AUSTIN, Texas, May 7, 2005 — We really want to do the Heritage Society home tour and we are volunteer servers for a wine thing for Mobile Loaves and Fishes tonight. Of course, I'd like a little gym time and some down time. I've asked Dad if he could do without a visit and he said yes. Still I give him a call around eight. He says he's OK but woke up a little sore. That seems to happen every morning after he's done a lot of walking with his walker.

I dally with the computer and some writing and surfing and finally get to the gym. I only do a little over thirty minutes on the bike and some

scapula squeezes. I go home and shower up and have some yogurt and cereal and we go to the home tour in Travis Heights. We hit all the houses that are open to tour. We see a number of people we know along the way. We walk between them, up and down some little hills. It's a little extra exercise. Enough that in spite of the exceptionally cool day I start sweating a little.

It's always interesting to see what people have done with their houses, how they've decorated, what art they have. With historic houses it's interesting to see how time has treated things, to hear what's original, why the house was built. Some of these Travis Heights places have spectacular views of downtown. I especially like one house, on Edgecliff, that used to be a B&B. There is a bedroom that was extended onto what was once a rooftop patio. Three sets of windows make it like sleeping in the treetops. With a view. Another house has a master with a wall of new windows mimicking the Craftsman style perfectly...and framing the modern skyline. The only time you get to be in places like this is when these events happen...unless you happen to know the people. We'd been in one of the homes for an opera party, too. We realize it when we are inside and see the unique arches between rooms and the original Dr. Seuss painting on the wall in the converted porch. In between the tour homes, we enjoy the exterior and the landscaping of the other houses, some seedy, some quirky, some wonderful. Forrest says he likes it better when the whole neighborhood is spiffed but I like the neighborhoods where you, um, have things to compare to.

We go home and eat some spinach salad and some leftover salmon and other snacks. Then I do a little writing and picture editing and then just sit in front of the tube, watching a Bruce Springsteen thing I taped off VH1 a while back and then part of an episode of ER. I read a few newspaper articles, too.

Soon, it's time to take another shower and get ready to go pour some wine. The event is out near Creedmoor at the TDS exotic game ranch. A landfill that's a ranch, really. As we go to the pavillion we see emus, ostriches, bison, longhorns and different kinds of antelope.

We get there at the appointed hour (forty-five minutes before the guests). A couple of hours later we have managed to serve wine to a bunch of folks, pass out hors d'oeuvres and advice and tasting notes, open wine bottles, tidy up, help out. And we've managed to cadge a sip of some really great wines ourselves. (A 1986 Haut Brion, a 1978 Reserve Mondavi Cab, a 1983 Riesling and a 2002 Shiraz, Ross Reserve). We went to the regular tasting and food and auction then. But we were pretty much through with it at that point. We sat around, talked to people, looked at a few auction items, nibbled. Our friend who went with us for DD service (FFP made sure he had very little wine) had purchased something in the auction. They had a snafu with the payout and we waited for an hour after it closed and gave up. Someone needs to come up with a way to make silent auctions work smoothly. Anyway, the main guy said we could just go and they'd contact her later. Should have asked sooner. A drizzle had developed by then and we dashed to our car and drove through the dark park, catching a pair of exotic eyes in the lights here and there.

Home again we looked at the election results. We weren't tremendously pleased, I'll just say. It's late. Time for watching Ebert and Roeper and going to sleep. I'm not too sleepy for some reason.

We go to lots of charity events. I'm always struck by the fact that other people seem to be having more fun than I am. I think it's because we go to so many of them. It's hard for them to show me something new. I have to admit that this one had me with the 1986 Haut Brion. I was, of course, serving it, getting a tiny taste. But I enjoyed that. And I might have paid the freight to be a guest. The rest was more like others. They did have a neat auction and a good band (Tucker Livingston) that no one seemed to be paying much heed to. The organization has Catholic roots and it was interesting to see the priest as star aspect of that. The good news is that they raised a lot of money for quite a good cause, in my opinion. Mobile Loaves and Fishes and Habitat on Wheels. These efforts quite simply bring what the homeless and hungry need to them in a direct and efficient way. They have used computers to predict where and how many clients they will have. They tried to use computers to streamline the auction. Like so many technology thrusts...it didn't work out. Maybe next year. I've decided that, in the future, before I bid at an auction, I'll ask if I can arrange to settle later and pick up my items. Or maybe we will simply stop bidding in the things. I'm often amused, looking around the house, at the art, vases, artifacts that all came from charity auctions.

I hit the bed to catch some sleep before an unplanned and unstructured Sunday.