Friday, March 26, 2004

A Journal from Austin, Texas.
A Project of LBFFP Stealth Publishing.

it's a wonderful world

Usually I get that feeling when the sky is blue with fluffy white clouds, the sun not quite overcoming a cool, spring day and birds singing. Dark streaky clouds meandered around today and occasionally rain spit on the tennis court only to give up before we thought of stopping, but I kept thinking "it's a wonderful world."

I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world

I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world

The colours of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shakin' hands, sayin' "How do you do?"
They're really saying "I love you"

I hear babies cryin', I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll ever know
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world
Yes, I think to myself, what a wonderful world

Oh yeah

it's good to have scissors handy

JUST TYPING

You can embrace the riches.
Or wallow where you are.
Always distraught about something.

Food Diary.

breakfast

nothing

lunch

banana
couple of bowls of salad (with carrots, onions, tomatoes, dressing, cheese, olives)
four slices turkey bacon

snacks

Crown Royal and water

bunch of tortilla chips and hot tofu dip

dinner

pimento cheese sandwich on wheat
a few tortilla chips and a little tofu dip

Today I
- shouldn't have had a snack when I got home late.

Time flies....

I got up around 7:30. Instead of just making up the bed, I stripped it and put on clean sheets and pillowcases and started the wash. I put the DVD of The Longest Day on the player in the bedroom and watched some more of it. I got into tennis wear and did a little writing and optimized a bunch of pictures for FFP to use for his ballet newsletter. I went to the club for a playday. Play days aren't serious deals...they are just organized so you have some partners for play. Six of us were organized into partnerships. Each team played the other and took turns sitting out, using another court for hitting or singles. My partner doesn't play singles so we hit and then I practiced my serve, sometimes just walking around to get the balls again, sometimes with her returning them to me. It was fun. The women were all older than I, I think, save one who was perhaps my age. She was much better than the rest of us. A couple of them said they had a Friday game on the soft (clay-like) courts and needed subs sometimes and took my number. I haven't played on those courts since I joined the club so I liked that idea. I'm trying to participate in as many aspects of the club life as possible. I want to get on a committee and someday the board. The club is important to FFP in our 'golden years' since it is so close to us and we need the exercise we get there.

After tennis, I considered going to the gym but I didn't. Instead I went home and ate lunch and cleaned up. FFP came in with groceries while I was eating and I helped put them away and clean up from his lunch, too. Then I do some writing, some continued straightening out of clothes and such that's been boxed up. I launch a few more things into the world by putting them into a bag for the thrift store. Soon, it's time to get a shower and get ready for my dad to come over. He and some widow from his church want to go to a party being given at the downtown Hilton. He wanted me to drive them there and pick them up but since we are going to the opera this is impossible. So he has decided that I should drive them there in his van and then 'when he knows where it is' he will drive home. Rather than argue that I can simply give him directions, I agree. FFP will follow and pick me up. To make it easier on him, I agree to walk back to the Four Seasons for the pickup. This sounds more complicated than it was. The traffic was awful but we started early and they were at the Hilton before the event (7PM) and we were at the PAC by 7PM, in time to get a parking spot in the donor's lot and go in, have a drink and read and greet people. The opera (The Flying Dutchman) was long with two intermissions for complex set changes. Some of the music was great. I only dozed a little. The guy next to me listened to a basketball game on a portable radio with an ear bud.

We were home by 11:30 but had to bounce around and snack, read, check e-mail and then we watched part of The Longest Day. I think I've now seen most of it again. Sleep!

Reading.

Newspapers. How else would I find out that a paper no less venerated than The Wall Street Journal uses blog as a verb, that homes are being built now with many separate areas like his and hers offices (homes for dysfunctional families they call them).

Writers on Writing. I got caught without anything to read before the opera started and selected this book of essays on writing by different writers who participated in the Iowa Writer's workshop.

I might say here that I'm still listening to French tapes and CDs in the car. Right now I'm alternating between lessons and these French audio 'magazines.' I used to subscribe to this thing called Champs Elysées where you got a tape, a transcript and some vocabulary words from it. These would be a great way to learn if you listened and studied them carefully. I, of course, just let them wash over me in the car and look at the vocabulary at stop lights occasionally. Of course, these tapes are old so the 'news' therein is a decade old.

nothing

Thinking about Things.

Scissors.
It once seemed a worthy goal to have a pair in every room, handy.
I'll bet we have more than that now. I bet I could find ten pairs of ordinary scissors, some kitchen scissors and three or more scissors that make decorative cuts.

(3305)

Exercise

I should have worked out in the gym, too. But...I didn't.

It's a Tangled
Web we weave...these
days of our lives.

One year ago
"I meet Dad at an ENT's office. Surprised he has a hearing loss? asks the audiologist. Uh, no....Then it's time to take my father-in-law to a funeral of a ninety-year-old woman....He says the woman was always a 'sweet little girl.' "

Two years ago
"It's been a while since I wandered through such a place. A young man dances on lighted squares (it's some sort of game) and another boxes with wired gloves and a video screen. Everything looks way too complex. I only find two pinball games, both overly electronic and poorly lit. I go back to talk some more, discussing with my Dutch colleague the satisfying clunk-clunk-clunk of winning games on the pinball machines of our youth as we drive back to the hotel. We stop in the bar for a nightcap and other people wander in but I stop after the one drink (my second of the night) and go get some welcome sleep."