AUSTIN, Texas, May 31, 2005 — See...the thing is that there are things to do. And other people to work around to get them done.

I sort of wanted to sleep in. But I got up and FFP and I made the bed. I went to my office and fussed over a project, planning our summer trip. I searched the WEB for dog boarding, got distances between spots on the U.S. map. I finished my journal for yesterday. I talked to Dad who was thinking about going to the doctor to get his blood drawn but he had forgotten to fast for it. (It's a cholesterol test.)

He says he will leave himself a note somewhere for tomorrow to remember. Yesterday our bookkeeper was saying over lunch that we are lucky that our older generation is pretty rational and sane and understanding. That's true. She told tales of her parents and her aunt and her uncle that were harrowing. I know that out of control feeling when you are no longer communicating with another rational person, age and/or illness having taken, temporarily or forever, the core that you could communicate with. I have written about my mother's delusions when she was ill. Writing about it helped, really. Taking notes at the time, organizing them, presenting them in a monologue to friends at a salon, writing the essay in this space. I think our bookkeeper tells the stories of her interactions with her relatives to confirm that it is she that is still grounded. "Once I said to my Aunt Mary, this is ----," she says. "I thought she might think I was someone else the way she was talking."

We've been spared a lot of that. Sometimes our folks don't really understand something that is going on. Imagine living long enough to have to embrace our technological world after coming up with the horse and buggy and Model T. But you can usually explain most anything if you are patient enough. They are sane and rational with no signs of dementia.

While I'm at my computer, the handyman comes. FFP has apparently ask him to touch up some paint in the kitchen. Including painting inside the cabinet under the sink. This has literally not been done since we lived in the house. Twenty-eight years, almost.

Finally I decide I've goofed off long enough. It's time to go to the gym. The one thing I almost always get done even if I don't seem to do what I should to really get fit and keep my weight down. So yeah I go to the gym, ride the bike for forty-two minutes, do a few exercises with the weight machines (not enough!) and go home.

The handyman and his wife are working away painting things. FFP is off to take a (now former since he's retiring) client to lunch. I shut myself in the master suite to take a shower.

I get a shower. I eat a snack, watch some French Open. Then I head out to Dad's. He has flown the coop, the maid service is there. I get out the garbage and go to Sam's then Costco. At Sam's I buy this toothpaste we like and a seven dollar insulated bag. AT Costco I buy chips, chicken breasts, paper towels, cereal, toilet paper and AA batteries. Shopping is dull. I look at other things. Digital cameras, tennis balls. Nothing too serious. I go home. I get the movies I screened for AFF and drive down to Nueces and return them. While some youngster half watches a documentary on jousting, I check in my films and check out another ten, a mixture of docs, shorts, student shorts, and features.

I go home. I eat a snack (OK, a plate of nachos) and scan and print some pictures for FFP's parents, get through most of the papers, watch a little tennis. The long, complicated rallies of the red clay fascinate me. Local hero Andy Roddick needs to get over to my club and practice on the dirt, though.

Our friend Curtis comes by and we three go to 34th Street. We listen to Curtis' tales from his life: bike riding, a workout routine (and an aerobic exercise contest at work), his administrative work at a hospital. He is younger than us by almost two decades. We met him in the early nineties some time through an online bulletin board. Curtis relayed the mystic of the Donna cat memorial to us back in those days and he lived in the Clarksville area then. He's a south Austinite now. He has a different prospective and we almost never bump into him. We intentionally get together maybe twice a year. Yeah, he was at our Christmas party and now it's almost June.

After dinner, Curtis and I talk some more while FFP runs an errand to Central Market to get some supplement he's been taking. Curtis has to go at nine...he gets to work very early.

FFP and I watch a little TV. I finish up the day's papers and start on some of the old ones in the pile. Sleep comes as it always does.