Category Archives: writing

The people you meet on the Hike and Bike Trail

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There’s nothing like a torrential downpour to make a girl appreciate a Sun-soaked Sunday. And there is no better way to spend said Sunday than with a romp around Lady Bird Lake with your adorable labradoodle friends. So, that’s what I did.

Apparently everyone in Austin had the same idea, because the trail was as busy as I’d ever seen it. Fortunately with 1o miles of terrain from end-to-end, there was enough trail to enable the peaceful coexistence of hippies and yuppies alike.  Please allow me to elaborate on some of the more interesting characters you will find scooting along the sandy shoreline.

1.) Super intense, no-time-for-funny-business-or-smiles workout buff.
Not to be confused with casual, chatty, on-a-light-jog-with-my-friends-or-my-dog exerciser. Those folks exist too, but I’m far less aware of their presence than the previously mentioned work out machines. No duh the trail is a great place to exercise, but some folks take it to an extremely intimidating level. They whiz past at light speed, sporting a “move it or lose it” attitude and are usually wearing work out attire that costs more than an uppity designer dog (or they are hardly wearing anything at all except a shiny, sweaty six pack that makes me hate myself on many levels). Sometimes they pass with an army of other runners and sometimes they fly solo, but every time I spot them I dangle my head in shame knowing I will never join their ranks and feel slightly self conscious that I am some how ruining their workout routine with my slow-footed pace. Sorry, work out man. I’ll try and keep out of your way.

2.) Person on bike who comes dangerously close to running you over.
I know, I know it’s called the hike AND BIKE trail, but this might be the one place in Austin where cyclists are at a disadvantage. There are far too many off-leash dogs, tiny children and meandering pedestrians for you to truly enjoy that bike ride. You can ring that bell all you want but at some point you’re gonna have to tap the breaks and dismount to make way for the golden retriever and its hip stroller-pushing mother making their way to turtle cove.

3.) Posse of hipsters
Wearing some article of neon clothing and probably equipped with an ironic accessory like a vintage camera or dated walkman, the hipsters flock to the trail just like the dog walkers, out of town visitors and work out enthusiasts do. So glad nature and sunshine are still “in.”

4.) Person with out of control/too many dogs.
I’m kind of definitely talking about myself here. I love the doodles with all my heart, but sometimes they are a bit much for the trail. Wyatt pulls on the leash like he’s towing a sled of expectant mothers to the hospital, and Stella has to stop and pee on just about everything—and what she doesn’t pee on, she has to stop and sniff. We’re the people that have to apologize to every other dog walker for allowing our muts to get all up in their business.  Off leash, things aren’t much better. Wyatt morphs into a hyperactive toddler, screaming with glee at every little dog and leaf and speck of dust that passes him by. Stella jumps into the swampy shore water every chance she gets, usually stealing toys from other dogs. Sorry trail mates, for screwing up your hiking experience with our exuberant Ewoks.

5.) Person riding the trendiest new water craft device.
In the past it was kayaks, then it was the stand up paddle board. This go ’round everyone was all about the hydrocycle. And that’s pretty cool, I guess. You’re certainly not going to be running across poorly trained muppet dogs out on the water, so why not hydrocycle really? Way to be, water lovers. Land is for wusses.

Even with aggressive athletes and trendy under-aged hipsters, I love, Love LOVE my time on the trail. At the end of a walk, run or row there’s a undeniable sense of camaraderie with the fellow trail goers despite varying preferences in pooch or pace. It’s our special piece of earth where nature coexists with urban sprawl…and that’s a pretty cool thing to be able to share.

Yeah, I’m practically a celebrity.

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“Beep Beep”

What was that?

Oh that? That was just the sound of me tooting my own horn because…

The January issue of Austin Monthly came out and I helped write the cover story! It’s my first cover story since I officially retired from the exciting world of news reporting and it’s nice to know that people who aren’t directly related to me actually enjoy reading what I write.

But wait, there’s more! In the mail last week I received a shiny new copy of Forty Acres of Fun, a new book published by the UT Co-Op which features funny short stories about life on the University of Texas campus. And who’s name is that on page 131? Yep, it’s mine! This may very well be the one and only time I get my words published in a book, so please excuse me for shamelessly plugging it on this blog.

Thanks English teachers for book learning me real good.

Hook ‘em!

Ski

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I’m not a skier.

My friends and skiing compadres told me that when I was 15 just after I mistakenly darted through a half-pipe at 90 miles an hour, narrowly missing my fellow terrain park ski bums. That was fine with me. As far as I was concerned I could go the rest of my life without setting foot or ski on another slope. Texas has a shortage of snow-capped mountain peaks anyway, so what did I need to know how to ski for?

As it turns out, when your buds Maranjanark offer up their family’s condo in Vail for a long weekend of gratis mountaineering, you don’t exactly turn them down. So, away we went with a few other snow-loving Austinites for a post-Christmas friend trip to the great state of Colorado.

I’d had one other brush with Vail before taking off. A summer Vail vacation with my family when I was 13 was pretty enjoyable until a 40-year-old naked male sunbather opted to position himself right outside our condo window. Heath knew only that Vail was “where rich people go to ski.” So that’s what we were working with. Vail: a destination for the wealthy and naked.

The trip to Vail proved neither pricey nor scantily clad. The little mountain town does rob you blind with $100-a-day lift tickets, but that was about as bold as we got when it came to emptying our wallets. We saved a chunk of change by cooking at home rather than shelling out dollar after dollar at over-priced downtown restaurants. (Like seriously over-priced, we’re talking the neighborhood of $9 for a warm Bud Light…cruise ship expensive.) So rather than wine and dine in town, we munched on breakfast tacos by Nick, Mark’s meatloaf and Jaime’s Oreo cookie balls. At nights we drank boxed wine on the couch and enjoyed locally brewed beer over riotous games of Things. Perhaps it’s not how the rich and famous (and naked) do Vail, but it is how we rolled on this particular MLK weekend.

We did live it up too, of course. There was mountain skiing (no half-pipes this time), ice skating, gondola riding, snow tubing, city walking, photography jaunting (I feel like Vail is a place people “jaunt”), snow ball throwing, salad bar cruising, brewery touring, Australian tourist meeting and even heated pool swimming.

We packed a lot of living into 3 days of vacation, but as all trips by privileged 20-somethings go, it was the company and conversation, not the location, that made the weekend getaway one for the books blog.

You are what you eat

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To start the new year off with a bang (and to undo some of the damage we inflicted upon ourselves over the holidays) Heath and I vowed to go on a two week binge of micronutrients. No savory poultry, no delectable cheese, no fluffy breads or creamy desserts or salty snacks. Just a lot of this…

this…

this…

and this.

Think blueberries for breakfast, salads for lunch and veggie stews for dinner. Snacks of Hershey’s kisses have been traded for fistfuls of Craisins, and desserts of red wine are being subbed out for freshly squeezed OJ. The dining  table is topped with celery and salsa instead of chips and dip, and a shiny, substantial juicer is taking up valuable real estate on the kitchen counter. Overhaul indeed.

The fruit/veggie cleanse/fast was inspired by some friends who endured a juice fast (and swear by its powers) and further spurred on by agenda-pushing documentaries like Food Inc., Supersize Me and Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. We realized over the last few months we ate far too many processed Cheez-Its and far too few fresh spinach salads. We wanted to do something that would make us more conscious of what we put into our bodies and perhaps influence our future eating habits. Boy has it.

It’s day 10 of vegging out and here’s what we’ve discovered:

-It’s nearly impossible to dine out. I’ve heard vegans make this complaint before, but didn’t understand just how saturated modern menus are with the things we have declared temporarily forbidden. You can be hard pressed to find a salad without cheese and croutons or a soup made without chicken broth. The diet has certainly pushed kitchen creativity to the limit.
-Fresh foods–turns out they really do keep you fuller longer.  On lazy days, or days where I thought I earned a treat, I’d be known to grab a breakfast taco or two to start the morning. About 4,000 calories and 2 hours later I’d be hungry again…and usually for something equally greasy and icky. But on the fruit/veggie diet I can stay full for hours on a freshly blended smoothie or guac salad. It really gets you thinking about how your body digests food.
- I really miss cheese. I miss bread and eggs and fish too, but cheese…that’s the kicker. I know cheese rounds out the the top of the list of foods that are pretty horribly unhealthy, but I can’t help but fantasize about chomping down on a slice of cheesy goodness. I have even dreamed of swimming through pools of queso. It’s been the hardest habit to kick, hands down.

With 4 days of apple juice drinking, pistachio snacking and salad munching left, I feel pretty good about the whole experience (and by “pretty good” I mean, confident I can survive the remaining days without cheese). I know we are no heroes; we didn’t endure a month of vegan-ing, or a 60-day juice fast or 2 week Master Cleanse, but we did find a way to incorporate more of the good stuff into our routine and think differently about how the food we eat affects our mood, mind and waist line. I think it’s the beginning of a major diet overhaul and hopefully a longer life.

Just call me Crabby

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Moving has turned me into a hermit crab.

My excitement with home ownership has quickly morphed this once social little creature into a ghastly, fun-forgoing mutant that never leaves the house. Sure, the temporary halt from my usual Austin activities is partly to blame on a sudden draining of funds (house down payments and repairs don’t come cheap and neither does dining out and date nights), but I’ve also backed out of attending one or two freebies without having much of an excuse other than a strangely irresistible desire to choose nesting over nightlife.

Por ejemplo: I realized that despite last weekend being my birthday weekend, an occasion usually celebrated with fancy dinners and elaborate outings, I didn’t leave the house once between the time I got home from work on Friday night and left to go back on Monday morning. Yes, there was house partying in celebration of said birthday (so I’m not to J.D. Sallinger level yet), and yes, I was slightly preoccupied over the weekend working on an freelance piece, but those aren’t really good excuses for bailing on social interactions and general merriment (I backed out on a Halloween house party, Fun Fun Fun Fest night shows and Sunday Brunch at the Dog Majal just to name a few). No offense to the new house, but after confining myself to to our mini piece of property for some 60 hours this weekend (ICK!) I can’t help but feel a little disgusted with myself.

So in service to the blog (which, let’s face it, has been a little lackluster lately) and in service to my mental health, I vow to step out on the town in one form or another every night this week. Look at me, I’m so brave.

Austin Place to Love: Buck Moore Feed and Pet Supply

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Often friends will ask me where it is we get out chickens and I answer with the enthusiasm of a TV game show contestant, “BUCK MOORE FEED STORE!”

Buck Moore Feed and Pet Supply is what happens when an old fashioned Mom and Pop business meets the “weird” Austin culture.

Here’s what I mean by that—the place hasn’t been updated since the family biz first got off the ground in 1972. It’s got basically the same old signage, the same hand-built, no frills wooden shelving and random knick-knack laden walls of its past. But, by design or not, the outdated decor sets a mood for the store that just works. Perfectly. No hoity-toity dog biscuits or cat outfits here, just high-quality animal feed and customer service. REAL customer service. The kind where they ring you up and carry your bag out to your car for you. They keep a small but knowledgable staff who can tell you everything you wanted to know and more about chickens, dogs, livestock and the like.

That’s the old-fashioned, traditional side. Then there’s the quirky side. The side that hosts the city’s annual Funky Chicken Coop Tour and makes sure it stays stocked with local products like John Dromgoole’s Lady Bug garden products.  The side that, despite originating in the early 1970s, continues to use technology from far preceding decades: the cash register is from 1923, their feed scale is a 1930 IBM model and the Coke dispenser is possibly one of the first ever built. Quirky indeed.

The marriage between quirky and traditional may seem like an unlikely one, but it’s a relationship that has worked very well for Buck Moore’s store–the only place in town I go to for good [dog] food and good-looking chicks.

ACL Wrapped Up

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It’s difficult to write about an event that is so widely reported on it’s almost cliche. Austin City Limits Music Festival. Yes it’s a good time. Yes there is a wonderfully diverse selection of bands that will tickle your ear drums (think everything from Kanye West, Stevie Wonder, Randy Newman and Coldplay). Yes there are massive crowds, expensive beer and weather woes. Despite those shared sentiments, at the end of those three days, the 75,000 festival attendees leave the park feeling as though they’ve each just had a completely unique experience. Such is the beauty of 46 acres, 130 bands and 8 stages.

So, rather than giving a vague, surface level review of the festival as a whole (after all, I’m not a music snob and can’t single out a skilled guitar riff or a sick bass line), I shall opt for an honest recollection of my fourth ACL experience.

In year one I made it my goal to hit the front row of every show. Year two I hung back in the shade. Year three was my first go at festival attending  at legal drinking age and year four allowed me to mix my favorite elements of the other three fests together to create one awesome festival cocktail. For the bands I loved I wiggled my way through the crowd to get as close to the front as decency would allow (there is strict crowd etiquette when it comes to getting front and center) and for the more mellow, less familiar bands I hung back with a beer and an umbrella (which, this go ’round, offered protection from sun and rain).

The final menu looked something like this:

Friday–Fool’s Gold, Foster the People, Kanye West
Saturday–Fitz and the Tantrums, Cut Copy, Chromeo, Stevie Wonder, My Morning Jacket
Sunday–Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr., Ryan Bingham and the Dead Horses, Fleet Foxes, Empire of the Sun 

Foster the People, of Pumped up Kicks fame, put on an invigorating show that had 12,000 bystanders singing, dancing, clapping and writhing along with lead singer Mark Foster who was having as good or better a time than the crowd he was performing for. * Having seen Coldplay perform twice before, we opted to rap along side Kanye West for the Friday finale. The rapper put on a show typical of Kanye fashion…that is, it was flashy and self-indulgent. The  1 1/2 hour performance was presented in three acts. Acts one and two were packed with the hit maker’s most famous tunes like Good Life, Gold Digger and Through the Wire. The crowd ate it up, and had the opportunity to behold a fantastic troupe of professional ballerinas in the process. (As a former ballerina myself, I applaud Kanye for exposing his fans to one of the more under appreciated arts, but I couldn’t help but wonder if his desire to hire dozens of professional dancers was rooted less in some deep appreciation for the art of ballet and more in fear of sharing the stage with musical contemporaries who could potentially steal his thunder.) The last act was tired and momentum killing. Instead of turning out his most bass thumping hits, the rapper went off into a slow parade of one auto-tuned memoir after another. Fans who left before the last 20 minutes did themselves a favor. * The Saturday Chromeo performance had people dancing against their will AND included Robert Palmer-esque back up dancers who helped keep the crowd in a constant sway. * Stevie Wonder would have been fantastic if the show was only audible. A failed speaker made it nearly impossible for fans hundreds of yards out to hear hits like How Sweet It Is and Signed, Sealed Delivered. * So we headed to My Morning Jacket across the park to hear a show that at times was peaceable and serene and at others headbangingly wonderful. * Sunday’s performance by Ryan Bingham and the Dead Horses was so alluring it got Heath to abandon his post at the TV tent where the Dallas Cowboys game was being broadcasted. I wouldn’t have thought Bingham’s voice could outshine his good looks, but I was pleasantly pleased to see that, even live, it did. * Fleet Foxes sounded eerily, but delightfully, similar to Simon and Garfunkle and provided the perfect wind-down/wrap-up to the festival.

So there you have it folks, the extremely novice and naive opinion of two unprofessional festival goers.

Cheers to next year’s fest. I am already saving up for tickets.

Austin place to love: Birds Barbershop

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It’s been more than a year now that I’ve been blogging via La casa de doodle, so in an effort to mix things up I am introducing a regular feature to this enchanting piece of internet.

Name of said feature: Austin place to love
Purpose: Share the primary reasons why some local gems are worth your precious moneys.
This week’s place: Birds Barbershop.

Don’t be fooled by the name, while entitled a “barbershop,” this haircuttery is for the ladies too. Basically, Kelsey + Birds = Love because:

1.) The haircuts are reasonably priced and, in my humble opinion, pretty swell. I’ve never walked out of Birds with a haircut I didn’t love. I’ll drop $39 for what they call a “lady bird” (basic shampoo/cut/style) and be perfectly happy with the results. Not too shabby considering I’ve spent $60, $70 and $80 at other ritzy places and felt less-than-optimistic about the outcome of my do.

2.) ‘Tis local. I love doing business local when at all possible. So Birds gets points for being born here. Yay.

3.) Ambiance. Birds has crazy-cool retro decor that feels distinctly similar to a Fun House, albeit a less creepy, less nauseating version. My regular locale features awesome murals of Space Invaders AND free video games while you wait. Classy.

4.) Convenience (aka they take walk-ins). I don’t usually think I need a haircut until I wake up and realize that this mop of dead skin cells on top of my head needs professional attention. By the time I make that realization, I’m usually 2-3 weeks past the point where I SHOULD have received a trim. So I love that Birds takes me in on those terrible days, no questions asked. I don’t have to wait 2, 3, 4 weeks for an appointment AND with multiple locations around town, I can bet there is probably a Birds close by.

5.) Terrific Tats. And by “tats” I, of course, mean tattoos. The most ridiculously awesome tattoos in Austin live on the arms of some of the Birds’ employees. I’m not joking. Once I saw a nearly life-sized tattoo of a beloved (yet deceased) childhood cat on one stylist’s shoulder. If the free video games didn’t get you, surely pet tattoos will.

6.) Free Shiner. Yes, I saved the best for last. Free Shiner Bock or Shiner Blonde while you wait.

There you have it, folks. Six reasons to love a place called Birds Barbershop.

birds of a feather

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Chicken Run, it turns out, is the story of my life. But instead of playing the determined, capable and charismatic chicken (as I always assumed I would if cast in a barn-themed movie), I would play the evil, ruthless chicken-hunting villain determined to keep the chickens cooped. That is certainly how Frannie Sue  perceives my life at least.

How do I know this? For the past couple of weeks, mornings at the doodle house have consisted of invigorating little games of “Chase the Chicken,” in which I, or Heath, spend a good 5 minutes herding Frannie Sue (and it’s always Frannie Sue) from the front yard—into which she has somehow managed to appear—back into the rear.

Despite being constantly fed and tended to, Frannie Sue is determined to escape (so determined, in fact, I’ve considered renaming her Andy Dufresne), and she always finds a way. Over the fence. Through a hole. Beamed by Scotty…what have you. This was all well and good because for one reason or another, Frannie Sue called her escape quits once she hit the front yard. This is either because:
1.) She is a “chicken” in the sense that she is too afraid and cowardly to proceed any further.
2.) She is an idiot.
3.) She is as loyal a bird as Stella is a doodle and can’t bare any real separation as she fears the inevitable anxiety it would cause.

I’d like to give credit to either choices 1 or 3 as they imply some sort of forward thinking on the chicken’s part, but in all actuality, number 2 is probably our best bet.

Or so I thought, until…

FRANNIE SUE RECRUITED MARION INTO HER ESCAPADES.

I arrived home yesterday afternoon to find not one, but TWO CHICKENS pecking around the front yard. I was heart broken.

Marion, how could you? I thought we had moved beyond our rocky history and started fresh?  I thought you knew we were here to provide a port in the storm, protection from neighborhood cats, constant eating of your babies. We gave you a new friend with whom to play and this is how you repay me? 

Francis Sue, you tricky little devil. You recruited your mentor, your mother-figure, your friend, to join you on your quest to escape The Doodle House. Escaping alone wasn’t good enough, so you poisoned the well and got innocent, sweet Marion to join you. There will be consequences.

I put my devastation aside for a moment to engage in “Chase the Chicken, Level 2″ and got the ladies back into doodle territory ASAP. My plan worked well enough, but I was still left with a tricky predicament. What’s a girl to do with 2 renegade chickens?

The way I see it, I’ve got 3 choices:

• I can do nothing and hope the chickens continue to abandon their escape plan once they reach yardus frontus. It’s a risky choice but one that takes the delicate feelings of the chickens into consideration.
• I can clip their wings which seems logical enough but I’m a bit squeamish and unqualified to perform such a complicated surgery. Plus it would only add to the trauma I seem to have at some point caused them.
•  Keep ‘em cooped. Good for the yard, bad for chicken morale.

Such are the stresses of my life and the lives of those at The Doodle House. Chickens, I beg you, keep the shenanigans on this side of the fence and spare yourselves the drama that may be to come.

Traveling by sea

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It wasn’t so much a 3-hour tour, our most recent traveling excursion, as it was a 6-day, 7-night stint aboard the impressive Carnival Conquest. The trip to Jamaica, Cayman Islands and Cozumel, Mexico was my first go at cruising (courtesy of the wildly generous Stateson family) and it was an experience rich in 1) foods so delightfully delectable and neverending you’d rather take on the extra 10 pounds than utter ‘no’ to the offer of a second cup of lobster bisque or chocolate melting cake, 2) entertainment, both of the magic show and stand up comedian ilk, 3) water so blue you can make out not only the number of fish that lurk below but also their colors, patterns and number of scales, and 4) obese, sun burned drunkards.

Rookies to the sport of cruising–an activity I’m told you improve at maneuvering over time–we departed as ignorant novices, capable of comparing the experience only to that of an all-inclusive resort, sans the free booze, (see honeymoon) in terms or service, edibles and luxuries.

At it’s conclusion:

*We found the service, primarily at the nightly formal dinners, to be quick, accurate and readily available while simultaneously being personal and intellectually enlightening. We immediately befriended Indonesian born Ida and Teguh and Turkey native Ozan and learned to thank each of them for their service in their native language, “terima kasih” and “teşekkür ederim” respectively. There was also the exchange of riddles and puzzles which we enjoyed sharing with one another throughout the duration of the cruise. How, pray tell, can you put a price on eternal party tricks?

*The options were seemingly endless. When it comes to finding a way to successfully distract/entertain more than 3,000 people during long, tedious days at sea, Carnival does not come up short. Admittedly, we did not partake in many of the options presented to us but sports trivia, gambling, karaoke, hairy man competitions, newlywed games and mini golf were all on the agenda. During nights at sea, the ship really comes alive. Old and young put on their most elegant attire (be it a monkey suit, prom dress, Hawaiian shirt or something in between) and parade the decks of the Conquest. Some come to gamble, others to scrupulously browse through and select among the incredibly misplaced, inappropriate, phony photo backdrops (which invade the decks by the dozens) capable of hosting their family portraits (the awkward head-tilts, ridiculous backdrop scenarios and tedious body positioning by the photographers beg for many of the photos to one day wind up on on awkward family photos). But most come to enjoy the gut-busting comedians, visually stunning magic shows and cheesy, if not catchy, dance numbers performed nightly.

* Excursions are a must. It’s tempting to take advantage of the luxuries presented by a virtually empty cruise ship during days at port (no lines for the buffet, empty swimming pools, etc.) but taking a step off the ship in order to understand and familiarize yourself with the flora, fauna, architecture and culture of an island nation is a worthwhile endeavor. Snorkeling, castle building, photographing, and brisk walks through town can all be accomplished at the low price of $0. And kayaking, zip lining and other treks are also readily available for slightly more cash upfront (but consider booking via other outlets than the cruise ship for better rates).

*The people can wear on you. In the essay “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again,” David Foster Wallace compares the massive quantities of people on a cruise, moving in complete synchronization through buffet lines and off and on the ship during docking, to cows being herded across the plains. Bovinophobia becomes an ever present theme in the eyes of DFW. I didn’t so much compare the masses of people aboard the Conquest to cows as I did to 1) pigs and 2) koi. After day 3 of cruising, I grew wary of observing ubiquitous obese masses sunning themselves on the deck of the ship. Oiled up and increasingly pink in color, cruisers continued to return to the top of the ship’s decks to “tan” in the equatorial sun while consuming sinfully over-priced booze. Additionally, I watched in horror as 50-year-old women screeched and grasped, like famished victims of a starved country, for 50-cent Mardi Gras beads hurled from a balcony by Fun Ship employees…eerily similar to pond koi reacting to promises from above of fish-flake nuggets. After a week of hearing crowds bellow “whoo” more than one would think is humanly possible (and I was a cheerleader) and watching the ship’s dedicated service staff be abused by red necks, I was disenchanted with my American heritage. On cruises, you come for the service but not for the fellow guests.

Shameful guests or no, I relish the experience afforded to me. In toto, the cruise was incredibly enriching and I am lucky to have been a part of it.