Marathon, begone! Helicopter, begone!

The Motorola marathon more or less shuts down all the parts of Austin to which we customarily resort, making it virtually impossible to use downtown, Pleasant Valley, of course any part of Congress, and on and on and on. We had hoped for some peace and quiet from closed streets, but the local television helicopter hovered and hovered and hovered, so we had to leave. At least nobody stole the flowers from the front yard this year in honor of Valentine's day. We went out to horrid Westlake, which was the only place still showing Love Actually, and did enjoy it, despite the volume set for the deaf. On the way home, we thought we'd hit Central Market South or H-E-B but the parking lots were jammed, still probably because of the blankety-blank marathon. So we'll raid the pantry.