AUSTIN, Texas, Apr. 22, 2005 — Things can't change all at once. At least not for the better. (Ever notice how accidents and illness and death and destruction can happen in seconds, but rehab and rebuilding and wellness and stuff comes slowly?) I don't feel that great when I wake up. I try to sleep some more but it doesn't work. I get up. I dress for a workout and call my dad. He says the neighbor is going to get his paper on his way to work. I tell him I'll come later.

I fool around with my computer and finally get off to the gym after FFP has gone and come back.

On the way in I talk to the water aerobics class. They miss Dad. I have a little pressure headache. I get an extra cup of coffee from the coffee bar at the club and have that while riding the recumbent bike and reading yesterday's The Wall Street Journal. I sweat. I talk to some more people asking about Dad. I do three sets of one leg at a time leg extensions and go home.

I call Dad. A friend of mine is visiting him and has brought him a dessert. He says one of his 'girlfriends' from the church will come by after the Senior play day. I say I'll do his shopping and be over there later.

I shower and watch a few shows off the DVR. I take my time. I go around 12:30 to Randall's in my neighborhood and get his groceries: cranberry juice, cottage cheese and champagne. (The latter is really sparkling wine from California and it's for his friend as a present. He isn't drinking at the moment.)

When I get there, his friend from church is still visiting. We talk a while, she leaves. I heat up some food for him and visit while he eats. He says his appetite isn't good but he eats most of the food and then eats a small piece of cake. I get him water and cranberry juice by his chair. I offer to go get him some more pull-on pants. He says, "How about some shorts?" He demonstrates that he can use the walker to get back in his easy chair. He says he can "stand on both feet." He means he can put weight on both feet at once without unbearbable pain. He does seem to be doing a bit better.

I go to academy and get him some pull on workout shorts and get myself a new geeky cheap Timex with Indiglo and a date and ticking seconds and an alarm and a band that will bear sweating on. Then I go to Randall's and get two copies of the key to Dad's house for neighbors to have. Just for safety's sake.

Back at Dad's I give him his stuff. He says he took a nap. Do I need to do anything else for him? Nope, he says, just go home before the traffic. I think he is improving. A little bit every day.

At home, I find the maid is working (she is normally here Tuesday and I think she was actually but probably didn't finish) so I retreat to my office. I mess around a bit with my computer. Just playing. FFP and I talk. We decide to go eat at Starlite. I download a picture for him and edit it for his newspaper column. I work a little on my project for my club.

Starlite. The food is nice. I ask the waitress about the Pinot Noir on the wine list and she says it isn't very good. I get a Shiraz which is OK but not very bright and fruity like most of its brethren. I get the soup special. It's a warm avocado soup with bacon and a prawn. It is the first warm avocado soup I've ever had. It's OK. Good in fact. I eat the roll. Nice and warm with butter. I get this olive pasta that has a yellow tomato coulis and is like little envelopes. Crêpe-like pasta folded into envelopes. It's very, very good but small and not very filling.

We go home. On the way, near our house, someone points to one of the tires on FFP's car. (He's driving as usual, the long-suffering hubby who drives when we go together.) We pull over and look. Almost flat. We go on home since it's only about two blocks at that point and the tire isn't quite on the rim. FFP tries to get the gas station nearby to see if they will fix it. Not tonight. We decide to deal with it tomorrow.

We go inside and watch TV and read. We decide Third Watch is stupid with facile plot lines. A vampire cult stalking Emily after she was friendly with a pimply-faced coffee shop attendant? Bosco getting someone else to shoot his firing range test (after asking Faith and getting refused) because he has eye problems but the medicos can't tell it? And what's with the bandage over his bullet-mauled face? Department can't afford plastic surgery? And now Finney (whose Dad was the dirty cop who committed suicide) is hurt after an accident caused by a guy who is rebelling from a cult that abuses children and the Latino vice sargeant (name slips me) has cancer but her spirits are cured (and she agrees to chemo) after an encounter with a spiritualist. Oh and Davis and the IA girlfriend that he loved, hated, loved are both hurt. He in the traffic accident and she shot by Bosco in a botched arrest and she lost his baby? What is this Dallas meets Hill Street Blues? It's silly. Why do I watch?

We watch an episode off the DVR of Northern Exposure. The episode had Holling's daughter show up (who is twice Shelly, his girlfriend's, age) creating a controversy over whether Holling was sterile; a troop of people in slinky, giant hand and other clunky costumes some including toilet paper rolls, showing up led by Bob, who was with a circus that came around earlier and who doesn't speak but can fly and loves Marilyn; Ed finding a ring in a fish (but not while gutting it, while eating it) and it caused him to have Frederico Fellini hallucinations (including being chased by midgets and nuns and such); the Bubble man working on a will for Maurice the astronaut to include his Korean son. And, yeah, I loved every minute because, of course, we are all in on the jokes. What's the difference? How seriously you take it, I guess. NE knows it's a joke and Third Watch doesn't.

I snack on some cheese and chips and try to read the paper. Still lots of Pope press. About the new pope's neighbors in Bavaria, his brother the priest, how he wanted to be a cardinal when he saw the outfit at five. And an article about how the British are focused on his German roots, about how the Brits just can't get over Germans being Nazis. And, yeah, that cardinal was a great collaborator it is alleged. (The one whose outfit set Benedict the XVI on his righteous path.) I've mixed feelings about a former Hitler Youth being Pope. The one side says that times were hard and people 'had no choice.' And yet some did choose to object and go to concentration camps. And some people's choices were a little tougher. If he really was a victim, then that should put him into a position to appreciate victimhood.

On the other hand, truth and reconciliation is a good rule. Besides the Pope is not my leader. Nor the leader for the majority of the Brits. In a way, it's none of my business. Except he's not exactly just a religious leader. He leads a small country which (in spite of their poor mouth attitude and their need to run an elaborate duty free store to 'make ends meet') is wealthy and has some indirect control over a billion people.

Religion is causing a lot of problems around the world. Not that secular powers are much better. Power causes problems. The attention to the Pope is not too different to me than the attention to the Aytollahs or Jerry Falwell. A religion with a lot of power annoints a head, concentrates that power. The Pope, I read, says he 'expects a short reign.' Well, he is 78. Still, he could easily live ten years or more. Perhaps without Parkinson's and taking a bullet. Maybe he will look less like a propped up puppet for the last bit of his reign. Maybe they should think about term limits. We know, see, that we only have to put up with W or Bill Clinton or somebody of that ilk for eight years. Something to think about.

So, yeah, my dad, who is 88 and has fewer health problems than the old Pope did (John Paul II) in spite of his recent incapacitation. He seems to be slowly recovering strength. My dad, not the dead pope. He has some soreness but less shooting pain. Maybe he'll be back soon. Maybe he'll be the amazing 88-year-old again. Today he was talking about maybe getting in good enough shape to go on a trip in June. I realized today, though, that I needed to give him time to recover. Even a minor surgery with general anesthesia takes it out of you. He's been sleeping nine or ten hours a night, taking naps. I have been projecting on him. I'd be bored. I asked him today if he wanted me to go buy him a new book. But he was happy with the doctor joke book and his newspaper and magazines. I'd be itching to get out of the house but he is delighted to be there, I think. And maybe, every day, he's getting a little bit better. Which is what we hope for.