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Blue-Eyed Grass

Sat, 15 Apr 2017, 08:59 PM (-06:00) Creative Commons License

Among the flowers making their appearance in the yard this spring are two clumps of

Blue-Eyed Grass. This was the first Texas wildflower I fell deeply in love with.

May spring bring happiness to you.

On Redbud Seed Pods

Sat, 15 Apr 2017, 08:56 AM (-06:00) Creative Commons License

The Dogwoods and Redbuds are flowering in Kentucky, they told me. 

“Did you know that Redbud blossoms are edible?” I asked.

There was silence on the phone, or perhaps it was hesitant mumbling.

“I haven’t tried it myself,” I said. “Our Texas Redbud doesn’t put out that many blossoms…” 

“And the seed pods are supposed to be good, too,” I added.

“Hah!” they said, or perhaps it was “hmm”.

“I’ll try one,” I said.

I reached up and pulled a reddish-brown pod off our tree. I put it in my mouth.

It was fuzzy on the outside (as are the undersides of Texas Redbud leaves — the fuzziness being a xeric thing). I chewed, and I chewed, trying to get beyond the fuzziness.

“Well,” I said. “I can report that the pod itself is a little… stringy. But the peas in the pod taste like…”

And here I stumbled looking for a description of the taste.

It reminded me of a time long ago. It must have been fifth grade, because for some reason also Tim Parker occupies that slot in my hazy memory. We were on a field trip, and there was a… well, a field of peas growing nearby, and we got to pick and eat as much as we wanted. As I chewed on the Redbud pod, biting on the tiny seeds trying to get a taste of them, I was reminded of the taste of those peas in that field way back then.

“…they taste like peas,” I said. 

But the taste didn’t last long, because the peas were so small.

The memory of years ago dissipated. So I took another seed pod off the tree, this one bigger than the first. I put it in my mouth and began to chew.

This one was not only bigger but was fuzzier and required more chewing. So I chewed. And I chewed. And I bit on the peas. But there was no taste of anything. There was no flashback to 1969. There was just fuzzy, pithy podness.

So I spit out the pulp (quietly, because I was still on the phone).

In conclusion, I can tell you this: Redbud pods might well be edible in some parts of the country. That is, Eastern Redbud seed pods might be good in a salad. But based on my recent experience, fuzzy Texas Redbud seed pods — not so much.

Anniversary 15

Fri, 14 Apr 2017, 06:06 AM (-06:00) Creative Commons License

It’s been fifteen years. (How time passes when… time passes.) For our anniversary celebration yesterday, we hiked the long loop at Wild Basin Wilderness Preserve

At first there were meadows with Hill Country vistas. There were wildflowers, yellow and purple, many of which we could identify and marveled at but some of which we had never seen before. 

The trail descended from the hilltop into a valley where the vistas disappeared and Junipers and Oaks closed in around us. The ground was soft from the recent rains. The air was fresh. The breeze was cool. The water of the creek was clear with water bugs skimming across mirrored pools where the course turned and disappeared from view.

After we had begun our climb back out of the valley, we sat by the water fall, where the gentle stream spreads out on a broad limestone shelf before tumbling over the edge into a deep pool. There was emerald green moss. There were Maidenhair Ferns. There were Sycamores and American Elms. And there were frogs clicking from hidden places somewhere beyond the pond.

As we finished, the sun was slanting thru the trees sending golden streaks across the yellow and purple bedecked meadows. The stresses of the day had somehow melted away. 

And this morning the two of us woke up and looked at each other with mild surprise. We had slept thru the night and not woken up once, something that was cause for minor celebration — that and the beginning of the next fifteen years.

A Curbside View

Mon, 10 Apr 2017, 07:25 PM (-06:00) Creative Commons License

The sun had set. The light was fading. In a rush, he stood at the curb and snapped a pano shot back towards their yard before there was no light left to see by.

(click to view)

There was an yellow Englemann Daisy and yellow Zexmenia. There was a purplish-pinkish blooming Iris and Spiderwort closed up for the night. There were pink Cone Flowers and Mealy Blue Sage. And there was a purple Prairie Verbena and orange Native Lantana.

It’s shame the Bluebonnets got cut off at the bottom, but by the time he noticed, night had arrived.

Two Dimensions of Industriousness

Sun, 9 Apr 2017, 12:51 AM (-06:00) Creative Commons License

1. On Bookkeeping

We needed some papers notarized, and we were trying to figure out how… and who… and when. Someone at Trudy’s office is a notary, but that would mean that I’d need to go there perhaps at lunch so that the three of us could me. The bonus was that she wouldn’t charge, whereas Frost Bank down the street from us has a notary service, but they charge.

This question of charging vs. not charging for notary services made me wonder about all the folks who are notaries and don’t charge. A lot of these people don’t necessarily do it for work. And those that don’t do it for work usually don’t charge. You just go to wherever they are, you pull out your papers and sign them, and they pull out their notebook and dutifully record the transaction and then afix their seal to the documents.

“Who would ever want to be a notary just to be a notary?” I asked rhetorically.

Trudy was silent for a moment.

“Well,” she said. “When I was a girl, I thought it was the coolest thing. And I always wanted to be one.”

I was silent for a moment. And then I said, “My bad. I should have known that.”

Because, of course, bookkeeping is one dimension of industriousness.

We laughed very, very hard.

2. On Determination

We were eating BurgerFi burgers and fries. (We had run eight miles that morning and were splurging, although truth be told my carb-encumbered guilt led me to get a lettuce-wrapped burger to somehow offset the fries). We were sitting outside under spectacular blue skies in the warm sun and a blustery breeze.

Something made Trudy think of something the Travis county Audubon Society had once done with tattoos. Evidently they had a contest for the best bird design to be chosen as some sort of sanctioned Audubon tattoo community awareness thing. She was wondering what ever happened to that.

She was silent for a moment.

“I’m old enough that I’d do that,” she said.

“Old enough?” 

“Yes!” she said. There was a punctuated, determined aspect to her voice. “I’m old enough now that it doesn’t matter. I can have a tattoo.”

With that, she took a large french fry from the tray, dipped it into ketchup and took a bite. …Except she kind of missed her mouth and painted to globs of ketchup on her cheek.

I must tell you, that this kind of determination is another dimension of industriousness.

Trudy wiped the ketchup off her cheek, and we laughed very, very hard.

Drivers License Renewal Time

Mon, 27 Mar 2017, 11:56 PM (-06:00) Creative Commons License

I blocked off the entire afternoon to renew my driver’s license today, assuming it would take hours.

Last time I was able to renew online, but this time I had to come in person. Still, they have this online system where they send you your time slot. After I registered, I got a text saying to come in an hour and a half.

So an hour and fifteen minutes later, I pull into the DPS parking lot on North Lamar and walk into the office. I grab a renewal form. And I ask the woman at the desk to verify that I just need to text ‘J’ to confirm my arrival.

“What are the last four digits of your phone number?” she asks. “I’ll put you at the front of the list.”

Well, ok… not literally the front. As I sit down in the very full waiting room, I see my number on a big screen hanging from the ceiling. I am third — with an estimated wait of three minutes.

Well, ok… my estimated wait time reached five minutes at one point. But in no time at all, a voice comes over the speaker, “Number 3271 please report to booth nine.”

I feel guilty when I stand up. All those people sitting around me, there must be a hundred, and it’s already my turn.

At booth nine, Shiela has a smiling face to greet me. She takes my paperwork, gives me an eye test, takes my picture (a decent one at that), and gives me a temporary license. It takes all of something like 20 minutes.

Altogether — I kid you not — I was in and out of that place in 25 minutes.

Voice from the Past

Sun, 26 Mar 2017, 09:13 AM (-06:00) Creative Commons License

Saturday morning at the SFC Sunset Valley Farmer’s Market. We had eaten our Taco Deli breakfast tacos. And we had a dozen eggs in our bag.

We were on the crushed granite path between two rows of vendor booths. As we walked slowly along, we passed a Capital Metro booth, and I stopped, because … why would Cap Metro be at the farmer’s market?

It turns out they were taking a strategic planning survey. There were three women at the booth. One explained the survey. One handed an iPad to the fair and industrious Trudy who filled out the survey for the two of us. (Does this surprise you?) And the third woman was holding an umbrella to keep the sun off an elderly woman who was working on another iPad.

When the elderly woman finished, that third woman looked over at me.

“Did you used to teach math?” she asks.

“Um… a long time ago,” I say after a moment.

She smiles and nods.

“At ACC,” I say. “Algebra.”

“Are you David Hasan?” she asks.

I am stunned. My eyes open wide. My jaw drops. I don’t know what to say.

Teaching at ACC had been so incredibly wonderful. My two years there were some of my happiest ever. But that was a very long time ago — just before Ben was born. In fact the last class got regular updates on his mom’s status as her delivery date approached.

And here’s the thing of it: Ben helps run that farmer’s market. He is twenty-six. So I’m standing there speechless, this voice from decades ago having just called out my name.

“Yes,” I say. “I’m David.”

And the woman looks over at her colleagues and begins to gush about how she loved that class. About what a great teacher she had. And about how she finally understood math when she thought she never would. 

I’m still sanding there speechless. My eyes still wide. My jaw still slack. Literally speechless and unable to respond.

I glance at her colleagues. Then at Trudy. And then I look back at the woman. With tears almost coming to my eyes, I spread my arms and walk up to her, and we hug each other tightly.

Spousal Dependency

Sun, 26 Mar 2017, 08:06 AM (-06:00) Creative Commons License

The fair and industrious Trudy clears the dining room table, making room for her computer and the stack of paperwork necessary for the annual ritual of doing the taxes.

“Honey?” she asks.

I am sitting in the other room reading about vector space direct sums and thinking about cosets, because I’ve never been happy with the typical definition of cosets, and I’ve finally begun to get the kernel of an idea how you might explain them to mere mortals, and … my train of thought is interrupted by my industrious wife.

“Honey?” she asks, “Do you know the admin password to my laptop?”

I set down my book, get up from my chair, and walk into the dining room. She’s upgrading to TurboTax 2016 and needs the admin credentials to install it.

I tell her the admin username which she types in. And I tell her the admin password.

“Oh,” she says. “I would have never remembered that!”

The system accepts the credentials and TurboTax begins installing.

“Yay!” Trudy cheers. (You see, in some pathological way that I’ve never understood, she actually enjoys this tax preparation ritual, whence the moniker, industrious.)

Then she looks up at me. 

“I wouldn’t have been able to do it without you,” she says, tongue in cheek. “See? I need you!”

“Right.” I say. “That’s my plan. I keep all the passwords to myself to ensure that my wife needs me.”

She returns to TurboTax. I return to the vector spaces. And our Sunday proceeds apace.

Park Day

Sun, 5 Mar 2017, 10:59 AM (-06:00) Creative Commons License

1. Pocket Park

Sometimes it happens in the spring sometimes in the fall, but it never happens in the summer. This weekend Trudy marshaled her energies and gathered folks for our neighborhood’s contribution to Austin’s It’s My Park Day.  

A fledgling park down the street was born recently when the city bought several parcels of land along a utility easement that was once upon a time going to be a street. Despite the intentions of the Planning Department and the hopes of the speculator who owned the four plots, there will be no street, for it would have paved over what has become a pleasant spot of greenery, and years ago during a city land use planning exercise the neighborhood let the city know our views.

So those plots are now a pocket park, albeit a park in need of nurturing: enter the fair and industrious Trudy.

2. Thinning the Thicket

Trudy and John assigned Bob and me a simple task. It had been suggested to them by the city: thin a thicket of junipers that was growing near a bend in the trail so that a breeze might blow thru and eyes might see beyond.

“This is a job David would like,” John suggested when they met to plan the day. The two of them had strategized this as a way to entice me. It worked.

With our simple marching orders, Bob and I went off for several hours while other folks focused on other things in other places. Bob and I were quite content to be left alone in that one place with that one thing to do.

3. A Fine Meditation

The night before and into the early morning, it had rained long and slow. The ground was soft. Our shoes were caked with mud. Great drops of water fell from the treetops as we trimmed. 

As Bob and I worked, the drizzle stopped. The skies were mercifully cloudy, the temperatures cool. I took off my raincoat and threw it on the ground.

Bob and I pushed our way into the tangle knot of juniper branches that slapped against our arms and tried in vain to poke us in the eyes. As our piles of cut branches grew, the voices of the others in the distance would drift thru the undergrowth. Frequently I could hear Trudy laughing.

I must concede this: John and Trudy found us a wonderful task. Because with the sound of her laughter joyfully rolling thru my head, with the comforting cadence of swift saw strokes and with the smell of juniper resin drifting in the air, the quality of that morning meditation in our fledgling park was indeed quite fine.

Mr. Loudmouth

Sat, 4 Mar 2017, 08:26 AM (-06:00) Creative Commons License

1. A Moon/Venus False Start

The thinest possible slice of moon was hanging in the western sky next to the brightly shimmering light of Venus. Both were shrouded in a foggy mist, and the black sky of night was glowing with globular halos around both…

Wait. You don’t want to hear about this. This is the kind of wannabe-romantic mother-nature la-la served up so often here, so let’s talk about something else, shall we?

Rewind a week or so…

2. Good Job

It was a Saturday morning. The weather was frighteningly warm for February. We were running in shorts and short-sleeved shirts. The water stops every two or three miles were important. It was an out-and-back route, and I was on my way back.

As I ran south on Jefferson heading back downtown enjoying the downhill slope, I heard some runners behind me — footfalls of three or four runners. They were talking to each other, and as they approached their voices got louder. (I have never quite understood this talking-while-running thing. I don’t enjoy it as much as I enjoy the soothing silence of being by myself. But… whatever.)

Their voices got louder, and I could now hear one of them complaining.

“The thing I hate,” he said, “is when you’re three miles from the finish line and someone on the curb shouts out, Good job! Good job!”

“I just hate that,” he said, “I just want to yell back at them, Shut up!”

And at that moment they passed me, the footfalls of their feet getting quieter as they quickly pulled away.

I waited for a moment. And then (having little self control in these things) I shouted out, Good job! Good job!

A couple of them laughed, but (perhaps unsurprisingly) there was no reaction from the guy.

3. At the Water Stop

As it turned out, we were less than a quarter mile from the last water stop. And when I got there, the four of them were still hanging around, drinking from paper cups and chatting with the guy who was taking care of the Gatorade. 

I walked up and got some water, walking around the guy who had been complaining.

“So, I’m sorry about that Good Job!,” I said to all of them. “That was obnoxious.”

They all laughed out loud, including the complaining guy.

“No it wasn’t,” they said. “That was great.”

Score one for Mr. Loudmouth.

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