This is not a blog. This is not a blog that is ready for anybody to read it, anyway. It is under construction. I’m editing and adding and deleting posts trying to find the feeling for what I’m trying to say. That and figuring out technical, graphical and administrative details. You are welcome to hang out while I work. This blog will officially launch well, sometime soon, for sure in 2010. – Carol Ramsey
February 5, 2010
Wild, Wild Night at the Cactus (For Now)
Posted by Carol under Austin Stories | Tags: asylum street spankers, cactus cafe, Texas Union, university of texas |Leave a Comment
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| Logo courtesy of University of Texas |
You should have seen us, Blue Eyes and I, out on a Friday night past 9. Our neighbors invited us out, they have little kids too and all of us had babysitters. Our dancing plans didn’t work out, so we ended up at the Cactus Cafe to see the Asylum Street Spankers. I liked their songs, but I liked their performance even better. They were fun and funny and had a great energy about them. Wammo told great stories about lunch boxes and beer. Christina Marrs’ last song was naughty, more naughty than I get at my naughtiest and she was on stage with her clothes on.
I loved the Catcus Cafe too, it is an intimate setting, you can see the expressions on the faces of the musicians, you can hear every instrument separate from the others, it feels like you are in your living room. And besides that, it is the perfect place for the 40+ year old music fan, with comfortable chairs, shows that don’t start too late and good coffee in case you are worn out from the kids.
A few days later, I saw the story that the University of Texas is considering closing the Cactus Cafe to save money on their budget. Wow, this got me to thinking.
So many great people have played there so many times, Lyle Lovett, Townes Van Zandt, Steve Earle, Shawn Colvin, Kelly Willis, well, I could go on and on. A venue with that much history feels more like a person, like a good friend who always remembers your birthday or a favorite park where your kids played when they were young. It would be sad to lose the Cactus Cafe.
Well, some say, it isn’t the top objective of the university to provide live music to the 40+ crowd. You have to be drinking age to get in, so most students can’t use it at all. Well, not all UT students are eighteen, I was twenty-six when I was a student there, and how about those graduate students? Older students are people too! And as John Kelso pointed out here, it isn’t like this is the only place on campus that attracts non-students, the 100,000 capacity Royal-Memorial Stadium isn’t built just for students.
Well, I say, who is running this place? It is full every time I go and the cover charge is pretty high and they sell drinks, so how exactly does this place not make money? Maybe some students from the UT’s business school could get together with students from KVRX, the college radio station, and help out. There should be a way to make money from this.
There is an effort now to raise private funds to keep the Cactus Cafe open or maybe relocating it to the Alumni Center, more info is here. I hope these efforts work, because Blue Eyes and I might get out after 9 more when our kids are a little older, and it would be nice to have a place to go with comfortable chairs, early shows and a nice cup of coffee.
January 30, 2010
Looking Like a Squirrel Preparing for Winter
Posted by Carol under Little Bits, Mom Stories | Tags: 2-year-old, Rice Krispie Treat |Leave a Comment
Do you ever find a Rice Krispie Treat in the bread box that you forgot about and it isn’t too old but it is definitely the last one and you know your 2-year-old would really like it, but you love Rice Krispie Treats too, so you eat it? Then your two-year-old walks into the kitchen and you turn to the side while you fit the whole thing in your mouth, then you eat it slowly while she plays at her kid-size kichen? Yeah, me too. 
January 28, 2010
What Am I, the Paparazzi?
Posted by Carol under Austin Stories, Kid Stories | Tags: austin politics, donna howard, lady bird lake, red wagon |1 Comment
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Sparkles, Buttercup and I were walking around Lady Bird Lake in their new red wagon when we run into Donna Howard, one of Texas’ state representatives. (Oh, wait, before you think I must have lost Buttercup, she is sleeping in her wrap when I take this picture.) Donna Howard is another reason why I love Austin. She is a politician, sure, but have you heard her talk about policy? Oh, my, she has really studied the issues and she is articulate and smart. Think Sarah Palin, but opposite, because of her personality, but because she is a Democrat too.
I said “Hello!”, then got to thinking. I have been so strange about this blog – Am I doing it or not? What is the theme again? What are the kids names or will I just pick new names every time I post like I have been doing from the beginning? (Update – I finally decided on names and updated the posts.)
Well, I decide that in that moment I was feeling confident about this blog so I ask Donna Howard if I could take a picture of her for my blog. And pretty soon after I said it, I changed my mind. I mean, I went ahead and took a picture, but I knew then I wouldn’t use it, because how annoying! What if someone stopped me on the way to the gym and asked me if they could take a picture, in my work out clothes, no makeup, hair in a pony tail. Oh, my, I wouldn’t be that into it.
Now, I’m not saying that Donna Howard didn’t look amazing, because she did. It just felt weird to take her personal time and energy when she was just wanting to get in a work out. I should have just said “Thanks”. Working in politics can’t be easy and I would like to say “Thanks” to the people in Austin who take this on.
We had a nice walk at the lake. The red wagon has been great, because Sparkles is less likely to want to climb something with her broken collarbone and Buttercup isn’t quite walking yet. And, another thing I love about Austin, is that we are doing this without jackets in February. I LOVE that.
January 24, 2010
Sleeping In (Well, Sort Of)
Posted by Carol under Kid Stories, Little Bits, Mom StoriesLeave a Comment
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| Photo courtesy of wonderground.com. |
I’ve been thinking and writing lately about how things have changed now that I have little kids and this morning it came up again. Both of my little girls slept through the night and all the way until 7am. 7am. That is a magic time, because it is later than 5:30 or 6:00 when they sometimes get up. I would have never thought this before these little kids, that 7am was sleeping in…
January 23, 2010
Sing Alongs, Good Coffee and Spoon
Posted by Carol under Austin Stories, Mom Stories | Tags: burning down the house, christmas carols, coffee, friday night, pacha, Spoon, spoon transference, talking heads, transference |Leave a Comment
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We are driving down the street and Sparkles is banging her arms on her car seat arm rests and yelling “Burning Down the House!” She is smiling and giggling and singing all at the same time.
During the holidays, Sparkles started singing for real, Jingle Bells and Frosty the Snowman were favorite. She has her own playlist on my iPhone now, with some classics by the Beatles, Elvis and the Talking Heads. (You might not think the Talking Heads belongs in that list, but in my family it does.) Then there are the show tunes, because she LOVES the show tunes, with a few songs from The Little Mermaid, Snow White and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Yes, my play lists have changed.
My Friday nights have changed too. When I was younger, my Friday nights started late, involved a lot of people who I didn’t know and required wine or beer or margaritas, something to drink that signaled a celebration, it was Friday after all!
On this Friday night, I’m at Pacha Coffee House on Burnet near 45th by myself. I had a quiche and iced tea for dinner. Every now and then I stop typing and notice the quiet. (Well, music is playing softly and there is a hum coming from the refrigerated case with food, but no one is squealing or giggling or screaming or crying, so quiet, relatively speaking.) I’ll stay a couple of hours and get home by 9:00 so I can catch up on sleep.
This is my night off, Blue Eyes has the girls. If my younger self were reading this, she might be worried and sad, but I’m not worried or sad. The feeling of this night, the quiet, the good food, being able to write, it feels really good.
I like Pacha for times like this. The coffee is pretty good, I like the coffee, but I LOVE the food, especially for breakfast. Their breakfast tacos are made to order with fresh, organic ingredients. Yummmmm. It is intimate too, there are regulars who know each other, it feels like some of them have been having coffee together at Pacha for a hundred years.
But, I think I will wrap up early here and head to Waterloo to get Spoon’s new album Transference, because things have changed, but they haven’t changed THAT much and there is room for me and Blue Eyes and the kids in what I do. Maybe I will stay up past 10 tonight, for old time’s sake, maybe not, it’s all good here.
January 17, 2010
One Second and Thirteen Inches
Posted by Carol under Austin Stories, Days Like These, Kid Stories, Mom Stories | Tags: broken collarbone, Dell Children's Hospital, emergency room, Heart Hospital |1 Comment
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The top of the mattress on Sparkles’s toddler bed is 13 inches from the floor. The bed is against a wall on one side and has a rail on the other. Her running across the yard, jumping off rocks, walking along anything off the ground that looks like a balance beam and doing aerial stunts with her Dad, all of that seems more dangerous than sleeping in her bed at night, but it took one second for her to fall out of bed last night and break her collarbone.
Here are some highlights of our adventure.
Sparkles was mostly OK as long as she didn’t move her shoulder, but she also tosses and turns a lot in her sleep, so she kept waking up and crying.
I drove to Dell Children’s Hospital first and the parking lot for the emergency room was full and I could see through the windows that it was a standing-room-only night. So I kept on driving the the Heart Hospital near Central Market where Sparkles was the only patient.
The staff didn’t see a lot of children in this hospital, but they did a pretty good job. They gave her crayons and paper when she had to wait and they brought in a portable x-ray instead of bringing her to the big x-ray room, which could have been scary.
The x-ray technician had a small triangle-shaped lead apron, except it wasn’t an apron, just a triangle, and it was to cover Sparkles’s ovaries during the x-ray. I guess it is good that x-ray technicians think ahead that far. It freaked me out a little bit, to think ahead that far, that my little girl has ovaries that might reproduce one day.
Sparkles was brave and sweet, but very quiet with the doctor, she couldn’t describe what hurt or why she was crying. This would have been scary, if this was a complicated case, but when I touched her collarbone she screamed and the x-ray showed it was broken, so it worked out fine.
The communication was harder the other way. I wanted to explain how keeping the wrap on, a really big Ace bandage, sort of, that kept her arm in place against her body, would keep her arm from moving and hurting. But she didn’t understand that, she just didn’t like how the bandage felt. I wanted to tell her her collarbone is broken and it will hurt for a while, but it will get better, but she didn’t understand that either. It just hurt.
I asked the doctor if the bandage was for comfort or if it was needed to help the bone heal, because I know my girl and I know she won’t want to wear it and the doctor doesn’t get why Sparkles wouldn’t wear it. She is an emergency-room heart specialist after all, the trade-off between this emergency room and hours of waiting at the Children’s Hospital. The nurse understands what I’m asking. He says the wrap is for comfort, it isn’t necessary for the bone to heal.
For being in the shortest emergency room line ever, the trip still takes three hours, between waiting for the nurse, then the doctor, then the x-ray technician, then the doctor, then the administrator, then wait for 30 minutes to be sure she doesn’t react to the pain medicine, then drive around for 20 minutes on the way home so she can calm down and fall asleep.
You just can’t know what will happen in one second and 13 inches. I’m glad we didn’t reeaalllly need the Children’s Hospital last night. I’m glad we weren’t upstairs at the Heart Hospital with something serious. I’m glad my husband took care of the kids in the morning and let me sleep. My husband moved the area rug under Sparkle’s toddler bed for extra cushion and I tell her it will be OK. Everything will be OK.
January 14, 2010
The Children’s Museum – A Good Weekend Idea
Posted by Carol under Austin Stories, Kid Stories | Tags: Austin Children's Museum |Leave a Comment
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Friday and Saturday aren’t looking too good in Austin, with cold, wet weather making it hard to get outside. The girls and I got started on the weekend early today and went to the Austin Children’s Museum where it was warm and dry.
Since Buttercup is too little to have a very strong opinion, Sparkles gets to pick where what to do and how long to do it. It is fun, because a lot of her days are organized by her parents, going here or there without her having much of a say. But at the Children’s Museum, she decides. She loves the colored light sticks at the front of the museum. She helped make the picture above. Sometimes I play with her and other times I just watch, imagining her mind at work and wondering what she is thinking.
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Buttercup played too this time, instead of me carrying her in her wrap. She walked on her own, with me holding one of her hands. She could pick things up and play with the balls and books. She is so ready to take it all in.
This was a good day.
