IKEA, HEB and The Four Seasons

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ad·ven·ture /ædˈvɛntʃər/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[ad-ven-cher] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation noun, verb, -tured, -tur·ing.
–noun
1.
an exciting or very unusual experience.
2.
participation in exciting undertakings or enterprises: the spirit of adventure.
3.
a bold, usually risky undertaking; hazardous action of uncertain outcome.







If you take all three of those definitions and apply them simultaneously to the past six days then you have the week that was in Austin, Texas, for your itinerant librarian.







I've visited the DMV in hopes of getting a license but find I have to have my social security card to do that...and I don't, so I couldn't, so I visited Social Security and got a piece of paper saying I'm really who I am and my card will come in the mail. But that was before I'd visited the Heritage Credit Union and I now have a debit card, but only because Judy at the Town Hall faxed a piece of paper with my social security number on it. I even had to go down to Austin Energy in person to set up my power account because they needed to see my social security number-thought the fella never even asked to see my paper when I got there.





Are you seeing a theme here? Identity theft and the influx of illegal aliens makes verifying identities a big, big deal here. (If you don't have a credit card with your photo on it, you will be asked to show your driver's license to use it.) Fortunately, Jeff knew where every office was and waltzed me through all the places with minimal discomfort. In the Ward lexicon...Too Easy. But now I know what 19-year olds go through when they move away to start their lives! Oye. At least being 42, I knew to bring reading material with me and a bottle of water.







That was all the learning stuff and being grown up stuff.







Then there was IKEA.







One of the best parts of being in Austin is life as Jeff's secretary. My job description would be pages long were I to type it. I even have a business card now. I'm the compliance and liability officer for EJL World. Basically that means it's my job to weigh in on whether upcoming and often fast approaching possible situations are going to a): send Jeff to jail or b): get Jeff killed. That's a bit of an exaggeration...kinda sorta, but not really. Given that my employer is former special forces in the military, you can perhaps begin to understand that every day is a mission at work. And so it was when he announced Sunday morning:







We're going to IKEA.







I had never been to an IKEA and Jeff had wanted to go, having heard about it, but having never been. The store is gigantic and you follow a footpath marked on the floor to find your way around. Along with being former special forces, Jeff is also really only about 5 years old and we spent the first hour of our visit in the furniture area trying out every sofa, every chair, every futon and anything else we could sit or put a portion of our body mass on. Plus, not only did we sit and assess comfort level, we thoroughly investigated room configurations and fabric choices. To slip cover or not to slip cover...that is the question. Mind you, this intelligence was gathered for his apartment, not mine.







If you are familiar with IKEA then you know it is full of cool stuff to organize your life as well as furnishings and cookware. The place is amazing. But it became a lesson in self-defense when we got to kitcheware. Forget the often used cast iron skillet. Did you know that an ice cream scoop could be used as a good weapon in a fight? The scoop would be good for a blow to the head. And a vegetable peeler could be sharpened on the outside edges to use as a knife. This was the lesson given to me over the display of kitchen gadgets, much to the horror of several female shoppers. They should have been paying attention. It's a big world out there! Happily, the lessons at IKEA were all presented with great humor and every time I look at my laundry basket, which is a gigantic bag made out of blue plastic tarp material, I'll think of the how far ahead I am of the average IKEA shopper after that trip.





The next mission, complete with briefing and map, was for me to drive the Suburban to the supermarket on my own. This meant facing my fears of driving an ark down potentially narrowed streets in the city. Ok, so the market is only 5 minutes away but I was apprehensive and the boss knew it. He made me take my phone and promise to call in. Off I went with a wee bit of hesitation, especially when I realized you really had to push down for a looooong time before the brakes work! I made it though and once I walked into the HEB, a chain of supermarkets in Texas, I was truly on a treasure hunt. There was so much to look at!





Austin is a college town, a hippie town, a town with a large Mexican population, a yuppie town, an organic town and HEB, bless its heart, reflects that. The variety of food is incredible. More beef than you've ever seen. Cheeses from Mexico. Juices from tropical climates. Tortillas by the stack. Fish from the Gulf. I paid 40 cents for an avocado! Sausages 'til the cows and pigs and turkeys and anything else you can stuff in a casing come home. I spent almost two hours wandering around the store and then paid for it all with my shiny new debit card. I was heady with the power and a hundred bucks poorer! That bloody egg nog for the home office was $5 for half a gallon!





After I filled the back with all the HEB bags--they're as lousy as Shaw's bags my dears--I realized my phone was beeping. I had missed two calls from Jeff and there was a voicemail which told me to check in. I did so with a giggle, telling what fun I'd been having and that I would unload my stuff first when I got back and then park the truck back down where it belonged. With that confirmation of my return route, it was with a laugh that I reached the intersection of North Loop and Guadalupe to find Father Jeff waiting for me on the corner with a big smile on his face. Parking in the lot at my end of the building, we had a quick assessment of my mission and it's successful completion. I got a hug and a kiss on the head and then was informed that I needed to work on my parking skills. Ha ha ha. I was perfectly symmetrical within the spot when I parked down at 6201.





In the middle of all this, Wendy the Cat went to the vet's for her lady operation. Everything went fine, though in the days since she has ripped out a few of her sutures on the inside with her playing so she's got to go back to the beautiful vet Jeff has a crush on for a bit of repair work on Monday. So Ruby and Elaine, a little reiki for Jeff and Wendy Monday would be much appreciated and prayers from anyone else who has the desire to do so. Right now Wendy is sleeping near my feet while I type and we're mellowing out to the tunes of Captain Hotknives who is a musical friend of my friend Jamie in Yorkshire.


http://www.myspace.com/captainhotknives





And since you are clicking about on the internet right now, visit Jamie and Chris (Captain Hotknives) who perform as Pianobong


http://www.myspace.com/pianobong





And especially listen to Jamie's work as Mr Bear


http://www.myspace.com/mrbear





The biggest development of the week, however, was my trip to none other than the Four Seasons Hotel to meet my future employer, Douglas Brinkley. I'd left a couple of calls for Doug during the week and he rang Thursday on his drive back down to Austin from Rice University in Houston. He asked me to call Friday morning and we'd set up a place to meet for a cup of coffee. I called, got his machine, but then a call back and the request to meet him at the Four Seasons at noon at the bar area.





This girl was going uptown downtown!





Jeff dropped me off and I was to call when my meeting was over.





The Four Seasons http://www.fourseasons.com/austin/ is the top place to stay in Austin, matched only by the Driskill Hotel. It's very grand with lots of granite and mexican tile and understated elegance, Texas style. Some of the tables in the lobby area are made from (or made to look like they were made from) gigantic wooden doors from spanish missions. Some of the chairs and couches were upholstered in cowhide. The lobby had a gigantic gingerbread village with a train running through it, created by the pastry staff. Enormous Christmas trees festooned with red velvet ribbons and shiny baubles. And the stalls in the ladies' bathroom were nearly as big as my apartment!





While I was waiting for Doug I sat in a quite corner and people watched. It was to my absolute delight when the elevator opened once and a man staight out of a cowboy movie emerged. Big black hat, leather vest, plaid shirt underneath, jeans, big belt buckle and shiny black cowboy boots. His skin was tanned, his facial features hard but weathered to the look of a sage. He was fabulous! I took an extra sip of my bottle of Four Seasons water the concierge had given me because the bar wasn't open yet and kept watch for Doug.





I saw him before he saw me. Of course, I knew who to look for. He had no idea. He was on the phone and I waited until he was done then introduced myself. We found a big couch near the fire and gabbed for over an hour.






Suffice it to say, this is one busy man. He is currently working on a book about Teddy Roosevelt and the Conservation movement in America. He's also the consulted historian for CBS News...and a million other things. We had a great chat.

What he is looking for in me is help with a contractual obligation with HaperCollins. He is the editor of last year's best seller, The Reagan Diaries which is, as the title says, the written diaries of Ronald Reagan. The paperback comes out soon and the final project is a three-volume collector's edition of the opus. My project, which he will use as a test case to see how we work together and how well I perform, is to create a glossary of people mentioned in the diary entries so the reader has a ready reference of who Reagan was talking about in his entries. This will consist of a two or three line description of each person. And there you have it.

We'll meet at the end of next week and I'll have my full marching orders. At this point, Doug hasn't had a research assistant per se so he is still trying to decide what and how to pay me. That will be discussed next week as well. He wanted to meet me first before deciding whether he even wanted to go ahead with the test project. Fair enough. Our meeting ended with a hug and kiss while he waited for the valet to bring his car around. How Hollywood ending!

So I am hopeful. He was lovely to chat with and there's no missing that this is a man who loves what he does. He has a wife and three kids under the age of four. He's written 18 books. He's only lived in Austin since March. Oh...and we met at the Four Seasons because his in-laws were visiting from New Orleans and he was visiting them there. Hooray for in-laws!

Outside, I put my bag down on a bench to call Jeff when I noticed the Suburban in the parking lot. I knew it was the war wagon from the Purple Heart plate license plate. (Jeff still has part of a Chevy Caprice Classic in his leg courtesy of a suicide car bomber in Baghdad). I called him and he answered, laughing. He was in the bar inside! I had walked right past him while chatting with Doug on the way out. He had been there for most of my meeting and I didn't even know it. Funny thing is, I was talking about Jeff to Doug on the way out. Had the boss been listening intently he would have heard me talking about his books and also would have heard Doug's interest in Jeff's story as an Iraq war vet. However, he was enjoying his glass of B&B, lavishly poured by Ryan the bartender and mooning over Leah, the gorgeous cocktail waitress who looked like celebrity chef Rachel Ray but prettier. I went back inside and had a victory glass of Guinness.

What a week.


It's really good knowing you guys are out there. Thanks for all the support. Enjoy the snow my Maine friends and family and the rest of you, be glad you're not there!

Much love-
sharon