Tex-Mex

Mexican food restaurant! Makes everybody happy, hubcap-ceiling or no. Especially with the unlimited free fancy salsa.

Happy Christmas

I was too slow to get Ziv's reaction, but I don't think hers was the one I needed.

Oh! And I finally got one of Simon's prints! AS A TAPESTRY!

And too much other sweet stuff to mention. Magic!

The new normal

This is pretty much how it goes at Christmas with an adorable 10-month old - a room full of people watching the baby intently.

Last Day in Austin

After a recommendation like this, I couldn't not go to Cabela's. We were not disappointed:

And the gun guy nervously let me pose with a gun so big it doesn't fit in frame:

But it isn't all big useless .50 caliber single-shot rifles that take a mile of rangeland to shoot - there are guns for kids, too!

After the gun show, we headed to Sonya's for sinfully tasty cake and ice cream, and for some necessary introductions:

Then we finally played the Saved By The Bell game, which was slightly boring but with much potential for improvement:
So, for the last day in Austin I got to do fun things with people I already miss. Appropriate.

Santa Rita's

Nobody could wait for me to get Mexican food here, least of all me, so we went to Santa Rita's for deeeeeelicious spinach & mushroom enchiladas with suiza sauce and Margaritas. Then we went home to bully Jo into a cigar and a tycoon handshake:

They Never Told Me It Was Beautiful

The Cathedral of Junk is a must-see if you're in Austin. Beautiful, rickety, and certified-safe, here's Joanna climbing from the second story to the third story.

Here's Vince Hannemann, the man who created the Cathedral in his backyard, with aaall the Caravitas:

And here's the saga:

Free ride

I figure I can post this baby picture here since it's really a picture of a moustache see-saw.

Walmart is Gun Free??

Video of Ziv yawning is here. NSFB (Not Safe For Babies) adventures below.

I had Joanna take me to the guns section of Walmart, but we could only find BB guns, so I asked a guy working there. I swear to you, the conversation wasn't exactly like this, but everything you might be shocked by is pretty much verbatim:

Me: "Do you have real guns?"

Guy: "No, you won't find those at any walmart stores. [...] What kind of gun are you looking for?"

Me: "No, I'm just from Canada, and I wanted to see if I could buy a gun."

Guy: "Oh, yeah, for sure, try Cabela's. Look at me: I'm 19 and I've got an assault rifle."

Me: "No background check?"

Guy: "Yeah, I just went in to Cabela's, said 'I'd like that' and 'here you go!'" [mimes putting something on the counter]

Me: "Just your driver's license??"

Guy "What! Not even, man! My 13 year old cousin has a gun! Anything goes for home protection, this is Texas! Like, see, look at these bullets: These are .45s. One woman was using one in a Desert Eagle and Bam! [mimes gun kickback] It broke her whole face!"

Me: "..."

[...more crazy things...]

Me: "Are those hollow-points??"

Guy: "These are mushroom-points. Normal bullets, you shoot someone with them and they go right through your wall, they kill your neighbours, they kill your neighbours' kids, whatever. I mean, fuck 'em, they're your neighbours, right? Sometimes they're annoying! But these bullets mushroom out and stop in the person you're shooting, so you don't kill your neighbours' kids."

Me: "I don't think the army can even use those."

Guy: "This is Texas, man. As long as they're on your property, anything goes. You can shoot 'em, you can tie 'em up and shoot 'em, whatever."

This conversation made me feel much less excited about the machetes:

New Plan

Ok, new plan. I started meeting Jo and Toshia's chosen family tonight, and we started doing fun and non-baby Austin things, like Spiderhouse:

And I want to post about those things, and about how Texas has preposterous things like Texas Pete's in fast-food packets FOR FREE:

So I'll post stuff like that here, and post one zillion baby pictures and videos with silly captions here. Not that you'll get bored of baby pictures. If you think you will, here is a video of Ziv with the hiccups to change your mind:

Leaving and Working

Mom went home this morning, and Simon went home this afternoon, but not before Dad took us to show us his work and Simon got the chance to expertly bomb a few photos:

the sights

I headed in to downtown Portland twice today, once to visit Powell's City of Wonder (pdf):

Then we went home so Cousin Claire could tell me how badly I needed to watch Black Swan, and dad could show his sister his new presents:

Then it was back to East Portland with Andrew to try to find PDX's live music scene at the Doug Fir:

The headliners, Guantanamo Baywatch, played a single, shockingly unpolished set of a kind of crazed surf music so fun that I danced the whole time I was in line for drinks.

Winning at Christmas

Christmas may be about family, but Christmas day is about presents. That box has a hand-made robo-patterned snuggie in it, and hell yes.

It's also possible to win at Christmas. For instance, Joanna won at Christmas by making me the perfect snuggie. Baby Interrobang won by getting this home-made quilt from Lisa:

Auntie D won 'most clever' for her gift of a subtle hint for Dad:

Matthew and his family won for coming from the future:

Dad won by asking for memories for Christmas, we all won for giving them, and Toshia won for putting them together for us.

And we all won for food.

Christmas feels like a whirlwind this year. We didn't even get the tree trimmed until Christmas Eve.

Team Mommy

Portland is also home to some once-removed and second cousins, which means Christmas parties with people I haven't seen since they were 6, but who will still hug you when you see them. Which is, frankly, outstanding.

Here's Mom, showing her cousin-in-law (or, cousin-out-law?) how we had lots of hair or no hair or something as babies, and Dad grinning with his sister, putting the lie to the whole sibling rivalry we hear so much about. Below, my second cousin and her Dad listen to Joanna explain something about babies. It's a baby-themed holiday, which is also outstanding.

... because we're getting a new one. Here's Toshia helping Interrobang model her first ever Christmas gift, a "team mommy" onesie.

Fine traditions

Obviously we went back to the beach for Christmas, to see the wildlife.
Then we came home for Claymation Christmas, 
And Toshia's bubbling-hot Blackberry Cobbler.

Zillions of Diltses

Did I ever tell you that story about my brother? Did I fail to make it clear which one of these three I was talking about?[The one in the middle is my dad.]  Oh, that's not a great picture of Simon.  Here he is with a Martini made of chocolate and Marshmallows, FTLOG: And anyway, brothers don't make up nearly half of the Diltses these days:

Andrew is the one sublimating between my mom and Joanna.

Holiday Traditions

It wouldn't be a Dilts Family Christmas without a trip to a fancy-pants suburban mall.  Usually it's not this snowy: How fancy-pantsy was it?  Well, there were your standard creepy mezmerizers:

The under-escalator grand piano players:

And, new this year, theoretical cars on the floor will smash into your foot FOR FREE:

Homonculography

Joanna learned something new about her place of birth today. She saw a bunch of people at the airport doing this:Matt explained that the distinctive shape of the lower part of michigan leads everybody to point to their hands when they describe where they live. If you live here long enough, you don't even need two hands:

America is indeed decadent, as my sisters are showing here. Above, Joanna shows the size of her soda next to the size of her head, for comparison. Below, Toshia reclines in gold satin sheets beneath a hand-made burgundy fleece. Positively regal.