El and I took I-35 North to Temple early today. We visited one last apartment complex that Elise wanted to check out. Luckily we did because it’s the one we decided on. We wound up saving quite a bit more money as far as deposit, ‘preferred employer discounts’ and ‘move in specials’. The short of it: It’s soooo much cheaper to live in Temple vs. Austin. Yeah, yeah – you might snicker and say: “What is there in Temple?” Well, my friend Marshall and I were having an existential conversation a while back, and the gist of it was: If you don’t take full advantage of what Austin has to offer, then it’s not worth the price you pay to live here. Having said that, El and I can always drive 70 miles to see the bats fly out from underneath the Congress bridge in the spring. We can come in for a nice dinner or a night out on 6th. We can drive down on a lazy Sunday for a stroll through the botanical or sculpture gardens and hang out by that spring fed pool. Of the eight years that I’ve lived here – I’ve only done that stuff once.
As I was… We went to Temple, put a deposit down on an apartment. We opened an account with a local credit union and went to the Central Texas Workforce Commission to hunt down a job for El that she had found earlier last week online (no luck on that – job must have been filled).
We had dinner at Mazzio’s Pizza and decided to leave Temple and head home. We should have waited a wee bit – we hit Austin rush hour. I’m not going to miss that!
Halfway home, El says: “Do you want to go see if we can find you some ‘work clothes'”. I said: “Okay.” We went to the Salvation Army on South Lamar. We bought 4 really nice pairs of slacks that looked as if they had never been worn and one dress shirt that needs only ironing. I would have spent around $300 had we gone to JC Penney’s ($600 had we gone to Foley’s, Dillard’s etc.) Everything fit perfectly except one pair of brand new, navy slacks that need to be hemmed approximately 1″. Our damage: $48. So we’re both really happy about our finds for the day!
We came home and I was doing my nightly kitchen work when El brought out the old pen and pad and said: “Let’s write out a list of stuff you’ll need.” She was so cute. She started putting together a care package for me! I don’t know what I’m going to do without her for 2 months!
I’m kind of getting scared. Like I’ve said, I’m getting nervous about the job and moving to a smaller town where we won’t know anyone – but I’ll be fine. I guess I’m scared of growing up and moving on. I came to Austin to go to college. I got lucky and landed a job with Vidbook upon graduating, but now our lives are taking us to new places – granted, not geographically far, but new, nonetheless.
Anyway, for those of you who busted my chops about how I didn’t like ‘Black Hawk Down’… ‘We Were Soldiers’ comes out tomorrow. Go see that if you want a decent made-for-the-big-screen war documentary (no, I didn’t read the books either – I’m talking about the movies and I’m not going to read the books). At least ‘We Were Soldiers’ sheds light on the other side and the friends and loved ones of those who were involved. If you don’t like it, I don’t care – I’m entitled to my own opinion.