a month gone

I am sleeping in. Sleeping off the outing, the Merlot, the beer, the effects of other people's smoke. I have things to do, sure. But I have lots of time. Some place to go this evening. Maybe I'll do my workout this afternoon when the club is quiet. Finish getting things neat for the party this morning. I roll over.

"The trash," says himself.

Oops, it's Friday. We have to get the trash and recycling out to the curb before the trucks come. Sometimes they come pretty early. By the time I get into my jeans and a shirt, he has everything but the stuff still in the house out there. I go around emptying cans in the house and take it and dump it in the container. I carry out some recycling from inside. And I decide to get some papers sorted out so I can put out a bit more recycling. It's easy to take a pile of papers I haven't gone through and pare it down. I fill a sack full of ads and sections I don't want to keep. But I add some to the pile in my office still awaiting a perusal. I am a sad and slothful person.

I decide to catch up the journal. I don't know if it's because I have something to say, if sitting and typing is fun or if I just want to do it so I won't have to think about whether I should do it or not.

Then it's 11:22. How did it get to be so late? I was up reasonably early, wasn't I? Well, wasn't I? Rubbing sleep out of my eyes and taking out trash?

Well, it's time for breakfast/lunch and getting the rest of the house ready for the party tomorrow night. I wander into the kitchen and cut a grapefruit half. I get out some cheese and some crackers. While I'm still working on the grapefruit, FFP comes down and says, "Darn...I thought it might be fun to go to the Avenue B Grocery."

"Well, I've only eaten this half a grapefruit...."

Eager to spend a little time with the hubby, I go with him and we drive over to 'the B' as he calls it. [You can read all about this place and other wonderful Austin spots on our site.] We order Queen Bees on white rolls. That's avocado, mushrooms, onions, jalapenos. Ross is making the sandwiches and he gets that just perfect fresh-made balance. FFP picks up a copy of The Daily Texan and I read The Wall Street Journal that I brought with me. We sit at the picnic tables outside and enjoy our sandwiches. I have a bag of salt and vinegar chips.

Back home, I do a few more little chores vis-a-vis the party tomorrow night. Locate the champagne bucket, fill the little salt and pepper shakers. I have gotten so into cleaning out the linens that I press another tablecloth or two and some napkins even though I'm probably not using them. And I find a couple with stains and go throw them in the wash with bleach to see if I can salvage them. I decide that at 2pm I will go to the club.

And I go. I am afraid that I'll finish this small book before I finish my ride on the bike to nowhere and I do. So I watch the threat of war, the stock market and various other TV things. I don't have earphones so I'm looking at the closed captioning or just watching the ticker. I do most of the usual lower body machines, skipping one for some reason. This is really a nice time to come to the club...not a lot of people. The day has turned into a sunny beauty. As I leave I notice two young ladies in bikinis sunning by the pool. It's hard to believe we were all shivering in sweaters a few days ago.

I finish up the ironing chores and start the tidying up necessary for a party. The getting this out, putting this away. I decide the stacks of magazines in THE ROOM look a bit unsightly and plan to attack those but suddenly it's time to shower up and go see a preview lecture about next week's Ballet Austin performance.