Paula, Nata, SXSW and Mystery Money

Free Pizza!

Erin’s high school friend and bridesmaid Paula came to Austin during SXSW with her friend Nata. They like to party. We got along well.

Even after dating Erin for nearly ten years (I know, I know), I’d never met Paula.  She was rumored to doubt my existence.  Well, I exist, as does free Home Slice Pizza.  She came to see both.

I met Paula and Nata when they caught up with Erin and I at Home Slice’s Music By The Slice.  We saw The Movits! kill it and owner Joseph sing onstage another band with lyrical help from his phone.  The Movits! were great, but I wasn’t feeling $20 for a CD, especially after my cuter and more female friends from out of town got ’em for $10.  Nevertheless the music was good, the weather perfect and the chillaxin’ was a maxin’.

The next night was pretty frigid, and we went to Homeslice before seeing Mos Def and DJ Jazzy Jeff downtown.  The wait was pretty intense, so we went out back to catch the last bit of the music.

Nata ordered a glass of wine, the rest of us had beer.  The pizza was great as usual.  I especially treasured Nata’s praise since she comes from Chicago and most visitors/immigrants from traditional pizza meccas know their pizza.  Paula liked the pizza as well.

Paula seemed quite smitten with Austin.  Sadly, not all of Austin (and Home Slice) offers up a free SXSW bounty year-round.  Although I don’t know if I could handle perma-SX.  It might be too much.

I had an unusual experience the day after Paula and Nata left.  I went to the corner store to buy some groceries for dinner, and looked in my walled expecting to see around $20.  Instead, I was quite surprised to see well over $100 happily occupying my wallet.  What happened?  Did I find tons of money on the ground again like I did that one time outside of Ego’s?  Did I rob a stripper (or my checking account)?  Quite a bit of my SXSW memories blur together, but I think I woulda remembered finding so much money.

I came home and told Erin, and she filled me in on the story.  The previous night we all bought too many pitchers of margaritas, and as I stepped outside to talk to my folks on the phone, Erin put them on our card while everyone else reimbursed us by putting money elusively into my wallet.  Mystery solved, although I’m sure I’ll reopen the case when I see a $150 bill for margaritas on my next bill.

It was nice to finally meet Paula, and Nata was a bag of fun as well.  I’m sure Erin’s told Paula lots of embarrassing stories about me through the years (if there are any…), so it was nice to take her out for pizza to bolster my reputation against any past or future character assassination.

Cost: $27.50
Total this year: $575.50