The Visible Woman...December 28, 2002

Saturday, December 28, 2002

Chalow posing at the video store on Guadalupe *
* leash digitally removed

On Cheating the Fiddler

"Then we will have to-night!" we said.
"To-morrow---may we not be dead?"
The morrow touched our eyse; and found
Us walking firm above the ground,
Our pulses quick, our blood alight.
To-morrow's gone---we'll have to-night!

Dorothy Parker

It is not enough to be h

routine without accomplishment

It's Saturday so it must be a dog walk.

SuRu calls and suggests the neighborhood. When we meet I suggest we walk to Central Market, through the park behind and have a snack at New World Deli on Guadalupe.

And so it is done. That's a nice park, by the way, with the water ponds and water fowl. And walking by Hyde Park Gym and the stores with murals is fun. It was a good walk and reasonably long, maybe four miles?? With a stop for coffee and a bagel.

Back home, I'm torn about how to spend my time. I want to work out before the evening's entertainment. But I don't want to work out just after the walk. I want to eat lunch but I'm not hungry yet from the bagel. Yet I don't want to eat too late because I don't want to spoil my dinner.

So...I surf the WEB for a birthday present for my mother-in-law and find something and (in order to get free shipping) order two DVDs, too. And I work on this page and fool around with the Mac and with my new digital camera.

And then I'm hungry and I feel like a turkey sandwich. Well, like eating one, anyway. So I have one and some ripe olives and green onions and a little cheese (some wonderful goat cheese I got for Christmas) and a leftover cornbread muffin.

Then I feel stuffed. It isn't pleasant. I pretty much finish reading the paper and I work the crossword and the jumble in The Statesman, against my better judgment...what kind of use of my time is that?

Then it's time to workout if I'm going to do it. FFP goes with me. I ride the bike until I'm sweaty and then I do some arm exercises. It's not enough but I did walk dogs today and FFP is finished and ready to go and it's time to get ready to go out.

So at home I shower and get dressed, as usual, in black. We are having a dinner at Zoot with four friends.

Zoot. Once it was Kate's. So very long ago. It's been under the wand of several different chefs since being named for a dog who was named for a sax player one of the current owner's dad painted. It's been a solid corner of our dining constellation. Tonight we have four friends join us. We have delightful apps (me: gnochhi with mushrooms) and entrées (me: four ounces of wonderful beef with foie gras and a scallop and mushrooms and greens). Most of all we have good wine. Veuve Clicquot champagne to start, a delicious 1997 Burgundy Grand Cru and then a 1987 Bordeaux. Yummy. I can't eat dessert but some do and I have a little taste of FFP's cheese plate. Everything was very rich and I feel very full.

The conversation has been interesting. Ranging from where we grew up to how and when we did our business, how we got into business. When some people know others but everyone doesn't know everyone, life stories flow and flow out of generations, parents, grandparents, children.

So, of course, my attempt to watch TV and read ends in sleep. There is this theory that the better the wine tastes the easier on the hangover front. We will see.

I haven't accomplished much at all this day. Am I taking a day off from accomplishment because it's Saturday? Am I simply getting lazy?

JUST TYPING
Dining.
With friends.
When everyone doesn't know
Everyone else's story.
You find that this one:
Was 'the nerd who blew up things.'
It makes sense.
Many of those nerds got rich.
But you hear the story of his wife's father.
With the same curiosity.
On the verge of being part of the FM radio development.
Struck down by polio in 1949.
You hear that someone thought their mother was a citizen, as did she. Until he was investigated.
And you learn that various people had Canadian ancestors.
That the maid doesn't speak English.
That trendy kids return home after college and have a 'starter marriage' (short duration, no kids).
That one's starter wife was Canandian.
And about your old friends.
You learn that one's son was friends with a famous man's son who was a generation older.
But had a young wife.
And you hear for the first time place names of one's growing up in Texas, the era she calls 'on the farm.'
When people get together connections are made.
Towns where one grew up another arrived to make his mark.
People's choices.
The things that just happen.
And the way they bring us, brought our parents, will bring the next generation,
to right here.

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