Thursday, February 21, 2002

..

outside art, outside

another SoCo denizen

when rabbits fly....

"Life is painting a picture, not doing a sum."
Justice O. W. Holmes

I would have gotten to work earlier, but work interfered. I usually sip some good Capresso coffee before taking off to work. Get calm, let the traffic die, ponder a few e-mails in my business e-mail, maybe even answer them. Maybe work a little on the personal WEB.

This morning was no different except that no less than three e-mail threads took off and people were shooting stuff back and forth and I just kept on doing what I would have done at work, except I wasn't there. Then Chalow started barking to beat the band. She was sitting in an easy chair in the living room barking. I glanced outside on the porch and told her it was nothing. I opened the door to prove it to her and got a glimpse of my dad's van, parked behind my garage door. He was next door, digging in the garden where he's scored a 'sharecropper plot.' I offered him a cuppa, got him to move so I could go to work and wound up my work while we drank another. I hope, when I'm 85, that I can do something like that.

I was cheerful about work but I won't say that it went well. I kept having to free up disk space or find some elusive info or talk to someone about something. But I felt good about it somehow. You know how that goes?

I was feeling artistic today. Thinking up art projects that I'll never do. Talking about art with a guy in the hall. I also invited one of the guys at work to join me for the tennis at Margarita Mixed Doubles, tomorrow at my club.

We had a conference call with the customer and it was hard to hear them and a little frustrating. But still...I was cheerful. Because of the timing of the call and everything I was trying to do, I didn't go out to lunch and made nachos. I commented to someone that I could keep salad stuff and have salads instead. Of course, sadly, salad stuff doesn't keep as well.

After work, I went to the parents' house and got an unwanted tool bar off Mom's screen. (How did she get it there? Hard to say. I couldn't even get it back in the same form after I closed it. Go figure. Actually, I didn't try too hard.) She had been working on miniatures, had a few health complaints (always does, though) and generally seemed to be doing pretty good. Dad was sore from gardening (heck...I think he worked on it two hours), has finished two books from the last ones I gave him, wanted to loan one of them to a friend. He and I talked about setting up some college investment for the great nephew and his soon-to-arrive sibling. I had a cup of coffee with them.

Then it was homeward. FFP was back from a meeting. He said he had thought of going to work out but wanted to be with me. So I figured I shouldn't linger too long messing with my computer and stuff in the other room. I would have gone to the club but I was hungry. He'd already eaten soup. So I better eat some leftovers and be with him, right?

So I do. I heat up some King Rang Chicken and make a little salad with the last of the lettuce in the frig. I get some wine from an already opened bottle.

Forrest is watching some show that they have butt up against the Olympics. It's kind of a gluttony bowl. I ask him the name of it about four times, but I forget every time. I avow that I won't watch it and he switches to the Olympics.

"They ate whole sticks of butter," he says.

I think he said one guy ate eight or nine or something. I can't remember, don't want to remember.

I eat, read papers, watch the skating. That 16-year-old Sarah rocked. I didn't know they had Women's Hockey.

Somewhere along the line, I sit my wine glass down and it falls askew, spilling contents and breaking so I have to get up and clean it up, find the glass bits on the floor...the stem seems to have disintegrated. So, yeah, I get another glass and some more wine.

I end the evening surfing a little, not going to bed at a reasonable hour as I've promised myself I would. I read a couple of journals and also look at stuff on ebay for a hoot. It's almost no fun questing after weird stuff anymore with that resource.

I get in bed with my Joseph Epstein essays and read and finish the wine.

JUST TYPING
Taking pleasure, in what is.
The humor in the day.
Trying to do good.
And be honest.
Not sell out.
Understand that it all ends.
The same way.