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April 29, 2000
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no water skiing on the lake of fire Forrest sent me an e-mail (don't start! I know!) that said, in part, "Please put a note on your 4/27 entry, so people won't think I'm a total idiot. The only sounds I heard that were related to the fight were two bumps--like "babum"--certainly no crashes or yelps. If I had heard a crash, I would have come downstairs to see if something valuable was broken. I just kind of dismissed it as the maid dropping a laundry basket. In retrospect, I am feeling guilty as hell for not getting up and going downstairs." I did add that note and and printed it here so my consistent readers would hear his side. I said he 'heard the fight' but, of course, he didn't hear what he KNEW was a dog fight but only noises. When you have maids who will turn a couch upside down to vacuum the bottom, you do hear noises. His office is upstairs and over another part of the house. It has a separate heating/air conditioning system. It's pretty remote as things can get in a moderate house. Oddly, it's as far away as it can be from the room I use for an office. That's why we use the two phone lines as an intercom and, sadly, send each other e-mails. Actually, it's nice. The e-mails, that is. Because we can have a reminder, a copy of something brought to our attention. I have a policy to respond to corrections or objections to what I post, of course. Especially, if it's my husband! Which brings me to talk about this vehicle, this thing, this journal. It's a convenient way to tell one's stories a minimum of times. Several friends read it. FFP reads it. "Yeah, I read it," he says, stopping me telling a story. Saves breath. Let's everyone know what's up with you. Every WEB-connected person who cares to read, that is. I forgot to send my friend Maggie in Cape Town an e-mail Thursday. She was worried about the dog. So she checked the journal and knew all was well. But this only works if the journal is one where you pretty tell what goes on in your life. Where we actually tell your stories. If you don't, then you still have to tell what's up to all those you want to know about it. "The dog got attacked by another dog." "I got poison ivy." "We ate at ------." I got up this morning when my need for coffee shouted down my need for sleep. Ah, the Capresso. I gave some thought to packing for the trip. I unboxed the new luggage. Wrote my address in some new luggage tags. The luggage is black. The tags are lime green. A good combination. (You can spy the tag on the carrousel but the bag won't show dirt. It will show white dog hair. That's fine. I take that hair everywhere to remind me of Chalow.) I sorted through my sock drawer looking for black socks. Ifound my silk T-Shirts, great for travel. I started sorting through my travel drawer to find my toiletry kit and maybe one to fix up for Forrest to replace his old, bulky and hopelessly messy Dop kit. I worked on a packing list, lest things be forgotten. Then I remembered: I NEED A HAIRCUT! Looked A Barber Shoppe's WEB page up and dialed. Jane: Me: Jane: Me: Jane: Me: Jane: So I took a quick shower and dressed and ran off to Jane's shop. I took a book about walking tours in Manhattan and also decided to read the paper at her place, too. When I got there, there is a guy in the chair, two guys waiting and, according to Jane, two scruffy boys who will return shortly. I read the entire Statesman or as much Elian and such as I could stomach. I drank coffee. I surfed the WEB (yeah, you can surf while you wait here and it's only $16/ladies and $14/men). I caught up with a bunch of on-line journals, I marveled once again that my property tax valuation is up 25%, I looked at NYC WEB sites. I even read some of the book I brought along. Everyone in the place today was a regular. Another customer came in behind me and Jane has me and one of the scruffy boys (now all nicely groomed and waiting on his buddy) flip the sign to CLOSED and close the blinds. The barber shop crowd discussed everything. Jane is religious in a kind of, well, belligerent way. Hence, today's title. She has a new boyfriend, in one Carolina or another. South, I think. We are afraid she will leave Austin to be with him. "You will never leave if you are waiting to save us all." I say. So a lot of the day had gone before I got out of the barber chair. My parents sold their house. Even though we are not sure when their house will be ready, they signed a contract to be out at the end of May. We will almost certainly have to send their stuff to storage, but I'm glad to get it sold. They got their asking price with the house in an 'as is' condition. One more step. At 2pm, I hadn't eaten all day. Forrest had bacon and eggs for breakfast. We never have bacon for some reason and the smell lingers all over the house for hours. Since he only had breakfast, he agrees to get some food with me. He suggests we get something near the Arboretum so that we can look for a Johnny Griffin CD at Barnes and Noble. We ate T Clouds near the Arboretum cows. Then we visited Barnes and Noble. I bought one more Manhattan guidebook. I didn't need it but I liked the old and new pictures in it. We stopped by the new climate-controlled storage on Burnet Road. They are finished and ready but the city hasn't allowed them occupancy yet. So we can't rent one. We want a spot for our outdoor Christmas decor and things like that. But first we need a place for some of my mom's collectibles and my dad's tools while we are transistioning to the new house. We went to see "Pride's Crossing" as Zach Scott. It's an energetic piece with the cast changing roles and ages and costumes. Made you tired to watch all that acting. But I liked it. It was very good. To emphasize my contention that online journals inspire the recording of incredible minutia, in word and photo, that would doubtless not be otherwise recorded, you must note the follwoing. Nancy captured under the kitchen sink. And the intrepid Michael explores the grime left after moving his stuff out of his house. (Hey, he took more than one picture of his stuff in boxes, too. And inside his storage building.) I've only mentioned baby Chalow a couple of times so I'll just tell you that we took her back to the vet today. I noticed a funny little flab of skin on her belly and the skin was all red down there. The vet says blood in pooling there, but he thinks it won't be serious. Her lacerations and puncture wounds seem to be healing well. The vet agrees. Yea. We are good at nursing our dog.
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"There are days when no one should rely unduly on his 'competence.' Strength lies in improvision. All the decisive blows are struck left-handed." Walter Benjamin, One-Way Street
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times change but some things stay the same...it's a old picture (who took it?) but reminded me of today...I got a haircut today, there are piles of papers and books and Chalow looks forlorn (but isn't jumping on chairs)
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