Sabotage after the wedding

One post wedding highlight was the discovery of a large insect similar to the one above, but with bigger mandibles and a longer, more swollen abdomen, that Scott bravely caught in Uncle Tom's garage. This bug was massive. Tom said he'd never seen one like it in 20 years living and working outside in Central Texas. No one knew what it was, but termite or ant queen were thrown out there.


It looks like it may have been a female dobsonfly, but we'll never know for sure.


Amid all the excitement about the bug arose the question, "What do we do with it?" About half the crew (not to generalize, but they tended to be vegetarian, with the exception of the overly emotional one who was moreso after a half dozen drinks) wanted to let go back to its business.

Ian and I were in the camp that wanted to keep it not just for posterity, but also for research and art. Ian grew up with a fascination of bugs and bug collections, and Troy introduced me to the study of entomology back in college. We wanted to pin it to a cork board and frame it for Julian's room.

Ian felt particularly strong about keeping it, so he put the argument to rest by pulling the groom card. We all went back to the party. No less than 20 minutes later, we discovered the sabotage that had been had on the bug container. The glasses that had been holding the creature were in the sink; the insect long gone. It quickly turned into a Clue style game of whodunit, with one clear pro-bug-life perpetrator who we'd thought had passed out in her grief-stricken state.


Now all we have are some crappy pictures we took and a memory of the biggest, gnarliest flying bug any of us had seen.

Top photo by kaleidoscope, via flickr.

I sure won't miss this scratching

Not only are Ian and I both scratching ourselves silly (well, less today than yesterday) from the batch of chiggers we must have found on Sunday, we're having a bit of Julian withdrawals. Anyone else scratching or still calling their belly buttons be-bos?

New Orleans!

We made it to New Orleans! The first night, we stayed in Lafayette, slept in like honeymooners without their kiddo (til nearly 11!), then headed into the Big Easy. I was surprised at how big city New Orleans is. The downtown is taller and more interesting than Austin's. The waterfront is OK, and the French Quarter is definitely cool. We're at the Olivier Hotel, a block off Bourbon, which I've realized is what Sixth Street is striving to be. Too bad New Orleans has the drink-in-the-street law, plus you can drink until you decide to stop, not until the bars all shut down simultaneously.

Well, what about the music on Sixth Street? We saw two incredible jazz bands last night, and the rest seemed to be cover bands, which isn't much different than Sixth. Downtown Austin does have better options for a variety of music and food, the latter of which we're going to explore here in New Orleans more today.

We ate at this Charter House place in the French Quarter. The crawfish cakes and muffaletta were pretty good, and they were better than the Acme Oyster House, which we were lured in to by the name and the fact that it was on all our maps. There's nothing that sucks more when you're traveling than getting all hyped up about a place because it has the appearance of being really great, only to get stuck with stale bread and tasteless oysters. Ah, well. More yumminess is ahead for us, I just know it.

Off to Cafe du Monde!

Here we go...

So many fun things to share today!

First, my debut as food writer for the Austin American-Statesman. I couldn't be more proud (and excited and nervous and giddy and all the other things you feel as the plane first lifts off the ground, heading toward somewhere you've never been). So far, I've met only wonderful people, like the people in my first lede story about the Austin Discovery School where students do most of their learning outside, in gardens. In my first column, I rekindled a memory of nearly burning down our apartment in Alicante, Spain, that was probably best left forgotten. The Relish Austin blog is up and running, with a couple of posts to greet you and, if I stay good on my word, daily posts on the weekdays after that (breaking food news notwithstanding).

Second exciting thing: I have some candidates for a wedding dress! I went on an exhausting shopping trip for both the Ian man and me, while he stayed at home to watch the kid. (It was a fair trade, I promise.) I spent something like 3 hours trying to channel my inner Stacy and Clinton to find the perfect stylish dress (not white, not frumpy, not long) and something equally fabulous for Ian. I ended up at the Armani Exchange (what? I've never shopped there in my life.) and found killer (and not that expensive) shirts and jeans for him and an awesome dress that I know Ms. London and Ms. Klum would approve of. We'll see if it's the winning number.

Third fantastic moment of my day: Julian has these berry/nuts that he collects outside, and when we come inside, he refuses to let go of them.

Today, we let him win.

See what fun he found.

Toys? Who needs toys?

More What Not to Wear

Astute reader Terry Sulsen tipped me off to this article on naturallycurly.com, a site that was started by some people who used to work at the Statesman. She interviewed me several weeks ago, but I had kinda forgotten that they were going to do an article.

Now, more apologies for not posting more, but I have an article of my own I need to get back to. My first story as the food writer is running on Wednesday, along with my first Relish Austin column. :) I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

Ian and I got to sneak away for some shopping today. We both need something for the wedding, which is coming up a week from today, so we went by American Apparel and got non-wedding stuff. Makes perfect sense, right? Everything in this store fits Ian to a T. I'm so glad he finally found a place where he can buy (expensive) stuff to show off his cute little body. Still no dress for me, but I will find it this week. Stacy and Clinton would have been proud of me today. I tried on some good stuff, but I said no because I know that there's more out there.

Joyous days

I started my new job as food writer today! It feels so good to finally be starting, and I'm so enthusiastic about what's on the go already. The food blog will be launching soon; I'll let you know when it does.

Yesterday marked Mother's Day and the two week notice until the wedding. Holy cow. Everything seems to happen at once, eh? We celebrated the dia de la madre at Freddie's over some drinks and the most delicious onion rings on the planet. Julian got to play on the playset they have there, and as you can see by the video, listen to some cool music and meet some new people. I took some spiffy video with my new camera and I tried out a new video editing program to put it together.




Julian has been so sweet lately. Giving hugs and kisses and wanting to snuggle in the most adorable ways. We went on a glorious hike the other day on the Greenbelt and were surprised with water flowing at Twin Falls. We found a shady tide-pool-esque spot to sit and explore the rocks and fresh water while Shiva romped in the creek. Proof enough to me that a super special Mother's Day isn't limited to one day a year.

I read an especially wonderful Mother's Day blog post today. It's from Noble Pig, a food blog I read. She's a mom to two boys and watching them grow through those pictures and her words is really touching.

Julian photos April

Julian turned 15 months and celebrated with new words (signing bird and plane, saying "nama" for banana, "uva" for raisin, etc.), a big ol' fat round of sick (consider yourself forewarned of a snot photo that's really one for the books) and a newfound gusto for getting into everything he shouldn't (cabinets, the top of chairs, Shiva's bidness).

He's just over 20 pounds and 30 inches tall. He's got 8 full teeth and four vampires and two molars working their way through He likes sleep as much as his mommy (just not past 7:30, quite unlike his mommy) and he's eating like a true member of the Knox-Broyles clan (hello, perogies and sausage. how nice to see you again, homemade mac and cheese.) He's even got a notorious raw carrot eater (me) to enjoy the steamed variety on occasion.

As you can see from the photos, he's really into sneaking up to the music area and grabbing guitar picks, and he's not very happy when we take them away. He's also obsessed with taking dirt from a pot we have outside and using it with his porch "kitchen" we set up. He and Ian have developed a special no-shirt bond. Now, all we have to do is train him not to put our wedding rings in his mouth in a few weeks.

Julian meows (kindof)

I just got a cell phone (not for the first time; I've had to give them up to overcome a mild cell phone addiction I developed in college.), and it's proving to be pretty super cool. I got it mainly for work, and I went through wirefly.com for both the phone and the cell service. If you are a new customer, you can get mad deals. I ended up with a LG Shine that has a video camera and connects via bluetooth to my computer! I took this little video right before Julian went down for a nap just now. Technology these days...

We're headed to the new fountain park by Lady Bird Lake (Town Lake) to enjoy the perfect May day.