AUSTIN, Texas, November 5, 2005 — We sort of overslept. Not really. We had set eight o'clock as a good time to leave town. We got up a little before seven. I guess FFP wanted to get up earlier. We don't take that long to get ready.

We had called the McNay museum in San Antonio for details on the Pre-Raphaelites show they are having. SuRu likes these painters who painted, inexplicably, given their name, in the mid 19th century. Something about rewinding the clock was their goal? Anyway. We had also located a nearby restaurant for lunch. SuRu and our friend and bookkeeper Gayle were poised to be collected on our way south.

I don't know how long it's been since we went to

San Antonio. It's an easy out of town excursion even for one day.

Our mayor told us to leave town. Not really. He just said don't go downtown and pay attention to the KKK. They have petitioned to rally in our 'freedom of speech' square in favor of Proposition 2 which attempts to ban gay marriage or all marriage or something. So we aren't supposed to give them the satisfaction of an audience.

Just so you know...I think the biggest threat to marriage is divorce. Or children. Or money. Actually, I don't think the government or businesses should give benefits to people based on their marital status or whether they have children. That's pretty radical about the children, I suppose, but then I'm radical. I'd settle for the marital status part. I think it's nice that married couples can create a 'next of kin' relationship for the (possible) benefit of a joint tax return (sometimes this isn't a benefit but that's another story), avoiding estate tax until both die, making medical decisions if someone is incapacitated. I think it's nice that businesses allow people medical benefits for a spouse or children. Why limit these simple benefits to people who are married? Why not just let any two individuals choose these nice benefits? Of course, this might allow people to sneak around estate tax laws for a long time by continually designating some individual to receive the estate tax bypass. But if we didn't allow blood relatives to be in these relationships we could avoid that. It occurs to me that old men who marry young ladies after ditching wives that are their contemporaries are playing fast and loose with this one. But apparently with KKK and Catholic approval. Which brings me to the Catholics. You can't divorce in their church without some shenanigans, but they aren't lobbying to not allow the government to oversee dissolving these relationships. Why not? Because they don't think they can yet, that's why. Now when a majority of the court is Catholic....Now where's the harm in letting people have these government or business benefits regardless of what their church, if any, says? If you aren't in favor of laws that tell people what kind of sex to have, then this isn't too heinous and hardly threatens your religious beliefs about sex and marriage. If you are in favor of laws that tell people what kind of sex to have, then you better plan to marry once and never stray and not have your kids do it either. Because governments are fully capable of making what you do illegal, my friend. Like divorcing. Not going to do it anyway? OK, imagine your child in an abusive marriage, trapped forever. Fun, huh? So I think people should marry in churches and register their contract of mutual support with the government for purposes of social engineering laws. These things should be completely separate things. People with these contracts could receive benefits from the government, adopt or have children that they mutually owned, er, were guardians for.

But, as they say, I digress. I've voted. You will vote if you are a Texan. If the proposition is defeated, nothing will change. Because your duly elected officials have already made a law to deprive same sex couples of marriage and, if possible, also these social engineering benefits.

Anyway, we left town, collecting our friends at appointed spots. We were in San Antonio before the museum opened. We would have gone to a Starbucks (it was the first coffee shop we saw, imagine that?) but there was no place to park so we went to a place called Daily Bread. Much better. One more Starbucks avoidance.

The show at the museum (it was called Waking Dreams: The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites from the Delaware Art Museum) was good. I like this art 'period' even though I'd never heard of it until SuRu showed me a brochure. We have a poster print of Flaming June, though, that we like and it's an example of this period she says (though it's not in this show). We looked at some of the Impressionists and Expressionists before seeing the special exhibit. [This was the first time I even realized there were Expressionists, per se, as opposed to Abstract Expressionism. Art history is not my forté, but I do like to watch, as Chance the Gardener says in Being There.]

After a brief trip through the gift shop, we explored the courtyard. This courtyard has been a good place to take pictures in the past and today was no exception.

We were earlier than our reservation but we found the restaurant, Silo, and settled in to drink a bottle of wine and eat some delicious food. Best preparation of fried oysters I ever had: chicken fried with spinach, applewood bacon and hollandaise. I had pork loin in a cherry sauce over grits. Everything was reasonably priced, too. This one is a keeper even though it's in this unlikely spot next to strip malls and motels touting adult movies.

We headed home then. FFP tuned in to hear the Longhorns blasting Baylor out of Waco. Sad. He drove and we chatted and SuRu and I glanced through the Texas Monthly we'd taken along. It was from there that we got the restaurant review of Silo.

When we got home, I was a vegetable. I should have worked on the budget, done some writing. But I sat in my chair while FFP flipped through the football game off the DVR (it was a Vince highlight film). I read all three papers. (Why, oh why, has The Wall Street Journal decided to publish on Saturday. And why am I compelled to look at all the papers that arrive in this house.

I also read the Austin Chronicle. In an example of synchronicity, I was reading a Mick Vann article on tipping. The first paragraphs were describing an early scene in Resorvoir Dogs where the assembled gang was discussing crime over coffee and arguing about tipping. FFP had left the room and, a few moments before, I had flipped to a movie channel and seen that the movie was on and thought "hmmm, never saw this one and I should have and even though it's violent to the max I can look away and see what Quentin has had everyone raving about for over a decade." So as I read about the scene in the article it was unfolding on the TV screen.

Lots of people would consider the above meaningful and amazing. I, by the way, consider it just an example of things bumping into each other in our chaotic unpredictable world. We have a friend who has gone to the trouble to document such things in his life with signed statements from bystanders. Which is amusing, but in my book, pointless.

So I didn't do another thing all evening. SuRu stopped by to do some laundry. The neighbors had a noisy band in the yard for their fourteen-year-old's birthday. We watched TV. FFP alternated between the TV and going up to his office where he was reading from the DVDs of The Complete New Yorker.

My excuse for not doing something useful was that I wasn't feeling my best. I'd been having tricky digestive problems the last couple of days, off and on. I felt fine all day but then didn't feel so good tonight. I ate a couple of ounces of some Lite Laughing Cow cheese and some tortilla chips, but my heart wasn't in food. I drank some coffee which was probably a mistake. FFP had a coffee spiced with Amaretto and Kahlua but I didn't feel like drinking.

Finally went to sleep thinking I had to feel better tomorrow. I always think that and I almost always do.