{"id":167,"date":"2006-02-07T23:59:20","date_gmt":"2006-02-08T06:59:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.stephs.com\/?p=167"},"modified":"2006-02-07T23:59:20","modified_gmt":"2006-02-08T06:59:20","slug":"34","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.stephs.com\/?p=167","title":{"rendered":"34"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The car feels strong and bottom-heavy, it keeps going when I feel the need to pedal faster. It&#8217;s disorienting driving a car after cycling for several hours.<\/p>\n<p>We contour the gilded canyon bowls at sunset, travelling north. Long shadows like blue fingers hug the hills. A dip in the ridge reveals downtown on the right. Deer tracks jog up the limestone bluffs, Yaupon berries are still red, cast in a mini-explosion along the bottom of the bluff. In traffic at an intersection I notice a pair of cowgirl boots with silk flowers inside, roadside bouquet. I think this is very Austin and wonder whether this is a resting place.<\/p>\n<p>At the restaurant, I struggle to wipe chocolate buttercream icing off my pink merino sweater; small brown crumbs sit high on the wooly pile. In the middle of an anecdote I forget what I am talking about as I watch Chas lick the remains of a large block of sweet cream butter off his fingers. While wiping his right hand, the left dumps a cupful of toothpicks onto the floor. Ford asks me where the chef has managed to catch a baby squid. He demonstrates how the squid  consumes food, I notice how dirty his hands are as he puppeteers the cooked squid&#8217;s tentacles, directing invisible food in towards the squid&#8217;s mouth. &#8220;I don&#8217;t like shrimp anymore,&#8221; he declares, while Chas pours ice water on my lap. <\/p>\n<p>It is dark. Focused hypnotically, I migrate home beside fellow lights. we are travelling synchronously, automatically, snaking our way through the black canyon. Rut is over, I am seeing no more deer at night, a relief.<\/p>\n<p>At home, I park the car, and carry a package of diapers under one arm along the moonlit driveway. It is a half moon, and I could play badminton on the lawn. The birdbath sparkles as I pass. You can hear the night in it&#8217;s crackling quiet, with a band of coyotes wailing a mile away. Orion has bookmarked the sky, and it&#8217;s especially bright, even as I approach the yellow incandescent halo of our home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The car feels strong and bottom-heavy, it keeps going when I feel the need to pedal faster. It&#8217;s disorienting driving a car after cycling for several hours. We contour the gilded canyon bowls at sunset, travelling north. Long shadows like blue fingers hug the hills. A dip in the ridge reveals downtown on the right. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily","category-seeing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.stephs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.stephs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.stephs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.stephs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.stephs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.stephs.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.stephs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.stephs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.stephs.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}