Saturday,
April 20, 2002
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a picturesque little trail in spots
"I know no method to secure
the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution." |
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foggy I get up feeling drug out. I fiddle with my computer. My head is foggy. I hate to take more drugs for the congestion. My parents call. Dad thinks he will come over and weed the garden. I show them the picture of their new great grandson, Jeffrey Michael in the high tech 'nursery' online. He's home with Mom, Dad and brother Jack. He's tiny, smaller than Jack was and appears to have reddish hair like his Mom.
He does have a wise look, though. (Yes, I know. All babies look alike.) My niece, Jenny, is adopted. Which doesn't keep the kids from looking like adopted family members. Actually, Jenny resembled a strain of redheads on my mother's side. Sometimes I wonder, though, about the woman who gave Jenny up for adoption. Where she is today and would she like to be able to know these grandkids. Jenny and my sister and brother-in-law looked once, when some medical thing came up and they thought it would be nice to have more information. Jenny says having Jack made her feel really connected to him, knowing he looked like her because they were related. But she feels loved in our family where she has lived since the first few days of her life. She was taught about adoption as a child. Still, I'm sure she wonders. Who wouldn't? Well, these little boys are hers, for sure. I like to tell the story that when Jen was adopted couples could be so picky as to say 'no redheads.' Seriously. Not just 'healthy white baby.' My sister and brother-in-law said no such thing. And Jen came to us with a close-crop of red hair.
Kids, yeah. I never wanted any. I'm entirely too selfish and self-centered. But I'm glad other people have them. Freshens up the species. I'm glad there are these little ones to snap pictures of and watch grow up and become actual people over whom no one else has control.
After Dad pulls a few weeds, we wait around for Forrest to come back from the club. (I should have gone but my parents were visiting and I didn't feel so hot. Excuses, excuses.) Finally, it's getting to be late for lunch so we just go to Luby's and leave FFP a note. I have baked chicken, green beans, macaroni and cheese on a Luann plate (small portion entree and two sides) and some spinach salad and I get a cinnamon roll that everyone shares for dessert. Dad pays. He's sweet. I think he is trying to get my mom out and about so she will feel better.
FFP and I sort the mail and wonder what to do. He wants to get a little bit of sun and thinks he will go sit by the pool at Westwood. The pool is closed but he just wants to read and give himself a little sun. I go along, taking my shorts and tennis shoes in a bag but I tell him that I think I'll take a walk in the Mayfield preserve. It's mostly quiet and lonely. I've never been in there. I hear the voices of kids on the other side of the lake at a house crying out in squeaky voices as they play, I hear birds shrieking. I wander this trail and that for a little over a half hour. I want to be outside. It's starting to bake and be hot and I sweat. There are probably things I'm allergic to out here but I feel the need to be outside. No dogs are allowed in the preserve so this is an area I would have to walk without the eXtreme team. I have this vague dream to walk all over Austin, a bit at a time. I have covered quite a few streets doing dog walks. Crossed the trails on quite a few parks. At one spot where there was a bridge it's been pulled out of the creek bed and the sign below erected. The stream still looks crossable, though. And the trail on the other side hardly 'back to nature'. I stop, though and double back at this point, just as I have at others.
FFP and I go home. We stop at Randall's for eggs, milk and orange juice. We decide after we get home to go to Vulcan Video. We rent Hitchcock's Rebecca and Six in Paris, a 1965 compendium of six short movies filmed in various areas of Paris. (Some Austin film makers did a Six in Austin last year, I think. I'd love to see that. I missed it at the festival, though.) At home, we snacked, drank a glass of wine, watched both films. I disposed of another pile of newspapers. I took more decongestant, Echinecea and Advil early in the evening but decide to go to bed without further drugs and see how I do. The films were really good. I enjoyed them. Six in Paris probably more interesting if you enjoy 60's cars and fashion (although it was somewhat timeless in a way), Paris and the French language and culture. But. Still. FFP nods off a few times in the films. I'm sure I do, too. We finally go to bed to do our sleeping. I'm glad I have another day to recuperate from whatever it is that ails me.
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JUST
TYPING