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Friday June 16, 2000 "A town that
boasts inhabitants like me Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Tales of a Wayside Inn, The Birds of Killingworth
watermelon art
baroque trumpets call us to dinner
chocolate celebration |
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all the usual suspects I work today. Five weeks vacation doesn't seem like enough somehow. Of course, I've only taken a week so far (I think, I'll have to ask my admin). It scares me how much I'd prefer to stay home and surf the WEB and write and do my little projects. I make a little progress on some of my work, though, until I get a call. I have to do a new proposal for something I did over a year ago and haven't thought about lately. Well, that's not true. I have thought about it. But not in terms of what I would propose right now for this company. I've thought of it in the abstract. I go to Mezzaluna with SuRu for lunch. We go about noon and it is 1:15 before we get out of the place. They make us wait about two or three minutes to go upstairs for a table but there are lots of tables. The service is pokey. The Caesar salad there always seems to have a bit of brown lettuce these days. But the special Rainbow trout with capers served with angel hair pasta and asparagus and green beans (cooked al dente, just right in my book) is good. SuRu dropsme off at the pack and mail store across the street from work. I mail a CD of wedding pictures and a few prints to the groom's parents from last Saturday's wedding. (You should get them soon, Cheryl.) I mail a Rebecca Ryan CD to Mags in South Africa. I like going in the store and having them sell me an appropriate container and just mail it for me. It's all about service. On my way out the door from work, I see a donut box in the kitchen with one donut left. I have this uncontrollable desire to eat it. I get a paper towel and take it. It turns out not to be the kind I like. It is masquerading as the kind I like but it isn't the sweet glaze outside and the fluffy, lighter than air 400 calories inside. A couple of my buddies see me with the donut on the way out. We laugh about these urges. It isn't a Dunkin' Donut or even the good imitation that HEB makes. So I wrap the uneaten half in the towel and take it home and throw it away. The Stephen F. Austin hotel originally opened on Congress Avenue in 1924. It reopened last month and hopes to capture new glory in high tech Austin. The event is a benefit for Arts Cener Stage. This is the organization redoing Palmer. The Stephen F. is celebrating their grand opening with this event. To say 'all the usual suspects' are there is an understatement. We greet all these people, meet a few new ones. They are serving a great sushi buffet and other hors d'oeuvres. Trumpets (baroque ones) summon us to dinner in a dining room decked out with beautiful linens even on the chairs. The food is stunning and the beef has more actual truffle than I've seen in a long time. We get some great people at our table including the Butlers. Forrest talks old Austin with them. I talk travel with a developer's wife. She says her 14-year-old daughter is afraid to be alone in their house "because it's so big." I've been there. I don't wonder. Sandwiched amidst the food inside and outside have been performers. Capital City Chorus, a violinist, chamber music and the Austin Lyric Opera young artists. The chocoate commemorates the event as does the Tiffany plate we are all given. Then they start jazz in the bar and give away drinks, more desserts and cigars for the balcony outside. I drink a single malt (and a single one) but I've already had a couple of glasses of Veuve Cliquot, a white wine, a red wine. Suddenly, without warning, it's after 1AM. Who promised to do eXtreme dog walking at 7:45AM?? |
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