Thursday, December 26, 2002

a blast from the past...a dog peeking through a fence from a walk long ago

On Being A Woman

Why is it, when I am in Rome
I'd give an eye to be a home,
But when on native earth I be,
My soul is sick for Italy?

And why with you, my love, my lord,
Am I spectacularly bored,
Yet do you up and leave me---then
I scream to have you back again?

Dorothy Parker

It is not enough to be h

Doesn't the day after Christmas seem more like a new beginning that New Year's Day? Sort of anyway? Maybe.

I went to sleep too late and I awake with a start a little before seven. We have an appointment for FFP's car at the dealer because the A.C. isn't working. I throw on some old sweats and go to the dealer and pick him up and we go to the club. I cut my arm exercises short because he's waiting but I get in my aerobic exercise on the bike. He drops me off and goes back to the dealer to get his cell phone out of his car.

I shower up. I have a lunch date. My friend Curtis is a level-headed guy who lives life and thinks about it and can write beautifully about life. I wish he would write more and let me read it, even e-mails.

Curtis comes and we walk to Jorge's. The food is so-so but we have a nice talk. Then we walk around the neigbhorhood, talking some more. We walk by scary house. I think I'll point it out to him but I don't.

Back home, we sit in the living room and talk but he has some things to do and he leaves. I flit around, not really getting anything done.

After a while FFP asks if I'll accompany him to the dealer. Rats have apparently chewed a wire on his A.C. It's fixed now. Only in Austin would you worry about the A.C. working in late December.

FFP needs some copier/laster printer paper. I tell him that I'll go buy some and buy some more rat poison, too. I leave the dealership and go to Fry's.

The parking lot is packed but I finally find a place. What are all these people buying? Mostly blank CDs, joy sticks, disk drives, stuff like that. But also humidifiers, DVDs, games and candy. I wrestle a box of paper into my cart and then find a two-line phone for the big room. (One that hopefully will not get knocked off the hook like the one that's there now.) The line is long, snaking well out of the line area. But it goes fast. There is one line for all the scores of registers. Soon I'm paid, out, wrestling the paper into the car.

I stop at Randall's. It's time to get home...it's almost rush hour. (Although rush hour isn't so rushed these days because people are taking holidays.) I don't pay much attention to what other people are buying. Can't throw stones if your basket contains garbage bags, jalapeno peppers and rat poison.

It's time to eat. I've eaten some clementines, some cheese, a greasy Mexican lunch. But I'm hungry again. I heat up turkey, dressing, gravy, spinach casserole and wash it down with a Cherry Coke. I eat some of the leftover Waldorf salad. I have a great diet, huh?

I clean up. We have finished off the spinach. There is still leftover turkey, dressing and gravy and some other stuff.

There is a series of good programs...CSI, ER, stuff like that. Some reruns. I read the paper, try to work the Thursday crossword in The New York Times (with limited success). I am thinking that my day was less than productive or satisfying. Why? I'm not sure.

JUST TYPING
Shopping.
For the mundane.
Paper.
A phone.
Rat poison.
Garbage bags.
I'd like some new computers and software.
But I buy the necessary.