The Violet Crown..........The movie theater

On the left, Annabelle's

favorite painting by none

other than Dr. Amber

Scoon.

On the right, yours truly,

wearing the infamous

WW2 Veteran's hat which

caused a stir at the

Barton Creek Mall last

week.

The Violet Crown is a movie house located near the Condo on 2nd street (Willie Nelson Blvd.)

It's a hangout for the locals who want to get a respite from their work routine at the office.

Drinks and snacks are available which you can partake at the bar inside or enjoy at your

seat while the film is on the screen. The seats are heavily padded and the first row has

foot rest where those poor souls can stretch out for a quick snooze.

Today we decided to see Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy a John Le Carre' thriller. I bought my

tickets on the computer which allows one to go directly to the seating area without stopping

at the box office. The first show begins at 11:15am and is at a reduced rate, however, it

causes you to miss lunch, a difficult decision to make. The advantage is that few people

attend at that hour except those who want to get in a short nap on their lunch hour. Today,

only one other person was in the movie. Fortunately, his snoring was at a very low decibel

which never disturbed us throughout. We did get in our morning walk before heading to the

Violet Crown. I might add that the movie was quite confusing, even more so than the book

but the actual filming was cleverly performed.

Today, January 19, was bright and sunny. We walked along the Lady Bird Lake on our usual

3 mile circuit. Austin is a neat city. The city fathers have spent considerable sums to keep

the streets clean and the green areas watered and trimmed. The people, in turn, cooperate

by disposing of all their trash in the many containers available throughout the areas. Even

the local vagrants pick up around the benches where they spent the night before. The

people who use the trails and walkways come from all sections of the city. Young women

can be seen dragging their offspring by their arms and running behind baby carts while their

one or sometimes two infants, are happily tossing hats and shoes overboard. People are running on the trails dragging the family pooch along never giving the poor creature more than a few moments to smell a fragrant tree or deposit a poop. The dog owners are diligent about

picking up their dog's poop and to make it easy, plastic Mutt Mitts are placed everywhere

to make this a pleasant experience for all concerned, at least for the walkers. Very few

dog owners are remiss about taking care of this dedicated activity. Bikers also ride the

trails and are usually courteous and give the right away to pedestrians. All in all, we enjoy

our walks and seeing the trekkers along the way.

I might add, however, that there still are the brave few graffiti artists who roam about at

night to make their bold statements on the Ist Street Bridge such as Gov. Perry eats s--t, which is rapidly painted over by a special operations unit assigned to his office. Nevertheless, since

violations of the cleanliness codes are treated somewhat harshly in Texas (note the number

of executions last year) people are eager to follow the rules.