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March 26, 2000
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scenic I must go to bed at a earlier hour! I think it was 3AM this time. So 8AM (the promised call from the other half of the eXtreme dog walking team) came early. Sure I'd napped a little earlier, but still. I struggled into some jeans, a denim shirt, my Bob (Church of the Subgenius) cap and hiking boots. I got a Capresso, blinked my way through the Statesman ads and gathered up the cameras, water bottles, bags, kleenex, tablets and pens. etc. (SuRu says I should also carry my cell phone and a compass and she's probably right.) We started on Bonnie Road next to the Walsh Landing parking. We made a big trek down Scenic and back up Mathews. We decided that we needed to adopt a persona for each neighborhood. Something that would make us fit in, not look like interlopers. For this one, we decided we needed to be middle-aged Lesbians who had gotten wealthy enough together by divorcing their husbands to move to the neighborhood. We decided we were otherwise not thin enough to live here, singly or with husbands. In other neighborhoods, we might manage to pass for mother and daughter. On South Congress we plan to disguise the eXtreme leashes with frayed rope and be homeless women. We walked about an hour and wrapped back around to Mozart's. A snack and coffee on their dog-friendly decks and we were ready to head home. But we let Zoey go down to Walsh Landing and play with Lola, a German shephard. They liked each other, dispelling SuRu's theory about the Germans and French. The walk was great. There are wildflowers everywhere (aka weeds looking their best) and it is amazing to walk by those houses where the people have lake access as part of their homes and have their private paths down to the lake. Wonder if Austin's liberals occasionally threaten their right to this like they do our right to our land on Shoal Creek? One house even has a walkway over the road. Wonder what kind of permit that took? Took a tour around my own backyard when I got home. Geckos are out, blowing their little scarlet sacs. The little Japanese maples are all deep red. The 'mayor of the backyard' oversees it all. (Our neighbor, Laurie, had a a dream wherein the little statue on the pond, acquired at a garage sale for $10, was the mayor of the backyard. Her daughter loves that story. They were over today working on their job...stocking one of the ponds with fish.) Dad's bees (and maybe some non-Dad bees) are out in force around the back stoop. Hopefully, they won't bite anyone. My dad had a book he was reading about these bees. He so loves the natural world. Discovered that my ISP had regressed my files on the site to two days ago. Hopefully, I got all the new stuff re-FTPed. Hrmmph. They are usually pretty darn reliable. Did some pleasant backyard sitting with today's papers as well as part of the pile of older ones accumulating in here and by my easy chair. To ward off the mosquitoes, we sit in this cloud of citronella smoke from these expensive things that look like those punts we used to light fireworks from. Oak leaves drift down and the new green on stuff gives a particular quality to the light. A neighbor's child plays a few bars on the violin. I've been dabbling with French again. Hence some French quotes. Novels have given way to French tapes in the car. Here's a way to win a million dollars: prove that every even number is the sum of two prime numbers. Sounds deceptively simple, doesn't it? Goldbach's Conjecture, 1742. I've been reading other people's journals. Again. And not just Forrest's so that I can respond to 'He said.' The Book of Rob is interesting and irreverent. I should point out that I find these journals through link pages and rings. Usually. The very resources on which I refuse to be represented. Not that you can keep people from linking to you. But usually you have to ask, I think, to be included in these formal ways. I'm self-centered, I am. This is for me. For next year and the next. When I've forgotten what today was like. Nancy Lilly said she was jealous of the journal and wanted to do one. If she did, it would be great and artistic and funny and profound and I'd be very jealous. Chamber music concert tonight. Rebecca went with us. She likes events that are on Sunday or Monday since she plays Tuesday-Saturday at Four Seasons. Forrest fretted about what to wear. He ended up in a linen shirt, tie and unstructured black suit. He shouldn't have worried. There was a guy in a polo shirt, several tieless and a guy in a short-sleeved white shirt and suit with, I'm not making this up, a pocket full of stuff including a pocket protector which contained at least two pencils with erasers worn down mostly to nothing. Who uses a pencil anymore? Another couple showed up. Gene and Linda. We don't see them too often. Once they were friends. I think you might say they are acquaintances now. We have seen them, I believe, three times in the last three years. I invited them to my birthday party. We saw them at a benefit for the State Theater. At the latter and last night, Gene asked "What are you doing here?" My impression was that he believed that since he wasn't seeing us that we were existing in the margins of society, not getting out socially. I rather think it was the other way around. Not that it matters. But I don't like to be greeted with a challenge to my existence. How about, "Long time no see. We should invite you out sometime after that lovely party you invited us to attend!" Not that the invitation was a social coup. Rather, the Austin Chamber Music Center, in a struggle to promote chamber music, sold tickets to a concert in someone's home. If you found out about it, they'd sell you a ticket! The concert was lovely, really. I like hearing a chamber concert in a moderately-sized room. They introduced us to some strange old-styled instruments called viols (pronounced 'viles' or 'vials'...there's a pun in there somewhere). One fellow played Bach's Suite 6 on viola and then repeated a couple of movements on a five-string electric violin. I liked the viola better myself. I had a really good weekend. I stayed focused on the moment. I felt good most of the time, aside from a little sleep problem and an ache in my teeth that I hope is allergies. It's strange, but sometimes it is easy to just enjoy life right now and not worry about what is coming on Monday or next month. Things will work out. I just sat in my yard or walked my dog or watched people or listened to music, totally in the moment. It's a pleasure. [Ed. Of course, now that it's Monday morning and I'm finishing this off, I'm sitting here answering business e-mail with the other hand and checking business and social calendars and getting into the general, usual frenzy.]
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"Le peintre ne doit pas faire ce qu'il voit, mais ce qui sera vu." Paul Valκry, Mauvaises pensιes et autres |
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backyard tune
mayor of the backyard |
