Saturday, November 16, 2002

the one trussed up is the Irish bear

"There is a large cocktail waitress in sensible shoes who likes her job and wonders why they haven't sold more Bloody Marys for the holiday. I say she likes her job because she is making the small talk that makes me think that the airport public are her friends. She asked me if I saw the flag on the Twin Towers."

LB, July 4, 1995, written in cocktail lounge at JFK airport

[I'm occasionally reviewing old, hand-written notebooks and I've decided to quote myself now and again. This one was obviously something that really happened that I thought would make a nice detail in some writing, someday.]

I wake up amid dreams of being on a trip with a lot of people and looking for my cell phone and finding lots of them, but not mine.

I am thinking of going for a workout and/or working in the yard. But FFP doesn't feel well and I'm worried about him and he is worried for me to leave so I stick around and surf the WEB and work on stuff. I check on him occasionally and what seems like a migrane gradually improves. I am trying to write a brief travelogue of Berlin showing what I know about the sights and getting around. Of course, this leads to lots of research. Because I really don't know all that much.

Then I decide to research buying a new computer and this leads down many paths. It feels a lot like wasting time.

FFP improves and we decide I can go for a workout. But I never do work in the yard.

Dad's neighbors are having a party. They are a young couple. He's Indian, she's Caucasian and they have a dog with a Spanish name. Dad is invited and he wants me to go.

I stop and buy them a plant as it is a housewarming party. Dad is taking them some wine and some leftover Halloween candy. (I don't say anything...the candy turns out to be popular with the small kids running around the party.)

When I drive up to Dad's house there are Christmas lights on the front, plugged into a Rube Goldberg arrangement in front of the side of the garage he no longer has a car for. When we go to the party, the neighbors across the street say they figure I put them up. Oh, no. My eighty-six-year-old dad was on a ladder today. Sigh.

The party is nice. There are Indian friends of Satesh's, work friends of his and of Carrie's, neighbors, her parents, her sister and a band of three young nerdy guys, one of whom might be Indian. There are lots of software guys...which is what Satesh works in. The dog is nice. I'd met the dog before. Dad's other new neighbors are there. He is Lebanese, my dad thinks. She talks about Mexico and may be Mexican. Everyone asks where I live. Almost everyone is so new to town that they don't know where Shoal Creek is. The kids have wine and beer and soda and lots of good food. They are proud of their house with the stained concrete floors. They are nice to my dad who has helped with the dog and killed their fire ants.

We arrive early and leave early to make room for people still arriving.

At home I read and watch TV with FFP. Because he felt sick, the day seems disjointed. To him, of course. But to me, too.

JUST TYPING
You can do.
Whatever.
You want.
Yikes.
Choices.
But there are limits.
You feel them.
They touch you.