A Wife- Better Than a Dog

Lauren is in Dallas this weekend at a big color guard competition. Jeff and I spent the day with Scott and Julie in San Antonio yesterday. We began with a stop in New Braunfels at Naegelin's Bakery, the oldest bakery in Texas, for breakfast on the way. Yummo.

We toured San Antonio's Witte Museum and the Darwin exhibit there. Super-interesting! Our favorite part of the Darwin stuff was his writing out a list of the pros and cons of being married.

This is the Question

Marry
Children (if it Please God)
Constant companion (and friend in old age) who will feel interested in one
Object to be beloved and played with. Better than a dog anyhow
Home, & someone to take care of house
Charms of music and female chit-chat
These things good for one’s health—but terrible loss of time
My God, it is intolerable to think of spending one’s whole life, like a neuter bee, working, working, and nothing after all—No, no, won’t do
Imagine living all one’s day solitary in smoky dirty London House
Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire and books and music perhaps
Compare this vision with the dingy reality of Great Marlboro Street, London

Not Marry
Freedom to go where one liked
Choice of Society and little of it
Conversation of clever men at clubs
Not forced to visit relatives and bend in every trifle
Expense and anxiety of children
Perhaps quarrelling
Loss of Time
Cannot read in the evenings
Fatness and idleness
Anxiety and responsibility
Less money for books etc.
If many children forced to gain one’s bread (But then it is very bad for one’s health to work too much)
Perhaps my wife won’t like London; then the sentence is banishment and degradation into indolent, idle fool

Entertaining, to say the least. Ahhh, the irony of Darwin marrying his own cousin, which of course may not have given rise to the most "fit" of offspring. (He should have married his true love, Fanny. Sadly, he lost her to "more attentive suitors.") Also, we didn't know he was related to the Wedgewood family of pottery fame.

Had lunch at Tomatillo's near the museum. It was really good.

Then we did our own walking tour of the King William neighborhood. Too cool. Most of the houses are beautifully restored, enormous and stately. The history is really fun to read about while you walk. We talked with some of the homeowners, who were outside on a pretty Saturday. We learned what quoins are, as well as other architectural elements of the period. Many different architectural styles are represented along the walk- Italian, Neoclassical, Victorian, old Texas and more. It was a primarily German-designed and settled area.

My fave!!

HEB headquarters is across the river from the King Edward area, and is an old armory. SO neat. We want to go back and finally have lunch at the Guenther House by the Pioneer factory there in the neighborhood.

After the first couple of houses, Scott made a comment about the Swedish and German architects and how anal and rigid they were. Right then, Julie (of Swedish descent) and I (of German descent) discovered we were going backwards through the tour map. So I gleefully announced that the Swede and the German were so incredibly laid back that we would be doing today's tour BACKWARDS. Yeah, baby. We were totally okay with it, too. Mostly. ;)

Then on the way home, we finished our German St. Patrick's Day with a visit to Granzin's Meat Market, where we bought bratwurst jalapeño sausage.

Scott and Julie were guessing St. Patrick's Day probably wasn't a huge San Antonio celebration, because of the mostly Hispanic population. Actually, it's quite the party there! Last St. Patrick's Day, Kelly, Barbara, Donna and I spent all day partier-watching on the Riverwalk and the greater part of the evening and early morning at Waxy O'Connor's Irish pub. Grand times!