AUSTIN, Texas, Mar. 29, 2005 — When things change, there is an adjustment. An acceptance. A new way of looking at things. This back problem of my dad's has made him almost an invalid for a week now. It takes some getting used to. Will he come back from it?

I don't know what to do when I get up. It's fairly early. I call my dad. He is up. He slept well (painkiller) but he hurts. He 'hasn't done anything.' He hasn't taken the anti-inflamatory because he hasn't had breakfast. But he acts like he can handle it. And he knows he has to eat with it. He wants to know what day it is. He is worried it is Wednesday and he doesn't have the trash out. I promise to get it out for tomorrow. I don't know if I should be leaving him alone. FFP needs some help with a WEB page and I help him.

I go get a short workout. Half hour on the bike and a couple of sets of bicep curls and static lunges. I go home, call the doctor's office to tell them Dad had the xrays and make sure the doc reads them.

I make some guacamole for the retirement party I'm going to and take a shower and fold some clothes. Dad's doctor calls and says the xrays show nothing wrong except relatively moderate (for his age?) spinal compression. So we need to pursue getting the muscle problems healed (anti-inflamatory drugs, rest). Now I will try to get him to try a chiropractor as well.

Someone from my old firm is retiring. There is a retirement party weiner roast at the company today. I go by there with my guacamole offering in hand. I see a lot of people I know. A few are probably wondering who the heck I am. One, whom I know pretty well, I can't recall his name. OK, two. They will come to me, I'm sure. After I mull over them for a day or two. It's so good to see everyone. It's so hard to keep up with all the people I really like and find interesting in this world.

I go from my old company's office to Dad's. It's close by. That's one of the reasons that I bought that house for my parents in 2000 when I still worked. He has gotten the paper out of the driveway! Hurray. I go in, discuss his progress. He seems to be better but still using the cane, complaining of pain. I get in the mail and put the garbage can out. I sit and read the paper, work the crossword, talk to him. We call my aunt who is finishing her winter stay in the Dallas area and returning to Maine. My other aunt in Dallas has had some problems. We discuss everyone's medical condition. Sigh. I feel great myself for what it is worth. Forrest calls on the other line while we discuss things with my aunt. He has made an appointment to look at a condo downtown. Well, not really downtown but just south of the university.

I go home, fool with a few things and take off for downtown with FFP. We are early so we look in on a couple of neighborhood galleries and look around the pool and public rooms of the building. Our realtor comes and shows us the condo. It needs serious remodeling but it has potential. We also look at a remodeled one that is for lease. It is done very nicely but they probably spent a fortune. We would like to get a condo but it will be a while before we will be out from under our other real estate. (Our house, Dad's house.) There would be purchase and remodeling but, more importantly, the additional ongoing expenses: homeowners, taxes, insurance, etc.) We fret about it a little.

We go home, eat a snack and get ready to go see a sneak preview of what we think is a movie but is really a couple of episodes of something off Sundance Channel. We wonder if it is a documentary or a fake one. Turns out The Staircase is an amazing documentary series which has all this 'behind the scenes' access to people involved in a murder trail. It is a disquieting thing to watch.

When we get home there is a tearful message on the machine from someone Forrest has written two week's worth of columns about to start next week. His wife, mentioned and pictured in the columns, has died suddenly. He wants the columns pulled. I didn't meet the woman but met the man briefly. He seemed nice. They were 80-somethings but still it was a shock. FFP starts scrambling to replace the columns. I notice the water pressure is weird. Then FFP notices it, too. But it's too late to call the neighbors. We check around for a leak on our side of the meter. We go to sleep and I'm fitful. People dying, murder documentaries, Dad's troubles, leaks or city water pressure issues.