Friday, December 27, 2002

typewriter toy for sale on ebay

Daylight Saving

My answers are inadequate
To those demanding day and date,
And ever set a tiny shock
Through strangers asking what's o'clock;
Whose days are spent in whittling rhyme---
What time to her, or she to Time?

Dorothy Parker

It is not enough to be h

So I came up with a new plan for being a more productive retired person. First, I asked, what's working? Well, I've lost five pounds or so and I'm definitely getting stronger and I feel better. This is because I almost always exercise every single day. I devote the time to a dog walk or a trip to the gym. Or both. So, to make progress in my other areas, I need to put in some dedicated time on a regular basis. I dedicated some time to the yard, to planning travel, to this journal, to some of my 'clean up and organize the house' projects and, yep, I made progress. So, yeah, dedicate time.

I go to the club first thing and do the bike, some leg exercises, ab exercises and a little rowing to nowhere. I'm getting stronger. And, in spite of still eating and drinking too much, ever ever so slightly slimmer. Although slim is not a word you'd use in reference to me. Nope.

When I get to the gym, I start the bike and then I notice the view. Or lack of. The lake (Lake Austin) is completely shrouded in fog. The last thing you can see is the outer edge of the roof over the boat dock. And this is a little dim in the fog. Before I'm done, though, it lifts and the houses just on the edge of the lake create a flickering candle-like flashing with their windows. Then the windows start to fog up, obscuring the bright day developing outside.

At home I discuss my lunch date with my lunch date partner. He decides on a later time and that sounds good to me. I shower up and get dressed. I decide to wear jeans, a polo and a denim shirt over that and hiking boots. Because I plan to dedicate a half hour or so to cutting back some plants for winter and putting out yard waste later and all I've have to do is put on older shoes and a sweaty hat.

My lunch date today is a friend who has been retired for a year. He told me when he retired that he thought he would get a closet in his place cleaned out. A closet that, in his small place, had absorbed all the tucking away of the years. But he still hasn't. He hasn't gotten any travel in either other than trips to visit family in Dallas. He's still thinking about budgeting for it. He works on gay and lesbian political projects so he actually does something with his time. Still, he says he has lunch dates and naps. He says he is still adjusting to the retired life. That makes me feel better since I was expecting so much from myself after three months.

And, yes, I dedicate half hour or forty-five minutes to chopping some elephant ears and trumpet plants back for coming freezes. I check to see if the bamboo is coming back. Not too bad. I consider trimming the boxwood and yews without actually doing too many snips. I see fish in the pond which has, miraculously, cleared a little on its own. I haul two cans of yard waste to the curb for tomorrow's pickup including some dead limbs from the recent storm. I ponder the need to clean the shed outside and the area behind it but I don't start on it.

Then I decide to dedicate some time to reading the newspaper, sitting in the living room for a change, occasionally noting the cars and trucks and bicycles passing by outside as does the dog since I've opened the front door and left only the storm door to separate us from the street.

Reading a review of The Hours the movie made from Michael Cunningham's novel of that name which is based on Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf or, at least, uses that book as a hook, I decide that I need to read both books. Our copy of the former is lost but I hunt up the latter and, while FFP goes to the club to exercise, I start reading it, transfering my reading to the room in the back of the house and idly watching a move on IFC.

When FFP returns, he has decided that we should eschew turkey leftovers and go to the club to eat. We aren't the only ones with this idea. The bar is packed. We get a seat in the dining room looking out on the lake. A house (two house?) and some street lights (maybe?) gleam across the way, looking like a hilltop redoubt for the rich. But while we eat and drink a bottle of wine and read our books some fog slowly blots it out and then the window fogs.

JUST TYPING
One hour.
Dedicated.
Can accomplish a lot.
Really.
There are few.
Hours.
Left.