1. The bathroom was arranged in an odd way emphasizing space over convenience. The walk-in closet was amazing but I have become convinced that I have more closet than I need. What I need to do is pare down further on its contents. My current walk-in with its convenient rods, racks and shelves is perfect. I don't need a home gym either. You never have all the things a real gym can offer although I guess the convenience would be a factor.
2. The villa look is not for me. I have no desire to have red tile roofs and a sort of fake plastery stuff. A real villa maybe. Fake, no.
3. I like things a lot brighter and more modern. The heavy furniture and fabrics weighs me down. Only the art seemed modern and it couldn't pick up the mood.
4. I don't want to live almost five miles down a road that is almost out at Mansfield Dam. The lakes are great but it is over five miles to get a six pack of beer or some shampoo or whatever you need.
5. I don't need all this space! The nifty kitchen (sub zero frig and commercial stove that even has a spigot to feel a big pot with water) would be nice. But just not necessary for my cooking skill.
6. The distance from master bedroom to coffee pot would just be too far. Unless you put one on this wet bar.

Downtime

AUSTIN, Texas, April 29, 2004 — Sometimes you just can't get up. Getting out of bed really wasn't that hard. I was tired because the non-drowsy Dimetapp apparently achieves that by including a stimulant that I'm sensitive to. I hadn't slept much and still wasn't really sleepy at seven. Just tired.

I got up, made the bed, let the dog out, got a cuppa. I felt vaguely lousy.

Then I had to shower and dress and drive in the drizzle to the insurance guy with a bunch of papers to try to get a decent rate on this longterm care policy. I was sneezing and sniffling.

I thought I'd go back home, change and go work out. Ha. I sat around reading papers and watching TV. Drinking more coffee. I didn't feel awful but I wasn't very motivated. I cleaned a few things.

My pal SuRu came by around one and I suggested we have lunch and also drop my stuff back off at the Austin Film Festival. So we ate at Clay Pit.

The waiter suggested the buffet.

"No," I said. "We want to order off the menu and give you a big tip." So we did. I didn't give him all that big a tip because it wasn't that expensive. Still. People don't tip as well when they do the buffet, do they?

SuRu hung around a little while and we tried to work out what we were going to do about this and that. My head was not in the game. She left. I had coffee and tried to feel better.

It was time to go out to a Ballet Foundation dinner. It wasn't far from our house in distance. But, man 'o man. What a house. Very modern with about four levels. It appears higher than Mt. Bonnell from the roof.

We had a nice dinner and a talk with our table mates. But I was ready to go home and find a drug to dry me up that would also NOT keep me awake. And maybe have a cup of Echinecea tea.

I took a slug of some decongestant liquid that threatened to make one drowsy. I spent an half hour fixing something on FFP's computer. And I stayed in bed reading the papers until I dozed. Ah, sleep.

FFP with a view of Lake Austin, Mt. Bonnell, downtown

Something a Little Different

AUSTIN, Texas, April 28, 2004 — I have to mix things up once in a while, don't I?

Well, today was, in many ways more of the same. I got up too late. I made the bed and got into my swimsuit. Threw on shorts and a TShirt and put on my pool shoes. Grabbed my small bag and stuffed in some underwear and socks and tennis shoes. Had coffee.

Then I went off to the club, did water aerobics, showered and exercised in the gym.

I came home, took a few pictures in the yard like the sculpture which has toppled over (awaiting strong yard guys to put right), did a few things on the computer, ate, washed out my bathing suit and finally got into the shower.

Then the day took a different turn. In my robe I printed out long term care insurance applications. I got dressed. Then I started trying to fill out and understand the application and quote. Then I rushed off to talk to people at the Austin Film Festival about screening films entered in the competition for their October festival. Got a screeners tape to use to enter some sample reviews.

Got back. More mind-numbing insurance forms. Mail came. Got a DVD of a Picasso documentary from 1953 that I'd been wanting to watch.

And so...I settled in to watch a bit. Watching the 'test' reel for the film festival and reading the materials made me realize two things: this could be a thankless task when the films are awful and you must be mum on what you review...so in July you may find the 'watching' column tedious in the extreme! (Ha...like this whole thing isn't tedious in the extreme.)

We scrounged up something to eat and FFP watched some of the reel with me and then some of my Picasso DVD. Someone dropped by to get their picture taken for The West Austin News column.

Then we went to our respective corner (offices) to do this and that. I edited a picture, worked on the journal and worked on our social calendar. I also looked at purchasing foreign currency online.

Back to TV with the husband and reading the papers. After one regular TV show, I switched on Mystery of Picasso again and FFP went to the other room to finish rewatching Dazed and Confused which he had gotten from Netflix.

My throat tickled and my nose was running. I had some Echinecea tea and took a twelve-hour non-drowsy Dimetapp. I went to look into backup problems on FFP's machine. The non-drowsy must be in the form of an added stimulant. Yikes. I went to bed with some newspapers. FFP was now watching the end of Radio Days. Love that one. I read a few sections of the paper and tried to go to sleep. It didn't work. I tossed. And turned.

 

Trumpet Interruptus

Spring Cleaning

AUSTIN, Texas, April 27, 2004 — I am groggy when it comes time to rise. But I do it. Let the dog out. Get coffee. Finish the journal. Finish the papers from yesterday. I will conquer the papers; they will not conquer me.

I make a plan to have my able cleaning assistant help me organize office and/or storage in the afternoon. This means I have to get to the club and get my business done before she finishes lunch and arrives. A deadline.

I don't get to the club until around 11:30. So, once again I don't do as much as I think I should there. If I keep slacking, I'll start to gain weight, I think. I'm between 150-155 right now, probably 151 or 152 not to cut it too fine. And, yes, I could stand to lose another ten or fifteen pounds. Or more. But...I could weigh and have weighed 180.

I get home as FFP is leaving for a lunch date.

I eat and fool around and my friend comes. I decide that I need to get the closets cleaned out. I spend a lot of time going through old magazines. I put a bunch in recycling but some get boxed up to be read some day and some get put in a box for keepsakes. I go through some old photographs and I throw away a few more things. I think that this week I may get rid of more stuff than I acquire. Maybe. The dust in the closet starts to bother me, though, and my friend and I discuss my screenplay idea and she leaves. I proofread some stuff for Forrest.

Suddenly it's 5:30. We have to go out at seven. So I decide to get showered up and...read today's papers. I don't quite finish reading and then it's time to go to Fonda San Miguel at seven. We are meeting people to conduct a focus group. Gathering a group, eating and talking and taking notes is a little slower than just eating. We don't get home that early. I watch a DVD and read a little more from the day's papers and work the NYT crossword. Sleep creeps over me. Bed.

 

Laundry truck

Changed the priorities

AUSTIN, Texas, April 26, 2004 — Today I changed my priorities. I decided that conquering the newspapers and screening movies was more important than the journal or working out or shopping online. It was a subtle shift.

I was very bleary getting up because I stayed up too late sorting the papers. But I got to the club on time for water aerobics. After that I did shower off the chlorine and ride the exercise bike for a small while. Then, though, I rushed home. I ate and read papers and then I settled in to finish straightening up the papers and watch a movie on cable. I stayed in the bedroom to avoid being in front of the computer which just distracts me. I had some online shopping to do but I just said no until the papers were done.

There were interruptions, of course. The dog would want out or FFP had a question. Or FFP was telling me something interesting about his appointment or SuRu called to tell me the progress of her jury duty.

We had to be downtown around 5:30 so FFP could go to his board meeting for Ballet Austin. I went with him and then I walked to 219 West and talked to the performers a little as they did sound checks and such to get ready for their monthly cabaret show. FFP and a friend came over when the meeting was over. The show was fun and then we went with some of the folks to Eddie V's to eat more food we didn't need.

Got home around 11:30. Exhausted because I didn't get much sleep last night. Tried to read today's papers but fell asleep.

Billy Bass and friends at the Art Car Parade

Get it Done Sunday

AUSTIN, Texas, April 25, 2004 — Today I have no official appointments. So...I should get lots of stuff done, huh?

I don't get up until eight. I change the sheets first, dress for the workout I hope I'll get eventually and start the laundry.

At 4:05 in the afternoon, I realize that I've been writing (the journal and some other stuff) and changing laundry. I've had lunch. I've had coffee. And I haven't had a workout. I've spoken with a few people on the telephone. Including my dad who is looking for pictures to show when he tells his life story to his Sunday school class. (Something they are all taking turns doing.) That, of course, sets me to searching for pictures and I get distracted by what I find.

So I decide to forget getting out. I decide not to go work out. But to do two things that I've been wanting to do. Get the old newspapaers all over the house sorted out and write a little piece about my mother's diagnosis. It almost been two years since we actually found out the basis of most of her mysterious complaints, but I am still trying to exorcise my guilt. The guilt I feel that I did not push the doctors to diagnose and treat her properly sooner. I think writing about it and maybe needling the doctors, reviewing the mistakes that doctors and nurses made, will assuage my guilt. I do finish the piece. It is in the form of an e-mail to a columnist for The New York Times Magazine. This column is about diagnosis. My piece will never be picked up because the medical staff is supremely confident in each of these cases that they write about. But at the bottom on the columns they do give an e-mail and say "if you have a solved case to share" e-mail the columnist. So that gives me a target for writing, like the articles I've produced as a rare stand-in for FFP's West Austin News column.

I finish the writing. It makes me, one more time, read things like Mom's discharge report from the first hospital where she received her diagnosis. And look up things on the WEB about her disease (multiple myeloma) and its symptoms. It makes me read what I said about her announced symptoms before the diagnosis and what I observed in doctor's visits in some of my journal entries. I write. I feel anger and guilt. It's good I suppose. Maybe I'll publish it here. I have a desire to do a piece on my mother's illness. I call it Calcium Butterfly after one of her more interesting hallucinations.

And then I attack the newspapers. I snack, drink coffee and sodas, watch TV, listen to music until the wee hours. I still have a newspaper pile but it's much smaller.

Games, toys and a bubble machine...what a car!

Togetherness

AUSTIN, Texas, April 24, 2004 — Today my chronology and essay for this day have the same headline. Even with my retirement, FFP and I are rarely this synced up.

FFP and I got up at the same time this morning. Pretty early really. But we wanted to get a workout in before our day together.

We still fool around at the house for a while. I am doing things on the computer in my office and he in his. But, finally, he says "should we go to the club separately."

"No, that's silly." I say. Silly as it is, we usually go separately even when we go sort of at the same time.

I do most of what I would do if I hadn't been with him, maybe everything since we do have a schedule.

At home we shower and dress in our new bathroom/closet complex.

"Do you want to shower first?"

"No...go ahead. I'm going to make me some coffee. I'll make you some."

So we get all ready for our day. And head downtown.

We get a parking place near Ballet Austin's Dance Education Center and walk over to Congress. It is time for the Art Car Parade but we don't see anything going on. Then we notice a police officer and we ask her about it. "They are having trouble getting organized, but they are coming." she says cheerfully.

So we walk up Congress north toward the Capitol where the parade is assembling. I am hungry and have in mind getting a snack at Little City. But before we get there the parade arrives. I snap some digital pictures and keep walking. By the time we get to Little City we see the end of the parade. So we then decide to walk back to the warehouse district and eat something at Halcyon. We do that and then go to the Plaza Lofts on Fifth and buy tickets for the Downtown Austin Neighborhood Association's Loft Tour. We go up and tour a couple of pricey lofts with fabulous views in that building.

We need some pictures of activities at Ballet Austin's Dance Education Center so we go back there and shoot some kids having a fun Cinderella activity.

Then we walk to some apartments on Rio Grande and Fifth Street called 404 Rio Grande Apartments. We tour a pricey ($2700/month) apartment.

Then we go to the Austin City Lofts and see some magnificent pretend-lofts including one that is as big as our house! And costs 1.2 million or something.

It is time for a coffee so we walk over to Book People and have a beverage while looking at some books. We don't buy any books but I am tempted by a couple of travel things on Paris. (Stop me!)

We go to The Nakonah and tour three places. One I really love. It is $975,000. Yeah, severely out of our range even in the future when we are sold out of other real estate. Wouldn't want the property taxes and homeowners in my base expenses.

We go back downtown to the Brown Building and see smaller places with no balcony or view but that we could afford! Yeah, I think if we ever do move downtown we will be in Cambridge Towers or The Brown Building. If we can ever actually afford that. Of course, you only get one parking place with the Brown Building place. Another one costs $20,000.

We are weary now. We have skipped two apartment complexes on the tour. But we have concluded that we could live downtown if we had enough money. Actually I'm sure if we would downsize to that little place in the Brown Building that we could live far more cheaply than we do now. It's hard to see how you would need to rent five digital cable boxes for instance. There would be no yard maintenance nor big summer water bills. Indeed, you apparently get a break on your property taxes for living in a historic building. And just shut up about the books. We plan to rent one or two climate-controlled storage units. You can put a lot of books in eight hundred cubic feet.

We go home and fiddle around and do a few things and read a little bit and go to see a play. At the intermission, FFP goes to the bathroom line. A guy comes up and says hello. He recognizes me but I wouldn't have recognized him. He worked at the place where FFP and I met, when I first moved to Austin, in 1975. It's been years since I saw him. He tells us that he is getting a divorce. His wife has the best lawyer in town. "It happens," he says. I guess it does.

Home again we both try to find something interesting on TV. We fail and instead tune the digital music Jazz channel.

Sleep comes. I give in, thinking about an entire Sunday with no scheduled events and nothing that I even vaguely want to do except maybe go see Alamo.

The Monster Drives.

Just Do It!

AUSTIN, Texas, April 23, 2004 — I was going to get up at five in the morning. I ended up getting up around seven. I had considered going for a workout before or after tennis. But I didn't do it. I'm determined to get some of the mess corralled. I finish up my journal and do a little tidying up before I go to the club. And I come home after tennis and, after I eat something, I attack the messy files and piles. Some small victories, much confusion. I am ruthless, oh yes. I discard last year's Christmas and holiday cards. But not before looking through them again. I end up saving a few family pictures and some info on some friends I swear I'm going to visit one of these days. I find a folder on 'having fun in retirement' ideas that I started. Yeah, um, just in case I run out of ideas...I'll go look in that folder.

Attacking some newspapers that have accumulated in my office is interesting. Yep, March newspapers suddenly seem naive and dated. Isn't that weird?

Finally I shower and we get ready to go out. We go to Roy's for apps and drinks. We meet a friend and she has a friend in tow. (In response to my e-mail about seeing music such as Kevin Ahart's she has shown up tonight.) We enjoy the music which you can sort of hear even with the noise of a burgeoning crowd. (Burgeon...that's a cool word.)

When we are going to leave, we are delighted to find that Kevin's dad has paid our tab and our friends', too. It's sweet. We have done a lot for Kevin...paying for his WEB site and fixing it up. But usually it is us picking up tabs. Lately, though, people seem to be treating us. Are we looking shabby and down-in-the-mouth? No, I think people are just being nice to us. And why not? We are so sweet. Uh-huh.

We end the evening nine-ish, early, and go home to watch a DVD and read.

These are pretty when they bloom.

Sleepyhead

AUSTIN, Texas, April 22, 2004 — Get up sleepyhead!

I knew that I had no fixed obligations. So what do I do? I stay in bed until almost eight o'clock. This is so embarrassing. I'm barely out of bed, in a robe and with the bed unmade when FFP comes in with groceries he picked up after working out. God, I'm awful.

Then I spend the next two hours reading a couple of sections of The Austin American-Statesman, goofing on my computer, picking the order of my Netflix queue, working on the journal, scanning and editing and thinking up things I need to do to put on my 'to do' list that I'm not doing. SuRu calls with some proposals for getting me to work or play. "What are you doing?" she asks. "Working on my 'to do' list," I answer with a large guffaw. Great word guffaw. She laughs heartily in return. She gets me.

Finally, after 10:30, I head for the gym. As soon as I get a workout I'll get after straightening up the house. I chat people up instead of getting started. I want to be home and showered by 1PM (since I agreed to same on phone with SuRu) so I have to rush off after the recumbent bike and reading.

At home, I have to boot the bookkeeper's machine a couple of times to get it to see the printer on the network. Then I shower up. I think SuRu is coming by. I'm not sure if this is pre- or post-lunch but I eat a banana. It's nice that FFP shopped for groceries because now I have a banana to eat.

A friend who needs work came up with this cardboard sign idea in an e-mail marshalling her friends to see about contacts for work. I think all my out-of-work friends who want to work should make a cardboard sign and, rather than taking to the streets (are there any corners left?) take a digital picture, send them to me and I'll post them on the Internet. I think I'll reserve cardboardsign.com for this purpose!

SuRu does show up, but she has eaten so I grab something else to eat. Then we go to Precision Camera where I enter some of last year's wildflower pictures in the wildflower contest. Not because I think I'll win but just to try the instant prints from digital again. It works better this time than it did the last time I tried it although it is more expensive than Snapfish. Instant gratification. Then I check out the scanners they have. I don't buy one, though. I have this idea that if I bought a new scanner I could completely eliminate my WIN95 machine with the SCSI card that is currently supporting my scanner. But, realizing that buying it just now would complicate my life, I decide to try to straighten up and prepare to buy one and check it out before eliminating the old one.

SuRu and I go back to the house and strart this process. I move one of the ink jet printers upstairs. I disconnect the WIN95 machine that the bookkeeper has finished migrating from and get this printer installed on her computer. We put in a new surge supressor, dust, manage cords. We move the excess equipment to storage. Then I decide to get my Palm Cradle installed on another machine. Really, all I use that WIN95 machine for is the Palm cradle and scanning. It has a Jazz drive but I have copied all the data off of the Jazz drive and really don't use it. Why why the disks hold 1gig and I have a 120gig external hard drive now?

And that, my friends, is all I get done. Because, foolishly, I've talked everyone into meeting at the Jones Art Center on Congress (everyone being SuRu, FFP, me and Gayle the bookkeeper) and then going to dinner. Coming north, Gayle gets caught in traffic from a semi collision. Coming south we get caught in traffic from something. Finally we see the outlandish but small show at the Jones and then go to the Thistle Cafe for dinner. As we pass Ruth Chris Steakhous, the owner comes out and shouts a greeting across the street. But we don't change our minds and have steak. We go to the Thistle which, especially in the dining room, seems abandoned and have a very, very nice meal. Yum. Curried mussels. Mahi mahi with greens and delicious sauce.

At home, I should continue my work on getting control of office mess and computers. But, instead, I watch a documentary rented from Netflix and read some WWII stuff. I fall asleep, convinced I will get up early in the morning. Yeah, right.

This pretty much says it all...our large house number, initials, the weird plant that got weirder wintering in the garage, a flamingo and our hearty roses.

I may have to elminate something

AUSTIN, Texas, April 21, 2004 — There are things I want to do. I might have to give up doing something else or get up earlier.

I meant to get up earlier. When I awoke a little after seven, for the second time, full of my second sleep dreams, I thought, "It's OK. I have a lunch date at 1PM and an early evening (well late afternoon) meeting but I can workout and still get some things done around here." Then I remembered water aerobics. I like to keep my dad company.

I worked on a couple of things before leaving for the club and I was a few minutes late for the 8:15 start (fifteen minutes earlier than Monday because of the instructor's schedule). As I walked down to the pool I saw a lone figure there in the deep end of the pool: my dad. The instructor was in the equipment storage room around the corner, it turned out. Eventually another person showed up. An older woman who is always a little confused. (The instructor talks about a kid being 'wait listed' for entrance to a college and she says "weight lifted?")

When the class was over, I showered off the chlorine and did my workout. I came home, showered again and brushed my teeth and dried my hair and did a bit of work on the journal and it was time for my lunch date. We sort of lingered over lunch, talking about my friend's play that I'd just read. Still, by three I was back at the computer, feeling a little bad that other people finish things.

I decided that I needed to clean up some of the stacks and files. I even threw some stuff away. (Old vet receipts for dead dogs, for example.)

We finally get off and wade through the downtown traffic to our meeting. I suggest going out to eat after but FFP says we will go home and eat the salmon he has already cooked. We do that. I steam some vegies, too. Then we watch a DVD. Then I work for a few minutes on the cleanup the office routine and then read myself to sleep cum TV.

Yep, I need some better priority setting here.

the front bed looks particularly nice at the moment

We Interrupt your Confusion to Bring Random Puzzlement

AUSTIN, Texas, April 20, 2004 — Why do things suddenly work differently? You might have noticed that yesterday's drivel didn't get posted until late in the day. Well, suddenly my FTP to this site was failing. Not in the log in but on a LIST command. It was timing out. I couldn't figure it out. I hadn't changed anything. (That's what they all say, isn't it? No, really.) I got a response from the support at IPOWERWEB (the current home of Visible Woman) but it wasn't helpful.

So, I went to work out, thinking it might clear up.

When I returned from the workout, it was still not working. I decided to run an errand and deliver a plant and note to our friend who treated us to tickets to the opera ball. He wanted me to sit and talk so I did. We talked about Christo's project in Central Park for next February.

When I got home, I tried my FTP on another machine (the laptop) and the same thing happened. I decided to go check out some things on the bookkeeper and FFP's machine. Odd connectivity problems on the bookkeeper's machine which finally resolved themselves with no help from me. And FFP was having a runaway print job. Then I noticed he was using the WEB space at IPOWERWEB with no problem. I checked the settings and found one different FTP setting. You don't suppose? Yep. Fixed it. What is 'passive FTP' anyway?

So...I updated the OS on the bookkeeper and FFP's machine and booted and stuff. I finally could update my Visible Woman pages. And...it was time to go out.

We conducted a focus group at Fonda San Miguel. Eating, drinking and taking notes. It's tough duty but someone has to do it. And it tore me away from the puzzlement of computers.

When we got home, I watched Pieces of April. I am trying to complete the award nominees for the last Oscars and this little Indie piece got a best supporting actress award.

Won't they ever stop decorating?

Too Many Choices

AUSTIN, Texas, April 19, 2004 — At least I had water aerobics to keep me on some kind of schedule. And I felt guilty for neglecting the gym for the tennis court for the last few days so I worked out after the class. Then SuRu had called and suggested lunch and Dad wanted to come by and get his new medicine on his printed stuff and get some forms for AFLAC insurance for a procedure he had done.

SuRu and I try the new Taco Shack on Lamar. (Verdict: simple but tasty.)

Dad comes over and we look at the forms and I update his medicines on my computer and he takes off to get a physcian's statement for the insurance.

Then our new chair and table get delivered so we are talking about that and trying it out for a few minutes. Then we have a few crinkles in our social life to iron out (don't you feel sorry for me now?) and then boom...it is 3:30!

Now, I don't have a social engagement for the evening and so I have hours and hours to do...whatever. How will I use it, you ask?

Well, first I'll answer and read some e-mail. In one note a friend says she thinks she will put all the jobs she needs to do on slips of paper in a cookie jar and draw one out. That seems like a good idea, doesn't it? Another e-mail I read gives an account of a friend's weekend away from it all on the California coast before she says she has to dash and attack her 'list.'

My list is long, too. Sure a lot of the things aren't really work exactly. Trip planning, writing and creative things I want to do, clean up jobs, things to study.

Will I draw a random task from a hat? Will I just attack the list in order? Will I dedicate a certain amount of time to a task?

So I read a friend's play. And answer e-mail from another friend who is apparently researching a creative project on the WEB.

And then it is supper time. But it's OK, really. I wanted to read the play. And it only took a couple of hours. Giving some time to the creations of others is something I want to do in retirement. That's why I'm immersing myself in movies and screenplays and books and magazine stories. If I just read enough, writing will be the result, right?

After dinner and the cleanup (during which, sadly, we watched something that could only be described as an American Idol out take show) we retired to our bedroom where we now have two chairs. So we watched TV there and read. I didn't think we really needed chairs there since one can always crawl in the adjustable bed and crank it up to a comfortable TV watching and reading height. But this works. FFP likes it. We can now all but abandon using THE ROOM except for entertaining. Of course, there is no VCR in this room. Later, I see that the TRUE channel is showing a Picasso documentary (The Mystery of Picasso) that I saw once on cable and loved. Like to see it again. Only it is coming on at one in the morning. I think maybe I should have one of those digital recorders (currently we run around to two VCRs and tape things when we won't to watch them off schedule). Then I think, nah, I'll see if it's on DVD at Netflix.

I fall asleep over the humor issue of The New Yorker thinking that I have too many interests to possibly ever achieve anything when I am left to my own devices.

FFP and a friend and, ahem, an interesting sculpture

Life seems full of possibilities

AUSTIN, Texas, April 18, 2004 — I sleep in first off. Long day yesterday. Sometime north of 8:30, I get up. I get coffee and enjoy my computer, just doing what I please. Before I know it, it's time to go play my match. I get humiliated in this match. (We lose one set at love.) Oh, well. It was fun. I talk to people, eat some of the Mexican food provided and go home.

I mess around reading, watching the DVD of Big Night and getting ready to go out. We leave in time to get there early. We are on the 'host committee' and they want to take a group picture. The host committee is gigantic. All we did is talked some of our buddies into performing.

The party is on Lake Travis at a home called Villa del Sol, just down the road from the Oasis and owned by that fine establishment's owner. The party benefits local health initiatives through the St. David's foundation. The kids getting free dental care and the families making free visits to health clinics probably can't imagine a place with such, um, stuff and such a view. I walk around for the first half hour with my mouth open. There is wine, good food, friends and the music. Quite nice.

We head home and by 10:30 I'm in front of my computer, reading mail and doing the journal and looking at my digital pictures thinking, "Damn, that is one amazing house." Not my taste really but still.

Today was nice. Even though I was humiliated at tennis I could see that I might work into playing better. And being with friends, hearing them sing, meeting new people, seeing old friends and looking at the lake just made me feel full of hope in the messy world. It's funny how that happens. I think you just get a shot of good juice in the brain that, another day, just isn't there. Yeah, you could say it's just making yourself realize how damned lucky you are. But I'm lucky every day and I can't honestly say that I always feel it.

a view from the house where tonight's party was held

OK, I felt that!

AUSTIN, Texas, April 17, 2004 — Stayed up too late. So I was sort of dragging this morning. I was going to get to the club at 8:30 but I didn't get up until 7:30 and I had to drag around and my computers were acting weird and I had to fold clothes. I was there in plenty of time to warm up for the nine o'clock match, though. Lately, I've been saying that tennis is not exercise, really, at least not doubles. Part of this is that I let my partner run around. Not for me that stretching and chasing balls! Today my partner even said, "I can't get all of them!" No? Sad. She is twenty years younger. But I must have done something because I actually cramped a little bit. And in those tiny muscles in front of your shin bone, too, that you can't massage. Fortunately it wasn't too bad and it went away and I started drinking and drinking water. (I'd had coffee and a diet Coke and not enough water. Bad.) My right arm hurt, too, a little muscle soreness and a little tennis elbow.

I am such a wimp. I thought I'd gotten in good enough shape that I could run down some balls and not cramp and that my arm wouldn't even hurt. Turns out I'm just in good enough shape so I can play tennis without my knees and hips hurting. They feel fine. Well, until I got dressed up and went out to the social event and stood up a while in my fancy shoes (flats though they are). Then my knees were clicking and my feet hurt a little. But really, I'm fine. But I did feel the tennis. Sad.

I stayed at the club from a little before nine to two-thirty or so. In between the matches, I ate the free food and walked on the treadmill a little and read. The matches were fun even though I lost.

When I got home, FFP came in and said he thought he'd found the right furniture for to finish off the remodeled room. He wanted me to go look. I did. I wasn't feeling like making a decision but the chair and table seemed fine. Just get it over with and get it delivered and be done.

We got home and I worked on the journal a little. I am feeling uninspired by the journal. It's not the format or anything. I'm just not feeling charged up about doing it. Usually I'm looking around for things to write about. Like how the other ladies wear these little tennis dress or skirt and top outfits with these special panties underneath that have ball pockets. (And how I wear a pair of men's tennis shorts and a cheap white polo.) Or maybe I could describe getting our matches scheduled on the cracked courts furthest south and east where the cries of the peacocks from Mayfield Park can be heard. Just because we are the lower level women. Or maybe I'd talk about the tennis 'families' with the couple who plays and the little kids. Or maybe I'd talk about all the gowns at the opera ball and the ways people tried to go with the theme (Czar's Ball). Stuff like that.

But I'm not feeling charged up. I'm sitting at my computer trying to decide how to spend the couple of hours before I have to get ready for the ball and just swithering. Or I'm at the ball and just feeling 'when will this be over?' maybe. (Actually, the ball wasn't tiresome. I enjoyed it after it got going, after the hour of wandering the silent auction and greeting people. Then there was a great band, food, nice table companions, good conversation.)

Frankly I'm feeling well, morose. I don't know why. Things just seem futile. They never seem to be resolved. It's always something. But by the end of the evening, I'm feeling better. Hopeful. Aware that things are always a little unresolved but realizing how lucky I am. We are home around midnight. I haven't had much to drink. And...I don't hurt much either. So while my old body didn't take to the tennis and dancing perfectly, it isn't too bad. I watch some of a movie and fall asleep.

FFP and me at the black tie affair

My Busy Schedule

AUSTIN, Texas, April 16, 2004 — Today promises to be busy with social things. A lunch date, a tennis match and a party. I have to work out, too, of course. I should get an early start but I don't get out of bed and get coffee-fed and journal-ready and such until after nine. My lunch is at 11:30. So, I need to get on with it to get to the club, home, showered, back.

Yes, I must get on with it! I zip off to the club and do a long session on the recumbent bike and nothing else. It's better than nothing! I have forty-five minutes to get home, shower, sort of dry my hair, shave my legs, brush my teeth and get to my lunch date. I make it, though and beat my friend to the Chinese/Sushi place near my house, Peony. We linger over lunch. She has a notebook from some fourth-grader in Ohio that she wants me to write about Austin for and we talk about our upcoming trip to France and other trips we might make...to New York or New Orleans or Washington, D.C.

When I get home I swear I am going to do something about all the junk piled up in my office. Something useful. But I don't. Instead, I read some online journals, work on my own, talk to a friend about screenplays we might write although neither one of us has a clue how to do it. Soon it is time to get my stuff together to go to the club for my tennis match and the party following.

The match goes OK and there is lots of time before the party and I could go home but I don't. I go to the gym, do a few lower back and ab exercises and shower and take my time getting ready. Then I sit in my car reading and listening to French stuff until time for the party.

The party is pretty boring, really. We eat and drink a little, meet a few new people, talk to my tennis partner. We leave with the band playing and no one dancing.

At home I watch part of the Band of Brothers episode and we watch House of Sand and Fog from the bed. I get up and change the laundry loads and fool around with my computers for a while. My laptop is dying a funny death. I install my Microsoft Office Pro copy on another machine. I only had Access on that laptop and was using it to update my few databases. All the data was backed up. That's so rare. So, I stay up too late.

a little bit of old Mexico in our neighborhood...Fonda San Miguel Restaurant

Hopelessly Unproductive

AUSTIN, Texas, April 15, 2004 — Get up earlier! I didn't.. Do something productive and stick to it! Hrmmph.

Well, I gave myself time to work on the journal. (I'm having a little trouble with the procedure but I like this format. Sort of.)

Then I was off to the gym to do everything I feel like doing. No rushing. So, yes, I am sort of devoting myself to my body but it's just not enough.

When I got home it was time for lunch. I don't really cook as we know but just assemble a couple of things from the frig and clean up. Meanwhile, I talked FFP into going to get me a car wash since a bird had made quite a mess of the car. I couldn't even get my own car washed.

Then, of course, I decide to get a shower. And brush my teeth again and floss. And...watch Mona Lisa Smile. I don't just watch, though. I review a file of old printed e-mail correspondence and packing lists and printed journals, sort through some catalogs. I threw away a few catalogs, OK? And, of course, work on the journal.

A feeling of sadness comes over me. Because of the subject matter I was thinking about writing about, I think. The heart of this piece (that will never be written except in my head) is that when you are gone, a lot of what you were becomes meaningless. You live on through the lens of friends, family, the community, stuff you left behind. But that lens is skewed and foggy and everything gets more lost over time. I guess people who write (even an online journal?) leave something behind that they have creative control over. Ditto artists of all kinds. But I'm not satisfied with anything I've created to let it stand for me. Too bad because it will or else I'll be forgotten. Which may be comforting, I don't know.

I decide to get ready for my weekend. So...I find my sun screen. And I drag out black tie wear and figure out an outfit for the Saturday evening event (the opera ball). Because my weekend consists of a 'fun' tennis tournament (four matches of two sets plus a tie-breaker for a split) and three social events (a casual party for the tennis event; a black tie event to benefit Austin Lyric Opera called the Czar's Ball to which a nerdy friend threatened to wear a surgical mask and say he thought they said 'SARS'; and a benefit for St. David's with an Italian theme). Makes me tired thinking about it. But having my sunscreen ready to go and my black tie outfit picked (I select velvet pants, a velvet top and a short jacket that is the most Russian thing I could muster) will make things easier.

Then I work some on this master document for 'if something happens to us.' I'm mostly getting an outline ready but I fool around putting in some obscure stuff. (I wonder what happens to our club membership if we die and what domains we own that should be transferred to someone else and whether frequent flier miles disappear when you die.) I watch a little TV and drink water before going to take a tennis lesson. I eat a sandwich since the lesson isn't until 8:30.

I played in this casual tournament last year with a friend of another member and I haven't seen her since. But she's agreed to play with me again. She has asked me to come split a tennis lesson with her at Caswell. This old public court complex was completely renovated and reopened last year. We have a good lesson, working on meeting the ball in front of our bodies for ground strokes and volleys and turning our shoulders into the serve.

I go home and rewind the tape FFP has running for me on the History Channel and watch Band of Brothers. I keep going to the kitchen and getting more food. I don't know why. Sometimes I just want to eat even though I'm not really hungry.

I flip to an old Doris Day movie with a young Jack Lemmon as a scout master. I fall asleep on the couch, get up and go to bed, read a bit, fall asleep again.

baby garlic at Boggy Creek Farm

We interrupt your life with the phone

AUSTIN, Texas, April 14, 2004 — It was imperative that I get up and get a workout and a shower before 8:30. I succeeded although I didn't do a weight program I probably should have done.

My phone guys were here on or about 8:30. We started tracking down every phone outlet in the house. Some wires are fifty years old. It would take them all day and many trips into the house to check wires to get everything transferred to a punch-down block. We had to look around to find the key to the security system box, too. Now five lines and thirteen loops are neatly ordered in the block. There are fifteen outlets. I think, plus the security connection. Whew. This took all day. They didn't leave until around 4:15. But we are hoping the whole system works better now. How could it fail to do so?

My phone rang (my personal line) a few times, too. Also my cell. Friends organizing stuff. And twice an opinion poll. They called just as I was leaving for our evening's entertainment and just as we were returning, dinner guest in tow, to show her around the house.

In between the phone stuff, I ate snacks and meals and tried to organize bits of my office without much success. I also read a bit of my friend's crime novel. My dad and SuRu came over, bringing plants from his house to put in the back yard for the summer. He's nutured them over the winter (so-called in Austin) in his glassed-in porch.

After the phone guys, I changed and FFP changed and SuRu changed for her night out with another friend. We watched a bit of Love Liza with commentary from the writer, director and PSH.

We were off for a social outing and interview with Rebecca Schoolar for FFP's column. We met in the bar at Fonda San Miguel. I ordered a Margarita, up. Rebecca came and I sat there, contributing a question occasionally, downing the Margarita and another and stuffing my face with chips. Rebecca is a locally famous musical theater actress (Beehive, Tapestry).

We moved to the dining room and I ordered a fish dish (something Hawaiian called Hebi, I think). I ate more chips. I drank more than I should have from a bottle of Chardonnay FFP ordered.

We took Rebecca back to see the yard and I shot digital pictures so I could fix one up for FFP's article in The West Austin News.

I watched a little more of the Love Liza commentary and fell asleep. Papers unread, accomplishments nil, phones fixed up, though.

As the phone system shows, our lives are too complicated. I need to simplify. But I just don't know how. I told SuRu I needed to move out and start over, just taking with me essential things. I'm sure this wouldn't work either. Sigh.

the lovely Rebecca Schoolar

In Between

AUSTIN, Texas, April 13, 2004 — When I have quite simple obligations, I find myself feeling squeezed in between them about what I should be doing. Today, I had to get my teeth cleaned and go to a members' annual meeting at my club. (There was no real obligation to do this. I'm sure we can't vote down the powers-that-be, even if we wanted to do it. But I'm curious. So I made it an obligation.)

I thought I'd get up early but I kept going back to bed. Soon, it was nearly eight. I got into workout clothes, let Chalow out (it's chilly out there!) and made the bed and tidied up stuff left behind in the bedroom last night.

I fooled around with the journal which, predictably enough, has broken links and is confusing me. I edited pictures for the journal and for FFP's columns. I have had e-mail about the format change. It is positive but all the readers, all two who wrote, mentioned liking the pictures. So, I guess, the pictures need to be attended to. Personally, I like the pictures, too. Probably more than the writing. But the writing is the thing I need to do. The pictures are something I enjoy and want to see later, though.

Finally, I head to the gym. Not early enough. But not too, too late. I feel I cut the thing short, though.

I get home, eat, clean up dishes, shower, throw the towels and bathmats from our master bath in the laundry. I have an hour before I have to leave to get my teeth cleaned. It hardly seems like time to get into sone of my 'bigger' projects. So, of course, I waste the time sitting at the computer and fooling with the journal and considering movies from Netflix.

I find the dentist daunting, even if it's just routine checkup and cleaning. Which this was. No surprise...he says I should floss more! Yeah, yeah. But he didn't find anything else or the X-Rays or otherwise. If only I spent 1/100th of the time I spend typing drivel into my WEB page flossing, then I'd have the best teeth ever. Well, the best gums. My teeth are, well, let's not go there.

After the dentist, I realize that I should do something "useful." I call my dad and go by his house. I try to figure out how to get a form for some insurance he wants to file. I try two differnt menus to get into customer service (one where you key in something and one where say something) and neither works. But they connect me to number and it rings and they give me a WEB address where I can get a form. Of course, I have to go home to do that. I have a beer with my dad and go home.

Then I decide that I need a plate of nachos. I don't know why. Well, I'm hungry, but still. I have some Netflix movies so I decide, before my meeting, I'll just watch a little. I start watching Love Liza with Phillip Seymour Hoffman and the director talking, switch it back to normal mode and watch some. Soon, it's time to dress for the member's meeting. Actually it's early for that but I've suggested that we go to the club for a drink.

The 'go to the club for a drink' turns out to be a bad idea. It is family night. There is nowhere to sit in the bar or dining room or patio. We get a drink and sit on the couch in the entrance and talk to people. The meeting turns out to be zip. Everything is decided. All they have to do is get enough people to sign in to declare a quorum. They scour the dining room and tennis courts. It's clear that to make a differene in the life of the club you have to get on the board or at least a committee. I tried to do just that but have, so far, failed. Ah, well, no responsibility is OK, too. But this club is, of course, key to my retirement.

We slip out and head to 34th Street Cafe and have a nice meal. Then it's home, finish off the movie on DVD and try to get an early sleep. I'm going to get up early, by gum! Really.

banners for the arts fest on the bare bones Intel building

Taking a Ride

AUSTIN, Texas, April 12, 2004 — I meant to get up earlier but I get up at a fairly reasonable time and I'm at the gym at eight o'clock. I don't feel rushed. At home again, I shower and get ready and get together a few things...notebook, camera, sunglasses. I start the laundry. Dad shows up with his friend and I show her around the remodel and we take off on our road trip.

I head out 290 and then take 281 south and cut over 46 to Boerne. Miracuolously, I drive right to dad's cousin's house.

She is a bit slow, Dad's cousin, but excited about going out. We go to a place in Comfort called Po Po's. We all have fried chicken and sides. With water. The place is completely covered inside with collector plates, hundreds and hundreds of them. There are many bicycle riders in the place, too. Most of them are having salads, it seems.

We take Dad's cousin back, sit awhile and then go to the Main Street and go in a few shops. Antiques, candles, soaps, cards, that stuff. None of us buy anything.

We take off out 46 and go back to IH35 for the trip home. Faster but not as pretty. But at least I don't get trapped behind halfs of manufactured homes like I did on the smaller roads. It's rush hour and there is slow and go crossing the river on Mopac but we are home and pretty easily. I did all the driving which Dad likes.

When I go in, FFP is cooking. I'm not really hungry but then I eat a lot. And then I clean up and fold laundry. And spend the rest of the evening reading and watching.

Dad and his cousin, one of a long line of Mary Annas

A Sunday of Significance

AUSTIN, Texas, April 11, 2004 — To tell you the truth, I'm not very religious. I haven't seen The Passion of the Christ. I would like to see it just as a movie but that non-stop violence puts me off. (The lesbian crime thriller I watched the other night had a scene or two I didn't see. Hid my face. Yep.)

So, not religious just adverse to violence.

It's just a Sunday. So I 'celebrated' by going to a reception for a returning friend (at a Jewish home) and by having dinner with FFP's parents. We don't spend enough time with them.

Significance is where you find it. Even without religion.

Rebecca enjoys a party in her honor.

Nature Takes its Course

AUSTIN, Texas, April 10, 2004 — We must have stayed up too late. And who is used to this saving daylight anyway? Is there really more daylight? Anyway, we told Dad to come over at 8:15 and, of course, he is here before eight but we aren't even up! We rush around, make coffee, shower, feed the dog, make the bed, dress and we are off to Boggy Creek Farms before 8:30. My digestion is a little dicey. Hmmm...I wonder if it's what I ate yesterday?

We find Boggy Creek (our first visit) and explore the farm and the market. I end up buying a couple of kohlrabi and two pints of baby brussels sprouts and some baby romaine lettuce. FFP is interviewing the owners of the farm and we hear about the chickens, the big tornado of '01 and so forth. FFP buys a bunch of flowers and a book about the chickens. Dad and I have some excellent coffee.

Home again, Dad goes home because they are threatening storms with possibly hail. We were going to move some plants from their winter home on Dad's sun porch but we decide that isn't the best idea.

However, the storms are slow to materialize. I make us a salad with the fresh romaine and slice and sautee the kohlrabi with some green onions, steam the little pre-birth Brussels Sprouts (which take longer to cook than I think they will) and make a cheese sauce for the kohlrabi. It was a pretty tasty vegetarian lunch. I clean up the pans and stuff.

I work a little on some of my WEB duties and FFP goes outside to read and watch for the impending storm.

Some rain comes, the TV shows storms north and south of us. Dad calls and says that the hail reached Penny Creek but it wasn't as large as the forecasters threantened, only pea-sized.

FFP goes to work out but I'm feeling poorly. I try various remedies...cure teas, a Coke, etc. I do start to feel somewhat better.

We stick in to watching and reading.

It's a wasted day. Dang.

buffy, the Boggy Creek Farm rooster

 

Déja Vu

AUSTIN, Texas, April 9, 2004 — I was back to being nervous Nellie today...afraid I wasn't doing the right thing with my time and sort of fretting because of it.

I got up and changed the bed and put the dirty linens in the washing machine. I got ready to go to the gym but then I started doing other things and I kept waiting until this or that happened before I went to the gym. "After FFP showers" so I could answer the phone. "After FFP goes to the cleaners." "After FFP goes for a haircut."

The result of all this putting stuff off is that FFP is cooking some grounded beef patties when I am leaving for the gym. I haven't had breakfast (like, when do I have breakfast?) and he is fixing lunch.

I don't rush the workout, though, although I'm not doing a weight program today. I take my time and enjoy reading on the bicycle. When I get home from the gym. it is after 2PM. I consult with FFP on hanging the new painting. I eat a little and shower and go out to do a couple of things. One, I drop off a magazine that I borrowed from the barber shop. Two, I look in a couple of furniture stores at possibilities for another chair for the bedroom.

When I get home, I continue to fret over the new format for the journal. (Why does it have to be so hard?) Then it's time for us to go out.

We go first to Roy's. In the start of a new tradition, Kevin Ahart is entertaining on Fridays from 5:30-9:30. To support our young friend, we are there around 5:30. There aren't many other people but, gradually, the place fills up. We have apps and I have a little wine. (FFP is the DD tonight.)

Other people join us and then we gradually reassemble at The Four Seasons Lobby Lounge for the welcome revival of an old tradition: Rebecca Ryan at the piano, our pals and her fans at the big table and the occasional song where one of our talented pals joins her. Before we know it, it's late. We walk back to our car, parked a few blocks up hours ago.

At home, we aren't quite ready to wind down. We watch a little TV and read a tiny bit before sleep.

FFP's new painting takes its place