They are going to build a fucking Wal-Mart in my neighborhood. For those not of the Austin persuasion, the mall in which they plan to build this behemouth is practically across the street from my house. I would probably be able to see this thing from my back yard. Well, not quite, but almost. Seriously, it would be like four or five blocks away. And they don't just want to put a run of the mill Wal-Mart in, either. Plans are for a two-story, 24-hour megacenter, the biggest in the county. In my neighborhood, which is an older, established neighborhood with full grown trees and houses that have seen at least two generations grow up.

Fuck that, I say.

Due to the entire city being covered in ice, Austin is pretty much shut down today. And was yesterday as well. With Monday being a holiday, that makes this a five day weekend for me. I could get into that. Five day weekends and two day work weeks sounds just about right...

The Austin city council has passed an anti-chaining ordinance! Basically, it states that it will be illegal as of October 1 to chain or tether your dog and leave him/her. It further states that dogs who live in outdoor pens or kennels must have at least 150 square feet of space per adult dog. These are both big advances in humane pet ownership and I'm thrilled that the city council has taken this stand. Now I am crossing my fingers for actual enforcement.

My very favorite Austin event takes place yesterday and today. It's called Art from the Streets. The city homeless shelter has a large art program, and once a year they have a show where their clients sell their art pieces. It is the shelter's major funding source for the year, pulling in $80K in 2005, the first year I went, all by selling pieces priced from $20 to $300.

When I first attended, I was completely blown away by the size and quality of the show. In my excitement, I bought not one or two but five art pieces (which was about four more than I could afford). All of them are displayed in my house.

So tomorrow is Election Day. A lot of people don't bother to vote in elections that don't have national level implications, and that's too bad--in many ways, local level elections, like the one held tomorrow, are more important, or at least have more direct impact on our lives. However, voting in these types of elections is generally a lot harder, as information about them isn't as prevalent. It takes actual effort to find out about the candidates and ballot measures presented to us, rather than having had them shoved done our throats for several months beforehand. I don't know if this is a good thing, though it's certainly less irritating, since most people just don't want to spend the effort to show up at their polling places, much less educate themselves beforehand.

So...in the spirit of helping out my community (not that I think many Austinites actually read this blog, but you never know), I present a brief guide to tomorrow's election. I make no claims about being unbiased.

Local election results are here, but to summarize, everything passed, and voter turn-out was something like 8.5% overall.

On my travels through the Internets today, I came upon something I didn't know about: the website for the I Live Here, I Give Here campaign. Basically, the deal is that Austin is ranked 48th of the 50 largest cities in the country when it comes to charitable giving (though, interestingly third in volunteerism), and this campaign is striving to increase charitable giving by Austin residents by educating them about community needs and the organizations that are in place to meet those needs.

The goal of the campaign is to get Austin residents donating 3% of their incomes, while working towards 5%. Giving that church-based tithing is generally 10%, that seems doable. Right now, the average American household gives 3.2% of its (post-tax, I think) income to charity.

I think the campaign has the right idea--people would give more if they knew how and where their money could be best used. As for myself, their goals and the use of their handy giving calculator (under "How do you compare?") have once again opened my eyes to how much more I should be doing. I'm giving less than 2% of my take-home right now. Given my fairly low financial responsibilities (no kids), I ought to be doing better. And I am hoping this campaign will help me to find ways to do that. I'll definitely be re-checking their site when I decide on December's blog-highlighted charities.

Today is World Food Day. All over, there are events to raise money to feed those who need feeding and remind those of us who are lucky enough to have constantly full bellies that we live in great privilege. One of my favorite of these projects is the Empty Bowls Project. In an Empty Bowls Project, participants make clay bowls and serve soup in them to guests, who pay a suggested donation (usually $10-$20) for the soup and then keep the bowls, to remind them there are empty bowls all over the world. The donations fund projects working towards ending hunger.

Here in Austin, there is an Empty Bowl Project at Clayworks Studio on Burnet every Sunday before Thanksgiving. That's this Sunday, November 18, from 11am-3pm, at 5442 Burnet Rd. The suggested donation is $15 per bowl. Local restaurants provide soup and there is live music. Get there early, because last year I came late and there was a line around the block.

If you aren't local, you can go here and see if there is an Empty Bowls Event in your neck of the woods.

I've been buying a lot of handmade stuff recently, but haven't been able to share descriptions or pictures of it here, because most of it is intended as gifts for people who may be reading this blog. Yesterday, however, I attended the Wheatsville Arts Festival, one of my favorite annual Austin events, and bought a boatload of stuff just for me. Which means I can share!

(The photo shows two stacks of homemade soap, two sets of hand-thrown pottery bowls, one blue and one green, and three brightly colored handmade headbands.)

Since I have had not one but several emails over the past few days inquiring as to whether or not I am OK (one of which said that the writer had "sensed a disturbance in the Force," which I am just geeky enough to love), I thought maybe I'd better make an announcement.

I'm just fine. The past couple of weeks (since I got back from Norway, really) have been very tough, but not for anything but the most mundane reason: it's high cedar season in here in lovely Austin, Texas and my allergies have been kicking. my. ass. Basically, I am irritable, stupid, and at about 5% breathing capacity. Also, I snore. So I am a total joy to live with. But it's nothing insurmountable, and in fact I think (knock wood) that the worst of it may have past.

As always, I am astounded and humbled that folks notice, just from online presence or lack thereof, that something is up with me. Truly, I am blessed.

In November, I posted about I Live Here, I Give Here, which is an Austin campaign to make people aware of local charitable organization and non-profits and increase giving. As one of my giving goals for 2008 was to increase local-level giving, it's a great resource for me. In honor of NaBloPoMo: The List Edition, here is a list of some places I'd like to give to this year, many of which I discovered through I Live Here, I Give Here:

Local and handmade, what could be better? Here are a few Austin-local Etsy favorites I've run across:

Katinka Pinka makes wonderful, unusual jewelry and beautiful wrap skirts. She charges sales tax to us locals, but S&H is always free. My favorite of her stuff is this green Secret Bumble wrap skirt. It's $59, which is maybe a bit high, but it is really lovely and looks well-made. My only real complaint is that according to the description, it only fits up to a size 12.

Last week, Forbes named Austin "the hardest-drinking city in America." In evidence of this claim, the magazine cites a CDC report saying that 61.5% of adult residents of Austin have had at least one drink in the past month, and 20.6% admit to "binge drinking" (five or more drinks on one occasion) at least once in the last month. The article goes on to postulate that these high numbers are in part due to the large population of college students here, who tend to drink a lot and often.

I say "eh."

Yeah, this is a hard-drinking city. People like to party here. I've gone out to drink more here than I ever did in Portland (and frankly it's still not very often). The heat makes me want to drink. The culture makes me want to drink. Some days, being around so many undergrads makes me want to drink. However, I don't get a feeling of depressing alcoholism here like I have in other cities. The drinking here seems, by and large, fun. Portland (number 13 on Forbes' list) was definitely seedier. Interestingly, the U.S. city that strikes me as the most depressingly drunk--Las Vegas--didn't make the list at all.

Mark and I like pizza. We order it a couple of times a month. But it has to be decent local pizza, Mark won't touch Pizza Hut with a ten-foot pole. After trying several of the local Austin chains (well, the ones that deliver in our neighborhood, anyway), we settled on Austin's Pizza as our deliverer of choice. Local, fresh ingredients, and frequent coupons.

Then we went through a period where we got several not-quite right orders in a row. Twice I was delivered Diet Pepsi rather than regular. Once our "hold the Canadian bacon, add sausage" pizza turned up with no sausage and extra Canadian bacon. Then we got an almost inedible undercooked pizza, and I sent a polite but firm email to their customer service address telling Austin's Pizza that while we would love to continue our relationship with them, we needed some assurance the quality would be better first.

Within 24 hours, I received a lovely email in return, apologizing, assuring that a manager would look into the problems at the location from which we're ordering, and giving us a pizza on the house. Problem solved. We've ordered many times since then and it's been great each time.

Until last night, at which point I wrote the following email:

I am sorry to be writing you again about this. A few months ago, I wrote about the quality issues we'd been having with pizzas ordered from you. You kindly gave us an order credit and said the problem would be fixed. And it has been--since then, our pizzas (we order at least a couple a month) have been great! Tonight was no exception--we got exactly what we ordered, quickly, and the pizza was excellent.

The problem was that we also ordered a Zilker salad, and at least 1/3 of the greens in the salad were slimy/bad. I understand that it is hard to keep greens fresh in Austin climate, but honestly, when I pay $10 for a salad, I expect to be able to eat it all. I noticed that the date field on the sticker on the lid of the salad says "2." Does this mean the salad was put together on the 2nd? Since today is the 6th, I expect if that is the case it explains why so many of the greens were beginning to decompose. I've gotten the Zilker salad before and found it to be excellent, and tonight ordered from you specifically because I wanted a nice salad, so this was a major disappointment.

I really wish Austin Pizza would focus more on quality control. We love to be able to support a local business like you, but we have to be able to feel secure that when we come home from work tired and order food, that food will be eatable when it arrives.

This morning, less than 18 hours later, I received the following response:

I am so sorry about the quality of your salad. We have struggled with this issue and employed the sticker dating to prevent this gross and embarrassing problem from happening to our customers. The stores are supposed to date the salads so they know when to toss them out. The salads are not supposed to stay in the cooler for more than 36 hours. At any rate, our operations manager has been made aware of the situation and will make sure the Farwest store has the proper procedures in place. Meanwhile, I will have the cost of that salad refunded back to your card.

Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention. We will correct it immediately.

We see it so infrequently anymore I am not sure all my readers will recognize this--it's called customer service, and it's a dying art. Austin's Pizza will keep my business, even though I normally wouldn't give this many chances. Why? Because they reply to complaints politely and quickly, give a refund if appropriate, and tell you specifically what they are doing to remedy the problem. That's worth something to me.

I haven't told you this yet, but Mark turned in his dissertation last week. He still has to do his oral defense (a week from tomorrow), but he's more or less done. In celebration of that fact, we went to a very nice dinner last night at a local restaurant, Zoot. Aren't we cute? Our sweet neighbor, Mary, took a few pictures of us before we left.

The menu at Zoot was very nice. I actually thought it looked a little bit tame when reading it, but the execution of every single thing we had was so good that really, I think the menu is just understated. The room is comfortable and casual and they have a great outdoor space. The waitstaff was wonderful--very friendly, and our waitress brought Mark a free glass of wine after she saw me "reprimanding" him for stealing too much of mine. If you live in central Austin, Zoot is pretty far out (it's on Bee Caves), but it is a nice drive and really lovely out there.

For the curious, this is what we had:
First Course
Mark: Charcuterie and chicken liver pate with chopped tapenade and tarragon mustard
Adami "Garbel" Prosecco, Colbertado, Italy
Me: Grilled curry stuffed quail with pickled mango salad
2006 Domaine Adele Rouze, Loire Valley

Second Course
Mark: Chilled fennel soup
Me: Spinach salad with spicy fried garbanzo beans, marinated pequillo peppers, and sherry vinagrette
2006 Chateau Benoit, Muller Thurgau, Oregon

Third Course
Mark: Grilled ahi with potatoes dauphine, frisse, green beans, and poached egg
Light Oregon pinot noir
Me: Rack of lamb with sweet potato and purple potato gratin and garlic mustard greens
Heavy Oregon pinot noir

Dessert
We split honey cheesecake with burnt sugar and gingerbread crust and lemon-thyme sauce
Coffee

While everything was great, the standouts for me were my curry stuffed quail and the Oregno pinot I had, which I cannot for the life of me remember the name of (that was the wine of which our waitress so kindly brought us an extra glass). The lamb was also prepared perfectly. The ony things I didn't care for were my greens (and that's just a matter of taste--Mark loved them) and the cheesecake crust (same thing). There were really no weak spots in the service or the food.

Another boon was a tip I got to go over to restaurant.com and pick up a gift certificate to cover part of the meal. I paid $5 ($10 with a 50% off code of MOTHER) for a $25 certificate, printed it out from my home printer, and used it with absolutely no issues. $20 off the meal with very very little trouble. As several of our other favorite restaurants locally are listed on the site as well, it's definitely something I will use again.

All in all, it was a really lovely date night. If you are local, I definitely recommend Zoot. Also, for vegetarians, there is a veggie tasting menu, called the "Farmer's Menu," that sounds fantastic.

The truck is full. The house is empty. And my heart, I'm pretty sure, is broken.

It's been a time, Texas.