Thursday, December 19, 2002

from a cemetery in Scotland

"The tracking and deciphering and organizing of life's significance can swamp the actual living of it."

Jonathan Franzen, introduction to Paula Fox's Desperate Characters, 1999

It is not enough to be h

In my mind the day revolved around working out with a friend around noon. She cancelled due to Christmas shopping. This was fine, really. I prefer to go alone and only invite friends to share my nice club, to show it to them. Just to be nice. Still an appointment at a certain time lends structure. I hate structure these days. At least I think I do. But sometimes an appointment is nice in a way.

I went out to Dad's place and tried to fix the cable set top box. I failed (OK, I powered it on and off a couple of times...it's a computer and I gave it a boot to the head). I called and they said they were sending someone already in response to Dad's call yesterday. I left Dad to wait ("between now and seven"). Later it spontaneously worked and he called and told them and sounded relieved on the phone to be rid of the obligation to stay home and free to go deliver some gifts.

Dad gave me a cup. He drank Gluwein out of it at the Christmas Market. It looked like a small coffee cup but had a fair measure mark (,2l) and so was clearly intended for a hot, alchoholic drink. He seems to have gotten some rest and to be moving toward getting back in the rhythm of things. He had wrapped some gifts himself for friends that he was going to go deliver and he'd been to a service at his church last night and done a little cooking.

Back home I find out about the cancellation and consider how to shape my day. First I think I'll work out sooner, then I get involved in scanning some more pictures and surfing for a possible New York trip and thinking about things to cook for Christmas. We have ordered the basic Christmas dinner (a smoked turkey with dressing and gravy) and my mother-in-law is making her usual. She always makes waldorf salad and an ambrosia salad. The later is more like a dessert. Later in the day I'll talk with her and she will add sweet potatoes and some rolls to her list. Although it is a frozen roll she'll bring. My mother, when she felt well, would make homemade rolls. I don't think she made them for Christmas last year because she didn't feel well. She did for our big Thanksgiving feast, though. I miss her enthusiam for making things from scratch like that, for making a contribution. Dad was going to a Senior 'play day' (they gather on Fridays to play cards and dominoes and Scrabble) at his church tomorrow and said he was putting together a snack tray and had made some stewed apples with raisins for the pot luck. Usually some person is in charge of refreshments but this time everyone is to bring stuff. Mom would have done the food when she was alive and healthy. He seems intent on proving that he can do it on his own. But he admits there are some things he can't do. He invited me to come to the event and 'teach them a new game'. Besides fearing that this would make me a 'senior' I have an excuse: a lunch date tomorrow.

So, yeah, I get stuck into planning a trip, looking at recipes on Epicurious.com (though I'll probably end up making the spinach casserole that I always make). I'm also scanning pictures for a vague project.

When I decide it is time to get a workout, I take time to sit down and finish my book (yes, I am still reading the Richard Russo...no one ever said I was a fast reader), so that I can take a different one to the club. I spend a delicious few minutes picking the book from our large supply of books I haven't read. I've decided that hardbacks are a bit hard to handle for club reading and so are pulp paperbacks. Quality paperbacks are just the ticket. I finally settle on Paula Fox's Desperate Characters. I ask FFP if he's read it. He has, he says, and he remembers buying it after reading something in The New Yorker about it after it was republished (after languishing out of print for a while). It's a thin book compared to the Russo. It is 156 pages and the Russo was close to 500.

Finally, I get to the club. It's a sparkling day but a little north wind is developing, adding a chill. It's hard to describe how beautiful it is, these fall days. We had a lot of rain, a little cold that wasn't that persistent. So besides the blue skies and cool air (OK, it was almost hot before this front) we have fall leaves, half still clinging to trees and half making carpets on the ground and we have lots of things happily flowering including some yellow wildflowers on the highway. It's the kind of day that could suck someone into Austin and make them wonder what they were doing here when the equally likely rainy, dismal cold day arrived or the truly awful (only the poor stay in town) heat of August.

I'm so late getting to the club that the sun almost blinds me if I look at the four TVs. Two are tuned to CNBC this day. Sometimes none are and I wish one was but I never change them myself. Usually, I read. And I start my new book.

As I'm driving home, I decide that I will clean out the refrigerator. Really. It's one of the things on my 'to do' list. But when I get home I realize that tomorrow is trash day. So I empty the trash inside and get the recycling and trash out to the street. Before I retired FFP did this 95% of the time. Well, the maid usually did the inside trash. She thinks I don't want her to do it because she commented on something I discarded. Actually, I want her to dust and scrub the toilet with her time.

It's about five by then, but FFP and I are both hungry. First, he suggests going out to a macrobiotic restaurant. We decide against it because we would have to cross paths with people going to the Trial (no typo) of Lights, he thinks. I suggest that we sauté the zucchini and squash in the frig and he decides to go buy some salmon to cook. When he is back, I have cooked the squash (adding garlic powder, lemon pepper, basil and a smidgen of cayenne) and transferred it to the microwave into two containers, one with some onions I sautéed for me. I've topped them with some fresh grated parmesan and I'm going to zap them to melt it a little. I've drug out some spinach and a leftover half of a tomato and made a salad.

We eat the meal (FFP cooks the salmon in the olive oil left from the vegies and adds capers) and clean up. I toss the sour milk from the fridge. So, I didn't really get the frig clean but I did dispense with a few odds and ends.

I feel grubby and should jump in the shower. But I get stuck into watching a movie that is awful or should be (Miami Rhapsody) but I can't help myself and I watch it from the place where I came in until the end. I work on the scanning of the pictures for my vague project and I write most of this day's entry but my machine crashes and I've failed to save it. This depresses me. I'm tempted not to do this entry ever. I'm forced to ask if the journal is wasting my time. I was thinking about writing the 'retirement report' (my first three months are ending) but I no longer feel like it.

So, I log out of everything so the network backups can work and go read some of the piles of newspaper that are also winning. I really thought that when I retired I'd have time for everything and not feel hassled. I resolve to feel better about it tomorrow. [And since this entry is finished, you can see that I do.]

JUST TYPING
Trivial pursuits.
Loom large.
When larger things fade.
Where to put the phone books that arrive.
If you have five phone lines, they give you lots of phone books.