I remarked a couple of times last week (here and here) that I was away from my normal place in the Texas Hill Country. I also noted that I would make some report of what I was about while I was away. I try to be a man of my word, to do what I say I will do, and so I note that I was in Baltimore, Maryland, attending the IRS Nationwide Tax Forum. Since my day-job is managing a tax preparation and bookkeeping office, it’s the kind of thing that makes some sense for me to do; since my company paid for me to go, I really had no reason or ability to say “no.”

Most of the time that I was in the City that Reads (I’ve seen it called such), I spent either at the Forum or asleep. I don’t travel so well as I used to, after all, and I’ve gotten very much out of the habit of walking a walkable city, so getting to do both was taxing. (Pun intended. I’m a dad. Deal with it.) As I’ve commented to some people since I made it back home, “My body remembers that I used to do things; it doesn’t remember how I used to do them.” So much said, I was glad of the exercise; I got a lot of cardio in, and carrying my luggage back and forth gave me a couple of solid strength-training sessions. And it was good to remind myself that, yes, I can actually do things that aren’t behind a desk every now and again.

I took copious notes while I was in the Forum sessions, training from graduate school reasserting itself. So much is helpful; I was able to bring a lot of information back with me. There is the challenge, though, of transcribing my notes into a useful form; I was concerned with recording information, and now I have to organize it. I’m back at my day job, so while I can make some time at the office to attend to the project, I do have other work to do that was put off for the time away or that has come up since I got back; it will be a little while before I have the notes set up so that I can actually use them–two forms, most likely: a printed form and an HTML document. Cross-referencing is a thing for me, as those who read much of the other materials I have in this webspace see.

I did get out and do some other things, though. I made a point of getting around to local eateries in the Inner Harbor, Federal Hill, and Otterbein areas, trying to avoid the ones that seemed “touristy” in favor of those that looked like they cater to folks who live in the area. It was a good choice, I think, even if I did end up eating and drinking far more at a time than was good for me. I did have the experience while in Federal Hill of running into a group of regulars at one pub who all come from Texas–two of them from the Hill Country, even. It was not something I expected to have happen, but it’s something I’m glad did happen.

(I also tried to make a call of courtesy to a fellow franchise office in Pigtown, but I found the place had not only closed but vacated, so that didn’t work.)

It’s not as if I didn’t do any “touristy” stuff, either. I spent a day touring the Inner Harbor, climbing aboard and through historic ships moored there. There was a commissioning ceremony getting going on one of the ships, so I didn’t spend as much time aboard her as I might’ve done–I didn’t want to be in the way, even though nobody was trying to chase me off–but that gave me time to tour the others and provided for fewer other folks to move around. (One of the ships is a WWII-era submarine, so space was tight, and I am bigger than I probably ought to be.) Nor was I immune to checking out some of the Babe Ruth and Edgar Allan Poe stuff, the latter of which really shouldn’t be a surprise; I was an English major, after all.

In all, it was a good time, and I’m glad to have done it in itself. I don’t know that I would go at the same time of year, though. I missed out on a few things at home while I was away, and I did have some fun with deadlines when I got back; I’d rather avoid those issues if I can. And I am a homebody; it was not long until I got to a point that I missed being with my people. It made coming back a good thing, even if it has taken me most of a week to get back to myself and who and what I need to be.

I’m there now, at least for now, and happy to be so.

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It’s possible I’ve mentioned that I had a busy series of weekends for about the past month at this point. It’s likely I noted around this time last week that one more of them was coming. It’s certainly the case that this past weekend, the last one before Ms. 8 started back to school, took my family and me afield, and it ought to be the case that I let you know how all it went. Hence what follows.

We left Wednesday for and returned Sunday from Foxfire Cabins, where we lodged at around the same time for the last couple of years, as noted. On Wednesday, we made the drive out, and, as in previous years, the drive was pretty. We did go by a bit of a circuitous route, admittedly, one that showed the ongoing effects of the 4 July 2025 flooding in the Hill Country (rebuilding continues, and having support continue would also be helpful); had we gone by our preferred route, I think it would have been harder to see. But we arrived in good form and good time, and we were able to settle into our cabin–which was lovely, with an expansive deck and direct access to the upper Sabinal River–easily. I even joined my wife and Ms. 8 for a brief swim in the river, something I don’t often do. (Since I sink with a life-jacket on, swimming isn’t usually my thing. But it was hot, the upper Sabinal is usually fairly shallow and cool, and it seemed the thing to do.)

On Thursday, the three of us stayed more or less at the cabin. My wife and daughter spent a lot of time at the river, wading and swimming; my daughter also tended to a loose rockwork dam that had been set up to help pool some of the river-water and which a group of hooligans had spent the morning doing their damnedest to destroy, hucking rocks at it loudly to the cheers of their father. She also conceived of a like for frogs, and I have to wonder if she will take up batrachology as a field of study later on. For my part, I joined Ms. 8 and her mother on the water for a while, enjoying short floats on borrowed inflatables–but I also made a point of getting in a long nap. I’ve been tired, and for a while; it was nice to be able to rest quietly for a time, and I did feel somewhat refreshed by the time it came to light the grill and start dinner. I appreciate it greatly.

On Friday, we went into the nearby Lost Maples State Natural Area once again, where we went on a hike on the Maple and East Trails. We made it to Monkey Rock before the heat started really getting to people; temperatures reached the century mark (37°C for the metrically inclined), which takes some getting used to. (I used to be used to it, but I’m older now than I was then, and I work an inside job with no heavy lifting.) Some time in the air conditioning later, my wife and daughter found their way back to the upper Sabinal near our cabin, and I spent some time reading. (It was, admittedly, reading for work, but it was also reading I enjoyed doing, and I might well write here about what I read there. Maybe.) Dinner was grill-work for me, which I was pleased to do; it’s a part of outdoor living that I do actually enjoy, indoorsman though I am.

On Saturday, we went to Concan again, floating on the Frio River with the help of Happy Hollow. The river was higher than when we visited last year, and so there were more people in attendance; I am given to understand that it was a much more normal year than last year was. It made for a decidedly different experience, one that I am not sure I enjoyed; the crowds were friendly enough and seemed to be having a good time, and I’m not complaining about them, but I was unable to relax. For one, I was worried about running into people; I’m not the smallest person or the lightest, after all. For another, I was worried about revisiting the approach to drowning; again, I sink with a life-jacket on, and I had flirted with it on the Frio last year. For yet another, parts of the river seemed intent on beating me up; the riverbed punched me in the butt and back several times, and one cypress tree kneed me in the shoulder rather forcefully. Still, my wife and daughter enjoyed it, just as they enjoyed going to the Frio Float for a bit of refreshments afterward. And I was glad to fire up the grill again that evening to make dinner; I usually am.

On Sunday, we made our way back home. My wife and daughter took one more chance to wade in the upper Sabinal as I got our stuff loaded back into our vehicle for the drive back; they enjoyed it, and I’m glad to have facilitated their enjoyment. We did make a stop in Kerrville on the way back, as it was my nephew’s birthday; we had presents for him from our trip, and we enjoyed a lunch and birthday cake with him before his mother came up to take him off to see her family. The drive home thence was easy enough, and after we packed in and got some briefing on Ms. 8’s coming school session, I fired up my home pit and cooked both dinner and some meat to eat across the next several days (we’re still working on it as I write this, in fact). So it was a good day, and one I’m glad to have had.

I’ve got some more fun and adventures coming up in the next weeks. School has started here, and that means football season is soon to follow; I work with the local band, and so I’ll be driving to a number of games, both home and away. Too, I have some travel for work coming up, and there are already some plans for another brief getaway, depending on how matters go for Ms. 8 as she moves through her new coursework. I’m sure I’ll have something or other to say about at least some of what’s coming after I manage to make it through–which is good, because I like to write, and I like to write here.

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I mentioned at about this time last week that I was looking at another uncommonly busy weekend. So much did, in fact, happen to be the case; I had stuff going on on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Honestly, it was all a bit much for my normally staid and stolid self; I have some hope that this weekend will serve as a bit of a counter to it, offering a time to rest and relax a bit before a bigger push begins again. Until then, though, a bit about what went on might be in order.

On Friday, I went to Kerrville, where I participated in a trash pickup with my daughter and with fellow employees of the family business. Texas runs an adopt-a-highway program in which individuals and groups can volunteer to pick up trash along a designated two-mile span of highway quarterly; in exchange, the state posts signage for the individuals or groups. It’s good advertising, and it does do some good for the area. (Picking up trash is helpful, right?) My daughter and I had a little trouble getting started, as it was the first time for both of us, but once we got moving, we did well, contributing to making what had been expected to be a two-day hitch into the work of a morning. I’m pleased with how things turned out in that regard.

After the trash pickup, my daughter and I returned home. She took time to rest and play; I got to work on a freelance project that had dropped into my lap. It took me through Saturday evening to get it done, but I got it done and submitted, so that much was good. I’m pleased to know that I can still do such work at such a pace, if I have the luxury of focusing on it. I know, however, that I do not often have that luxury; my wife and daughter did a lot to take care of other things while I was pushing through the project, and I cannot always or even often ask so much of them.

Sunday was taken up with a family reunion. Much of my wife’s extended family lives in the Texas Hill Country, although there are kin spread out a fair bit further than that, and they gather annually on the first Sunday in August. Traditionally, they have met at LBJ State Park in Stonewall, but the last couple of years have had the event in Johnson City at the city park. As such, I spent Sunday at the park, helping set things up, cook and cut meat, and tear down, all while enjoying the company of familiar people seen but once in the year and meeting new folks who hadn’t been by in a while. It was a good time, although it made for a long day, and I managed to twist my right knee uncomfortably along the way. But that will heal, I’m pretty sure.

This coming weekend, I’ll be away from home for a few days. We’re taking one last chance to get away before Ms. 8 starts back at school (on Monday, if you can believe it), one last opportunity to rest and recreate before things get back going in earnest again. I’m sure I’ll have something to say about it afterwards; I hope you’ll read it!

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It’s not often that I have the kind of weekend that bears much reporting. It’s far more rare that I have two of them in quick succession. But the weekend before last was a busy one, and the one just past had some excitement to it. (The one coming up does, too, as does the one to follow that, somehow.) And for so much to happen to and around me so quickly bears some mention.

On Saturday, my stepfather-in-law (there’s some interesting blending at work on both sides of my wife’s family) had his sixty-fourth birthday. He had let us know a while back that he wanted to go swimming at Johnson park and to eat at a Mexican restaurant in Fredericksburg, Texas, both of which seem enjoyable enough things to do on a summer day in the Texas Hill Country. Consequently, my family and I planned to join the festivities–sensibly enough, I think, if perhaps with some caveats.

One of those caveats is that I don’t really swim. Instead, I sink. Even with a life-jacket on. And I have demonstrated this on more than one occasion, including a time or two when my wife has seen it happen. Because I am not buoyant at all, I tend not to go into the water, thinking that, even if there is something of a damper on a good time by my staying out of the pool, it’s not nearly as much of one as having to have a lifeguard pull me out of said pool–which, again, has happened more than once, and across a span of several decades, now, so that it’s in no way a one-time thing.

Now, we had thought that the park in question was LBJ State Park in Stonewall, which suited us well enough. The park itself has free admission, and the pool–recently reopened after a reconstruction previously thought unaffordable–asks for $2 to $3 per user. It’s a small enough fee, and the facility’s certainly worth the price, but I still see no reason to pay for something I know damned well I’m not going to use if I can avoid doing it. And, since the family well knows that I don’t swim, I was able to avoid doing it.

No, I dropped my wife and daughter off at the pool and retreated a little bit down the road to the Gillespie County Safety Rest Area on US Highway 290. I’d stopped there many times before, as might be imagined; I used to commute to Kerrville from Johnson City, taking 290 for much of the way, and there are still times that the cups of coffee I take in each morning tell me they need to get out earlier than anticipated. I’d not had occasion to stay there for any length of time, though, and, since there was a decent breeze and the temperature decided to confine itself to the lower 90°s F, it seemed a decent enough thing to do while my wife and daughter swam and played in the pool. (There are lots of places to set up at LBJ State Park, to be sure, but many of them are at some distance from restroom facilities, and I’d been told there was an event at the park headquarters that would make my setting up there, with access to its facilities, a bit of a challenge.)

While at the rest area, I sat at one of the covered picnic tables that grace it, my back to the highway and the wind coming from the southeast, and I wrote in my journal in the shade. There is something to be said for an occasional chance of scenery for the writing I do. Most of it happens while I sit at my desk at home, and a fair bit while sitting at my desk at the office where I still work. It’s sensible enough; I have the bulk of my supplies in one or another of those places, and the former is where I have such research apparatus as I still maintain. I also have chairs in those places that are not apt to aggravate my sciatica, and I have ready access to coffee and other things to drink (I’ve found I do better when I cycle more fluids through my body more rapidly). That I can also shape my soundscape to a large degree helps; certain music conduces well to how I think, and writing is thinking.

So much noted, and true, I also know well that being at home or at the office presents distractions. In both places, I have things other than my supplies and apparatus, and they call to me. At home, I’ve not only a decent chair, but also a bed and a couch that beckon. I can call the tune, but the cats’ meows and the dog’s whine also ring out for attention, or the phone rings. And even aside from all of that, I fall easily into ruts of thinking and depressive spirals that lead me down into dark places I’ve too often visited before, and at far greater length than is good for me. There are limits to how good my setup can be, given my resources, and I am ever near them.

Consequently, popping out every now and again has a salubrious effect on my work. It keeps me from falling into unhelpful cycles or helps me get out of them, which is its chief virtue. I know those cycles present danger to me; they echo with words perilous to hear and ultimately fatal to heed, but getting out every so often quiets the bitter monologue that delivers soliloquies on nothing but my failures. Getting out helps me to remember that the world is more than me, both myself and the externalization of self that the settled-into home is.

I do not always do well with remembering as much. It is easy for me to withdraw, to retreat, from a world I find confusing and frightening. It is easy for me to see what is wrong and what might well grow worse and to take myself where I feel some sense of control. It is this all too easy for me to fail to look outside myself and to focus on what might well go well after all. So much is a problem with which I struggle, with which I have struggled and likely long will. I try to take what are ultimately small steps to get away from it…when I remember to do so, which is, again, not often.

When I do remember, though, and go somewhere else to put my thoughts down, I am the better for it. I cannot always do so, of course. I do have tasks as demand I be in one place or another. I do have to be findable for a few folks at all times and for some more folks a fair bit of the time. And I do get a lot of good work done in my accustomed places; they’d not be my accustomed places did I not. I have worked to make my places good ones from which to write, but I am still glad to get out and about every now and again, to air myself and my places out and return to them ready to address what needs doing.

So it was that my time at the Gillespie County Safety Rest Area was a pleasant enough experience, the decent weather and available shade doing much to help it be so. The facilities are constructed and maintained well, and, the noise from the highway aside, things were rather quiet. Some birdsong and what I think was the chittering of cicadas reached me, and a few people stopping to make use of the facilities happened by, but the last were content to keep their own company and leave me to mine. I appreciate the courtesy, and I appreciate having gotten to have the peaceful time to myself. I think it’s something I might do again, go there to write, as duties and weather permit.

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I‘ve written on occasion about weekend goings-on for myself and my family, reporting on going out for a wedding anniversary, celebrating my wife’s birthday, going on vacation, or taking a few days off to tool about another town. The weekend just past was another busy one for my wife, my daughter, and me, and a good one; I enjoyed it, and I thought you, dear readers, might like to hear about it a bit.

On Friday, I took my daughter, Ms. 8, up to the last rehearsal day at her theatre camp. She was wrapping up the second week of the two-week intensive program, and she had already given one performance in Matilda, Jr., at the Hill Country Community Theatre in Cottonwood Shores, so the day was given over to fine-tuning the performance for the remainder of the run and getting a preview of next summer’s show. Ms. 8 reported to me that the day went well and that she is enthusiastic about the coming show, already thinking about what character she’ll try to land. And it seemed to me she had good reason to be enthusiastic; I went and saw her in Matilda, Jr., that evening, one of a number of her family to do so, and I enjoyed watching the performance greatly. It was clear to me that she and the rest of her company had put a lot of work into the show, and I was and am proud of her for it.

On Saturday, Ms. 8 had a matinee performance of Matilda, Jr., so my wife and I took her up to Cottonwood Shores for her midday call-time. After dropping Ms. 8 off at the theatre for her performance (both of us had already seen her show at that point, and so we figured we’d give others a chance at seats), my wife and I headed to nearby Round Mountain, where a cider mill and event space had recently opened. Admittedly, we put in at an off-peak time, such that we were among very few in attendance when we arrived, but other people came in as we remained on site, and it was clear that the place is already gaining something of a following. I’m glad of it, because it’s the kind of place I could see myself visiting fairly often. The taproom setup is of interest, as is the selection on offer through those taps, and I have to note that the doughnuts they have for sale are excellent. The flavor is sweet enough to satisfy without being overpowering, and the texture is solid without being heavy; I could easily eat far more of them than would be good for me. Ms. 8 also appreciated them, as well as the loaf of home-kitchen sourdough we picked up there.

On Sunday, Ms. 8 had a second matinee performance of Matilda, Jr., so my wife and I once again took her up to Cottonwood Shores for her midday call-time. After dropping Ms. 8 off at the theatre for her final performance of the run, my wife and I went to a coffee shop a couple of miles up the highway from the theatre. It was a familiar enough place; we’d been there in previous years in similar situations, and my wife had spent more time there. At the coffee shop, my wife caught up on some of the administrative tasks she had to do for her job, while I thought and wrote and read. When the performance was done and we had collected our daughter, we went to eat at LeSturgeon Seafood, where we found ourselves in the company of several of Ms. 8’s fellow thespians and their families; it is evidently a popular place with the area actors. The food was good, and it was good to have eaten before what we did after: grocery shopping for the coming week.

Altogether, it was a good weekend. I don’t know that it’s the kind of thing I can do often; there was an awful lot of revelry and fun for me, sedate as the weekend might sound to others. I am not a young man anymore, and even when I was one, I wasn’t prone to doing a lot of things that other people thought of as being fun; there’re reasons I learned the words “stolid” and “staid” early on. But all that said, I am glad to have had the weekend, and I do look forward to the next such time. Another is coming up for me soon enough, after all…I suppose I’ll write about it, too.

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I remarked earlier in the week (here) that I might talk about part of what my wife, my daughter, and I did to mark my wife’s birthday in advance of the event, itself. Again, both my wife and I had to work on the day of and the day after, and our daughter was, as noted, away at camp. Consequently, it fell to the weekend before the day to celebrate the day–and we did so, most of it on Saturday, given other things going on. But that it was done early does not mean it was not done, nor yet that it was not enjoyed–as we’ve demonstrated before.

The focus of our festivities was two-fold, both of which took us to San Antonio. The second of them did not go as well as might have been hoped; it wasn’t an elevator, but it did let us down. The first, though, was enjoyable; we went to the Día de los Muertos Museum in Fiesta at North Star. I’ll admit to some trepidation about visiting a museum that lives above a retail store–and there’s plenty of kitsch to be found in the store, although there’s also a lot worth finding there. And I’ll concede the touristy nature of the museum, itself–but there’s also a fair bit of good content in it, especially given that the museum is an “amateur” production. I do not think there is a formally trained curator on staff; I do, however, think it is a passion project of its ownership, and I can appreciate working on things out of a passion for it despite a lack of access to more “formal” resources.

Small as the museum is, it does work to offer context for the celebration on which it focuses. I don’t know that I quite agree with all of its assertions regarding the deeper history of the observance–some of it seems quite a stretch, and the museum doesn’t do the best job of citing its sources. That said, I certainly appreciate the effort to situate Día de los Muertos in the past and present, as well as in the blend of cultures that gave rise to it.

The focus of the museum, however, is an array of a dozen or so ofrendas. Large and extravagantly decorated–some might call them flamboyant, rococo, or ostentatious–they bespeak exuberance in the celebration. Even for my haphazardly observational self, they were compelling as objects of art; for those who actually follow such observances, I expect they would be decidedly engaging and uplifting. My wife, who is of Hispanic descent, certainly seemed to be moved by the displays, talking at some length afterwards about erecting one in our home in season. (I endorse it for several reasons.)

Our daughter, who is necessarily also of Hispanic descent, though less attuned to it by generational separation, found it less compelling, but I cannot blame her for it. Again, she is more removed from that part of her heritage than her mother is, and I acknowledge that I am not exactly the most enthusiastic celebrant of, well, anything. One museum visit isn’t apt to change that kind of thing, although I know that it can, if things align correctly. I know, too, that they can’t if the visit isn’t made–and, in any event, we went to the museum for my wife. She enjoyed it, seeming to get a lot out of it, and that was the point of the exercise.

It may be that we go back to the Día de los Muertos Museum. The staff noted that they were working on expanding the offerings to include foodstuff demonstrations, and, as my pudgy belly attests, I am decidedly interested in that kind of thing. I think if we do, I’ll make a point of taking notes on site rather than after the fact. Going once, the overall experience matters; going again, I feel I need to do more and better. But that’s always true.

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