Tuesday,
February 18, 2003
|
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
stop in your tracks Things kept stopping me in my tracks. Know that feeling? I didn't really have a plan for the day. Perhaps that was the problem, perhaps. I wake up remembering another dream. In this one, I have to get all the junk out of this room in some house or building. Other people have to clear out their stuff, too. One of the people is an acquaintance of mine also named Linda. I worked with her once. I'm not sure she'd count me as a friend now or I her but we were sort of friends once. Not best friends, but, well you know. In the dream, she is sick. Has a cough, is weak. So I'm helping her haul stuff instead of doing my own. There are lots of toys and knickknacks, stuff that just needs tossing. Then I notice that she has two small looms. I'm thinking of asking her if she wants some more. Do you think I'm obsessing about getting rid of my mother's looms? Or is it deeper. [Ed: I don't hold much stock in dreams or interpreting them. For the record.] SuRu calls about a trip she's going to take and to say 'hello.' The handyman comes by to put in some racks in the cabinets. This inspires me to clean out our pots and pans cabinet. I decide to toss a stack of old skillets and such. Every little bit gotten rid of helps. Doesn't it? In any case, I'm interrupted here and there. FFP asks me to review a WEB site to see if we can do something like it. (Answer: Not without a lot more skill than I have.) I feel at loose ends. I need to go work out, I need to work on the taxes, the maid will come. Oh, yeah, did I mention the toilet and sink were draining slowly in the back bath? FFP calls the plumber but cancels after he and the handyman use the plumber's friend on the toilet and some Drano in the sink. What I need, obviously, is a goal or two. I can't feel good about getting the pots and pans cleaned out because I just did it, didn't set it as a goal. Well, I have my exercise goal so....I should do that. Oh, and how about getting those papers in order? Well, I decide to do that. Then go work out and come back and work on the taxes in the afternoon. A plan! Then I think...but when do I eat? I'm not really hungry but somehow it's gotten to be 12:30. I decide to eat a banana, have some coffee and then go. Before I go to the club, I have to buy gas (the warning light is on) and I drop something off for FFP, something he borrowed from one of his interviewees for his column. Then I go to the club, which is pretty quiet, and read my book (Simon Singh's Fermat's Enigma) while doing my 45 minutes. I'm skipping the weights today. Even though the place is quiet, someone has my regular bike but the one I use is fine. It is less generous in counting calories. How accurate are those things anyway?
I stop by the thrift store on the way home from the club. I donate a few things from Mom's house (a pair of slacks I found somewhere, a couple of pillow inserts that are brand new that she was going to cover...I remember her buying them) and a bunch of the pots and pans I decided to ditch as well as a few other things I'd collected up to give away. It's not a lot but it's something. The guy running the store is adjusting a treadmill and cleaning it up. I leave the stuff in back and wander around. The stuff does turn over, amazingly. I look for any more good books like I found the other day for only a dollar. I don't find anything to buy, however. That's good...a net loss of a few cubic feet of stuff.
At home, I check my email and then gather up the day's papers and go upstairs. I work on the taxes for a while, coming up with some questions for the bookkeeper and the bond broker. FFP gives me a financial statement to use to figure out if I have everything. I can't find one mutual fund statement. We look in different places for it. Ah, well, maybe it will show up. [Ed. FFP calls tomorrow and finds that that fund had no dividends or capital gains and therefore sent no 1099.] Our taxes are somewhat complicated. It was simpler when we were poor, that's for sure. But I don't get too excited about it all. I learned long ago that you do the best you can to report honestly and fairly, pay the government was seems to me to be lots of money and worry about it if they squawk. I put the stuff away until I can check these things and read the paper and surf the WEB on the Apple up there.
FFP has someplace that he has to go. I'm kind of hungry and nachos sound really, really good. Should I? My diet is so awful. But I would have to go to the store for jalapenos and chips. I find a few potato chips and some cheese. I make myself a drink, then a second. Without FFP I would have to go out or eat all salads to eat anything with nutritional value. I don't know why. Once he starts cooking, I get into it and I don't mind the clean-up at all.
I watch Millionaire. This guy wins a million. He has to ask the audience how many kids the Who Loves Raymond? family has. (I would, too.) And he has to use 50-50 on a question about what chess piece can never move diagonally. (The rook, silly.) He calls a friend on a question I would have answered like his friend did but he guesses something else and gets it. I'm not sure why I like this show. I think it's because they ask some questions that I know the answers to and it's multiple choice so you can always guess and see how you do. I watched part of a Simpsons episode, too. I can't find anything to watch on the bizillion digital cable channels. I think I'll watch NYPD Blue at nine. In the interim I read...the papers and my book. FFP comes home. "What did you have for dinner?" "Um, some cheese and potato chips." I feel bad about my diet but I can't lie. "Would you like me to fry those chicken livers?" "Sure." So, I eat some chicken livers, fried, with honey-mustard dressing. Well, I'll be fat but not anemic. (In fact, last time I went to the doctor for a checkup, I was fat but not anemic.)
|
|
||
|
the marathon
|
||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
171
JUST
TYPING