult to park in. The Specialized store was tiny, but serves as a corporate anchor while they look for a larger space for a full-service shop, since Trek had bought out the shop that was their former Austin HQ. They too offered lots of awesome ride pointers, and specifically recommended the Hill Country Randonneurs.

Then it was time to meet Inna, because we were going to use her lunch hour to visit one last house – the intriguing 5308 Sendero Hills – which had repeatedly put us off due to “renovations”. It was indeed just as bizarre as we’d thought, with its very own palm tree, a big unbroken wall facing the street, chicken coops, exposed cinder blocks in the interior, and the residue of shattered windows in one bedroom! But it was both too far out of town, too expensive, and way too much space for us.

After returning Inna back to her workshop, I checked out the Anime Pop shop, which had the usual manga plus a wall full of figurines. Then the H-E-B in Allandale and early dinner from Sap’s Thai. It’s worth noting for future reference that half of Austin’s Thai restaurants serve entrees that are meat-only, and half serve the expected meat/veg mix; I’ll have to memorize which.

I went to Mariposa Sangha’s Thursday evening meditation and dhamma talk, which – like the one I attended in April – was led by Paul Schlaud, who remembered me from that visit after prompting. The topic was gratitude, and – as in April – I once again got the last comment of the night in.

Afterward, I picked up Inna and we headed back to the motel. Our neighbors were still there, as evinced by the stench of pot, but they were a little bit quieter this night.

Fri November 18: Day Off & Applying Ourselves

I dropped Inna off at the studio again. After a couple days to think it through, she seemed ready to file an application for Wendel Cove.

I spent the day hanging around, cleaning up the motel room and delighting in reports of heavy snow squalls in Pittsburgh. I enjoyed having no errands, no driving, and no rushing around. It was nice and quiet for a time after our neighbors moved out, until they were replaced by some anime girls playing loud rap music that triggered a throbbing headache.

I picked Inna up in the evening and made a quick stop at the Central Market before going back to the motel. Inna told off the neighbors and I made to turn in before she hauled me back out of bed to complete the frustratingly-long online lease application process, which was so invasive that it even required us to supply our body weights! Then the secondary application for our cat, which required both front- and side-view photographs, as well as proof of vaccinations, which was stored at home, 2,300 kilometers away. Frustrating and insulting!

Then it was my turn to have a restless, anxious night. At least the neighbors didn’t blast their tunes when they came home in the middle of the night…

Sat November 19: Half-Day Retreat

After surviving the night, my morning highlight was finding an active infestation of ants in our bathroom. At least it wasn’t bedbugs…

After a visit to the motel office, I dropped Inna off at the Circling studio early and headed off to Mariposa, where I’d signed up to join their monthly half-day retreat, which in this case was on cultivating kindness. In my emotional state, five hours of meditation was either exactly what I needed or the worst thing I could do to myself.

When I arrived, I met Carolyn Kelley – their lead teacher – for the first time, which was pleasant. Although I didn’t really know any attendees, they seemed to comprise a mix of all levels of meditation experience. During the periods of walking meditation, I chose to do standing meditation, which Carolyn asked me to explain in the end-of-day discussion. My response was that for me, being in an unfamiliar building with unfamiliar people would have been awfully distracting, pulling me out of a meditative mindset. Overall it went well, and it was great to finally touch base with Carolyn.

Afterward I picked up a pen at “Paper Place” to replace the Pilot G-2 I’d lost somewhere along the line, and some food at Central Market.

Returning to the motel, I noted that no one had fulfilled our morning request to spray the room for ants, so I chased down a staffmember and stood over him while he sprayed. Fortunately, the insecticide they used wasn’t too stinky…

While Inna spent the evening at karaoke with her Circling friends, I ate my “cowboy casserole” – a mediocre dish of pasta, chicken, and picante sauce – and figured out my plan for Sunday. Then Inna returned and we enjoyed a blissfully quiet night after Inna had skillfully negotiated with the motel staff to not put anyone in the neighboring room for a couple nights.

Sun November 20: Anime Austin

After dropping Inna off for her final workshop day, I made a quick run to Book People to see if they carried the Barron’s financial newspaper (nope).

Then it was out to a Holiday Inn to check out the last day of the Anime Austin convention. It being 10:45am on a Sunday, there were very few people around, and most of the vendors weren’t there yet, so I just wandered around the tables, seeing what was available. It was mostly just acrylic charms and artwork, and the tee shirts were the only thing that I might consider picking up for myself. The panel discussions weren’t really of interest, so after browsing the area I decided to leave. It was a waste of my admission fee, but I don’t mind spending the money to support the hobby.

Next stop was the Barnes & Noble at the Arboretum, where I finally found a Barron’s (they were stored behind the cashiers). I sought out a Circle K convenience store to fill the rental car with gas, but had to find a second one when the first one had apparently closed.

Then a quick stop at Randall’s, which appears to be H-E-B’s main competitor, before hitting up Panda Express for lunch. But the Panda Express didn’t have my preferred dish (black pepper chicken), so I punted and stopped at Fire Bowl Cafe, which offers fresh stir-fry with your choice of carb, meat, veggies, and sauce. It was a delight to finally get some vegetables into my system.

I spent the afternoon at the motel before meeting Inna at the Circling Studio, where I briefly went inside to be exhibited to her friends. Then “dinner” at Amy’s Ice Cream and back to the motel, where a new set of neighbors’ television kept us awake late into the night.

Mon November 21: World Cup & Rest Day

While Inna slept in, I woke up at 7am to watch the first World Cup footy match in Group B: England vs. Iran, which was a 6-2 blowout.

We had pretty much exhausted both the local rental listings and our stamina, and there wouldn’t be many new listings showing up on Thanksgiving week. And with an application already filed for Wendel Cove, we essentially suspended our house hunt. So we had three full days left to fill before our flights home.

At 1pm I watched USA give up a disappointing draw to Wales in their first game. They would eventually advance from the group stage but be eliminated in the “round of sixteen”.

When I taunted Inna with the prospect of visiting Austin without hitting up her favorite Mexican restaurant, the inevitable happened, and we wound up having a huge and delicious dinner at Lupe’s just off Mopac.

During our meal we received our first of several followup information requests regarding our application; this one asking for my drivers’ license, a second month of pay stubs from Inna, and clarification that she wasn’t switching jobs. Inna aborted her evening plans (meeting up with Steven and a Circling session) in order to respond.

Around 11pm a woman started screaming her head off in one of the nearby units, but that thankfully lasted only about 45 minutes before quieting down.

Tue November 22: Killing Time

We woke to another information request: this time for a note from Inna’s boss on company letterhead, confirming that they would let Inna keep her job. The already-frustrating application process was truly out of control.

Having done most of the running around I wanted to do, I let Inna drive the day’s agenda. With limited parking downtown, I dropped Inna off to visit her employer’s local office. It was three floors with a very open street-level entrance, with kombucha on tap and many social and friendly people, which was an improvement over what we’ve seen in other cities.

We stopped at the Vegan Nom food truck in East Austin, then crossed the river to visit the Cosmic Cafe and Beer Garden and Summer Moon Cafe. Then back to the motel for an afternoon nap.

At 7pm I drove her to the Circling Studio for an evening session, while I picked up pad cashew from the Pad Thai restaurant. Then fetched Inna, a quick stop for Mozarts at Central Market, and home.

Wed November 23: Last Day

Although it was quiet overnight, it was my turn for an anxiety-filled night, which wasn’t helped by yet another information request from the leasing agent, requiring us to enter our online banking usernames and passwords! What the fuck? What an incredibly worrying, exhausting, invasive, and demeaning experience.

Inna’s plan was to visit two Circling friends, so I dropped her at the first and went back to the motel. Then I picked her up and dropped her at the second, planning to have lunch and visit a local comics/game store.

My first stop was Thai Fresh, which was inexplicably closed. My second stop was Shake Shack on Lamar, but there was no parking nearby. What’s a guy gotta do to get a meal in this town?

I punted and drove down to Tribe Comics, but spied Jersey Mike’s Subs in the same strip mall, so picked up a chipotle cheese steak before responding to yet another information request; this time verifying our intended lease date. Meanwhile, Tribe Comics seemed like a pretty good and friendly game store, although it saddens me that strategy games and miniatures have almost completely disappeared.

After picking up Inna, we gassed up the car in preparation for tomorrow’s departure and made a final dinner out of the “safety provisions” we’d bought days earlier.

And around 5:30pm we received an email from Wendel Cove’s management company saying “CONGRATULATIONS! YOU ARE APPROVED!” Of course we didn’t have a lease – that would be a lengthy and equally exhausting next step – but we were well on our way to taking up residence in a brand new home in Austin!

And it was a wonderful and ecstatic moment to end our trip on.

Thu November 24: Thanksgiving Homecoming

Between Inna’s still-painful foot, it being Thanksgiving Day, and Austin-Bergstrom’s reputation for long lines, we packed up early and made our way to the airport, doing our usual dance of dropping Inna at the Departures curb with luggage while I circled back around to return the car and hoof it back to the terminal.

Despite both of us getting spot-checked by the TSA, we got our gate 2½ hours early, so we grabbed morning snacks and I went and checked out the terminal’s outdoor patio.

Our layover was in Washington Dulles, where we had to walk from one terminal to another. Inna’s foot held up well; she declined a passing people mover, but we were still glad she’d brought her cane along. I “enjoyed” a Thanksgiving dinner of a Terminal C Pizza Hut personal cheese.

The flight into PIT was short, I retrieved the car, and we made our way home to an enthusiastic reception from the Biggie. But an hour later one of our electrical breakers decided the Thanksgiving holiday would be a great day for a fatal failure, leaving us without power except for some jerry-rigged measures taking advantage of our current apartment’s unbelievably random electrical system. Patchwork repairs would take four days to be fully completed.

That, too, was kind of a poignant way to punctuate our trip.

3510 Wendel Cove

With the trip covered, let me tell you a little about the new place.

First, the basics. 2 bedroom 2 bath 2 floors, 1,530’, built in 1986, 2-car garage. Rent is appreciably less than the other houses we looked at, which is a big bonus coming from the very inexpensive place we currently occupy.

It’s a somewhat modern, idiosyncratic, open layout, with a fireplace and a bizarre towerlike second-floor “flex room” overlooking the open living area below, and which will probably serve as someone’s office. One bedroom, bath, and the flex room are all on the second floor. The somewhat dated kitchen is a little segregated from the open space, which is good for my sensitivity to cooking smells. Lots of big windows and natural light, but shaded by a number of trees. A small deck, back yard, and a brook that runs behind the property.

Other little bonuses are that there are windows (that open!) in both showers, and the only wall we share with the other half of the house is the back wall of the garage. It seems safe and free of the animal and insect problems that one has to consider when living in Texas.

It’s very close to the Mopac expressway, but quiet because it’s in a cul-de-sac, with a sizable hill in-between. It’s very near our desired destinations, and there are lots of nearby attractions, including shopping, library, groceries, post office, medical and vet.

It’s in a neighborhood labelled as “Highland Hills”, between the better-known Allandale and the Northwest Hills. It really feels like a suburban oasis, while being within an easy couple miles of everything you might need in the city. And it’s about a 8 KM bike ride to my meditation center, or about 11 KM to downtown, using the Shoal Creek trail.

The only minuses I could list would be that the interior is almost unbroken beige; one of the shower windows was very poorly and amateurishly painted over; and we’re going to have to figure out how we can set up the space to provide the kind of together-but-apart work spaces we’re used to in our current place. And I should also mention the rather absurd hill, which presents a minor psychological obstacle in leaving home.

Epilogue

So there were some real challenges this trip, especially the noisy motel we stayed at and the insanely invasive and humiliating lease application process. There was also Inna’s painful foot injury, which ironically paralleled my slicing my finger open on a broken glass in the middle of our earlier visit last April.

But in the end, our quest to find an acceptable place to land in Austin was successful. I outright love the house, and despite Inna’s initial skepticism, it has grown on her, too.

As of this writing, we’ve only just gotten the lease signed – which was a whole separate story – and is only the first of a huge number of massive to-dos before we are finally settled in. But it’s still an immense step on our way to new lives in a new city. We’re excited to make a home of it!

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Keep Austin

Sun, 22 May 2022 17:23:58 GMT

Last month Inna & I spent eight days in Austin. She was headed there for a four-day workshop, and it made sense for me to tag along and extend our trip, so that we could check it out as a possible place to relocate to.

Austin Skyline

Inna enjoying her palapa

Sparky Park

Austin Boardwalk

Craft

Couple under a palapa

Couple at Clay Pit

Couple at Lupe's Tex-Mex

Mt. Bonnell Sunset

Prologue

This was my first trip out of Pennsylvania since the Covid-19 pandemic hit; my first time sleeping anywhere other than my own bed since 2019. With the pandemic winding down, it was a nervous, awkward person who finally emerged from his cave after 2½ years of hibernation.

Leading up to the trip, I wasn’t able to muster much motivation to do the advanced research I needed to be well-prepared. I wasn’t big on the idea of living in Texas, and my previous visits to Austin (in 1994, 2003, and 2004) had left me with the impression that it was a cycling-unfriendly area. On top of that, I had some trepidation about the reasons behind Inna’s sudden enthusiasm for moving to such a scorchingly hot location.

I should also point out that I just wasn’t in a very positive place emotionally, which colored my experience of Austin and thereby this account of our travels. So please discount the “grumpy old man” factor that you’ll encounter below.

Here’s my day-by-day account, but if you’re only interested in the bottom line, you can skip ahead to the Epilogue.

Wed April 20: Travel

Arriving at the Pittsburgh airport, I dropped Inna near the terminal, drove out to long-term parking, and made the long walk back. Only to discover that Inna had forgotten to leave her winter coat in the car, so I offered to schlep it back out to the car and repeat my inbound hike. We breezed through security thanks to TSA PreCheck. Breakfast from McDonalds. Unlike ourselves, only 10% of people were masked up.

Our two-stage flight went well. I used the flight time to practice Japanese on Duolingo. At our connection in Detroit, our outbound flight to Austin was the same gate and aircraft we’d arrived in from Pittsburgh, which happily obviated the entire hectic connecting-flight dependency chain.

Grabbed our rental car from Enterprise, where they were much too friendly. Drove across town and checked into our hotel, right on the I-35 highway access road. Seeing Captain Benny’s seafood restaurant with outdoor seating and palapas right next to the hotel, Inna was delighted by the reminder of our time in the Caribbean, so we immediately had a light outdoor dinner there.

The weather – as it would be all week long – was very windy and heavy overcast that would occasionally burn off to reveal the sun. Days ranged from 20-30° and nights from 10-20°. Inna found it delightful, and it was quite an improvement over Pittsburgh, where it had snowed all day the day before we left.

Afterward, we went straight to the Atown local souvenir shop, checked out “Sparky Park” (a former electrical substation decorated with pretty and sparkly and delightful junk), and got supplies at the local H-E-B (Howard E. Butt) grocery, which included some interesting “double chocolate” Lindt truffles.

Had some challenges navigating the Texan highway access road system, Austin’s half streets (e.g. East 38½ Street), and the mystery of why anyone would name a residential street “Speedway”. Returned to the hotel very tired and spent some time catching up on stuff before turning in.

Thu April 21: Level Up Circling & Mariposa

After a breakfast of OJ and cookies, I dropped Inna off at the modest ranch house where her four-day Circle Anywhere workshop was held. My plan for Day 1 was to shower, settle in, and attend an evening meditation group at Mariposa Sangha.

My contact there had proposed meeting up beforehand, but never replied to my response, so I had dinner on my own: an idiosyncratic Panang curry at Thai Kitchen, where I got instant service, being the only customer who was dining in. Dessert was a Mexican vanilla milkshake at Amy’s Ice Cream up the street, after being asked by the staff whether I was able to fix their “waffle dough pump”.

Then to Mariposa, a small peer-led Vipassana meditation group, held in a Methodist church chapel, which was still filled with Easter lilies. Met Paul Schlaud, who was leading the evening sitting and dhamma talk, covering the Buddhist precept against misusing sexuality. I contributed during the Q&A, and chatted with Paul afterward. It seemed comparable to our sitting group in Pittsburgh: pretty small and informal, where I’d be equally welcome to teach as well as be taught.

My session ended just as Inna’s post-workshop dinner broke up, so I swung by the Italian restaurant to pick her up and drive back to the hotel.

Fri April 22: Bike Shops

After dropping Inna off, I began my cycling-focused day with a stop at TJ’s Cycle, where I got a lot of good pointers, despite them being mostly an MTB shop.

The guy there pointed me to a new shop nearby called Bicycle House ATX, where I gathered a little more info.

Then downtown, where I stopped at REI to get an independent opinion. I picked up a hardcopy Austin bike map and chatted with a couple friendly locals. Then the nearby Rapha store, which was predictably pretentious but helpful.

My final downtown stop was Mellow Johnny’s, the store founded by cycling pariah Lance Armstrong. It is a hub of the local cycling community, and had dozens of workers manning the store, but to me it seemed both tackily self-promoting and thoroughly unfriendly.

My final stop was Trek Bicycle Lamar. The former center of Austin’s cycling scene, it had been known as the Bicycle Sport Shop before a corporate buyout. I spoke briefly to an attendant who had once lived in Pittsburgh. The shop had a whole wall full of suggested rides, which I captured for future reference.

By the end of the afternoon, I had gathered way more information about the Austin cycling scene than needs to be recorded here, but my impression was that cycling was popular enough to support for several bike shops and group rides. And although I couldn’t find evidence of any centuries or major events (other than the Hill Country Randonneurs), people sounded confident in riding out beyond the city limits into Texas proper. Austin seemed to pass my cycling sniff test.

I’d planned to walk around the corner to visit Peter Pan Mini Golf, which I’d visited with my DargonZine pals in 2003, but by then I was so tired that it slipped my mind in my desire to get back to the comfort of the hotel.

After meeting up with Inna, dinner was a pound of pork ribs at Rudy’s BBQ. As we entered the building, the wind was so strong that it blew down a renovator’s ladder, which nearly fell on top of me!

For dessert I took Inna to Amy’s Ice Cream. She’d had a challenging day at her workshop, and I let her talk it out and relax in the outdoor seating. We were both beat and headed back to the hotel to crash.

Sat April 23: Kyūdō & Newspaper Quest

After taking Inna to Day 3 of her workshop, I went back to the hotel to shower, which for this one day was swarmed with dozens of college students. Then it was back into town to pick up some Excedrin and the day’s main event.

I stepped into the Rising Sun Aikido studio, where people from Austin Kyūdō were assembling for practice. When the leader introduced herself to me, I heard her name as “VHS”, which she subsequently corrected to “Beatrice” (Haven). I also met Helen Febrie, whom I’d exchanged emails with to schedule my visit.

I have two main takeaways from their practice. One is that they’re an ANKF/IKYF group, rather than the Zenko/Heki-ryu Bishu Chikurin-ha lineage of kyūdō that I studied back in Boston. That means they put less emphasis on the mental and meditative aspect of kyūdō, and like other martial arts they give formal ranks to practitioners. There are also some tiny differences in their technique, such as using the two-arrow form, not smoothing the arrow feathers, emphasis on coordinated team practice, less ritualized arrow retrieval, and permission to use bows made of materials other than bamboo. It also means they’re on good terms with American bowmaker Don Symanski, which could someday prove valuable. But I’m agnostic about which school of kyūdō I’m involved with, and find that petty rivalry to be shortsighted, given how tiny the pastime is here in the U.S..

My other takeaway is that it’s a small group with friendly, approachable members. They’re a small offshoot of the IKYF South Carolina Kyūdō Renmei based near Greenville, SC. They’re not unfriendly with the remnants of the dormant Austin Shambhala kyūdō group, as well as Zenko, and they sometime cross paths. It seemed like a nice, supportive group, although requiring an immense 1,800 KM trip to SC to get instruction and support from an experienced teacher.

I stayed for the full 2-hour indoor practice, occasionally chatting but mostly enjoying the beauty of the form and teasing out the differences in technique.

It being Saturday, I wanted to pick up a Barron’s financial newspaper, since I’d suspended my home delivery for the week. Long story short, I had no luck, despite hitting a CVS drugstore, Barnes & Noble bookstore, Kinokuniya Japanese bookstore, and 7-Eleven and Valero convenience stores all across town.

Frustrated, I went back to the hotel and spent the night eating snacks and watching soccer. I was too tired to go out, find a big meal, and fight the Saturday night crowds. Inna found her own dinner and eventually Ubered home.

Sun April 24: Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Hotel Day

Day Four in Austin, and for the third day I woke up headachey and nauseous. The weather was continued overcast, which certainly was preferable to Texas heat, but weighed on my mood.

Despite fulfilling major criteria like cycling, meditation, and kyūdō, much of Austin felt like America at its worst: soulless highway car culture and chain store strip mall hell. The city has become ridiculously expensive and its overtaxed infrastructure can’t handle the explosive population growth it has experienced.

Although I’d brought all my cycling gear and hoped to enjoy some cycling around Austin – especially the Veloway and bike night at the Circuit of the Americas – logistical difficulties had made it impossible. I was disappointed and depressed.

After dropping Inna off at her final workshop session, I wanted to fetch drinks and a Barron’s, but had no luck at Circle-K, the H-E-B grocery, or Target. Then I went back to the hotel to regroup and figure out my plan for the day.

While brushing my teeth, I dropped a hotel glass in the bathroom sink, smashing it and cutting up my hands, especially my right ring finger, which began bleeding profusely. It took two hours of constant direct pressure to get the bleeding under control, and another hour before it stopped enough to be able to stick a bandage on it. The white facecloth I’d used was crimson and completely soaked with blood. Getting that under control pretty much took up my whole day. By evening, I was able to gingerly drive myself to another nearby Thai restaurant, Pad Thai, for takeout.

Meanwhile, Inna had decided to spend the evening with her workshop cohort, going wading in Barton Springs before getting a late ride back to the hotel.

From my perspective, it had been another shitty day and I just wanted nothing other than to go home.

Mon April 25: Storms & Hotel Swap

Monday wasn’t much of a day either, washed out by thunderstorms and off-and-on rain. Inna spent her first non-workshop morning recovering needed work files that her teammates had mistakenly deleted. Then we packed up and checked out of our north-of-town hotel. Although we’ve usually stayed at B&Bs, Inna had found exceptional deals at standard hotels, and changing hotels allowed us to explore different parts of the city with less travel time in the car.

With time to kill before our check-in time at the next, south-of-town hotel, we drove around town looking at houses that were for sale. They were mostly ranches, of course, and the residential neighborhoods only varied in how recently they’d been developed. Prices were high but not completely insane.

After an unenthusiastic debate, we opted for a late lunch at the Clay Pit, a downtown Indian restaurant that I had visited during the 2003 DargonZine Summit meetup, and where I’d left behind (and then fetched) a digital camera. The food was surprisingly good.

Our new hotel was located right in the middle of a massive highway interchange in a more industrial section of town. Inna was delighted that the new room — unlike the old one – had a safe, until I pointed out that it was actually a microwave oven, and she probably didn’t want to store her work computer in there!

We spent the rainy afternoon relaxing. Inna napped, and then practiced her Hebrew on Duolingo, which she’d picked up after I’d started using it over Xmas to learn Japanese. Then we went to H-E-B for supplies before calling it a day.

Tue April 26: Grumpy Goes Downtown

By Tuesday, it had all caught up with me: the gloomy weather, my headaches, bad eating, inability to do any cycling, and injuring my hand, all on top of longstanding background dissatisfaction with aging and cardiac health. First thing after waking up, Inna patiently sat through one of my rare emotional dumps.

She then equally patiently helped me shower and wash my hair, since I still couldn’t use my right hand. Afterward, I replaced the bandage for the first time, and happily noted that my fingers looked much better than they had two days earlier.

Focusing on what she could control (my diet), Inna directed us to breakfast at the Magnolia Cafe, where I demolished Eggs Zapata, which amounted to scrambled eggs on english with sausage and spicy queso.

Next stop was “Austin Art Garage”, but we arrived before opening, so killed time in a nearby Indian shoppe. Returning, we scoped out the gallery, and I was amused by their 1980s vintage Tron arcade game console.

Heading downtown, we stopped at the Austin Visitor Center, which provided a transit map and just two brochures, only one of which was Austin-specific. Worthless.

With the day turning warm and sunny, Inna directed us to the mile-long Lady Bird Lake Boardwalk that’s part of the bike trail along the south side of the Colorado River. We took up residence in some Adirondack chairs left on a riverside dock and enjoyed the sun and the skyline view for a while, and watched a couple guys fooling around on e-foils. On the walk back, Inna greeted a young black woman who had brought her cat down to the river.

The rest of the day was haphazard. Another Amy’s Ice Cream, followed by Uncommon Objects, a big antiques (junk) store with most of its wares displayed by color. I dropped Inna off to meet a friend for a food truck dinner, then went back to the hotel, where I waited until 10:30pm to hear whether she needed me for a return ride or not.

Wed April 27: Lupes & More Circling

We (well, Inna) slept in until lunchtime. After hitting CVS, we stopped to admire Casa Neverlandia, a creatively-decorated private house that reminded me of Pittsburgh’s Randyland.

Lunch was a long-anticipated stop on the 360 at Lupe’s Tex-Mex restaurant, an Inna favorite since her first business trip to Houston, having heard it reviewed by a co-worker back when she was in Kuala Lumpur. It being my first time, I was pleased with the fajitas we got. I’m not sure it lived up to the years of hype I’d heard – and it was stunningly expensive! – but it was good to finally try the place for myself.

After yet another Amy’s Ice Cream, we stopped for a brief rest at the small Govalle Neighborhood Park at the Southern Walnut Creek trailhead.

Then Inna navigated us to Craft, a big DIY crafting warehouse. After a quick tour, we settled in and gave it a try. Inna produced one of her typical paint-and-collage compositions, and I stayed true to form with a bold abstract paint-based thing. Nothing noteworthy, but it was a nice activity, and something to do as a couple other than sitting around the hotel or eating.

Although Inna’s weekend workshop was over, she wanted to go to Circle Anywhere’s regular weekly evening session, so I dropped her off and went to kill time at the Kinokunia Japanese bookstore. I browsed for 45 minutes without finding anything that jumped out at me, so I moseyed on to the Daiso Japanese housewares store next door.

Bored with that, I consulted my map to find a nearby park to hang out in for the 90 minutes until Inna’s session ended. Covert Park at Mount Bonnell was nearby and looked like it would have a view overlooking the river, so I drove there.

I’d forgotten that Mount Bonnell is a favorite semi-touristy spot to watch the sunsets from atop a high bluff over the river. I’d arrived just in time, and spent a few minutes scouting out the walking paths, looking for an unoccupied vantage point. It reminded me a lot of the “overlooks” back in Pittsburgh. I relaxed, watched the sun set, and took a couple selfies and panoramas. I also enjoyed the modern convenience of using a 5G phone connection to check Inna and I into our upcoming flights home.

Inna’s workshop session had been unsatisfying, so we chatted about it on the way back to the hotel, where we started packing up while watching another soccer game.

Thu April 28: Killing Time til We Can Go Home

Our last day in Austin began as you’d expect: packing up and checking out of our hotel.

Then we made our way to the Buzz Mill cafe, where we met up with Inna’s friend Sarah Ness, a former Pittsburgher who had founded Authentic Revolution, one of Austin’s other “circling” groups. She was pleasant and interested and energetic, and had lots of positive things to say about Austin.

When Sarah left, Inna and I went next door to a Dairy Queen, where I ordered the traditional Dilly Bar. Then we literally drove around the block before Inna proposed that we go back and hang out at the Buzz Mill until it was time to head to the airport.

The car was dropped off in seconds, our TSA PreCheck got us through security in no time, and Inna disappeared into a massage booth while I finally found a copy of Barron’s at an airport newsstand. Inna stopped at “Salvation Pizza” and spent $7.50 a slice for some greasy pizza that they stacked such that each slice was stuck to the paper plate of the one above it. Did we still eat it? Yeah, you can’t be choosy when eating in the airport.

By the time our 7pm flight was boarding, even Inna just wanted to be home. Happily, like our previous connection in Detroit, our transfer in Atlanta was also back onto the same aircraft at the same gate we arrived at, which made for the best Hartsfield experience either of us have ever had. We shared a laugh when the PA announcer sounds like he asked passengers to please make sure everyone in your party had their body parts for boarding.

Although it wasn’t objectively long, our journey home felt like it took forever. The flight, the trek to the intra-terminal shuttle, waiting at baggage claim (we’d been forced to gate-check our carry-ons), the trudge out to the car, paying for long-term parking, and the 45-minute drive home. There – despite it being 2:30am — I jumped straight into trash, recycling, and cleaning out the cat’s litterbox and put everything out for pickup later that morning. But the cat was happy to see us, and we were very glad to climb into bed shortly before the sun rose.

Epilogue

Recalling that this was my first major trip post-Covid, since late 2019, I am delighted that we made it through without either of us getting sick. We were masked and careful at the airports and during flights, but less so in Austin, where we – like everyone else – went mostly mask-free in stores and restaurants. Although we weren’t especially stringent, we didn’t have any problems at all, even though our immune systems haven’t been exercised in 2½ years.

As for the prospects for relocating, that remains a bit unclear, although after numerous false starts, Austin’s the first place that we both agree has real potential.

For me, the positive side of the ledger includes Inna’s willingness to move there, an active cycling community, the presence of a kyūdō dojo, an MLS team, and no city or state income taxes. Although I’ll repeat how disappointed I am that I wasn’t able to do any cycling during this trip, either solo or in the company of locals.

The list of Austin’s negatives includes the cost of living, the traffic, the highways, the endless expanse of character-less strip malls. Higher property and sales taxes. No casino. Poisonous snakes, spiders, fire ants, scorpions, and lots of other creepy-crawlies. And no matter how reasonable Austinites might seem, it’s a tenuous island of approximate sanity amid Texas’ vast and frightening brand of crazy.

As for mixed blessings… This trip’s weather notwithstanding, there’s the heat. Although I would certainly be leaving New England winters far behind, even a sun-worshipper like myself am intimidated at the prospect of living with Texas’ infamous heat, even if Inna is resigned to being uncomfortable no matter where we go.

And the meditation scene also counts as a mixed blessing. There aren’t any longstanding teachers, nor any retreat centers anywhere nearby. The community is small and led by a group of peer leaders. While that’s much like my situation here in Pittsburgh and would allow me to continue to develop my role as a teacher, I would have even less experienced support in my own personal practice than I already have here.

So that leaves me with mixed feelings. Austin seems to have almost all of the things I want in a home, and Inna seems willing to commit. If it wasn’t Texas, it might be an easy decision to make. But I can’t escape the fact that it is Texas, and living there would require an immense adjustment, as compared to moving somewhere a little more temperate and with a more familiar East Coast culture.

Making another scouting trip would make a lot of sense, to become more confident about our decision, whatever that winds up being. There’s just so much that we haven’t looked at, including Inna’s employer’s local office, and that dreaded summertime heat.

So that’s where I wound up. As a vacation, it wasn’t a very good trip for me; and as a relocation spot, Austin has a lot of potential, although there are lots of plusses and minuses for us still to weigh.

Mt. Bonnell Sunset Pano

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