Casey Anthony. Warning: this has nothing to do with Austin.

I can't help it.  I have been sucked into the Casey Anthony story/trial.  As some one who is interested in psychology and counseling, I find the whole situation fascinating.  One of the reasons I am so intrigued by psychology is I constantly wonder what has shaped people.  As the daughter of two overly dominant and unbelievably myopic parents, I want to understand the factors that shape us during our formative years.  Therefore, the Casey Anthony mystery/story piques my curiosity.  Its also really bazaar that she says NOTHING.  And ultimately, this benefited her and probably is the reason she was acquitted.  An even greater point of interest for this is that I don't know what happened.  Usually, something in my gut tells me what makes the most logical sense of what occurred when I'm not totally sure.  However, in this case I really don't know.

I have two theories:

1.  It seems obvious that Caylee was well into her terrible 2's and as many two-year-olds are, was difficult at bedtime.  As a typical 22 year old, I think Casey wanted to spend time with friends, party, etc.  Its fairly obvious that "Zanny the Nanny" was Xanax to make Caylee sleep so Casey could hang out.  It then seems that she switched the Xanax for chloroform b/c its far cheaper.  It is possible, as many have suggested, that she overdosed her child and as she was dying she had a runny nose, blood out of her mouth, bodily fluids, etc and hence the duct tape was to plug up the mess.  Then, panicked and realized she couldn't admit to the problems b/c basically drugging her child is abusive and she would be screwed either way.  She deliberated, but the child began to rot in the hot FL sun and stink so she ditched her in the woods and hoped the problem would go away.

2.  The second and scarier, but I believe more likely scenario, is that she did it to spite her mother.   From what it sounds like, Caseys parents were hard on her.  Although I don't think they seem like bad people per say, they definitely seemed to be down on their own daughter.  Casey's ex-fiance, while admitting he finds Casey a deplorable person, tells stories of Cindy asking him why he would want to marry her, a high school drop out.  While Cindy and Casey fought constantly, Caylee was doted on.  They showered Caylee in gifts, sung her praises, and loved her unconditionally.  Casey wasn't working so I'm assuming was always needing money.  I think Casey was jealous and resented her child because of it, and hated her mother even more than before Caylee's birth because of it.  There are many reports that the night before it happened Cindy called Casey an unfit mother and tried to strangle her.  I think Casey used Caylee as a means to punish her mother frequently, and after that escalated fight did the ultimate.  I don't think she was sexually molested as her attorney suggested.  But, she may have been abused emotionally.  And lets face it she was young.

While I'm not excusing her in any way, I do believe family psychology played a role here.  Frightening stuff...

Pharmacology

Tonight I hung out with some new Austin friends.  They're younger and they're cool and I'm not made of friends at this point, so I won't turn down any new opportunities to hang or meet "folks"  I hung out with two people that schooled me on drugs.  I'm old; and I'm behind the times, and my drug of choice is expensive wine.  To roll with youth in Austin, people must know that Molly refers to pure MDMA.  Although there is some question to how pure all "Molly" is.  In my day this was called Ecstasy but I digress.  Further, the explanation of the strains of cannabis and offshoots can make your head spin.  The most interesting point for me is the debate surrounding salvia.  I have heard of it.  My Austin friends seem to believe it was concocted in a lab.  In fact, it has been used medicinally by shamans in Mexico for decades.  My takeaway from the evening is, to quote my friend Joe, "Austinites are drug snobs..."

Out of the frying pan...into the "furnace-like heat"?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43712240/ns/weather/

According to this MSNBC article, Austin may be headed towards breaking an all time record...most days in a summer over 100 since 1925.  Uh, I'm okay if we don't break that record.  While I knew that Austin summers are no picnic, I figured I would get some reprieve from Phoenix heat!  I am here to attest that a dry 117 is no worse than a balmy, bug-filled, humid 105.  Oh well at least the people in ATX are cool :)!

Troubled Waters?

This summer in Austin has been brutally hot.  Painful.  So there are really two choices for a comfortable day...inside in the a/c or outside in the water.  A few weekends ago my friends and I chose the latter.  We rented a canoe, strapped a life vest on Burt and headed out on Town Lake.  There is a part in Town Lake where the water becomes shallow and weeds grow to the top of the water.  We went through this patch and were looking at the weeds.  All of the sudden, we all gasp.  We saw the most motley, prehistoric beast of a fish I had ever seen.  It was hideous and it was huge and it was swimming along the side of our canoe.  We stared stunned.  When we finally returned the canoe, we were so amazed that we grabbed the smart phone and started googling images of fish.  No question the weird beast we saw was the Snakehead.  This isn't good news for Town Lake.  This fish is notoriously invasive and has ruined eco-systems specifically in MD where its been in the news repeatedly.  It is a native fish to Asia, and prized for food.  People have smuggled them into the U.S. and let them free and they've reeked havoc.  The scariest part, evidently they are capable of walking on land!  (although their muscles are not very strong so can't get far)  I hope our eyes deceived us because this could be really bad for Town Lake but it looked exactly like the ugly creature in the photo above.

HEB on South Congress

Thanks to living near the HEB on Congress and Oltorf, I will NEVER run out of material for this blog.  This is weird Austin style at its prime.  I just went there and thought maybe I'd sneak a pic of some one if they typified weird South Austin style.  The problem: I ended up wanting to snap a pic of everyone in there.  I think to stand out as strange in this HEB it would have to be totally egregiously weird.  This is amazing people watching.

Travis Heights Houses

I will probably post about the houses in Travis Heights a lot.  Some of them are so cute, some are really nice, some are clearly haunted like the one pictured below and some are just plain weird.  However, they're all different a welcomed change from the McMansions of Phoenix and Scottsdale.

Do we think there's any chance that the people that live in the below house smoke weed?

Red Bud

While taking my red bud to Red Bud isle the dog park last week I had a strange Austin encounter.  As usual, it was crowded.  It took my friend and I some time to find a parking space.  We walked in and went to one of the swimming holes.  A girl walked over, laid down a towel, and set down a cooler.  There were a bunch of us just talking and swimming and she poured herself a nice strong drink from the cooler.  A few minutes later, she took her top off.  Okay I guess she doesn't like tan lines but still it was a crowded park.  She swam pretty far into the lake.  The weirdest part: a cop came over to tell her to stop swimming b/c some one had died out there the weekend before.  He wasn't the least bit concerned that she was not wearing a top.

Welcome!

Welcome to Weird Austin!  While out at first Thursdays on Congress yesterday, I couldn't help but people watch.  Austinites are weird...and cool.  I wanted to create this blog in appreciation of how different this city is.  From free public swimming pools, to strange monuments, a love of bats, to just having a different set of rules than other cities, Austin is one of a kind.  Please feel free to post any of your own weird encounters, pictures, or discoveries about this city.