Push on Through

AUSTIN, Texas, July 30, 2004 —Some days, when you seem to have lost your way, you just have to push through, do something, keep it together. I have been accomplishing things if you count reading, my volunteer job reviewing films and keeping up the exercise program. But more needs to be done in the 'clean and straighten and organize your life' area.

I also need to get on FFP's schedule, I think. He doesn't go to bed too much earlier but he snoozes in his chair while I'm reading. This results in many mornings like today's.

I wake up with him (at 5AM) but I've only been asleep four hours or so. We get the garbage and recycling out on the curb and I go back to bed. He wakes me around six saying 'should I flush it again?' The toilet in the new bathroom, he means. I get up and use my expertise with what I thought was called a "plumber's friend" but is really called a "plumber's helper." Or, you know, a plunger. I get the toilet working again and go back to sleep. It's nearly eight when I get up. I make the bed and yet another day spend time in front of the computer completing my journal and reading e-mail and fixing up a WEB site I do for free.

I get to the gym earlier than yesterday, though. By noon I'm home, I've wasted some more time at the computer writing but I finally eat something and get showered up, finish my paperwork on the thirteen films that I viewed for the festival and go exchange them for a lucky thirteen more. I consider going to the gelato shop on the way home for a coffee and to read a little while. I don't know why I consider doing this. When I retired I thought I'd spend time in coffee shops reading and writing and watching people. I don't actually spend much time this way.

No, I don't stop anywhere. I go home and, in between checking e-mail and looking at the snail mail that arrives and talking to FFP, I cook chicken Provencal (my name, my recipe) and clean out the refrigerator. I eat a little and read some about the Dems in the paper, too. I eat a few things where small amounts are left to cut down on the number of containers in the frig. (Why do we have three half empty bottles of Ketchup? I also eat a tiny portion of the chicken to see how it is. I put the rest up to eat leftover. This is a surprising time-consuming task, cleaning out the inside of the frig, especially if you take the time to scrub down the surfaces and wash out the drawers with soap and water. I only found one truly amazing science experiment. It was apparently at one time some leftover pineapple.

I accomplished this much by 4:30 and decided to read the papers and screen a few films.

BookWoman is a book store. Not surprisingly one where women find things of interest. It used to be on E. Sixth but it's on Twelfth St. now and it's pinned in by construction. Unable to make rent or something they had mounted a benefit. Some fairly famous (but not to me) singer-songwriter named Chris Williamson traded songs with a group of locals. We sat in chairs (we agreed to pay fifty bucks) but the store was crowded with people who paid ten to stand or sit on the floor. We heard some interesting singers discovering one new one we hadn't heard whose name slips my mind who we found really entertaining.

We were home shortly after nine. We watched some tube but what I'm not sure, bits of cable movies perhaps. I worked on a crossword. And tried to go to bed earlier than usual.

SoCo shop window with mirror me

A lot of Nothing

AUSTIN, Texas, July 29, 2004 —I had the feeling that I wouldn't look back on this day as one filled with accomplishment when FFP returned from his workout around eight and found me still in bed. I did go to sleep late.

I'd like to say that I sprang from the bed and flew through the day, making up for lost time. But that would be a lie.

First I had to fix something on the bookkeeper's computer. I fooled around on the computer until eleven and only then went to the gym. I did justice to my workout and came home, certain that I would do some of my clean up chores. In the end, I was messing around with the computer (and figuring out something for Forrest) until after two. I realized I hadn't eaten. So I ate and started watching AFF videos. I decided I wanted to get finished with this batch and get some new ones for the weekend.

Of course, the day was then, as they say, mostly done. A rainstorm came up. I ate some more, read, watched John Kerry a little, watched some true crime shows all while reading, and watched all but one of the shorts I had left to review for the festival. I'll say this: it's amazing what people decide to make films about.

I stayed up too late watching an old Northern Exposure from midnight until one (tomorrow technically) while trying to do the Thursday The New York Times crossword. Yeah, I know. Silly. No, I didn't finish it. I need to go to sleep earlier to get in sync with FFP. I guess anyway.

SoCo shop window

Running Behind

AUSTIN, Texas, July 28, 2004 —I can't figure out why but I'm feeling like I'm late for something all day. Well, actually I do know why. At seven or so I realized I needed to go to my dad's house and put out the garbage as we'd filled his 'pay as you throw' with styrofoam and such packing to throw away. Our can has been full lately with the stuff we are discarding in our attempts at downsizing. I make the bed, dress in workout clothes and rush off for his house. I am faced with rush hour coming back so I go the 360/2222/Mt. Bonnell way to the club which isn't so bad. I'm not really rushed at my workout which is a good thing because I do the weight work in this ADD fashion, sipping coffee or reading a paragraph between sets.

I get home in plenty of time to get showered and dressed for my lunch date. Indeed I'm ready well before SuRu arrives. But she is in fact running late and since she's coming from the lake that makes us a little late.

We aren't too late, though, and the gal we are meeting is patient. We have a long lunch. The Nancy we meet works and we don't but she doesn't seem to be in a hurry.

Ru takes me to Dad's house. We get the garbage can in and water all his plants. Then we head home to do a task for FFP. He's left me a note that I need to deliver the disk I make by three o'clock. SuRu goes with me and we not only have to deliver it but help the recepient make a new CD with the contents we deliver (some pictures of one of FFP's clients) and a Word file she has written. That gets done pretty fast and we go run a couple of errands for SuRu and the day is sort of done. Enough so we don't start a new task.

Instead, we watch some Film Festival films and snack. After SuRu goes home, I finish watching one and we eat and I start reading. We watch the convention. Didn't John Edwards say something eerily like what Bush said about hunting down the terrorists? We watch other random stuff. We have three Netflix sitting around and all these films to screen for the festival but we don't attack any of them.

I go to bed too late. It will result in me being a slug in the bed tomorrow.

sin for sale on SoCo

New Leaf

AUSTIN, Texas, July 27, 2004 —I have to be more productive today! Really.

I am a couple of minutes late getting to my tennis workout but not too late and after that I do some more work in the gym although I do stop to talk to one of the instructors.

When I get home, I take care of some e-mail, some things FFP needs, get the bookkeeper's computer going again and update its virus scan and OS and do my journal. It is nearly noon!

I finish my reviews of the films I have out from Austin Film Festival and get a shower and have some lunch that FFP and the bookkeeper cook up. Then I'm off to do a couple of errands...stop by Radio Shack for some calculators and a battery, go to the Austin Film Festival office and stop by Whole Foods for a couple of things. When I get back FFP has a job for me but he isn't here to explain it and the maid is here so I can't start watching films or really doing anything that would get in her way. The bookkeeper is working in Forrest's office. So I hide in my office to sort through stuff and do what I can within arm's length.

Soon enough, though, the maid is gone and, miracle of miracles, not talking about coming back on Friday to finish.

So I get snacks and papers and start reviewing some AFF films until my friend SuRu calls and then FFP says we should take the bookkeeper to Santa Rita.

We go to Santa Rita which appears to be attracting a lot of other people we know and I eat too much. What else is new? Then I check my computer and then it's back to the films and stuff. Mindless TV, dozing and finally bed.

a Boerne shop

Just Do It!

AUSTIN, Texas, July 26, 2004 — I am lazy about getting up again. FFP goes early to the club and gets on with his day. I look at the clock in my car when I leave the house. Ten o'clock! How did that happen. Well, I watched one of the Austin Film Festival films. And I filled out forms on three of them. I finished yesterday's journal. I drank coffee. Hmm. Maybe I washed a few dishes.

It is almost noon when I get back from the gym. I had a long workout and then went to the pro shop to check on a tennis thing I want to do tomorrow and I see that I'm already signed up.

When I get home FFP isn't there. I'm determined to work on some on my projects for cleaning out and straightening up. I talk to my buddy SuRu. I ask if she wants to have a garage sale this weekend. She asks what my motivation for doing a garage sale as opposed to taking things directly to the thrift store. I can't think of any good reason. I won't make enough money to make it worth my while and why not let a charity benefit anyway since I'm always giving to charity? Makes a lot of sense. We discuss whether she will come over and help me with stuff. We decide she will, maybe. A little later, when I'm still sitting in front of the computer, trying to motivate myself to eat something and get started, she calls and says she's coming my way.

I fool around with something FFP needs me to look into and then I start fixing something to eat and then FFP and SuRu both show up. I finish eating and then SuRu and I go through stuff in the storage area that we sorted before and load up a bunch of stuff to take to the Thrift Store. My favorite thrift store is overwhelmed with donations at the moment. I feel like we should volunteer to help them but when would I find the time?

Back home SuRu sits with me while I review some more movies for AFF. It's amazing the variety of things submitted to the festival.

When SuRu leaves, we scare up something to eat and we watch some convention, some other TV and the rest of one of the AFF films. I read all the papers and go to bed too late.

 

a Boerne shop

Real Sunday

AUSTIN, Texas, July 25, 2004 — What does a Sunday mean to us? Doing some chores, doing some stuff together.

I stay in bed too late. I'm in this certain position in my Tempur-Pedic that feels weightless. Let me say that I'm not really all that crazy about this bed. But I'm in this position this morning where I don't want to get up. I finally do and make the bed and put on some workout clothes and go get some coffee. I haven't gotten the sleep out of my eyes when FFP suggests dog walking. I go along with it and put on jeans and hiking boots and get my stuff together. We drive down to South Congress and walk a little bit in this neighborhood ending up near the car at Jo's having coffee and a snack.

We head back and, after putting the dog back in the house, we go to the book store for a browse. (Don't buy anything...way to go! I did read a bit of a Yeats collection. The Irish thing, you know. Here is Yeats' epitaph:

Cast a cold eye
On life, on death.
Horseman, pass by!

You know...Horseman, pass by was the name of the Larry McMurtry novel on which the excellent 1963 movie Hud was based. But I digress.

We stopped at the grocery store on the way home and got a few things.

At home we had lunch and I started watching some tennis and banging out my journal and reading and such. I want to go to the club and have a long workout, I tell myself, but I need to let lunch settle.

I read papers, watch some film festival videos and finally we both go to the club. In separate cars. The storm and the hour drive me back home but I have a pretty good workout. Yeah, a big old rainstorm cooks up or I would have done some more cardio. As it is I get to the car but not home before the deluge.

We veg out, taking showers and sitting around in our robes watching TV and reading.

 

new mural on South Congress

Day Off

AUSTIN, Texas, July 24, 2004 — Taking a vacation from endless vacation? Sort of.

FFP seems to take the weekend earnestly today and intends to do something different.

I don't get up as early as I wish (when do I?) and then I rush off to the club for a tiny workout and then home, shower and off to the barber shop. I'm fourth in line! So I end up reading The Austin American-Statesman and surfing the WEB and listening to the barber talk about how Kerry is a Jewish-Catholic and his wife supports Hamas.

A little after ten I'm done with the haircut. FFP is talking about going to Medina. But it is really far away so we go to Boerne instead. It is about a hundred miles itself. We eat at my second cousin's brew pub and wander in some of the antique, gift and junk shops. (We end up buying some books at one shop. Yeah, I know.) We have a cup of iced coffee at a little coffee shop and head back. I drive most of the way back and let him read.

We spend the rest of the evening at home, watching a DVD and some TV and reading.

I know I'm retired and all...but it felt like a Saturday.

on an old Mexican coke box in Boerne

Incredible Luxury

AUSTIN, Texas, July 23, 2004 — I went to bed late and I don't want to get up. Around eight I do and I strip the bed. I'm putting the clean linens on when FFP comes in. He carts the dirty ones to the laundry room.

I spend the next hour and a half drinking coffee and washing dishes and mostly poking around on my computer and sending e-mail.

I need to get to the club and work out and get on with my day. I don't really have anything I have to do, nothing scheduled. I need a haircut, though. I need to go to the Austin Film Festival office and exchange films I've seen for some new ones. I need to clean up some stuff around here. Finally, around ten I head to the club.

I go to the club, do a bit of exercise, come home, showere and call the barber shop. Tomorrow would be better she says. So I put some gel on my too long hair and FFP asks me what's up and I tell him I'm going to the film festival and he says he'd like to get out.

So we go to Dirty's and have a burger. They take a long time to get the food to us. But it's pretty good. My favorite greasy burger. The meal is thin, just another condiment. The limeade is just right. We go to the festival office and I turn in films and get some more and we go to Book People. I look at some design and art magazines and some travel books and maps and FFP ends up buying a book. We head home.

At home I decide to read the paper and drink a cuppa in my chair in the bedroom while watching a DVD but I see that the sheets need folding we washed this morning so I do that and then the maid comes so, of course, I retreat to my office.

When the maid is gone I do go to my bedroom and relax with the papers and a DVD. We snack our way through the evening, checking up on the Tour de France and watching some review movies for Austin Film Festival. I finish my book. We go to bed fairly early. It's not often we spend Friday night at home cocooning.

Salado reflection

Incredible Luxury

AUSTIN, Texas, July 22, 2004 — Today my life felt luxurious, free and special.

I got up pretty early and relaxed with the computer and the coffee. It was 9'ish or so when I went to the club. I worked out as I pleased, dodging a few other people.

I have a lunch date but it is at 1PM. My friend Allan is also retired. We always have our lunches at 1PM. That's a luxury.

Since I have lots of time I eat a late breakfast, reading the paper. I take a leisurely shower and groom myself. I watch part of a DVD, surf the WEB. There is a place to part when I get to the restaurant. We eat a leisurely meal talking about once and future travels, meals, movie festivals and how we are spending our creative retirements.

After lunch, I go home and decide to update my journal including writing today's essay which I thought about while I was working out.

I finish watching films for the Austin Film Festival and rating them. I look at some catalogs that come in the mail. I doodle while watching the films and come up with a sort of artistic thing that I want to do on Fireworks. I work on how to do that. It's a silly project but I enjoy it.

Around five FFP suggests going to eat Mexican food. We go to Santa Rita and eat while watching coverage of the Tour de France that Armstrong is winning again. A couple of different tables attract friends of ours and we talk to them on the way out.

We go home, cart a bunch of recycling and our garbage can to the curb and settle in to watch some TV. I read all the day's newspapers (while I turn all the pages!) and dispatch all the ones that have stacked up as well. It is late when I go to sleep.

pots

Replacement

AUSTIN, Texas, July 21, 2004 — You replace things, one for another, out with the old in with the new. You start spending your time in new ways, make new friends which, unfortunately, sometimes push out the old.

I'm not up as early as I would like. In my dreams there are swimming pools and other bodies of water. There are also cartoonish pictures of cows and dogs on the clouds. I look back at them thinking that they will disappear. They don't.

After I get up I also don't get away from the house as fast as I would like. I have a guy coming to replace my garage door opener with a new one at 9:30. I spend fifty minutes on the recumbent stationary bicycle. I should row or use the treadmill. But I can't read on the former and the latter doesn't seem to give me as much exercise for the time at the speed I'm willing to go. Still, you need a change now and then, a slightly different exercise. I should do situps or weights. But I rush to get home.

I get home and get showered up before the repairman comes. I figure he will have time to finish before I go to my lunch date. A lunch date with an old friend, a one time boss, one of a handful of people I've worked with that I hold in high esteem both for talent and uprightness. I don't keep up with people as well as I should. He will probably get his wife to come, too, and she is interesting in her own right.

I have a brand new lifter for my door before long. One more thing changed and replaced. Things evolve. It's never done.

Lunch at Z'Tejas with my old buddy and his wife. We discuss the world, its corporations, politicians and software.

Afterward I go to my dad's house. He didn't stop the paper and the neighbors said they'd pick it up. They hadn't so I put it in their driveway. I took the mail inside. All junk except for a statement from his gas leases. I looked around the house, thinking about things I still needed to dispose of that were my mom's and I made up his bed. My dad leads a pretty simple life now. I try to decide whether to have the carpets steam-cleaned while he's gone.

I could go shopping or stop by the bookstore while I'm in the Arboretum area. But nothing sounds as good as going home to my own books, videos and entertainments. I head home.

I slip into my garage with my new door lifter working beautifully. I go to my computer and review my e-mail. There is something about tennis events at my club. I decide to respond to an e-mail from my tech advisor in NYC city, Michael Horowitz, and tell him how I like Mail Washer which I tried after he pointed it out to me. This causes me to look up something and instead of going to google directly I go to dogpile for some reason and discover that they have a window into the searches being performed which makes me think that I should work on my project to create a guide to having a guaranteed serendipitious walk through cyberland by bringing together places to go for random content. This starts me Internet wandering and, before I know it, it is after two thirty.

I decide to watch some films for Austin Film Festival. I'm interrupted by a client request from Forrest to have a WEB page send mail to two different e-mail addresses. A quick look at the WEB indicates mailto: might not be the way to do it. I set up an alias and redirect from there and fool around with that.

I do get a feature film watched and a few shorts. FFP bought fried chicken for his lunch and I end up having some of that for diner and we settle in and watch a DVD of Nora, a movie about James Joyce's life with his wife.

We go to bed sort of early.

 

Salado shop are Open on Sunday

On Edge

AUSTIN, Texas, July 20, 2004 — I wake up afraid that I'm forgetting something for my dad and his trip. I don't go to the club but shower up and clean everything out of my car (what a lot of junk!) and go over to Dad's. We talk a little and I ask him if he has this and that (hearing aid batteries? passport? money?) and check that he put sharp things in his checked luggage (razors, pocket knife). I put his stuff in the car. We go to his friends' house. His travel companion is ready to go but hasn't dressed. We drink coffee and talk to her and her husband. She's calling the credit card people to tell them she is going to be in these other countries. My dad says he did this. (I told him to do it...who knew he'd pay attention?)

I get them to the airport way early. I have time to go to the club before a repairman is due at the house but I don't do it. I am nervous, I guess and at loose ends. I check the flight on the airlines site then on flight tracker. I read some, watch TV. The garage door opener repairman comes by. One look at the antique device opening my door tells him he isn't going to fix it. I make a date for him to come replace it tomorrow. I work on researching and writing a West Austin News column. FFP goes to the doctor and comes back. The maid comes.

I realize my dad's flight should be leaving DFW and pop the flight tracker up. I guess once he's at his first destination I'll relax. I feel weird. Odd. This is how parents feel when their kids leave home. I try to think if he's been anywhere out of Austin without me since Mom died. Yeah. He went to Dallas one weekend, I think. And, of course, I've left him here.

The maid leaves. The maid is on that come twice a week jag again. Interrupting our lives twice. Oh. Well. I could have to vacuum and scrub toilets myself.

I finish up my article and prowl around the Internet a little. I snack and read papers until it's time for my film committee meeting at Austin Film Festival. I stop at Eckerd's and get candy, telling myself I'm contributing to the well-being of the kids watching films. Really, though, I just feel like candy. That's what comes of not exercising, I suppose.

I stay at AFF until nearly ten. It's different watching the films with others, listening to their comments. I find myself swayed by some of them. One young man named Matt asks if everyone else is a film maker or a film student. He wants to know if he is the only one who is an amateur. I say that I have years more experience knowing nothing than he does. I may not be the oldest one there but I probably am and I have three decades on most of the people. I wonder if the films I find self-indulgent are interesting to them, reflecting their lifestyles, made by people their age with their experience.

I go home. I watch one of the films for the festival that I brought back to review. I read a few newspapers. Sleep.

 

tracking a flight

Better to be Carless

AUSTIN, Texas, July 19, 2004 — If you have a car you figure you have to do errands. It's kind of a relief to be carless. But it doesn't last long.

FFP has an appointment at 7:30. I get him to drop me off at the club on the way. I work out and then shower up and put on my bathing suit to do water aerobics with Dad. We have a small class. People are traveling also I guess.

Dad takes me back to the house. I do a few things on the computer and FFP comes back from the car place. They are fixing his car. I'm about to settle in to read some stuff and watch some TV when they call that it is fixed. So I take him to get it. Now I have a car. I consider returning my movies to the Austin Film Festival office but I decide that I'll just go early tomorrow for the meeting and do it. But I go to Sam's. I stop and chat with some (also retired) neighbors that I see there. Then I buy many forms of cheap cheese (block of aged cheddar, shredded cheddar, Boursin, Laughing Cow, sliced cheddar, sliced provolone). After all, I am on the all cheese diet. The prices here are so good and I'll freeze the shredded cheese until it's needed and the other lasts a long time. Plus gallon size baggies and shampoo. And some mandarin orange fruit cups. (These look like a good candidate for road and plane food. I'm putting together a bag for my dad and his travel companion.)

When I get home, FFP helps me unload and I say I want to go to Central Market. He goes along which makes it more pleasant. We get sushi, some prepared spicy salmon cakes, a quart of nonfat yogurt (maybe the all dairy diet?) and other stuff like tofu dip and queso (ooops but that was FFP's idea) and some peaches and a lime (I'm thinking vaguely of having a vodka gimlet against the heat). I also pick up a couple of bottles of water and some energy bars for my dad for his trip.

We go home, unload that stuff and I work on the computer while FFP goes to the gym. My technical advisor in NYC (unpaid) has recommended a mail sanitizer called mailwasher which snoops the mail before it is downloaded from your server. I'm trying that out. FFP comes home and we have our salmon cakes and sushi and some wine for dinner. We read and watch TV. We are so predictable, huh?

an admonition in Salado, a little town that is dependent on you doing it

An Odd Sort of Day

AUSTIN, Texas, July 18, 2004 — I stay in bed until eight. I'm dreaming about trying to find some place and we go into this business and get a brochure for a map it has. It's like I'm trying to get to my old job. The place where we are is familar but it's as if I've been there while lost in another dream. The business where we are trying to get help also has some city maps but they aren't very helpful because they are for places like Florence. There is a lot more dream that I remember and other parts seem familar from other dreams.

After I'm finally up I have coffee and mess around with the computer. FFP has an idea that we should go on a drive some place. First we go (together for a change) to the gym.

After the gym and showering and dressing, we climb in his car and head toward Salado. We get there, find a nice cafe (The Range) open for lunch and have a long quiet lunch. We shop a few shops after that and even (shudder) buy a few things.

We are shopped out after a few stores and we decide to take a long convuluted way home. But we immediately notice the AC not putting out and the temp gauge climbing. We start back toward IH35 to go home. But the temp is too, too hot. So we pull off and call AAA. We wait about thirty-five minutes and get towed by a nice guy from Temple Towing who takes our car to First Texas and takes us home. I guess we blew a hose or something. We just had the car in for serious maintenace less than a month ago. Hrmmph.

Anyway, by six we are home. The tow truck driver nicely took us home after we dropped the car off.

We go back later to leave the keys in the 'overnight' dropoff slot and we get everything important out of the car. Then we settle in for some calm reading and TV watching. That was an adventure, sitting on the IH35 access road on a hot day, reading a book and waiting for a wrecker. Fortunately there was a breeze. I didn't even sweat.

We do this and that, throw together something to eat, discuss some things at about 9:30 we change clothes to go to a cast party for the closing of Cabaret at Zach Scott Theatre. We come up with a bottle of bubbly to take along. Our friend KK has kindly invited us. We don't feel we should be early, though, because the cast had a seven o'clock show.

We arrive at the cast party before the cast has struggled in. They've performed Caberet twice today. Whew! We talk to a professor and a critic and some friends and family readying the party. Gradually it grows. We have taken a bottle of bubbly. When it gets late and I see that bottle on ice, I figure time to go home. We go home and, although it's late, I watch some TV and read the papers.

green glass for sale, Salado

A Different Schedule

AUSTIN, Texas, July 17, 2004 — I stay in bed a little late for me and wake up amidst a dream wherein I'm staying in someone else's house and I'm still in pajamas and the bed is unmade and I'm having cereal but it's late, it's afternoon and people arrive to check the place out because my friend (who isn't home) has said that these people could have a charity event there. Then I run around trying to tidy up.

When I really get awake, I get some coffee and get dressed for tennis. Bang on the computer a little and glance at the papers. Have some cereal and yogurt. I don't usually play tennis on Saturday morning. Something different.

After tennis I sit on the deck above center court and watch some people play and drink water and try to cool off. I rarely sit there and watch other people.

I go home about eleven and finish up yesterday's journal. We are going to an afternoon chamber music concert and then, tonight, to a birthday party at a Mexican restaurant. Not the usual Saturday. But pleasant-sounding. Spend some time with FFP.

I'm about to get in the shower when my dad shows up. So I talk to him a little. He points out that FFP is outside cutting up boxes. So I go out and help him a little. Then my dad goes next door to check out the garden. I get ready for the concert.

Well, a few years ago we contributed to build a recital hall at the James Armstrong music school. It has very good accoustics. And...you could here the many wrong notes in this amateur concert.

We head home. I make some lunch for me and FFP scares up some snack and we retire to our corners of the house to do whatever. After banging on my computer for a while I decide to put together the new lamp. We are still on a quest for a lamp for the new room to go beside FFP's chair. I'm not so sure about this one but we get it together and I clean up the mess from the packing. (More cardboard and styrofoam to dispose of!)

We end up reading and we watch the DVD of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man which is strange to watch as I'm halfway through the book and can judge the movie's fidelity to the book up to that point and not after. Of course, a book as internal and cerebral as this one is odd as a movie anyway. Imagine the movie Ulysses!

I have to take a break in the middle of the movie to make one of my infamous homemade birthday cards.

Then it is time to go to a birthday party. It's a odd arrangement but fun. Virginia Wood, the food writer for the Austin Chronicle, gives herself a party every year. This year she has set up a deal with El Meson in southeast Austin to provide apps and fruit and a limited choice of entree for $15 a person, dutch treat. Plus a cash bar, of course. We almost leave the house without our small gift and the card I've worked on. I get that together and the instructions for finding the place and off we go.

We are early but that is fine because we visit with Virginia and talk to other people who come in, most of whom we know. We eat some delicious chile rellenos and apps and have drinks and end up talking to friends and leaving a little early, too. Before cake, thankfully. At one point, some friends who are not invited to the party wander in...they are just trying to dine here and misunderstand the sign on the door.

Home again we read and watch TV. I end up at the end of the evening watching some show that FFP picks about ghost hunters and then about exorcism. When he dozes I switch from exorcism to watching the last of Alice's Restaurant. Now there is a good tale of the sixties.

 

Old Pens bought at some junk shop at some point in time for reasons forgotten.

Taking Stock of People's Lives

AUSTIN, Texas, July 16, 2004 — Everyday, in this space (or over in essays) I take stock of my measly life. In reading papers, watching films and talking to others in person and via e-mail, one is always taking stock of others' lives. Today, I did a lot of this, maybe a little more than usual.

I had an interview scheduled for an article I'm writing as a guest in Forrest's West Austin News column. I went to the club and worked out a little since I was meeting the woman after the water aerobics class. (Which I never take on Friday because my dad goes to his church to play games.) Then we sat in the sun and talked about her life, her family. Hers is a most interesting story.

When I got home it was lunch time and FFP was fixing chicken breast sandwiches so I joined in that. He mentioned that the new movie about Cole Porter (De-Lovely) which we had already talked about seeing had gotten a good review in the local paper. We decided to see it tonight. I like movies based on real people's lives.

Then my friend SuRu called with a description of a trip she is going to take. A cheap road trip to New Mexico. She said she'd drop by later and help me with a project.

I decided to watch the rest of my AFF review films and read old papers. About the time I'm finished with the films, our maid shows up. She came on Tuesday but didn't feel like working long enough to finish. I don't like it when there is someone else around the house that much so it is kind of a pain for me when she comes twice in a week. I should probably have remembered and then been out of the house. But she is so erratic about showing up that it might not work out. Oh. Well. SuRu is supposed to come by and help me clean up my office. So I will hole up there and work on my writing and finishing the old newspapers.

The maid leaves and SuRu comes but I'm not in the mood to do anything productive so we talk and watch part of a Netflix movie that I don't particularly like. She goes to ceramics class and we go off to have a quick bite and go to the show. We pick up our tickets at the Arbor and go to La Madeleine. We are way early for the show but we read our books and magazines.

After seeing DeLovely we head home and end up, like we do all too often, watching TV and dozing. When I tuck into old episodes of M*A*S*H which don't interfere with my reading, FFP switches to some show which isn't that good but captures just enough of my attention to interfere with reading. It's a show about Claus Von Bülow and his trial on appeal, a 1990 film with Glenn Close and Jeremy Irons called Reversal of Fortune. Then he falls asleep. It's getting to be a pattern. Claus and Sunny...now there's a story I can't relate to: fortunes of that size inherited from the previous generation.

I go to sleep and embrace my dreams.

Still Life with Painting from the Collection of LB's Stuff

 

Freedom

AUSTIN, Texas, July 15, 2004 — Don't really have a schedule today. So I could accomplish something, n'est ce pas? I could have some fun, huh? I could revel in the rich freedom of not working.

I thought I might have a lunch interview. I hung around the house, drinking coffee and waiting to hear. Then I sent an e-mail and went to the club.

After the club, when I got home, FFP had cooked himself a hamburger. So I made one for myself. I cleaned up the aftermath and went to the computer and e-mailed with people to make a couple of lunch dates with them.

Around 1:30 I decided that I should (1) watch some AFF film entries; (2) read some stuff. But, only after getting a shower.

So I get my shower and gather up stuff and go to the big room where I have a good VCR and DVD player. And I review some films. Some good, some so-so.

FFP drifts down a few times to watch a bit, take a nap but the phone always rings with some work thing.

Around five I quit watching AFF stuff and just read for a while. FFP comes down and suggest we go to Santa Rita and check out the regular menu. (We attended the soft opening on Tuesday.)

After I once again succumb to Mexican food, we go home and crank up the DVD player and watch Cabaret. We pause it to watch CSI. I get in bed, thinking that I'll read and watch old episodes of M*A*S*H but FFP gets in bed, takes the clicker and switches to some movie with Helena Bonham Carter and Paul Bettany and then falls asleep. I stay up too late watching the end of this disjointed and sappy movie.

Self-Reflection

 

The Give and the Ask

AUSTIN, Texas, July 14, 2004 — I'm in a generous mood, really. I made a picture book online for my friend LG's Dad and I want to give it to her to take to him. I loan my dad one of my favorite pieces of luggage for his trip. If it's lost, the luggage will be the least of the problem. I've already loaned him a piece of luggage to check and this one is to carry-on.

I go to water aerobics, only a couple of minutes late today. I was up pretty early but I lingered over coffee and writing.

After water aerobics I do a brief workout, too. Then I rush off to catch up with my dad who has gone from water aerobics to the barber shop. (Fresh haircut for his trip.)

I empty the additional bag that I'm going to loan him and put a tag with his name on it. Before I can jump in the shower, he arrives. I tell him to wait while I shower.

We visit and I show him the book of pictures I made and some pictures online. Then my friend calls and says she is out of a work meeting and ready to go to lunch. Dad and I drive to Chez Zee to meet her. I give her a print of her dad and the book for her dad. She gives me an old copy of The Wine Spectator that I've asked her for. Dad pays for the lunch, unasked.

When I get home, Dad leave to "go home and take a nap" and a few hours yawn for me to use as I wish. I can update my journal, of course, telling about my exciting day so far. But what else? Should I watch films for the festival, read a book, read newspapers? Should I tidy up a bit? Sometimes it's really hard to decide.

In the end, I did a lot of things and nothing. When the mail came, I sorted it. I found a clipping, downloaded the software featured in it, tried it, hated it, removed it from my computer. I updated the OS and the virus software on the laptop, I put some things away and went through some stuff in the closet. I read a Robert Crumb comic strip in the June 7, 2004 issue ofThe New Yorker about the Cannes festival. I read some old newspapers. I sent an e-mail. I sorted through a box of stuff from one of three major overseas trips I took in 1999. A bunch of nothing, see?

Then it was time to go with Forrest to have dinner with some potential donors for a charity near to our hearts. The dinner is pleasant enough but I'm not sure a donation of the size we are expecting is forthcoming. I'm not good at asking people for money. Oh. Well. It is interesting to watch the professional from the charity and Forrest work. I add my two cents about why we gave to this cause. I've been on the receiving end of dinners like this a few times. So I know that the charity somehow figures out a 'number' to hope for. It may or may not stack up with what the folks can or will do, of course.

We close down the club as it is after nine. One of the participants was late and then we lingered over not having dessert for the discussion. We are all friendly enough and they are excited about the project and take the materials away with them.

We go home and I finish the day's papers while watching TV. I have some films to review and some Netflix but I don't feel like watching them. I stumble on an old episode of Northern Exposure that I didn't remember after midnight, tomorrow if you will, when I should have been sleeping.

Self-Reflection

Is it the Dog Days Yet?

AUSTIN, Texas, July 13, 2004 — I'm going to have to meet a tight (and hot) schedule this morning. I pack up all the essentials: sun block, clothes to change into after I shower (since I think coming home to shower will make my lunch date a tight squeeze), toiletries. I keep my tennis racket in my car. I get dressed in tennis clothes (well, an old pair of white shorts and a white polo and good tennis shoes with special socks). I put on my new 'anti-tennis elbow' band. [Report: I think it worked!]

I go to a one hour class that is designed to keep you moving and producing tennis strokes. Then after a bathroom, Gatorade, find another court break, I play singles with one of the gals. (She was also in the class.) It gets hot and I'm dripping. I won't say that I tanked but I was glad to leave the court with 2-6, 2-6. My face is bright red. I don't really feel that bad, though.

I go down to the gym to shower (I like the facility there better than the old pro shop) and I shower and get dressed.

I go to my lunch date. We are celebrating a friend's birthday. There are a bunch of us. We tell tales of airplane delays and travels. We talk about plays and fun. All of these people do or used to work at my old company. We don't talk about it much, though.

I go to Sam's. I'm supposed to get some fax paper and some food. When they don't have the paper, I skip the food and go to OfficeMax. One shin muscle starts to cramp. It clears up, though. Thought I drank enough water!

I go home. Sam's can wait until another day.

I work on the computer some and the maid comes which usually makes me stick in my office. Today is no different. Then the maid decides to leave early. FFP is off at the doctor's office, looking to get a shot of cortisone in his sore shoulder. [Ed. note: he says later it seemed to work.] So I decide to read the paper and review some films for AFF, not necessarily at the same time. I watch a couple and snack and drink Diet Coke.

Then it's time to go to a soft opening of a restaurant, Santa Rita down on 38th in 26 Doors. Eddie Bernal and his PR folks have invited all the right people. We know a lot of them. After having some of the offered food and drink we walk around looking at the room and greeting people we know. I predict a hit for Eddie with this location.

At home, I read newspapers while watching bits of the All Star game. Then, sleep.

Friends and Relatives

AUSTIN, Texas, July 12, 2004 — I am in a kind of tizzy this morning. I have a tennis reservation but the person I was playing with can't make it but I need to play with someone else who could have made it then and now can't make it on Wednesday when we'd agreed to play. But she hasn't responded to an e-mail about playing today. So I'm swithering between tennis clothes and bathing suit. I don't like uncertainty. I finally go bathing suit, call and cancel the reservation and I'm a little late for the water aerobics. Not as late as some people but Dad is already there and they have started when I get there.

After water aerobics, I work out in the gym and then go home and shower up. I work on my journal a little and otherwise fool around until about 1:30. I start out to go to the Austin Film Festival office. FFP stops me to get me to mail something. I go to the film office and turn in my films. The guy in charge is there so he picks my next films and we talk.

I go back by the Post Office and have to wait in line because until I'm almost to the front there is only one clerk. I get the package posted and head home. Dad has arrived.

He brought a small laundry basket (about eighteen inches) square with most of the clothes he is taking on the trip. We talk about it and I loan him a suitcase and some of those compression bags for underwear and socks. I go over the handles, compression straps, the lock (only for use in a hotel room or whatever), the cable ties (for checking). We weigh the thing and estimate his overall weight (checked and carry-on) at 22 pounds + 8-10 pounds.

Dad leaves in a week. It's hard to believe. I hope he's OK.

I settle in to read the newspapers. FFP goes to get an inspection sticker but they say his tires need replacing. We were going to do that since the Honda service guys said the same thing. So he goes to buy tires.

Our friend Gayle comes over to cook for us as her gift to Forrest (we are celebrating a many day birthday) and SuRu shows up at Gayle's invitation to partake. Gayle brings her dog and goes to Central Market. I am hoping that my adding Dad to the mix (I'd called her earlier) didn't make that trip necessary. I don't ask because I don't want to know that I've made it tougher for her. We watch Gayle cook finding mixing bowls and measuring cups and such for her. I have a cocktail and FFP makes Campari and Soda for he and Gayle. Gayle plates the food and FFP opens a wine. (I've already set the table with placemats, silverware, napkins, water.) We eat the good food. FFP said he was going to buy a pie for dessert but changed his mind. So I cut up some strawberries and bananas that we have and dribble some Amaretto on them.

I wash the dishes and we settle in with Dad and friends to watch Mildred Pierce (Joan Crawford, 1945). This is a movie we own on DVD. We are in between Netflix shipments.

Movie over, everyone leaves. I finish my book and go to sleep. A day spent with friends and family, I realize.

Big Red Sun...plant worship?

Outgo

AUSTIN, Texas, July 11, 2004 — One needs to get rid of stuff. Because one is always accumulating it. Seeing the small, neat apartments that these folks were living in at the open house yesterday made me realize that you need to pare things down to what is important. I had, conveniently, already scheduled a friend to come by and help me clean out some stuff. Moral support if nothing else. Very important.

I'd thought about working out before my friend came. I'd already be sweaty and all. But I decided to do it after this task was over and spend some computer time first. This decision meant that I also wouldn't go to a meet up with The Austin Journalers. I really like these people and I like reading their stuff now and then, but I don't really feel like I have much connection with them. Going to a few of these things was an experiment. In my retirement I do that a lot. I go to something or volunteer in a brief way to see if it is something that I want to pursue. I'm trying to branch out. But sometimes I do stuff once or a few times and decide, nah.... So, anyway, I decided not to go to the meetup today.

My friend who is going to help with the cleanup called and asked if we'd eaten (yes, FFP; no, me; typical). So she and I decided to eat before starting the cleanup. She came over and we went to Aranda's. After that we stopped at Eckerd's so I could get a sort of joke present for FFP...some spare combs, nail clippers and video tape and a couple of other things. Stuff he is always losing track of. We wandered the store, both of us displacing from doing the cleaning I was supposed to be doing. I bought one of those bands that is supposed to help with tennis elbow. We will see.

Finally we went home and started on the effort. I decided that I had to go through the stuff in the closet under the stairs before I could start on the storage room. This could have gone badly (further cluttering the room without achieving anything). But I finished that, managing to identify some things that could be trashed or destined for garage sales. Then we started on the rest of the room. Some boxes went back into that under the stairs area. It didn't got too badly, either. We got FFP's agreement on recycling, trashing or setting aside for garage sales on some stuff. He went through a lot of things. T

hen we started a curbside mall of old fax machines, printers and computer stuff and a few other things. Some we could have put in a garage sale, but it was nice to make some room. Our neighbors took some things, added some things. And then the skies opened up. When it had just started drizzling, the neighbors put a plastic thing over some of it. But I mean, it really really rained. This is what we call the PB (for Preece/Ball) effect: do you think it would have rained like that if we hadn't put stuff on the curb that probably shouldn't sit out in the rain, assuming it had any value to the people who might cart it away? Oh, well. FFP and I agree that if people don't take the stuff after the rain stops that we will pay someone to haul it off! [Ed. note: Nothing was left at noon the next day.]

We did get rid of stuff. And even more stuff was placed in that limbo of 'ready for the garage sale.' And if SuRu and I don't have the garage sale then I'm going to cart it to the thrift store. If you want to simplify your life, then each and every day you have to get rid of more than you acquire. This is very, very hard. But today we succeeded, I think. It's rare that we do so.

After we ran out of steam and SuRu left, I decided I wouldn't work out. Sure, I'd gotten a little 'exercise' lifting boxes, bending, stretching and carrying. Not like a real workout, though. No, just hanging out and relaxing seemed nice. I did continue cleaning out a little, going through some stuff in my closet in the office.

Mostly, we ate junk food and drank and watched TV and read, though. I made a plate of nachos which we shared and I drank a Root Beer. FFP wanted some junk food as part of his birthday week celebration. He finally decided on a pizza his way from Conan's and went to get it. We dug out an Italian wine and drank it.

It was a nice day, in a lot of ways. I read almost all the Sunday papers. (Well, at least glanced through every section.) We made a giant step toward getting some things cleaned out in both an effort at downsizing and an effort to clear room in the storage area for FFP's art project.

where do they all come from?

Giving Rides

AUSTIN, Texas, July 10, 2004 — I wake up dreaming again. In this one, someone has died and they are just going to bury him out in the desert somewhere. There was a lot more to the dream but it slipped my mind.

Anyway, I get up and mess around at the computer, not in a particular hurry. There isn't much on tap for the day. Except that Saturdays are a little different for Forrest so sometimes we hang out. He gets to the club earlier than I do in any case. I get there around 9:30. His birthday is coming and we are in that 'birthday month' kind of mood. (Celebrating one particlar day is silly.) In fact, his mother calls and want him to come by and get a card so she won't have to mail it.

I feel rushed at the club. Not for a reason. Just because FFP is ahead of me and I think we should spend time together. We call it bidalah times. A Bidalah is a member of our very small tribe. We have made-up words. I, unlike James Joyce, don't consider made-up words literary. Sending someone to a dictionary (or in Nabokov's case maybe ones in several languages) would seem to me enough of a challenge. You have to know more than your audience, I think, even if you invented the stuff, to really write something worth reading. That's why this is just a river of words (a phrase and a potential art piece) I've been considering lately. Did I mention that to do great art you have to have skills you do not employ in the piece? So you can leave them out?

But I digress from my day. I got home from the gym and, while FFP ran a couple of errands (pick up a custom vase he ordered months ago but the glass guy's kiln blew up), go by his parents' house, buy flowers for new vase) I showered and got ready. Then we headed out with the vague idea that we would go to Cafe Mundi on the east side. We stopped short of that, just east of Guadalupe in Hyde Park, for a Mother's fix. We hadn't been to the vegetarian Mother's spot (an Austin institution) for ages. We enjoyed the meal and then headed east. FFP decided to go to Big Red Sun.

We didn't remember the exact location but drove right to it. We looked, didn't buy.

Then we decided to look at the property some friends were going to turn into a theater. One of them was there. While she showed us around some indigent east side denizen with a story came in. Turns out he'd given her a story of a car out of gas to get some money. Now the car had a dead battery, too! And he'd used her money for gas so he couldn't take a bus. Now, he'd called his sister-in-law and she would take him in but he'd need a ride there. She couldn't come get him, of course.

Our friend couldn't leave because she expected people for a memorial service at her place. We decided to get him out of her hair. We took him to an apartment building that was on our way home. He claimed to have HIV, diabetes, have had all his teeth pulled recently, to have just gotten out of the hospital, to live 'seven or eight miles' out of town. He started a hussle on us for money for gas ("my brother-in-law has a battery charger...I'd really like to get home and I have a Delta 88") and then when we said we'd give him a couple of dollars started talking about needed another car. (Well, it doesn't hurt to try.) He managed to contradict himself seven or eight times in a few short blocks. HIV (maybe AIDS) but "he's a fast healer." And while the sister-in-law had no transportation somehow the brother-in-law with the battery charger would get him to the car and all he would need was a bit more gas. He happily ate prepared fresh fruit in a plastic container while we drove him. At least he isn't on a street corner with a cardboard sign. But. We were glad to be rid of him. We think that our friends will be hustled quite a bit in that neighborhood although much gentrification is occurring among the run-down homes with fences around the front yards and the old-time TexMex bars, restaurants and stores. It's not that you don't feel sorry for these people but you can't give and give money to them. That's why we donate our money to things like Aids Services where they have food banks and emergency assistance. I categorically refuse to give handouts to the cardboard sign carriers. They are a danger where they stand and if they get money they will keep being in traffic. I won't give anyone money who stands in traffic or comes to my door. Not a fireman, not the heart association. Exception made for neighbor's kids and their begging if I recognize them.

Having thankfully deposited the hustler, we went home and kicked back for a little reading and watching videos.

Around four we decided to go to Grape Vine Market and see if that had the bitter orange liqueur Picon (or Amer Picon). They didn't. Said their distributor allegedly had it but never filled orders. Guess we should have brought this one back from France. We bought a tequila liqueur instead and took it home and went off to an open house.

FFP met this guy just this week. Chris owns an old house downtown that he turned into four apartments. He lives in one. We were at the party at the official start time (5ish). In other words, with the people giving the party and the caterer. That was good, though, because we got to wander the interesting house and its apartments. One belonged to a painter who did some wonderful work. His place was a bed with bath and art studio. One place belonged to a gal who knew some of the same people we know and we talked to her. We ate some of the food, drank the wine and then were talking to someone in the front yard who is a 'neighborhood planner' for the city. FFP asked for a card and she realized she had left her wallet at a bike shop. She was off making a call to the shop and we went around and got ready to leave since the place was filling up and we greeted Lloyd Doggett and family coming in. At the curb, we saw our planner friend again and she was saying into her phone, "I guess I could ride down there and get it."

We offered her a ride and she said "how would I get back...I better ride down there" and we assured her we'd bring her back to party and her bike. So we took her there and discussed losing wallets or credit cards, neighborhoods and travel until we had gone to S. 1st to a bike shop and returned to the downtown/University party.

We'd intended to stop at Central Market for supper but we'd eaten a lot at the party. So we just went home. We watched Fahernheit 451 and read (how funny is that?) and switched to some TV and went to sleep.

pots at Big Red Sun

Dreaming Again!

AUSTIN, Texas, July 9, 2004 — I wake up dreaming again. My dad and I are getting ready to go on a trip in part of it. We are sorting through stuff to see if we want it. It isn't our stuff but we are suggesting tossing some of it. I held up a batch of wire hangers and suggested getting rid of them. Fascinating, huh? Dreams seem to keep me pinned to the bed. Or maybe it's staying up late or eating late or going to see musicals based on porn movies.

Anyway, I get up around 7:15 or 7:30 but I don't want to go to the club right away. If I go around noon then there isn't as much competition for the machines and I want to do my legs, back and biceps today. Or maybe I'm just lazy. I play around on the computer (shopping for a lamp, answering e-mail, doing my journal, signing up for a film festival, checking when the Austin journalers are getting together). I drink coffee and have breakfast. Somewhere in there I call my dad and check on him. He called last night while we were gone but he wasn't answering the phone the rest of the day. He tells me he went to a movie with a friend. He can't remember the name of it. He tells me that after the movie, his friend bought (or maybe it was rented) the video of Cold Mountain and they watched it at her house. He'd never do movies with my mom. Almost never. Sometimes we all talked him into it. He's lonely, though, so he accepts any invitation to do anything.

Then it's time, I think, to look at some of the movies I'm screening for AFF. Before I go to the club. That way I'll be at the club when there aren't many people in the gym and no class occupying machines.

I watch some short films. I really like this batch of films which, I hope, isn't saying more than I should based on my confidentiality agreement about the reviewing.

I go to the gym. I get through my routine by reading, even between sets of weight stuff.

I return home. It's late (2:45) to consider lunch but I do. Then I talk to my dad and acquire a couple more duties on his behalf and putter around on the computer. But I have to eat or I won't be hungry at seven when we are going to Zoot. (Now there's an excuse for eating...so you will have time to get full and get hungry again.) I have nachos and get a shower.

I work on a packing list for my dad and before long he comes over. I make a one sheet thing that shows his meds, his itinerary, phone numbers of people he will visit. I scan his passport for reference in case it's lost.

I review a couple more movies for AFF (including one that I can't finish) and Dad and FFP and I watch the news.

Then we are off to Zoot. We meet LG and have a nice time catching up. She's ready to go back to Europe. Well, me, too.

At home, we watch a movie about Gaugin (Paradise Found) which isn't too great and we start watching Tortilla Soup although when we realize it is a faithful but not as good rip-off of Eat Drink Man Woman we are disappointed. We fall asleep before finishing it.

Geegaws on a shelf.

Dreaming

AUSTIN, Texas, July 8, 2004 — I was thinking yesterday that I haven't been dreaming much. Or, at least, not remembering my dreams. But I made up for it this morning. I woke up amidst one dream and kept going back to sleep and collecting another. And another. Travel, Nazis, other stuff I've now forgotten. I remember wondering why these people were traveling in an open car and then seeing someone slide down the rail of a long staircase to the shore.

So I got up sort of late. Before eight o'clock but I was making the bed when FFP came in from working out! I tidied up a little and had coffee. I worked on editing the article I'm writing and put up the journal. I e-mailed people about social occasions and the article and just chit-chat. Then it was ten o'clock. But...I have no hard and fast appointments until the evening, when we are going to see a show at Arts on Real. So there is plenty of time.

I poke around some more with the journal. I'm wondering about it again. I mean, it's a river of words but will I ever go fishing in it for something worthwhile. Will I, in short, ever edit myself?

Somehow before I can get myself to the gym, I get hungry. I eat and then I'm feeling like I don't want to go until I've digested a little. But I finally go to the gym, do some exercise, go to the grocery store, come home and stow the groceries and go drop off and pick up cleaning and laundry.

Home again, I decide to screen a few films for Austin Film Festival and so I do, watching all the latest ones I collected on DVD in the bedroom while glancing at papers. This is a good batch of films, features and shorts alike.

I finally shower up and I get dressed and FFP and I go see the show at Arts on Real. It's called Debbie Does Dallas. Yep, that was a somewhat famous porn film.

Going home we first run into a huge amount of traffic (leaving the Erwin Center?) which all seems to want to go north on IH35. We figure it's a C&W show or something and everyone who went lives in Round Rock or Taylor but I later find out it was the circus. Yep, all those Dell wonks who live in Round Rock taking the kids to the circus. We finally get across IH35 and there isn't much traffic but every light is red.

At home we go to sleep fairly soon because it's late.

Something we Own.

Drifting

AUSTIN, Texas, July 7, 2004 — I'm working on my article this morning and it makes me late for water aerobics. Not too late, though. Then I am sort of drifty in the gym. I don't know why. Because a class is sort of in my way or something. Then, at home, I just seem to be doing stuff on the computer that is random. I decide to make a book of pictures for the vet we accompanied to D-Day. Just to see what these books look like. That takes time. I eat late. I fix something on FFP's computer. I watch some DVDs to get them in the mail. I putter around trying to schedule social and tennis stuff.

We go to a movie in the evening, a special showing of Hitler's Pawn. This will be shown on HBO next Wednesday night. It isn't a brilliantly filmed piece in my opinion but it is extremely moving and it will send chills through you to think of the people who escaped Hitler and those that didn't. And how the world chose to put blinders on.

Home from the movie, I read a little, watch some Law and Order and finish watching the Christo documentaries.

Looking Toward Montmartre from atop the Arc de Triomphe

Climb Back Up

AUSTIN, Texas, July 6, 2004 — When I wake up, I realize that I should get up and maybe work out in the gym before my tennis workout. But I don't. I mess around with my computer. I'm trying to get my travel pictures on Snapfish so I can print some if I wish for myself or others. For some reason it keeps messing up. (I finally attribute this to ad blocking by a Mcafee product although I can't be sure.)

I get to the tennis courts at Westwood at eight and run around and sweat for an hour in a drill with a coach and two other ladies. I should work out more. But I don't. I go home. I make phone calls and mess with my computer. Finally I eat lunch and go take my dad to Academy and advise him on buying jeans and a pair of black velcro-closure walking shoes for his trip. Two weeks to go, I tell him. Got to get prepared. I go online and buy a medical and evacuation policy.

After Dad's errand I stop by the house and get the movies I've watched for the Austin Film Festival and take them down to the office and return them and do the paperwork and get some more.

At home, I get stuck in labeling the pictures I've uploaded to Snapfish. (If you want to see the pictures as a slide show there, let me know.)

Then it is time to go dine with our friend Tom, owner of Fonda San Miguel. We see his latest redecorations of the restaurant including new chairs, fabulous wall and ceiling treatments and a new painting, a reproduction of a famous Mexican market scene. We have some fabulous food and wine. (Big House White, A Flowers Pinot Noir and a big jammy Ridge Lytton Springs.) We talk, politics and travel, food and wine.

Then it's time to go home. I am in a much better mood. I don't know if it's the drinking or what! But my mood is considerably elevated. I read and watch a little TV.

Paris Shop Window, Glass Sculpture

Let down

AUSTIN, Texas, July 5, 2004 — Feeling a real let down today. No reason really. It could be the heat. Whenever you go out, there it is. A suffocating heat that will, of course, get worse as summer goes on.

I thought I'd go grab a workout before doing water aerobics. I didn't. I messed around with the computer. I am having program crashes I don't understand and I was getting them with IE doing uploads to Snapfish. I tried to download and reinstall IE. I couldn't figure it out. I could get things to work but sometimes it crashed.

I went to water aerobics. Dad was there. Eventually there were three other ladies. We didn't have an instructor. Which was fine really. I just never feel like it's much exercise. When I got out of the water, I was looking for my cell phone. I couldn't find it but I figured I left it at home. It worried me a little. I rode the exercise bike for thirty minutes and went home. My phone was there. I'm always losing track of my phone or a book or something for a few minutes. It makes me feel lost but then I usually feel good when I find it. Not today. I knew it would be at home. It was. Ho hum.

I got showered and groomed and dressed and went to meet a friend I was going to interview for FFP's column. We'd agreed to meet at Thistle on 360. I'd never been there. Never even been to this shopping center. I got there early and located the place and it was closed. I meant to call on Friday and check on this but forgot. I waited for my friend so we could choose another place. Other people kept coming and finding the place closed. Other people were meeting each other, too, and having to wait for their friends and decide where to go. It was no big deal, really. But it bugged me a little. When my friend came, we walked down to Maudie's and ate and talked a long time. I didn't take many notes but I think (along with a resume) that I have enough almost material. My friend was cheerful and had many interesting things to say. Nevertheless, I felt down.

I went home. FFP's interview of the day had missed the ten o'clock appointment he'd thought they had and he'd reset for three o'clock. He was soon off for that. I went to get some gas. I considered doing another errand, reconsidered, wrote part of my column, snacked and read papers. When FFP got home, I was ready to just kick back and read and watch some DVDs or TV. I am useless. That's just what I do. I read papers and watch some Christo documentaries while FFP soaked in the tub. We watch a bunch of crime drama and FFP finds a documentary about creating a dance performance. All the while I read papers. When he's ready for sleep I start watching a movie on cable that I had in my Netflix rental queue. For some reason I feel compelled to stay up until it's over.

my friend seemed cheerful

Holiday Weekend

AUSTIN, Texas, July 4, 2004 — Breakfast at Wimbledon. Independence Day.

It's really two in the afternoon in London. FFP and I planned to watch the match (Men's Final) here, by ourselves. Then we invited my old college buddies over. (Actually went to high school with this one gal.)

I'm not sure they'll show up but I get up around seven, make up the bed, get out some pastries and stuff and tidy up the piles of newspapers. (Mostly by sticking them in my office.)

People come over and the Wimby final struggles through a couple of rain delays. Everyone leaves before it's over. FFP and I watch it until Federer prevails. Then we decide to see Fahrenheit 9/11 and we go to Barnes and Noble first and wander around and then get to the movie early to get at the front of the line.

We spend a little time at home reading and then go to see fireworks downtown. We've been invited to a party at a law firm that has an outside balcony with a view of the lake. We haven't been feeling very Independence Day today although I did notice some 'flag wear' at the movies.

We enjoy the party because we talk to a few people and the fireworks are fun and it's also fun to look at all the crowds and stuff around downtown from the twentieth floor. We get out as fast as we can and get home to a bit of reading and TV.

Paris shop window

Holiday Weekend

AUSTIN, Texas, July 3, 2004 —It feels like a holiday, even to my non-working self. I get up around seven. At eight I start watching the Wimbledon Ladies Final while sorting my France books and other stuff in my office. I watch that until it is over and then go to the gym.

When I come home from the gym, Dad is there. I offer him lunch but he doesn't take any...says he will go home for lunch. FFP is eating so I do, too, and visit with Dad. He goes to look at the garden next door and leaves and then SuRu comes to put together an easel that I bought FFP for an anniversary present.

When that is done, she leaves and I do some work on my journal.

I have to attend this wedding and reception this afternoon. I'm a little apprehensive about it for some reason. I don't know why. Because I haven't seen the groom's parents in a while. They are my friends. I've kidded them a little about this being the boy's second wedding and that these occasions seem to be the only time we see each other. I can't explain being abashed by this...because it is true! But I am. Maybe I feel bad about kidding them and pointing out this obvious fact that we never see each other except at weddings. Maybe these big weddings (it would have to be big for such peripheral folks as us to be invited) just make me nervous in general. Maybe I'm feeling this apprehension because FFP has agreed to go with me. I've asked him several times if he really wanted to go and he has said sure and that he had 'put me through plenty of things.' So it's clear the wedding is an ordeal but that he will endure it for me. Which makes me question why I said we'd go. I think maybe we should just go to the reception which is in town whereas the wedding is out beyond civilization. (Well, out on River Place anyway.)

It's not that big a deal I tell myself. But I realize that I'd rather go to a funeral than a wedding. What does that say about me?

Well, the wedding is at this out of the way place off Riverplace. But it is mercifully short...about seventeen minutes...about fifteen minutes longer than my wedding but still short enough. We stop to look some friends' house being built on the way back to town and stop and look at our house and look at the mail and let the dog out. We still beat some of the people to the reception. The reception is OK. There is cheese and fruit. Then there is a buffet which is not too bad. We don't eat the cake. We dance one number and leave when they crank up the music. We have devoted four hours to the wedding. Long enough. I wish them well and hope it lasts at least as long as ours.

We head home and stop at Central Market for some pastry and stuff as I invited my old college friends to come by in the morning. And we settle in to relax and read and watch tube. My friend from college, the mother of the bride, reads this journal. (Yes, she is one of the select three or four.) She says I'm too hard on myself for not being productive enough, not working out hard enough, etc. etc. It's all talk to cover my basic lazy nature, though. I don't really intend to do better.

I'm Happy Today

AUSTIN, Texas, July 2, 2004 —How often can we say that really? Given my life, it should be a lot. But we tend to need a little extra something to be happy about, no matter the greatness of our basic circumstances.

Sometimes I think its' just brain chemicals splashing around. Because what was so special about today?

I decided not to go to the club too early. I didn't have any appointments until the evening. It isn't so crowded in the gym around lunch time.

I changed the sheets on the bed and started the dirty ones in the wash. I did some things on my computer, did a little reading. I put the Capresso coffee maker through its cleaning cycle.

When I went to the gym, I was determined to get through what I considered an adequate workout. I kept having to bribe myself to do it (reading a paragraph or two of my book betwee sets, for example) but I did it.

I felt upbeat when I went home. My garage door opener was acting funky. I didn't care. FFP had trouble using my digital camera on his interview but I managed to edit one picture he got to good effect.

The Wimbledon was rain delayed but ESPN showed already played matches I watched in between things and when I got home the rain had stopped and I watched the (delayed) coverage on network and the scoreboard online. Then there is another rain delay. Here in Austin today it's sunny for a change. And I'm in a sunny mood. (And no I don't think it's related.)

I bump around the house, happily reading this, eating my lunch and cleaning up. I take a shower and decide that, if FFP gets through his day reasonably early, we should stop at a gallery on our way out for the evening. There is a gallery that has works by Lance Letscher (whose works we saw at the AMOA yesterday) and I liked his stuff and would like to see them. We are going out to hear some music tonight, to Roy's to see Kevin Ahart.

FFP comes down around three-thirty while I'm sitting damp from my shower watching a documentary on Christo. I asked if he's pretty much done for the day and he says that he is. I suggest the gallery show and while I'm getting ready he calls and finds out that they are open until six. The gallery is in the University area. We easily find a parking place...everyone has fled for the 4th weekend. We see the gallery show. It's amazing...they have a couple of dozen works by this guy and they are mostly sold. We go next door to a art center where they have some indifferent stuff on display. We go around to Women and Their Work but they are already closed. On a whim we go see if Atomic City is open and buy a DC-3 chrome toy which I hope to put in the vitrine table in our bedroom but which is too high. I'll put it on the 'knickknack' shelf. Always like to buy something from this guy whose tiny old house shop is crowded with weird shoes, toys, books on tattoos and collectibles of various kinds.

It's early for the show at Roy's but we head that way and find a parking place right beside it on the street. We go in. There isn't a place to sit as Kevin's relatives and some other people have reserved tables. We perch here and there and get a drink and some butterfish (this is a delicious dish) and then the music starts and our friends Jon and Marie come and we perch at the bar, getting more comfortable as people leave. We end up having more snacks and drinks, talking to each other through the music which is fine and sweet, Kevin being ably accompanied by a trumpet/flugelhorn player and a pianist.

We go home a little after eight, watch the TV and read and I do a little more snacking.

Things worked well today from working out when it wasn't crowded to getting to see the gallery show one day before it closed to squeezing in for the musical show and seeing friends to getting home early and getting to bed early, too.

I don't think I could have been happier but there wasn't any reason for it.

The Aulers of Fall Creek Fame

Things go Well

AUSTIN, Texas, July 1, 2004 —Some days some things go OK. Better than expected, you know. This was one of those days.

I got to the gym and got some semblance of a workout (I've got to do better but at least I did more minutes on the bike today). At home I ate breakfast, did a bit of work on the computer. My dad called. They were about to work on the surface of his street and he didn't want to get our cars in the mess. I was supposed to go shopping with him. He suggested we meet somewhere and he would escape now. I told him to go to the book store and wait in the coffee shop.

I shower up and go to the book store. Sure enough, Dad's van is parked in a handicapped place with his shield displayed. I find him reading a Texas Gardening magazine and drinking coffee. I have taught him well. I get a Iced Americana and go get all the Dublin books they have and a book on Irish food and glance through them. I end up buying three. I thought I'd just read them in the book store but you know how I am. The book store surely counts on this. Dad puts the magazines he borrowed to read back on the shelf, I pay and we set out.

First we go to Ross Dress for Less. Dad wants socks. He picks some and also gets some undershirts. That was pretty easy. Then we go to REI. After some head-scratching we find an anorak that fits well enough and is on sale. This is all he wanted to buy except for some jeans. He says he will go to Academy and get these for himself. I can't believe it was this easy. Yea!!!

So...we go to North by Northwest and celebrate with lunch. Then I take me back to my car and we say goodbye.

I have time to work on the journal when I get home. I post June stuff although I'm still correcting it along the way. I finish reading my book.

SuRu comes over. I always say that you can do museums and dining in your own home town. It isn't the Louvre and a Three Star, but still. FFP, SuRu and I go downtown and meet Gayle at AMOA on Congress. They have a show of Lance Letscher and Manny Farber pieces. It is a show I really like because I'm interested in collage and popular culture themes. I also like a bunch of the pieces as 'art I would not mind on my walls.'

Next we go to The Jones Center (7th and Congress) and see New American Artists. Some of these pieces are not to my taste. But they are, um, somewhat grounbreaking. And a couple I consider really good and interesting and even worthy of a wall of mine.

Time to eat. We go to Roaring Fork in the Stephen F. Austin Intercontinental and have a meal.

I eat too much and feel painfully full. We go home and I watch a bit of tube and read. Then sleep!

souvenir menu from L'Auberge de I'Ill