AUSTIN, Texas, Apr. 3, 2005 — I really hate saving daylight this way. That hour grab on a spring Sunday. Being retired though, I shouldn't complain so I won't. Especially since I can do whatever I please all day. We get up. A little late but not too considering the hour lost and the fact that I was up late watching TV. I get ready for dog walking. I gather up water bottles, pack with supplies (doggie do bags, napkins, tissues, pens), cap, etc. SuRu shows up about nine, new time. We go off across the neighborhood (my current one, her old one). We readjust to the dogs tangling their lines. We go to a place on the other side of Burnet that she's considered buying.

They want $200/sq. foot for an old cottage with a cheap fix-up and detached rotting garage. It is next to a house where the owners have questionable vehicles. The yard isn't fenced. We walk a little further north and then back to Burnet back into the neighborhood, by some old haunts, by scary house which is miraculously still standing. We go to Upper Crust, have coffee and snacks and then head south a bit, by the park, south some more and head back home. We've been gone a long time but I don't know how far we walked.

At home, I have some of the food FFP bought at the store and then I work on my journal, download some pictures for FFP, send some e-mails and clean up my e-mail. Then I actually take time to update my to do list. I've been running around madly without making time for this. But before I can finish it much less do something from the 'to do' list, FFP suggests we get out of the house. So we do.

We go to Barnes and Noble. We see some people we know from the edge between the online and the real world. One seems very confused about who we are. That happens to me sometimes, with online readers who know me all too well. But these folks appear on a site that must garner scores if not hundredes of readers. We look around and consider buying stuff for ourselves. FFP listens to some albums in the music area. We end up buying a book for my great nephews and some tapes for FFP's Dad from the bargain shelves. We decide to go out to the Oasis. It's been ages. We eat some big ole nachos and tostados with shrimp and FFP has Pepsi and I have a Negro Modelo. When we first came to this area of the lake, The Oasis wasn't here. You could just go down the road to the largely undeveloped County Park called Hippie Hollow. Now there are what seems like scores of decks on many levels. Some Asian folks with a baby smoke on the level below us. The guy has what looks like a little crack pipe. Above us an Indian family is gathered, women in traditional dress and a guy in Hawaiian shorts. This is the new Austin. Otherwise, there are young blondes and buff college guys and some kids playing dominoes behind us. And older people with gray hair and grandchildren. No hippies in sight. And no one we know either.

We don't stay for the sunset. When we leave people are streaming in to do just that. We go home to watch Women's basketball. A couple of great games.

After the basketball we watch some mindless TV (Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy) off the DVR. I read the Sunday papers. Many, many words on popedom. It's at least pushed Terry Shiavo and Michael Jackson out of the way for a moment. What no heroic efforts for the Holy Father to keep him from Jesus? Shame. I got all I wanted in the newspapers. So I've been sort of avoiding news on TV. I fool around on my computer and stay up too late and then watch an episode of Northern Exposure. I should do something productive with my life. But, hey, I lost an hour and had a day off.