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| The Blue Cat Cafe has a play area for customers and cats. The cats are from the Humane Society and available for adoption. |
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| Beware! Guard cat on duty! |
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| Photo by Fox |
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| There are "catwalks" throughout the restaurant, which serves "cat dogs" and tacocat (a taco palindrome). When a black cat walks above you, has it crossed your path? And, yes, for some reason, there was an upside down Christmas tree hanging from the ceiling. |
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| After the leaking water main was replaced, the city crew replaced the torn out sidewalk and driveway. I parked on the street for several days so as not to be trapped in the driveway. |
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| Papa Tom's truck was trapped for a few days while the driveway was built and the cement set. |
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| Papa Tom surveys the progress. He arrived back from New Mexico at about 2 a.m. Thursday, July 13, 2017. His favorite trail in Ruidoso was destroyed by forest fire and flooding a few years ago. He could only hike in about 1.5 miles before the trail disappeared. We hiked his favorite trail on our honeymoon: 12 miles round trip. Magical experience at the top of the mountain (about 10,000 feet): lots of horned toads hopping around. Then three stealth bombers flew past, almost at eye level to us. The ancient and the futuristic, all at one time. |
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| Part of the sidewalk and driveway had to be torn out due to a leaking water main. What a muddy mess! |
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| The leaky pipe. Can you see the dinner plate sized hole in the side? |
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| Looking east as I backed out of the driveway on July 12, 2017 |
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| So happy that they're connecting our front sidewalk with the city sidewalk |
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| The city crew offered to build the sidewalk around the peach tree, but we thought it would eventually have to come out. |
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| Removed in a matter of seconds, thanks to some kind of tree puller machine |
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| Soon to be sidewalk space |
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| Colton, celebrating July Fourth weekend |
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| The very handsome, accomplished, and good Desty and Colton. Come see us in Austin! |
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| Papa Tom will be the mountain man this week, while I stay behind in Austin, on standby at work in case any fellow Team members need me to take care of anything while they're in training in D.C. Nice way of saying their potential need saved me from sleeping on the ground and walking up, up , up for miles. ;-) |
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| City crews started on the sidewalk at our next door neighbor's house at about 7 a.m. |
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| Almost reached our driveway by about 12:30 p.m. |
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| Done by about 3:30 p.m. We're up for tomorrow. Parked the car on the street tonight so I won't be trapped when the city crew tears our driveway out. |
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| Our peach tree will be no match for the encroaching sidewalk. Good-bye, little peach tree. Thanks for all the good fruit. Well, the squirrels should thank you too. They certainly took their share! |
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| We celebrated their 2nd birthdays a week late, on July 8. Cupcakes are good no matter when you celebrate! Left to right: Lucy, Sarah, Jake, Kirk, and Jim. |
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| Great-uncle Tom with the birthday kids. |
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| The Olsons are moving to Seattle in mid-July. We will miss them so much! Left to right: Jake, Sadie, Jim, Lucy. |
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| Do you see Chase? He blends in so well with the garden! |
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| I'm looking forward to the life of Einar, lazing around, waiting for the food bowl to be filled up. |
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| In honor of mine and Tommy's retirements, Rhonda made one of her fabulous cakes for our Team meeting. (Argh! Why are photos on my phone so out of focus? Is it the photographer or the phone?!?!) |
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| 100,000 people were expected for the concert and fireworks at Auditorium Shores. We opted to view from further away to avoid traffic jams. |
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| Nice grassy spot high enough to see over the elevated portion of MoPac. |
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| And because July 5th would be my very last full day at SOAH, we felt free to walk up the hill to Magnolia Cafe for a late night of nachos. I didn't eat all of this; we split it, I promise! |
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| Fox spent Saturday morning at work with Amon. One of her favorite parts of the job at SunTint is riding in the golf cart with Daddy, especially when Daddy does donuts in the parking lot. (Shades of me teaching Amon to drive: will never forget the time he insisted on doing backwards donuts as fast as possible in the high school parking lot, while I hung on to the passenger door handle for dear life. He correctly told me: "That's not gonna help, Mom.") |
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| Scott has accepted a position with Microsoft, so the Olsons will be moving to Seattle in mid-July. We got together at the Howells on June 29, 2017, for one of several "au revoir" events. Left to right: Jake and Lucy, who turned 2 on July 1; Fox, age 6; Sadie, age 5; and Jim, age 4. Eight-month-old Miles was hanging out in the other room. |
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| The swimming pool basketball toy becomes a Transformer costume when it's out of the water. |
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| Jim LOVES Transformers! |
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| Sadie's pre-school teacher braided her hair with a ribbon. |
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| So many people are retiring that we've started having combined retirement parties. Ours was on June 29, 2017. Susan left SOAH for good (on her Harley) right after the party. Tommy leaves for Kathmandu before the end of July. My last day will be July 31, a Monday. I look forward to fighting Austin traffic that morning, knowing it will be my last Monday ever to drive into work. |
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| Susan, Tommy, and me. I HATE being the center of attention. Was so anxious about what to say that I lay awake until 3:30 a.m. that morning. Now the party (hard part) is over. Onward! |
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| Co-workers gave me a copy of Daniel Boorstin's "The Creators," a history of creative people on the planet, and a journal filled with well wishes. |
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| My other brain, Lisa Gomez. She's the best proofreader ever and saved me so many times from sending out orders/decisions with dumb mistakes in them. Thanks, Lisa! |
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| SOAH alumni Cathy Parsley (our former Chief ALJ, now wedding coordinator for her church) and Sarah Ramos (currently earning her Ph.D. in theology) with Tommy and me. I already feel like such a slacker! |
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| The retirement pencil is almost gone. The standing joke at weekly meetings has been, "When the pencil's gone, so am I!" |
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| How on earth will Tom II make it home? (So named in keeping with Audrey II in "The Little Shop of Horrors.")
Will Tom II even fit through the office door? In the elevator? In Tom's pickup? Stay tuned!
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| Dear friend Cathy Egan (standing in white) had a retirement get together for fellow Administrative Law Judge Tommy Broyles and me on June 24. Tommy (far left) and his wife (seated) will be going with two of their four children to Nepal for two years, where Tommy will teach at a law school in Kathmandu and also work with orphans. The Broyles adopted their younger two children after working with them in an orphanage in China. |
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| Kind words from kind friends. I'll miss working with everyone! Fortunately, there's a SOAH alumni group that meets for lunches monthly. Won't have to go cold turkey! |
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| Closing in on the end. Worked Memorial Day and May 30-31, and every single day in June except for June 16, when Tom and I had Father's Day Eve lunch with Dad and family in Shreveport. Worked 20 hours on the last Saturday and Sunday of June. My last decision ever was issued on June 30. Thought I'd document my "spreading out in the kitchen" approach before closing the SOAH laptop forever. Forever: wow! The laptop is propped on an Amazon box as a height adjuster because I prefer to work standing up. |
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| The City of Austin has proposed major zoning changes for our neighborhood and other Central Austin neighborhoods. Concerned citizens met with the mayor on June 21 to find out more. Basically, the code would allow up to three residential units on lots like Tom's and mine, and up to six residential units on corner lots. Businesses could be next door to homes. Per CodeNEXT, my new post-retirement career: convert the House of Light and Joy into a dance studio. Or a coffee shop. Or a beauty salon. Oh, and since our house is under 2500 square feet, I wouldn't have to provide any parking spaces for my customers. |
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| It's been happening, and it's ongoing. This lot is a couple of blocks from us. Six residential units can go on this corner lot under CodeNEXT. |
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| This duplex, built in 2005, was one of the first "gentrification" projects in our neighborhood. One of the units is currently on the market for $484,000. Brand new duplexes in the 'hood are going for as much as $856,000 per side, for about a 2300-square-foot unit. So much for the pro-CodeNEXT argument that more units per lot will result in more affordable housing in Central Austin. My prediction: as homeowners like Tom and me sell our homes, the houses will be razed for either 3-unit or 6-unit buildings. Developers have been allowed to take out trees to make room for the buildings. That gorgeous tree behind the duplex above is on the neighbor's single-family lot. After 12 years, the trees in front of the duplex are getting a little height. |
