Do-si-do – Hive and Nest

We have lived in Austin for not quite three years.  We all adore it (well, I don’t know if the kids do but who cares what they think) and never want to leave.   One of our favorite things about Texas is just . . . that it’s Texas.  You can’t believe how much people love this state.  

I had four roommates from Texas my freshman year of college.  They were all from a teeny-tiny town in eastern Texas.  I had never met any real live Texans and it was like finding someone from another country.  They taught me the difference between Ropers and cowboy boots (which they quaintly called shit-kickers and told me that only skanky girls tuck their jeans into their boots.  But that was the 90’s and I think it’s acceptable again.)  

They also taught me to do the Texas Two-Step and promptly dragged me and my boyfriend (also not a Texan) to go country dancing. This was at BYU and although Utah people like to accuse Texans of being hicks, Utahns are one generation from away from the farm so there was plenty of hickness to be found in Provo.

Country dancing turned out to be kind of fun but obviously the line dancing exceeded my limited education.  Not to mention I was dressed ALL WRONG.  I felt horrendously out of place and considered my affiliation with country dancing to be eternally over.

A bunch of our friends decided to go dancing down at the Broken Spoke which is here in Austin and prides itself on being the last honky-tonk in Texas. If that’s true it’s very sad.  I’m not exactly sure what a honky-tonk is but it sounds very country-ish in the most endearing way.

Mister is not a dancer and neither am I really.  I think the last time we went dancing was before we were even engaged, so it’s been a while.  But I was tired of doing the same old boring date-night stuff so we gussied ourselves up and went out two-stepping (although I still don’t have cowboy boots! What’s up with that, Jennie?)

The Broken Spoke has dancing lessons the hour before it opens and we had a spunky little teacher who showed us the moves including lots of twirls and fancy stuff.  It turns out Mister is a pretty decent dancer and I still suck.  But it was tons of fun and we had a fantastic time.  I especially liked doing the twirls except I had a big long chain belt that flew out and whipped the dancers closest to us, but hopefully they were too drunk to notice.

The music was played by a live rockabilly-country band that did not take a single break the entire time we were there. I guess they were just wetting their pants or something.  Since it’s Texas (and a honky tonk!) everyone two-steps.  There was no line dancing and none of that fancy swing dancing stuff.  Good thing, because there is no way we could have mastered anything like that.

We definitely want to go country dancing again, so if you know us in real life, be prepared!  You will be going dancing with us.