Gene happily visits Austin. His car, not so much
Gene and Erin
About a week and a half ago, my stepdad Gene came into town for a day. He’s trying to start up a therapeutic garden at the VA in Dallas for vets with physical or mental disabilities and had some meetings at A&M. After the meetings he planned to swing through Austin and spend the night before heading back to Dallas. Sadly, his car did not approve of his plan. It overheated in Caldwell, and he had to have it towed all the way to Austin. I picked him up at the dealership and we met up with Erin to grab some pizza.
Gene used to live in Austin back in the day, so it’s fun going around town with him and talking about how the town has changed in the last 30 years. Answer: lots. It was weird driving him around, for much of my life it’s been him taking me various places, not vice versa.
It was a little chilly out and I didn’t really dress appropriately because I figured we’d only be outside for the five minute walk to Homeslice before eating inside, but we waited for a while out back and then were seated outside. D’oh! They turned on one of those heater lamp thingies when we were nearly done with our meal, but it didn’t do much good.
While we were waiting, we were near a very large group of people that talked very oddly. We couldn’t tell if they were speaking a different language or were speaking English through heavy quasi-deaf accents. Perhaps it was a combination. Erin and I have spent enough time abroad in enough different places that we can usually guess the general geographic origin of languages we overhear (South Asian, Scandinavian, etc), but we were lost with this one. And we live right across the street from the deaf school, so that’s given us some insight into the variety of deaf accents. Whatever the spoke, they seemed to all understand each other and have a nice time.
The great thing about dining with parents is that meals become more multi-coursed and fun with them picking up the bill. Salad? Sure! Beer? Why not a pitcher! We happily obliged.
Although it wasn’t Gene’s first time at Homeslice, it was still nice to show him a piece of my life here. When guests I care about come to Austin, I feel oddly paternalistic about Homeslice, like I want my loved ones to be impressed by the place. Logically I don’t have anything to worry about, as the hour-plus lines attest. As usual, Homeslice put on a good show, and we had a really nice meal. The next day the car eventually got fixed and Gene was on his way. It was nice albeit short visit.
Cost: $25.25
Total this year: $206
