Wrong Turns

A few weeks ago, Stephen and I were out shopping for a kitchen table (we've decided it's time to upgrade from our card table). We decided to try Crate and Barrel, but quickly realized it was a bit out of our price range. We were shaking our heads at one price tag when another customer walked by us and suggested "Try craigslist" in a hushed, conspiratorial tone. We're obviously not the Crate and Barrel type, I suppose.
So we headed home, tired and out of ideas. However, we were met with an unexpected detour when Stephen missed the turn for our highway. I'll admit it; I groaned. I always want Stephen to drive but I know better how to get around since I'm the one with the car all week.
"Maybe we'll find another furniture place," I offered, trying to be cheerful.
And that is exactly what we did. It was reasonably priced as well and made our table shopping trip seem much more worthwhile. That wasn't the best part of our wrong turn though.
Right next to the furniture store was a little exotic pets shop. We decided to check it out. It was a tiny little place, stuffed with freaky looking spiders, boa constrictors, baby ferrets and fat wet, pacmans (pacmen?). I wanted to bring home a chameleon but Stephen said no.

After spending an enjoyable half hour, we were exiting the store only to notice a sign saying "If you don't see the sloth, it's sleeping in the blue bin". What?! We looked up and two yellow eyes and were peaking up under the lid of the blue bin. Out reached a two toed claw like the top of a coat hanger. The claw grasped the branch above it and out came the rest of the sloth. It slowly made its rounds around the artificial tree, one claw after another. I was vaguely afraid it would fall as I couldn't imagine it ever being able to get anywhere once it hit the ground, but it made it safely back to its blue bin, climbed in and disappeared from sight.

I promised myself not to chew Stephen out for wrong turns any more. 


(In case you're wondering, we still haven't decided on a table...)

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Since before we moved to Austin we’ve wanted to go to Alamo Drafthouse. It’s a movie theater with a twist – they serve you dinner and drinks during the movie. When we got a 2 for 1 coupon, we figured our time had come! All we needed was a movie we both wanted to watch in theaters (turns out I enjoy movie theaters a lot more than Alisha). Along came Hunger Games.
So, with the perfect combination – a theater we could splurge on (the Provo dollar theater spoiled us) and a movie we both were excited about – we headed for the theater. That night my law society had a closing social down by the lake (I’m always confused because I’m pretty sure it’s just a river), so we thought we’d stop by there and then go to the Alamo Drafthouse on S. Lamar. So, as we headed out the door, I typed “Alamo Drafthouse S. Lamar” into my iPod touch and got directions.

The closing social was nice. We grabbed some food and chatted with a few people from my society. After about an hour we took off. Alisha pulled up the directions on my iPod. Soon we arrived in Zilker Park. But the directions said we only had a few hundred feet left. Yup, turns out typing “Alamo Drafthouse S. Lamar” takes you to the middle of Zilker Park. Anyway, eventually we made it to the theater (S. Lamar was just a little further east), but by this time we were way too late for the movie. We’d come all this way, so we decided we’d go to the 9:45 showing (we’d been aiming for 7:25).
So what to do for two hours? First, we stopped at World Spirit Books, From Alchemy to Zen. While Alisha found a book about how to half your grocery bill, I found a book written by Robert, channeling Speaks Many Truths, revealing that the planet earth is on loan from Sirius (or some other star). Later I read Magick Herbes while Alisha read about crystal balls. We left the bookstore much enlightened about the mysteries of the world, but still unsure about what to do with the hour and a half we still had left. I thought a walk sounded nice, so we headed onto the residential street we saw nearby. I thought we were just taking a stroll in a nice neighborhood. Little did I know, I was about to learn just what makes Austin so weird.
The first indication came as we passed the first house. The alley between the house and the shops we’d just left was covered with flowers and leaves painted on the asphalt and walls. We approached the house and found a sparkling, colorful place with a sign in front proclaiming, “Great for Kids!” We looked at each other, realizing we weren’t in Kansas anymore.

Next came the six foot tall floating egg. At the end of the street sat a house with a wooden egg hanging from the tree on the front lawn. It’s purpose? Art, I suppose. OTher than that the house seemed normal. We took a right, wondering what would come next. Our eyes were met with a bewildering variety of houses – cute little single-family homes, nice looking townhouse like homes. Then huge, overgrown bushes – apparantly someone likes their privacy. At one point the tops of the bushes dropped so we caught a glimpse of the house and saw a room with walls almost entirely made of glass. Right next door we encountered a tiny little house, sitting in the shadows of the giant yucca-like plants (someday I’ll know what they are) in its front yard.

Then I looked in the street and thought I really was in Oz, or at least Australia. In the middle of this tiny street there was an island with plants – something I’ve only seen in Sydney. Not to mention the sign that warned of “Street Humps.”
And in the midst of all these nice homey little houses, this fortress.

Finally, our dream house. We liked the porch and balcony.

To sum it all up, Saturday night we encountered the weirdness of Austin.