Saturday

Nov, 3, 2001

things to do

We are snoozing away when SuRu's call rousts us. We get dressed and packed up and take off for Hyde Park. (Isn't it funny how this is a London area but also a neighborhood of Chicago. And Austin. And where else?)

It's the day of the child in Hyde Park. A toddler runs on the park basketball court wearing a red plastic fireman's hat. A little girl pilot a plastic tug boat and mutters about the dogs. An eight or nine-year-old boy plays catch with his father.

We wind down to 38th, go west, back east and end back up at Julio's. We walk between some gen-Ys on the sidewalk at Quack's.

"I hardly ever hear from him, none of us do." says one.

"Sometimes he sends a joke e-mail," says the other.

Joke e-mails are not communication. They perhaps show you are alive like a Christmas card with an embossed signature.

Two dogs try to prevent our entry to the Julio's patio. The owner corrals them. FFP thinks he knows the guy from somewhere. A guy comes up with a cup of coffee. He is wearing a suit and tie and new-looking shoes. The shirt seems a little soiled. And he has the sun-burned, toothless, three-day-beard look of a homeless man. He sits the cup of coffee on the fence, goes in and orders food. He admires Zoey. He admires a dog belonging to another woman who is waiting for food.

We discuss, on the way to the car, whether he is homeless.

"Of course," FFP says.

"Where is his shopping cart? Maybe he parked it out back." I say.

I tell SuRu and FFP that I think that a good project would be to give the beggar homeless a chance to write their story for $10. SuRu says I should give them a blue book and pencil and come back for it with the cash. The guy in the suit, though, hasn't asked anyone for money and has apparently bought his own coffee and Quack's and taco at Julio's.

We haven't had a very long walk. But we head back. We have seen faded pumpkin displays and children. It's getting hot. We have things to do.

I make a list of things to do. Get my thoughts and possessions together for the trip. Clean out the refrigerator. And pantry. Do some backups. Boot my gateway and try using a single keyboard and mouse for it and my main personal machine by using this gadget that I bought. Install some software. Enter the spending (personal) for October and see how badly we've blown the budget with me buying clothes for Mom, getting dental crowns and spending a long weekend in Florence. More research for the New York trip and look into FFP flights to Washington to see Ballet Austin. Work on my WEB page. Clean up the guest room. Get control of newspapers and magazines. Clean up the office. Post Jennifer's (no longer in college really) journal. And. And take my mom to Dillard's. A mall store.

Which thing is least pleasant? Do it first. Mom is ready to go to the mall.

This works out as good as it possibly could. I pick her up. I make sure she has her cane and her handicap permit. We drive to the mall. I find a handicap place under a tree near a Dillard's door. There is grackle poop but no apparent grackles and my car doesn't get marked.

We go in the door and voilà there is the handbag department. We have no luck finding a navy bag but Mom says maybe she needs new shoes. Shoe department is right there. She picks some burnished gold-colored ties. We go to the cosmetics which are right next door. Find the cleansing cream she's after. Go back to purses and instantly find a purse that looks good with the new shoes. We also are shown a navy one. But it's $180. We pass. My shopping anxiety is on high alert but we quickly escape. Back to the car. No poop. And take her home.

I promise the parents that I will take them out to eat tonight at Threadgill's. FFP is going out with three gals to a benefit that I don't want to go to.

But I go home to, you know, get some stuff done. I piddle around, eat nachos, dispose of all the papers by my chair. Yes, I had to stop and read some of them.

Dad calls and says Mom is back from getting a haircut and they are ready for dinner.

I pick them up and we go to Threadgill's. It isn't very crowded. I have fried oysters, spinach casserole and black-eyed peas. Mom has fried shrimp, fried okra and spinach casserole. Dad has chicken-fried steak, green beans with spicy tomato and french fries. I can't finish my oysters nor Mom her shrimp so we pack those up.

So I'm home by 7:30. I can get things done while Forrest is gone. I watch a little World Series. I see how that is going and start looking for a movie that isn't too violent or scary. Somehow I settle on Falling Down. That Michael Douglas movie (and Robert Duvall) where Michael Douglas is a defense worker with no job and and estranged wife and he goes nuts and shoots people. I have watched this movie in dribbles. Violent though it is, it is in many ways a great movie. In a visual and psychological way I mean.

So, of course, I don't get a single thing done. Then I don't want to go to sleep until FFP is home so I keep on reading and trying to find something worthwhile on the cable. I watch Humphrey Bogart in some piece of a movie I'm not familar with. I go to bed about 1:30 and read The New Yorker. FFP comes in a little after two. Gets out of his tuxedo and into bed.

"You smell like cigars."

"Well, I went to Four Seasons and Rebecca and Steve talked me into going to close down Don's Depot where Craig Calvert was playing. Cigarettes, probably."

"It's OK."

I could go to sleep now that he's home but I have indigestion from my wonderful diet. I get up and take two aloe vera gel caps and before long I'm peacefully sleeping. Soon the phone will ring. And it will be dog walking time.

Why is this here? Because some ebay trader once sold it. Because these guys are on the Eiffel Tower. Because I have a fascination with the Eiffel Tower.

"We are all born originals - why is it so many of us die copies?"

Edward Young, poet (1683-1765)

Meta:
I have the urge to change the look of this thing. I don't really like the new background color but it will stay for a while.

JUJUST TYPING
Make a list.
For the pleasure.
Of marking off.
Trivial accomplishments.