Yes I am living in a Red State

[aamusedinatx]

As I have said, I do appreciate living in Austin. If I had to live anywhere in Texas, Austin would be and IS my choice. The sprawling micro-plex provides me a great deal of charming hippy weirdness such as Gardens of the Ancients. Carol and I went there on Saturday in search of herb seedlings for our vertical kitchen garden. I wanted mints, thyme, rosemary, basil, you know...to COOK with. However this garden/nursery, tucked away in a wildly overgrown and unincorporated area of NE Austin, near the Samsung campus was less nursery than it was sprawling commune. They had organic herbs but they were more for the smoking variety than cooking variety. After stumbling around piles of cardboard out to decompose on the grounds, several dogs, a few folks sleeping in the sun that looked like they'd just come off the Grateful Dead tour, Carol and I giggled to each other and left. I may not want to buy my kitchen garden seedlings there, but it charmed me to walk along the grounds of an honest to god throw-back commune and paean to the golden age of the 60s.

And then there was Monday night on the commute home. I picked up Carol and we were weaving our way through traffic toward MOPAC expressway. In front of me on the left was a silver pickup truck with two bumper-stickers. "God Bless our Military, especially our snipers." And "Extreme Right-wing." Directly in front of me was a silver Acura with a centrally prominent bumper-sticker, the only one on the car, which said in large block letters "INFOWARS."

And I am reminded yet again, that yes, I am living in a Red State.