Old Pecan Street Festival in Austin

Two things that I love a lot: getting coupons in the mail, and writing inside coffee shops pretending I'm doing something really pivotal in the world of literature. Or, at least, potentially so. Did Hemingway and Fitzgerald know they were writing great works of literature when they sat in Paris cafes?

Actually, they probably did. Maybe confidence is the key. But recognizing delusions of grandeur would also be necessary, so I'll be content knowing that this chai tea and blogger are enough to make me happy right now. And thanks to a coupon for a free drink of $5 or less, I'm getting to play out my favorite stereotype by typing away on my lap top at a corner table in The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.

I love tea, and the long shelves of brightly packaged teas in cans behind my chair are tempting me to push my personal tea collection to capacity, but I know for fact that the cupboard at home simply can't handle any more, so I'll keep my back turned to the Jezebel collection flanking me.

Today in Austin there were several events going on downtown that we knew would make driving to and parking at church a huge headache, so for the first time I got to try the Capital Metro System. The trip planner on their website would have been excellent, if it had accounted for the detours that eliminated certain downtown stops because of the marathon and festivals.

So, in thinking that the bus would drop us closer to the Omni Hotel than the outer edge of downtown, we waited for the next stop, only to find ourselves circumnavigating the entire city of Austin, from Oltorf to further south to back on downtown's edge again. We initially boarded the bus at 9AM to make the 9:45 young adult Sunday school class, and walked into the church at exactly 10:57. That made the ride to church an HOUR long. It's OK though, beginner's mistake. The ride home took ten minutes, and I have not been detoured from thoughts of purchasing an $18 month long pass. Hopefully there aren't many more marathons planned in the future.

The events downtown proved alluring, despite their initial frustration, though, so after church we got to go walk around the Old Pecan Street Festival. I didn't realize that the streets used to be named after trees, and while I can see the pragmatic draw of renaming them after numbers, names like Pecan, Ash, and Magnolia, are much more romantic than 6th & 7th.

The website touts the festival as the largest arts festival in Central Texas, and I hope to one day retire my poster prints of Monet and Kandinsky and become a patron of living, breathing artists who need to eat. Luckily, the balloon man always seems to be doing good business.

When I get a decent camera, I want to take pictures of all of Austin's storefront signage.

Waiting at the bus stop for the ride home. The theatre man was putting up new letters on the marquee and I really wanted to ask him to let me do one. I refrained. But next time I take the initiative.

Yes, I did walk into traffic for the picture below. I wanted to be in the picture, but my potential photographer was worried about left turning traffic courtesy, or something lame like that.

I like immortalizing what I'm listening to at any given moment, and someone who works in this coffee shop has good taste. Also, shazam is amazing. This video makes me want to go finish my copy of Bitch: The Consumed Issue, right this second.