Thursday, October 3, 2002

abandoned pots behind the shed...yard work went begging today

"Liberty is being free from the things we don't like in order to be slaves of the things we do like."
Ernest Benn

I start the day a little late, working out at the club. I find myself talking to someone there and using that old saw about there not being time for everything in retirement. "So they tell me," he says. I threaten to call his wife and get up a tennis game. Yikes, two weeks of retirement is drawing near and what exactly have I accomplished?

Before I went to the club I had hunted down some eight-year-old notes on Berlin. So old that they were in the XyWrite format. A DOS word processing program both Forrest and I productively used for years. I'm not sure we were better off when WORD invaded our lives. In fact, I'm pretty sure we weren't actually. Although remembering a bunch of two character commands may not be a way to live either.

I read these on the exercise bicycle. I'm going to write a short travel guide for Berlin on my trip for writing practice. This gives me some ideas although many things have changed in Berlin and most of it will need revision. Some stuff, though, like these directions to Museum Island from the S-Bahn may survive.

Every time I get in the car lately, my French tapes start up and I realize that I should be listening to German tapes. But I keep forgeting to take them to the car.

I stop at the grocery store to buy coffee beans and tortilla chips. The staffs of life in our house.

I have time when I get back to shower up and fumble around with a few things. Then I pick up SuRu and we meet one of the Nancys at Koreana for lunch. Bi Bim Bab is the name of the dish I have. I think, anyway. It's a bunch of rice and stuff (like a fried egg, sprouts, seaweed or something) with a chili sauce. It's what I always get here.

I go to Dad's. Over lunch, I've realized that I need to call Blue Cross and get his Medicare Supplement policy changed to just cover him. I tackle this while filling out a death claim form for him. A couple of 800 numbers later, it seems to have worked.

The death claim is for a $1000 paid up policy. It was paid up over twenty years ago. The form asks for 'physicians and hospitals where the deceased was treated in the last illness and the last five years of life." They must be kidding. I would charge $1000 to collect this info. They leave two lines for this info and say to continue on the 'back of page 3.' The back of this page is almost completely covered with instructions. I write down some of her doctors and hospitals in Austin and quit. They must be kidding. Pay the $1000 already. Dad goes to the bank and gets the form notarized with his signature. We package it up with a death certificate, the original yellowing policy and the form. He puts it out for the mail. That's our accomplishment for the day.

I go home and find the bookkeeper there. I need to learn what she does in case she gets sick. But it seems like I'll be interrupting her. So I go buy tickets to the AIA home tour for the weekend and look around Breed and Company, a local store blending hardware and fine china, and come back. I do what FFP asks and write some personal checks. I haven't written many checks in the last few years. Using work as an excuse, I've left the house and finances to Forrest and the bookkeeper. Time to start doing my duty.

The mail has come. It included a letter from the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation acknowledging some gifts in my mom's memory. I should write these people and thank them. The folks from work have also dropped off a very nice photo of me with scores of my work buddies, nicely framed. I should write a note about that. And FFP has assigned me to write a thank you to the people who gave the opera kickoff party the other night. Most donors consider these parties their 'due' but we always send a note thanking the long-suffering hosts. Been there, done that. Anyway...that makes four thank yous I need to take care of and I do all four. For two, I send a snail mail on our ivory personalized cards. For one, I send an e-mail. (Crass? Maybe.) For one, I make a card. This is the one to my old work buddies. I use prints of digital photos I took of them at my retirement party and make what I think is a clever card with rubber cement. I did this sort of thing when I was working and enjoyed it. I still do, but it somehow makes me feel silly as if my only avocation is pasting paper slips on cardboard like a kindergarten kid. Of course, I believe in going back to basics to find the keys to great things. I'm drawn to starting back at the beginning of fields I know fairly well, starting on page one of a basic book. Looking, in a way, for the key underpinning I've missed that makes everything click.

Forrest decides to order in from Chili's. It's not my favorite thing but I order a Caribbean Chicken Salad. Everything seems to be chicken or hamburger. I should have just said I'd eat leftovers or a sandwich. It's not too bad, though, except for some Survivor show playing while we eat. I retreat to the living room to watch something else. Then I watch CSI and some new missing person show and doze and read papers. I am so, so useless.

JUST TYPING
A calm unraveling.
Of association with working for someone else.
To being free to choose each minute's occupation.