Hotluckers, Bugle Boys, and Dia de los Muertos
Last weekend we had a big crew in from out of town for the Hot Luck food festival. Dave, Jen, Brendan, Diana, Trevor, and Carl made the journey, flying into Houston and renting a minivan to drive to Austin as a way to avoid the significantly higher fares – Austin in October is our busy season, and the airlines know it. It was a truly special weekend. Some highlights:
Amy talked me out of cooking on their arrival day, and instead we went to Loro, which lived up to its name as the best Asian smokehouse on South Lamar (and maybe anywhere). It hit the right notes – casual with great food and drinks, and a John Cornyn sighting.
Some good hanging out at our place, spinning records and catching up
Telling old stories with a fantastic bout of laughter about our scuffles with the Bugle Boy Gang in Manayunk
Sentimental gifts:
Matching temporary tattoos of the Pan tattoo I have on my right arm
A custom made Headbands game with pictures of many of our friends
A picture of Brendan and I together when we were in elementary school
A John Cale LP
We saw some boot scooters dancing at The White Horse, a true Texas Honky Tonk
A five mile hike through the Green Belt to help us walk off all of the calories from Hot Luck
Kissing Amy at midnight as the clocked turned over for our 11th anniversary
Getting to know the very special Nina Superfina night one at Hot Luck. I think she almost walked off with Carl's wedding ring.
Two nights of next level food at Hot Luck, showing off what BBQ and live fire cooking and the best chefs of Austin (and elsewhere) could do
Escaping the wind at the Renaissance, with a brief sighting of some minor celebrity who may have recently caused a controversy on Saturday Night Live
I beat both Trevor and Brendan at ping pong in our first matches
Trevor beat me at ping pong the next day. I should've retired my paddle.
Mostly I'll remember the laughter and love. Really great weekend, and really appreciate everyone making the trip to come visit. We need to do this more often. Diana used all of her photography talents to perfectly capture the weekend with a great video featuring Steeley Dan. Amy's pulled it into the photos section if you want to take a look.
How I'm feeling
I had my most recent treatment on Tuesday, and this one was a little bit different. I'm done with the Yervoy, so I just had the Opdivo, which was delivered via a single shot, subcutaneously, rather than intravenously. It was done in about 2 minutes, shot into my belly. Fortunately, after Hot Luck, there was more belly for it to be shot into. I actually had a bit of a reaction to it, with an immediate rash and puffiness breaking out near the injection spot. After about an hour, that subsided, so all good.
Some mixed results with my meeting with Dr. Yorio, but nothing concerning. Big positive is that my red blood cell counts are still moving in the right direction. I'm not quite to normal range, but definitely pointed up. The negatives are more side effect related than cancer related – my liver levels are elevated slightly above normal range, as are my thyroid levels. I shared with the Doctor that the liver is likely related to drinking a bit to excess during Hot Luck. I've cut drinking out completely since then and aside from an occasional social glass of wine, will be off the sauce until that is under control. Between Europe and Hot Luck there's been a little too much celebrating lately, but that will slow down for a few weeks. Hope is that both the liver and thyroid will improve as the Yervoy continues to work its way out of my system.
Other than that, feeling mostly good. Shoulder is improving with the physical therapy, with some talk of actually golfing next weekend. A little fatigued, but all good.
Something I'm thankful for
I'm really grateful to have a great group of lifelong friends. The group that came to Austin, as well as a few people that didn't…I recognize how special that is. We speak the same language in ways that I just don't with other people and we're always able to pick up where we left off.
It's hard to get this entire group together, and I really appreciate each of them taking the time and the expense to come to Austin. It was a truly special weekend, and one that we'll hopefully have the opportunity to repeat elsewhere (and here) again and often.
A memory
Halloween is approaching, so I figured it'd be a good time to reflect on last October. Amy and I celebrated our tenth anniversary with a long weekend in Oaxaca, where the beginning stages of planning for The Dia de los Muertos was underway – we weren't there for that, but if you're looking for a great city to experience it in, Oaxaca definitely would hit the mark.
The weekend was filled with great food including a cooking class where we learned how to make mole, eating at a local food market, and making more than one trip to this really unique restaurant called Labo Fermento that experiments with all aspects of fermentation (pickling, miso, soy sauce) that had these unreal dumplings. We also did a Mezcal tasting, and hit some of their legendary cocktail bars. We saw a couple of weddings flow out into the streets with giant dancing puppets, and enjoyed long walks and shopping while exploring the Colonial architecture. The trip was really nice and a great way to celebrate the best 10 years of my life. Definitely recommend it to all for a long weekend.
Part of the shopping there was to get ready for Louis and Ashley's costume party for The Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) party back in Austin. For this we decided to go all out, hiring a professional airbrush body painter to get us costumed up. I'd describe that, but just advance to the photos. Seriously. Louis and Ashley's party was predictably a blast – great group of their friends, amazing food, and a seance where one of the guests was told he’d get colon cancer, yet refused to promise his wife he’d get screened.
I hope he's okay.
Also, on that same weekend, we went over to the Krumpe's for Scaryaoke – basically, a karaoke Halloween party, where Amy and I dressed up as Slash and Axl Rose from Guns N' Roses. We covered everything from Sweet Child of Mine, Welcome to the Jungle, and Knockin' on Heaven's Door. A fun night out, and my voice was shot for a week.
Octobers rule.
Something I'm looking forward to
On to the next trip. We're in full motion getting our winter ski trip planned with Tracy, Allen, Alison, John, and Wes. Looks like we've settled on Deer Valley, staying in Park City, the week of 2/14. Far too many text messages are bouncing around figuring out the perfect Airbnb. It's always fun with this group. This year, I'm going to try to not be the one that's pushing everyone to get on the slopes earlier and stay longer, and I'm going to try to schedule my bloodwork with Texas Oncology more than a week after we get back so that my liver can get to normal range.
Something I recommend
The new Nathan Fielder documentary, "You Can See Everything" is a must watch. I highly encourage seeing it on the big screen, or at minimum making sure you're in a place where you're setting everything else aside and hanging on every moment. Without providing any spoilers, Nathan was provided complete access, including living with, the disgraced founder of Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes, and her partner Billy Evans in the 34 days leading up to her prison sentence.
Nathan Fielder has clearly graduated from his early cringe comedy documentary work and put together something with more than one twist that makes you question, at times, what the truth is.
See it.
Something I ate
The Hot Luck festival was a testimonial to excess. Highlights included the brisket burger from Aaron Franklin, the smoked cod ceviche tostada from Leroy and Lewis, the beef tartar tostada from Nixta, and whatever that beef stick was from Canje. I've been trying to get to some level of detox and barbeque avoidance since last weekend.
Random thoughts
Caesar, Hitler, and Trump walk into a bar…
They say that history is written by the winners, and it is. It's not hyperbole to suggest that if the Nazis won WWII that they would admonish the USA for war crimes committed via the fire bombings of Dresden and Tokyo and the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That's not to draw parallels with the unparalleled atrocities of the genocidal industrial concentration camps, but just to suggest that the history books reflect the perspective of those who won.
We don't learn about Julius Caesar from the perspective of the Gauls. They almost certainly wouldn't have named a salad or a method of birth, let alone a month after him. While Cato the Younger condemned it, we never speak of the total massacre of an estimated 400,000 Germanic people, including women and children, after being invited across the Rhine for peace talks. Entire communities and cultures were erased from the map.
We just think that those were different times.
As we advance to the present day and the history we're living through, will the United States face any sort of reckoning or national self reflection on the atrocities of the Trump administration? The concentration camps, child separations, innocent deaths, imprisonments, and deportations of immigrant populations where cruelty appears to be the point? The utter disregard for addressing climate change while we approach a cliff? The shredding of democratic norms and neutering of the judiciary? The rampant corruption and welcoming of an oligarchy? The disregard for our allies? The storming of the Capital Building on January 6th?
There were plenty of Nazis who didn't see the forest for the trees. Who just wanted to feed their families and feel secure in their futures. Who supported and put Hitler in power without being directly implicit in starting a World War, let alone genocide.
They also say that history doesn't repeat, but it often rhymes. To think that we've seen the worst of what this administration will do is just ostrich head-in-the sand stuff. What happens if the economy tanks and they start questioning what we're spending on the immigration detention centers? What sort of atrocities will we ignore then?
Let's hope November 3rd helps us move in the direction of getting onto what's next, and let's hope that all supposedly middle-of-the-road traditional Republicans find some way to properly own their complicity in allowing this to happen, so that it can never happen again.
