I was out running some errands this afternoon. As I was driving home, I was headed south on 360 and I was reminded again of just how very beautiful Austin is. 360, also called Capital of Texas Highway (which I just love, for some reason), goes through the rolling hills in Northwest Austin. You can see the limestone that forms the hills, and if you’re on a bicycle, you can hear the water in the limestone. The stretch of road just before my turnoff looks south toward the hills, and on a hazy day like today, it’s gorgeous.

Made the turn onto the relatively small (one lane each way) street that I live on. Although it’s narrow, it’s got a fair amount of traffic. The road is nice; 100-year-old live oaks line both sides, and many of the buildings are built from the local limestone, so they fit in well with the landscape. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something, so I hit the brakes. Just to the right of me, perhaps a foot away from my car, were two deer standing on the side of the road.

It was simultaneously beautiful and heartbreaking. This is not a rural area, and this road, as I said, has a fair amount of traffic–and most of the drivers are moving well in excess of the speed limit. It was easy for me to stop from 30 mph when I saw the deer, but would someone going 50 even have seen them, let alone stopped? What about someone on a cell phone who wasn’t watching the road?

I hope the deer find their way back to the hills where they live, which I think is probably on the other side of 360. And I hope other drivers have the experience I did–seeing them and stopping to let them pass. I smiled the rest of the way home.

For today is National Grammar Day!

::cheers::

Years ago, when I was in graduate school, during a family game of Trivial Pursuit, my mother had gathered all of her wedges and made it to the center of the board. My mother was insanely intelligent, but luckily for the rest of us, she knew nothing about sports. Needless to say, this is the category we always chose for her.

So my stepfather picks up the card, reads the question to himself, and starts laughing. Not giggles, either–these were guffaws, unrestrained whoops of laugher. So my brother takes the card from him, and he laughs too. He gains enough control of himself to say:

“In what sport does the athlete get three grabs at the snatch?”

As you can imagine, we all started laughing. Uncontrollably. I believe we finally had to find a box of Kleenex as we all tried to regain our composure.

Today, when I read the news headline saying US Woman Abducted in Afghanistan. A Taliban snatch?, after I realized that yes, they really said that, I remembered that night, and laughing, and at the same time hoping this really was a mistake. Because yes, hilarious, but at the same time, not so much.

Oh, and the answer to the Trivial Pursuit question? Weightlifting.

At Dear Author, Jane posts her take on the fan vs. fangirl debate.

Years and years and years ago my folks lived in Southern California. An alley cat adopted our back yard and had two litters of kittens there. We were never able to catch the mama to have her spayed, but we did get all the kittens to the vet.

Of the eight total kittens, one survived past her first year. When my folks moved to Texas, she moved with them. When my mother passed away, the kitty came to live with me in DC. And four the last few years she’s been with me here in Texas. And in the last three years or so, she’s finally become interactive. It took five years for her to feel comfortable occupying the same piece of furniture as me; now she’ll even sit on my lap sometimes.

And as of this month, she is 17 years old! I’m just astonished. And happy, because I love Frieda Kitty. (For those of you who are curious, she is not named after Frida Kahlo. Rather, she and her twin brother were named for Hans and Frieda in the movie Freaks.)

But I worry. Seventeen is quite old for a Puss.