The Visible Woman...February 2, 2004

You try to plan, schedule things, book trips, buy tickets. But the unknowns can pop up and it's scary.

I'm was just about to click 'book it' on a hotel room in Paris and a rent car for Normandy a couple of times today. But I didn't.

I almost started on the family budget, too. And I considered looking at the taxes. But I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

Maybe I was sleepy, maybe the future just looked too flimsy and I was thinking 'why bother?' I did buy some tickets to see a show in March. Enormous planning initiative, huh?

We can't predict the future. We just make plans that are 'just in case' we don't have a problem showing up. That's what travel insurance and cancellations are for. Yep. We just get up every day and see what's happening, what we planned.

I'm pretty sure I'll be around April 15 so I'd better get to work on the tax stuff.

	flimsy future You try to plan, schedule things, book trips, buy tickets. But the unknowns can pop up and it's scary. I'm was just about to click 'book it' on a hotel room in Paris and a rent car for Normandy a couple of times today. But I didn't. I almost started on the family budget, too. And I considered looking at the taxes. But I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Maybe I was sleepy, maybe the future just looked too flimsy and I was thinking 'why bother?' I did buy some tickets to see a show in March. Enormous planning initiative, huh? We can't predict the future. We just make plans that are 'just in case' we don't have a problem showing up. That's what travel insurance and cancellations are for. Yep. We just get up every day and see what's happening, what we planned. I'm pretty sure I'll be around April 15 so I'd better get to work on the tax stuff.
The walls are really gray, really. Not pink. It's some light trick. But the unfinished wood is down...it has to sit there for a week before they sand and stain.
JUST TYPING Lots of faith. To book a hotel. Months in advance. To book a car. At a foreign airport. Money matters, taxes. Assume a future where the effort is worth it. Tomorrow I think. I'll deal with the future.
		Food Diary. breakfast [Seton cafeteria] toasted and buttered English Muffin with strawberry jam *lunch* chicken breast sauteed in canola oil with lemon pepper and pineapple slices smothered in barbeque sauce and green onions and a little cheese *snacks* Clementine several cups of coffee tortilla chips and aged cheddar cheese *dinner* leftover Chinese food (no rice) brussels sprouts with lemon butter a little red wine Today I - had an upset stomach from what I ate yesterday (I guess).
		Time flies.... I got up and got in the shower a little after five. Before I finished my shower my father was here as I knew he would be. He had his CT scan copies and his folder with his info and blood work order. We were at the hospital before six-thirty. After the admitting person they actually assigned him a private room. He got undressed and had vital signs taken and they put in an IV they never started. I wandered to the cafeteria and the bathroom while he was gone. Hospitals attract people who are sick (and often poor and marginalized). They called a code blue on the floor. Seton is very confusing. I stayed in his room most of the time, reading my book and calling about his other appointments. Soon he was back and he was fine...they hadn't put him under so he got to go to the bathroom, have some breakfast and get his vitals taken a bunch of times and get the (never used) IV line out. I went to get the car. I swear they moved a hallway while I was in there but I found the car, paid for parking and got to the west entrance before they got him dressed and out there. He was feeling fine and he went home and I sat most of the afternoon like a bump. I surfed more on the Paris trip, wrote a couple of longish e-mails, bought tickets to a show in March. The floor guys finished getting the basic wood in there. A week has to go buy before sanding and finishing. Several other subs and the contractor called. I should have done several things but suddenly it was 5:35 all I could bring myself to do was go read papers and watch TV and wait for FFP to want dinner. I hadn't worked out. I hadn't started entering the budget numbers. I haven't looked at the taxes. Sigh. I was a real lump of sloth. Not watching TV exactly, not reading the papers exactly, dozing. Finally I took it to bed and had exceedingly odd dreams with dead bodies, odd locks and a pop with a Poinsetta in it falling on my head. (FFP keeps saying that he wants the perfect plant for the bathtub and I watched CSI Miami.)

		Reading. Newspapers. The Conquerers by Michael Beschloss. (I read this one in the hospital. It is scary how unsure the Allies were how to deal with the defeated Axis.) Omaha Beach; A Flawed Victory by Adrian R. Lewis. (No bike today, no this book.)
		nothing
		Exercise nothing
	. .	Mood is low. Physically my digestion is wrecked. (That doesn't always happen when I have chili and jalepenos and tamales. Sometimes it just happens.)
	It's a Tangled Web we weave...these days of our lives.	One year ago "The bikes I want to use are occupied. One by an obese guy who isn't exercising but is, instead, sprawling across the bike, listening to headphones and reading the newspaper, placing parts of the paper on another bike (which is only accidentally one I don't want to use). He is with a pudgy 'too much too soon' son with English-schoolboy cheeks who is rolling around the desserted aerobic room with one of those big exercise balls, not exactly exercising either. I know this because they later leave together. It must be the time of weirdos because some other guy, ordinary enough, is using the weight machines for upper body that have a foot pedal to get in position but keeping his feet on the pedals. I see him do it on two. He looks pleased at all the weight he can 'handle.' Duh." Two years ago "She managed to fall down with a lighted cigarette in one hand and a glass of champage in the other and didn't break, spill or extinguish. She couldn't get up, though. She wasn't driving, I'm happy to say."