Sunday,
December 29, 2002
|
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I missed playing Scrabble this holiday.
Virginia Woolf's character Peter Walsh in Mrs. Dalloway It is not enough to be h |
|
dreary I am up and ready to walk only it's foggy. Only it's raining. I talk to SuRu briefly. FFP is off to the club. But I don't go with him. When I do go, he isn't home but when I get to the club he isn't there. We've again done that pass in the night thing. Or the fog. I was reading the papers. Not finishing them, just reading some of them. When I go with him I feel rushed. Although he seems to have taken a long time today. I think maybe he steamed. And, of course, I just wasn't ready to go when he was. When I get home, he says he's up to go to a movie. A friend we thought might go to movies with us, doesn't want to. We pick a 1pm showing of Catch Me if You Can at Alamo North. I can't believe I've never been there. It feels like cheating to watch Leonardo's character cheating everyone while drinking a Newcastle and eating a Mexican pizza. But the beer is too strong and the food too rich and I feel a little queasy when I leave. Ah, well. Good movie that. Really good. It would be too fantastic to be true except it is true. I read about the real guy in the paper today. He didn't make much off selling his story but made millions with his fraud security firm. I assume he paid back everything he stole? Anyway, in spite of the book that was written quite a few years ago, he said some associates didn't know about his past. Imagine having something like that in your past? Of course, he didn't physically harm anyone. There are people walking around who murdered someone, of course. We have that book around here somewhere in FFP's true crime collection. The guy said it was less accurate than the movie even though he collaborated with a writer on the book. Of course, once a con always a con??? Maybe. I care too much about the truth myself. It's a failing.
Home again we settle in for a evening of reading and TV. I finish the papers, I read Mrs. Dalloway. FFP said he found it rough going and I can see that. It's like picking through a junk shop for treasures. Everything is hanging together just because it's in one place at one time. But the eye and the brain have to pick out what's important.
Someone calls with a last minute invitation for dinner and wine on New Year's Eve. I decline. I have committed to Dad's little party and I'm so happy that he's decided to make such an effort. These folks have a great wine collection. I think FFP will be a little upset to be relegated to Dad's party. He asks, "Can we do both?" I say no. There is always that pull to be more than one place at a time. My dad needs me for this. And, frankly, this year I'm more in the mood for a bunch of old folks and random neighbors than Austin's elite. I don't know why. We would have said yes, yes, yes to this invitation if we weren't already committed. I wonder how far down on the list we were, too. How many people, sadly, had other plans. There was a time when it bothered me that you had to miss this to do that. It rarely does anymore. I catch myself feeling it here, though, because I think FFP will be sorry we can't go. I remember as a kid agonizing over choices like this, thinking there would never be another chance to see or do some thing. Indeed, I got to do so little as a kid, it's not surprising. Now, however, I've gotten to do so much that I'm jaded. I don't regret a chance at wine and food. It will come again.
We both end up reading in bed before sleep with the dog between us. Until my eyes close. As they do I think: in the morning I will read the paper, have coffee, then workout and then go check out my dad's readiness for the party. Then I'll buy a few things to make some food contributions to it. Maybe I'll also stock up on 'party wine' for our upcoming events.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
176
JUST
TYPING