Within a month of my return to Austin, I had to find a new place to live and what better weekend for it to happen than during the first major rains signifying the end of Summer in Central Texas. It wasn’t exactly planned as if anything unpleasant ever is. It was probably going to happen regardless.
I was able to handle the tension from Mel adequately, it was the girlfriend Virginia who was the disruptive force. I also grew sick of the 26-mile commute to Apple from Georgetown quickly. To address the latter, I had been doing some leg work on finding a larger place to split with Mel. I already knew he could be unreliable from my past experiences at PowerComputing. I just didn’t expect him to be as untrustworthy as he turned out to be.
So it all started when I discovered a leak in my closet caused by the downpour. Pissed about the damage done to some of my belongings, namely an import-only Kate Bush CD, I called the apartment building’s maintenance people. When their response was a terse “Who are you?” I found out Mel never told them I was moving in and I should’ve known better since there never was any paperwork (my fault!). Now I had 24 hours to leave the apartment. An argument resulted which was put on pause for a family emergency involving Mel’s grandparent.
Fortunately my Saturday was free enough to deal with this. A lady named Loree in Round Rock was hoping to rent a couple rooms in a house she recently retook possession of; it was leased out after her divorce. We had spoken earlier in the month for other reasons, I think I was investigating the possibility of Mel and me leasing the whole thing. Mel’s poor fiscal skills killed this so I had to decline her earlier offer. Now I explained to Loree my dire situation and apologized over backing out before. She was cool about it. Loree’s other candidates didn’t seem promising, especially the one with a dog. I paid her in advance to prove I was serious. Loree accepted and I proceeded to evacuate Mel’s den of disaster, we never spoke again at Apple or elsewhere.
Living way out on was Round Rock’s northern (maybe northwestern) edge was interesting for the six months I was there. Austin didn’t reach this far yet so you could see the stars more clearly. Loree’s house had more contact with the wildlife of Central Texas too. Deer were a frequent sight. One evening I remember laughing when I saw some deer crossing the main drag with a cat. These deer were thinking, “It smells like a predator, but c’mon, look how small it is!” All cats have a lion-tiger-panther mentality. It was contemplating “If I can take down one of these giant mice, my rep is made for life!” Another night involved my first encounter with a tarantula not kept in a pet store. It was trying to cross the street while I was picking up the mail. I shoo’d it across figuring it was somebody’s pet. Loree explained they did reside in the tall grasses with the scorpions. The craziest encounter came with Loree waking me up because a snake got in the house. Maybe I was half-conscious or completely stupid at the time due to my willingness to take care of it. I corralled the snake on to this sticky rat paper she was using to catch intruding toads, rolled it up into a snake burrito and threw all of this outside. By the next morning everything was all gone. Her neighbor was a biologist, his theory was a possum ate it because anything helpless is considered an easy meal to them.
My interim office while in Round Rock.
The six months in Loree’s house was an alright time. It only shaved six miles off my commute but I didn’t have to worry about her getting arrested for doing bong hits in her truck. Shortly after I moved in, I was developing new friendships and rebuilding past ones. This made her house the place where I just slept. Loree was probably glad, I was a rather unintrusive housemate. Weeknights were usually spent at Kenny’s Coffee writing letters. Weekends were dedicated at the movies or my part-time gig with Gateway 16 to pay off the medical debt the insurance company saddled me from 1996. The times I was present were cool. My personal workspace shown above was quite nice; back in the days of dial-up and 604-based PowerPC Macs. Feels longer than 10 years ago!
Today there’s nothing but apartment buildings and strip malls along Parmer Lane to the back entrance of Loree’s neighborhood. I’m confident they’ve even widened the road to get to the creek behind her house. Loree and I stayed in touch after I moved out. She was a realtor so I returned the favor by having her involved with the purchase of my current house. Loree gave us the pear tree in the backyard as a gift. It’s in great shape, probably over 20 feet tall.