AUSTIN, Texas, Apr. 27, 2005 — It seems we have had this long, beautiful cool spring and I've missed it. Sitting inside at my computer, worrying over my dad or sitting in waiting rooms with him, just not getting out. This morning finds me up before eight but at 9:30 I've only glanced outside when letting the dog out.

I go for a workout eventually. I do thirty minutes on the exercise bike and three sets of one leg at a time extensions. Then I dash home. I go up to Forrest's office. Our bond broker calls us with a long-winded explanation of the progress of a failed (and uninsure) muni bond.

I work on the bookeeper's computer, trying to get Mcafee from screwing it up, getting the software reinstalled and scans done. I tell Forrest I think I'll do something outside and I go put on jeans, old boots, shirt over my TShirt, gloves, old cap. He is worried about a muddy spot. I look around for some extra stepping stones (his solution) for this spot in the shad where the grass doesn't want to grow. Can't find any so I dig up some grass growing in the path (where we don't want it) and plant a few sprigs. I pull weekds from the patio paver gaps and the mulched path. Then I go the the south fence and chop some of the bambood encroaching from the yard next door. I'm probably only out there and hour. But it's very pleasant. I sweat a little, not that much. It is after noon and there is still a cool in the air.

I go inside and work on the computer some more. I fix myself some leftovers for lunch. Then I decide to cook up some salmon we thawed and some broccoli that needs cooking. The cooking doesn't really go to my satisfaction but I get the stuff cooked and separate out some salmon to take to Dad to see if he will eat something a bit healthier.

I get a shower. Meanwhile FFP has to direct the yard men to do stuff. (They will remulch the path I pulled weeds from but I have to feel that the weeds would have poked up eventually!) And FFP has to go shop for his mother who isn't feeling well. (She usually goes shopping in a taxi.)

I decide to go to Dad's and meet FFP later for dinner and movie with friends because he still has things to do.

At Dad's house, there isn't a lot to do. He dropped and broke a bowl with some food in it but has managed with the help of a dust pan with a handle to clean it up. I tidy up the kitchen, get in the mail and garbage can, discuss things with him. My aunt in W. Texas calls and catches me up on Dad's sisters and his brother-in-law. Please, please let me stay young for a long time. It's not that I want to die young...I just want to be young a long time and then die suddenly. The business of old age is dismal.

You have to have boundaries. It's a shame what we see our grandparents, parents, aunts and so forth go through. (My grandparents on one side were gone before I knew about them and the others always seemed old so seeing the aging didn't seem so bad. Besides my mother (and dad, too) and aunts had to deal with it. I worried about my mother dealing with it. My grandmother's problems seems inevitable, the natural order of things. But it hits a little closer to home with the next generation. Plus, in the case of my dad and Forrest's parents, they live long enough that we are seeing the horizon ourselves as they face these problems. Somehow you have to say, "It's not me. It will happen to me, sooner or later, but, right now, it's happening to them. No matter how close I am to it. It is not me."

I leave my dad with his reading and TV and go to meet FFP and my friends.

We all meet a NXNW for dinner. One is running late because of phone calls. She's been laid off and is lining up stuff to look for work. One is a minute or two late because she parked at the movies and walked over. I should have done that. FFP got there early, too. When we are three we sit down, order some roasted garlic and goat cheese and wait. Even with the late arrival we have eaten and had a beer by sevenish. We go to Gateway and get into the theater for the sneak of Crash. Not to be confused with that creepy-sounding movie of the same name from 1996 (one of those 'the less I know about this movie the better off I'll be' things you are sorry you saw a preview of). No this Crash has cars and crashes (and carjacks, and car pedestrian collisions and stolen cars and chop shops) but it isn't really about the crashes. It is about people. Only a few in terms of the likelihood that they would intersect in these ways as the gigantic sprawling metropolis of LA goes. But a huge number of people in terms of keeping up with everyone. It is about people and their work and families and hopes and dreams and most of all, their prejudices. It whips along at lightning speed. I missed stuff I'm sure. (What was it about this sneak that had the people around me getting up and going for restrooms and snacks in the middle of the movie?) We were comparing it to Short Cuts after but, as I remember (and it's been a while) that one had distinct stories presented one after another with the incidental or dramatic character connections. (FFP says we have the Raymond Carver book of stories Altman based it on 'around here somewhere.)

Well, it was an enjoyable way to escape for a couple of hours. Even though, in tossing together every bit of the human condition, the movie addressed people in desperate old age and the people who care about (and for) them as well as a plethora of vocations, avocations, addictions, races, religions and beliefs. (Be careful when pulling your St. Christopher out of your pocket.)

We went home in our separate cars. I tried to give FFP directions to escape Gateway and get home most efficiently. I failed. I got gas and still beat him home.

We watched an episode of Northern Exposure and went to sleep.