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Saturday July 22, 2000 "Quand on n'est pas assez fortunι pour se payer le bonheur, il ne faut pas s'en approcher trop et le regarder. . . .Non, non, ne regardons pas les ιtalages." "When you aren't rich enough to buy happiness, you musn't watch it too closely. . . .No, no, no window shopping!" Tristan Bernard
stealth truck, newly painted
Internet Ready? art
lancorilla
photo shoot
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frying pan? fire? Anyway, it's hot! It's all about heat. Every move, every action is informed with heat. I get up about six thirty. It is too hot to be outside walking after nine or so. Too hot for us. Too hot for the dogs. I'm feeling a little bleary from last evening's wine and port and after dinner coffee. But I get outfitted for the walk. I put my tiny film camera and my tiny new digital camera in my waist pouch along with two cold sports bottles. (One for me, one for Chalow.) SuRu arrives. She isn't in a good mood. Clarksville suits her for a walk, although I suggest South Congress. She went to Bahama Breeze last night. Smartly-dressed people talking loudly, she says. She had a margarita with mango and it doesn't seem to be treating her well today. We park on what I consider 13th but I think it's named Waterson and head up the street, noticing that stealth truck is now brightly painted on both sides, albeit in different styles. We wander in the area that seems to be an artist's colony, where there is a nifty studio on one lot with the artist's large odd ceramic sculptures outside and the other houses around seem to be occupied by would-be artists, too, including one who has assembled a pile of junk, including computer monitors, and covered it with bright paints. We walk down West Lynn expressly for the purpose of shooting a picture of the gorilla. Bare before, he's now celebrating Lance's Tour de France. He appears ready to jump on the bike at his side and let our man Lance draft him. We go down to Sixth and stop at Portabla. We sit in the shade of the pecan trees in back and have our snacks and drinks. Zoey is alert to a squirrel running around the roofs. I have something that is bagel-like but not a bagel. This place has recently opened. It's the Sweetish Hill people. They are either competing with themselves or merely expanding. Into what used to be their space, actually. We speculate that people will say 'porta-blah' instead of (the intended?) 'por-tab-la.' They do have some nice little tables inside and some good sounding egg dishes. SuRu has a srcambled egg sandwich. SuRu still doesn't feel well and wants to go back to the car. "We are always headed back to the car, more or less." We go up Blanco, turn right at the Fire Station to avoid some big dogs being walked by buff men, one shirtless. We cut through an alley we've never been through, exciting a mean dog but getting a different perspective on some houses from behind. I consider myself the chronicler of these neighborhoods where we walk. I shoot pictures and write about the places. And it will never be exactly the same again. We go directly back to the CR/V. It seems a short walk, but it's probably about a mile and a half or two miles, round trip. At home, the backyard is full of people and equipment. A friend has asked to use th yard for a photo shoot for a gardening product. The product is this disk made of a porous plastic-based fabric filled with plastic balls. The thing goes into the bottom of a pot and allows the soil to drain properly for years since the plastic is very sturdy. Since the product isn't much to shoot, they are using flowers and pots and plants and our yard with the scupltures by Barry George and Brian Frisbee as a backdrop. I do a bit on my WEB, watch a little of the photo action and decide to attack one more chore or so of the parents' great move. I load up a couple of boxes of their stuff and head out. I go to Office Depot and look at phones. I can't decide on a model of portable/answering machine/caller id phone there. I foolishly decide to to to Sam's. I don't plan to be inside long, but I put the windshield heat reflector in. The heat is pulsing and the skin feels like it's cooking on the short walk inside. I stare at the phones. There aren't as many choices as Office Depot but they have lots of the ones they offer. I consider the TVs as well. Finally, I decide on a phone and wander around and pick up some massive packs of batteries and a DVD of "Angela's Ashes." I figure I'm in for a long line, but it isn't bad. I amuse myself while waiting by looking at the things people are buying...utility tables, gatorade, fruit punch, massive packages of weiners. I am almost always tempted at Sam's to buy something that I don't actually need like a special set of screwdrivers or flashlights. I look around for a product that I want more of...a roll of velcro you can cut to make straps to hold wires in check on the computers and such. I can't find it. Many of the products at the warehouse stores come and go. I think I'll stop at Radio Shack on the way to the parents' house but I miss it somehow. So I blow it off. It's too hot. Mom and Dad are headed out to get Mom a hairdo. I go in and assemble the phone and start it charging. Dad comes back and we unload the few boxes I've brought. Since I can't use the phone until it's charged, I'm kind of at loose ends. I move some furniture around to suit Mom better. Dad goes to pick her up and the seller comes by to retrieve cleaning supplies from the closet to clean at her new place tomorrow. (Soon she will be in and she will retrieve the stuff from two bedroom closets, leaving the parents more room to organize.) We haven't hung pictures yet. It seems that the furniture needs to settle in somehow. Mom has been arranging and rearranging the kitchen to get it like she wants. They use the kitchen a lot. Already they've cooked a ham. They eat three meals a day, usually at home. They lead a regular life. Dad says that the armadillo didn't come back, but he sees where he dug under the fence. I go home. I'd parked my car in some niggardly shade, but the wheel is almost too hot to touch. Forrest is headed to the mall to get my one piece of jewelry (other than watches and wedding ring) which we've recently had redone. I go with him. To give moral support. The parking lot shimmers with heat. We put the windshield reflector in and crack the windows. We notice that some people have parked on the extreme edges of the lot to get some shade from a few pitiful trees around the exterior of the asphalt mass. We get the necklace. They give me a nice rose. We escape by the cacophony of Johnny Rocket's and back blinking into the heat. The traffic around the mall is heavy. There are too many huge SUVs and it is too hot. We were supposed to spend the evening at a beautiful home, dining and drinking wine, hosted by someone who had donated the event to a charity auction. When we scheduled it, they told us we couldn't dine in the wine cellar because it had been attacked by a dangerous mold. Days ago, they found that the house was infested by the mold. So the deal is off. One of the couples we'd invited, a couple of young doctors, still wants to go out. Forrest gets a bottle of 1993 Montrachet and a bottle of 1990 Stag's Leap Cabernet out of our cellar. (Which, hopefully, has no killer mold. There isn't room enough room to dine either...heck you can barely stand in it.) We meet the couple at Zoot. I have a tomato-based consumι with garnishes of potato, fish and such and the duck in cherry sauce with grain and greens. The wine, food, and company are good. The doctors tell us about doctor jobs...teaching, practices big and small. The are young and smart and on their way to great things. They have small kids and they are building a house near the house we almost had our event in...a house infected with mold. I feel lucky that my house has less heinous flaws. At home, I try to work on my WEB page, but I'm too sleepy. Bed. The sheets and pillows are cool from the A.C. Outside, it is still hot. |
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