So I've just dropped my daughter off at the children's museum this morning when I see a pig car pull into the drive-thru bank. Of course I'm three lanes over and half a block past before it registers. A pig car! My old Linguiça bud Sarah Ovenall has a pig car! And it's South By Southwest week, so the whole world is in town.
I frantically negotiate a maze of one-way streets to get back to the bank and find the pig car is still in the drive-thru. There's even an empty parking space. I scrounge around my car for a coin to put in the meter, then sprint to the bank exit, hoping not to get run over by a hotfooted customer. Made it! Now, how to communicate with the driver of the car without getting shot or arrested? I wave, I point, I mouth the words "Are you Sarah Ovenall?" The driver makes eye contact, seems unfazed. I guess if you drive an art car, you're used to odd interactions with the lunatic public.
It turns out she's not Sarah Ovenall. She's not even the owner of the car, but a friend driving Aralyn Hughes' pig car, with art by Sam Hurt. Of course, I should have recognized the style. We agree that Sarah and Aralyn should know each other.
On returning home I hit Google and manage to locate both Aralyn and mysterious Sarah. It turns out that Sarah's car Little Pig Boy died a while back, but she has a new one, Undersea Mah Jongg. It also turns out that Sarah has visited Austin in the last year and I didn't know (sob!). Furthermore, she has not one but two weblogs associated with her various projects. Link, link...
So... Aralyn, meet Sarah. Sarah, meet Aralyn. And Sarah, next time you come to Texas, please pleeeeease let this old Linguiçan know.