Eff-Austin Retreat

It was a good meeting last weekend; we outlined what we think we’re doing and where we’re going. We answered questions in a circle, which meant that the people who usually talk more talked less and vice versa. We’re going to have membership which takes a higher level of organization, and will hopefully make it easier for more people to join and be active.
Then some people went home, and the folks who were left stayed out on the deck in to the evening, drinking beer and hanging out. Chip played the Zevon catalog on guitar, in sociably misanthropic and genially mournful manner. The sun set over the backyard meadow, which has clumps of cactus amid wildflowers. That’s a benefit of living in a rural area 45 minutes out of town; the backyard is a meadow not an eyesore. We watched the stars circle overhead.
We stayed at the not-quite-finished winter house of a neighbor. Plastic sheeting is tacked over the roof insulation, tarpaper peels off the walls. Electricity and running water, but no indoor plumbing or A/C. The neighbor across the street has statues of birds on the fence running to the house. The neighbors behind have cockfights. It’s a live as you please kind of neighborhood.

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