My mom decided last minute to visit Austin this weekend for her birthday (yesterday) and my half marathon (tomorrow). Her flexibility to travel — retired and forever on my dad’s travel benefits — always inspires some jealousy in me along with a lot of gratitude that I can live far from home and see my family all the time (I just saw her three weeks ago in Maui).
We tend to pack in a lot together and she arranged her flight earlier enough on Thursday to see the opening night of the new Pixar movie, Onward, with me. It’s been on my calendar for close to a year and did not disappoint. I had to work on her birthday yesterday but her request for a birthday evening was perfect: an evening in ordering Dominos pizza, watching a movie (she, to my great surprise, picked out Monty Python and the Holy Grail), and then having warm cookies delivered from Tiff’s Treats. We washed it all down with a couple of Fat Tire amber ales.
I know this sounds exactly what I like to do on Friday nights but I promise it was actually her idea. I guess I get it from somewhere.
We’re having a quiet morning booking flights for future trips home and lazily planning out the rest of the day. Tentatively: an early lunch/brunch at Torchy’s Tacos, a drive down to San Antonio, exploring the Riverwalk and grabbing an early dinner, trying to get to sleep early . . . My race starts at 7:15 tomorrow but I also lose an hour of the ever so conveniently placed daylight savings time. Wish my internal clock luck.
I have this mounting list of to-dos and promises that I haven’t fulfilled: people to get back to, assets to deliver, an email inbox that I’m leaving floating, writing prompts that I fall further behind on. This week has been more of a battle than usual to stay on track.
So maybe it was meant to be that my mom came this weekend: to help me reset and connect.
And eat a lot of good food, as we always seem to.
With Love,
Natalie