Wednesday,
February 19, 2003
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have a plan and work it I consider getting up when FFP does. It's 5:30 or six. I actually get up about 7:30. FFP is back from the club, making eggs for himself. I let the dog out, review yesterday's entry and finish it. I remember a little of my dreaming again. I'm drinking coffee, of course. I was dreaming about a conference. We were essentially crashing it. There were drunk people around and I was in a strange apartment trying to find a bathroom to change my clothes or go to the toilet. Someone was passed out on a bed. The cityscape where we were was familiar, but familiar from other dreams. I don't know why I can suddenly remember my dreams. It doesn't have to do with dreaming or not, I don't think. I think it has to do with waking up and bringing the dream to conscious thought at the right moment so that it can go into real memory. I do know that if you don't write them down you will still forget them even if you have them there when you initially wake up.. Not only that, I know that if you do write them down, you still usually forget them even then unless you tell them over and over. In which case they become less of a dream. More of a made-up story that you are keeping in your head, a fiction. Although a dream is a fiction anyway, of course. But if you tell and tell the dream then I think it becomes different, gets edited. I know that when I write dreams in here, that they will seem foreign when I read them later unless the dream is so striking that I verbally review it with someone. Heck, some of the recountings of actual events in this journal seem foreign later, as if I wasn't actually there. Does this mean that I live in the moment? I don't know. Maybe it means I'm old and forgetful. Suffice to say that when Reagan said he didn't remember, I believed him. While I write about my dream, we get a call from the bond broker who said he'd look up some cost basis for some called bonds to save us going through piles of paper. He's very talkative and goes on and on about the ways to streamline accounting for these things. Yes, I know we should have put the cost basis on one of our spreadsheets. Yep. Yep, I know how to calculate it. (Subtract the accrued interest that you paid for.) In fact, FFP finds that the bookkeeper has alphabetized the pieces of paper giving buys and sells so, yeah, it isn't that hard to find anyway. I used to really sweat all this especially in the old days when I did all the business and family accounting. I'm sanguine now. I'm a person with the time and motivation to write that word, but not before looking it up. Not before wondering why in means what it means when it surely has a root meaning blood from the Latin. Then somehow it's after nine and I haven't been to the gym. Must go. This afternoon we have a going away party. Four-thirty to six. Silly time. I would be upset about the time if I worked. Not now. Except I have to get my workout done and I have to do some productive things like working on the taxes.
I go workout. It takes a long time. First, I do the bike for 45+ minutes, reading my book. I recommend Fermat's Enigma to anyone who enjoys a good story wound up in world history with a small review of math. Or, actually, to anyone who enjoys a good story. Just skip the explanations of the math. I also do my arm exercises and have two discussions with the new fitness director. One about rules and such and one about designing fitness programs. He has an offer on the go to design one for people like me who don't like to have a trainer at their elbow all the time. He'll design it and take two hours to teach it to you. There are a couple of machines I'd like to learn to use and I think making some changes might move me along. Also, we've never had a fitness director before this and I figure it's good to suck up to him.
Home again, I review my dad's tax return that is back from the CPA and call him and tell him I have it. I review the S-Corp return. I call the bond broker who has my basis info. Good thing, too, because I can't actually locate all the pieces of paper right away. I do find some of them and find a ten cent error he made. Not material. However, the entire amount of capital gain/loss is, as accountants like to say, immaterial. Plus, he claims that the difference in calls at premium aren't capital gains and aren't taxable on munies. I don't know if this is true. I will let the CPA worry that one. I copy my dad's tax return for my reference. I go downstairs and eat a salad. (Lettuce, spinach, mozzarella cheese, carrots, green onions, apple and a little broccoli.) The dog barks. It' Dad, I think. But it's the mailman, earlier than usual. The dog barks. It's Dad, I think, but it's someone picking up something out of FFP's pickup and delivery box. Finally, the dog barks and...it's Dad. We have coffee. I finish my salad. He brought some eggs so I can make some deviled eggs for his friends at Senior Activity time at church Friday. He tells me he needs plastic spoons and forks and a cake server. I give him same. He tells me to buy some potato chips suitable for dipping ("I have Fritos but they are corn chips," he says. Um, yeah.) He knows I'm going to the store to buy vegies to chop for dipping. I agree to find potato chips suitable for dipping. It's an assignment. You would think the women would cut him a break on making food for the Senior Day since he is a widower. But I think they are trying to keep him engaged. Give him something to worry about. And they know he's capable of getting it done. After all he gave a New Year's Eve party and he contributed to a pot luck they had. He tells me a few jokes. He tells me about a time he bought a side of aged beef. He tells me he's been thinking of buying a leg of lamb and getting his friend to cook it. He tells me that one of the church ladies sent him a card and a book for Valentine's Day. He tells me his granddaughter sent a Valentine, too, and his other granddaugher's husband a 'thank you' note for his birthday check. He's told me these things before on the phone. When he leaves, I look at the clock and think that there isn't much time until we have to go to the going away party.
We will miss Ann. She was just a part of our community plus she gave us some good American Airlines perks. And she was a buddy and fun to hang out with. Sigh. The party is at the Driskill. We arrive more or less right on time. We take advantage of the free food and drink. (I have a meatball, some chips and queso, some guacamole and a non-alcholic beer and then a glass of wine.) Not as expansive as in the old days but nice all the same. The party is in the Chisolm Trail room, a little room they'd painted the entire Chisolm Trail around. Appropriate because we are all doing the 'give Ann something of Texas' act. Someone had even gotten her a flag flown over the Capitol. Then we all move to Four Seasons. Eat (I had a shredded salmon salad that sounded lots better than it was), drink (I had a couple of glasses of Pinot and a sherry), listened to Rebecca play. People come and go. Another gal who is leaving American sales and marketing for another job (whereas Ann is going to SF with American) tells me about her house that she and her husband are renovating in Hyde Park. Then everyone drifts off and we go to Ann's place. I meet her sweet dog. She gives us stuff she doesn't want to move. Some golf balls, some coffee flavorings. She loans FFP a book and a video. I tell her that she can get them back when she comes to see us in April. We will miss her. Did I mention that? This is the first time I've looked around her South Austin condo. It's very cool.
Bed. Sleep. Without further ado.
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thinking about placecards for a Ballet event...with images stolen from ebay
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169
JUST
TYPING