Short walk

I got off work at 7 tonight and decided to walk around a little before I went home.  It was still hot, but about to rain.  I miss rain.  I walked down along the Riverwalk and ended up in a mall--yep, when I try to go for a walk outside, I end up in a mall that has a river in it.  I came out a different side of the mall, totally turned around, in a very touristy area full of shops and neon signs.  But--wait, isn't that...?  Oh, right.

The Alamo.

I watched two Segway tours battling for cleverest dance-pose-while-rolling in front of the Alamo.  I kept walking, reached the corner and almost got knocked off my feet by a blast of wind when I left the shelter of the building.  It was a serious Texas-sized wind, y'all.  I had to lean forward to walk into it, putting my arm over my face because I was getting scoured by tiny pebbles and bits of dirt.  Just as suddenly, the wind flipped to the opposite direction and pushed me up the street, blasting the backs of my legs with the bits of dirt.  The sky got darker and darker, and I opted to head straight to my car instead of finding a bus stop--I would have had to take the trolley all the way around downtown and back up to the park-and-ride, so I decided to take my chances on getting caught by the bus stop police.  I figured--and I was right--they wouldn't want to be out in that wind.  Driving home, I watched the most intense electrical storm coming in from the west.  Then I sat on the patio for a while and listened to the thunder and rain.  

I won't be sorry to get away from this apartment--the water changes at random intervals from scalding to lukewarm.  Or, if you put it on lukewarm, it changes from lukewarm to fricking freezing.  Or!--like today, the water just got shut off with no warning.  My shower drain won't work properly, no matter how many times I call maintenance.  Oh--and did I tell you about the drip from the light fixture in the hallway?  There was a tiny drip coming from the light fixture in the hallway for a few days.  It made a tiny little orangey-brown dent on the hall carpet.  Then it stopped.  We assumed it was something leaking in the pipes, since they were working on the pipes that week.  Then John asked the upstairs neighbor, and he said oh right, they had one of their toilets back up and flood their bathroom and hallway.  WITH POO WATER.  Which dripped through our light fixture into our house.  So, the house search is on with a vengeance.

That said, we have the perfect patio for listening to a storm.  It's sheltered from the wind, so much that my wind chimes don't even jingle, and the rain doesn't come in unless it's really pouring.  I sat out there with The Dude and our latest patio cat, The Jesus, for about half an hour.  Then our Mexican delivery showed up and we had dinner while watching Parks and Recreation on Netflix.  I don't work again until next week.  Life has been worse.