Friday. December 14, 2001

everywhere flags

"A patriot is a fool in ev'ry age. ".

Alexander Pope

I wake up dreaming. There is this series of lakes or rivers with winding roads that is, I realize, often in my dreams. I'm camping on a sandy beach. Every time I go swimming I get a fresh towel all covered with sand. There is some place to take a shower, though, but we are running out of fresh towels. Then my parents are there to clean up and pack up the camp. But my dog is missing. They don't seem upset but I'm running all over looking for the dog. It is Oscar our sheepdog, gone for almost eleven years. I keep thinking I see him but when I get up close it's a small, fluffy white dog. Not Chalow, but about her size.

At work, I have a call-in meeting for a couple of hours and a design review and tele-conference in the afternoon. So that's work.

At lunch, SuRu and I went to Academy (which has a new gigantic store) to get something her mom wanted to give for presents. It takes a few minutes to find it, but we do.

We grab a sandwich at Schlotzsky's and take a drive down Rain Creek just to enjoy the sun a little before heading back into meetings. At Schlotzsky's snatches of conversations drift around the room. "...you get hyperlinks and you can change the colors...", "...we have to convert all the programs...", and "...so, yeah publishing is dead, books are evil, it's all electronic...." It's still a nerdy town, layoffs or not.

The evening is weird. I go to Mom's. She made me some sugared pecans for our salon this weekend. (Yes, we are having a salon here on Sunday. I'm even thinking of doing a monologue. I even wrote some notes for it.) I talked to them, ate some sausage (they were having sausage and eggs for dinner). Mom had made cookies and sugared pecans for people and is going to talk Dad into mailing them off. (I hope!)

I want to give a gift for my admin and I had this idea. So I go to Barnes and Noble and then to Container Store and get the stuff. I go home and decorate a sack for it and get it all done.

I'm relaxing in my easy chair, dealing with newspapers and watching Sunset Boulevard when FFP comes in. He's been doing backstage duty with Tom Kite as Mother Ginger for Ballet Austin's Nutcracker. He had a good time and he says Tom was great in the role.

FFP wants to go to Fonda. I was about to fall asleep but I go with him and have some appetizers and a drink. When we get home, I'm really ready to doze in my chair. I watch the end of Sunset Boulevard.

"I'm ready for my closeup, Mr. DeMile."

JUST TYPING
The toughest problems.
Are those with no obvious solution.
All paths lead to some compromise.