AUSTIN, Texas, June 21, 2005 — I have some hard and fast duties today. Nothing much, really. Take Dad to a doctor and all that entails. Does the doctor have his reports? Did I get all the paperwork filled out? What kind of follow-up is the doctor going to want?

I have to call a friend or two also. One sent an e–mail indicating she hadn't heard back from a message she sent and I'm wondering if she's getting my email; another is supposed to be back in town and I sent an e-mail but she hasn't responded. Hmm, and the doctor hasn't responded

to an e-mail about whether the reports and scans got to the specialist for my dad. Is there a pattern? Are people not getting my e-mails? That would be bad especially if they didn't get returned so you wouldn't know it. One friend of mine has two e-mails, work and personal. Sometimes both accounts return mail to me for no good reason. But at least I know she didn't get it.

My other duty today is to go out to dinner. Sounds like not a duty and really it will be fun but we are having dinner with someone we hope to cultivate for giving and volunteering for one of our causes. They seem like fun and 'our kind of folks' though and so maybe it will just be a social thing. I would have dinner with my cousin's wife and child who are coming to spend the night with Dad on the college tour of Texas. Hard to believe that little kid is going to college next year. But I'll have to just say 'hello' to them because we already planned this other dinner. I have to get Dad through the doctor and get him home and maybe his visitors will be there so I can say hi. Of course, they aren't really coming for a visit, just passing through between Southwestern in Georgetown (the little town north of here, not the one near D.C.) and Trinity in San Antonio and Texas State University (not to be confused with U.T. but the one in San Marcos that used to be called Southwest Texas State University, I think, but that was confusing because it wasn't all that far south or west). I'm glad I'm not headed off to college now. (B.A. 1970 North Texas State University, now University of North Texas, thank you very much, although it isn't that far north compared to the Panhandle).

Of course I want to exercise. To screen a few films and do a bit more trip planning. Get the family budget for June started so it will be easy to finish when the month is over.

I wake up and realize I've been dreaming all these unpleasant dreams. In one, I have from one time to another, missing toes or extra toes. There are other unpleasant dreams, too, or at least the confusing ones where you are losing things. From time to time I wake up and think about packing for the trip and things I need to do and fret in the conscious state, I think. Otherwise I slept well. Really.

I am a little fuzzy when I first get up and let the dog out. I gave the triceps and shoulders a good workout yesterday, I can feel it. I'm fine after I've had my coffee, though, plotting my day. FFP mentioned that the dog needs some of the pills she takes for her liver problem. I think occasionally how amusing it is that she is the only one in the family who regularly takes a prescription drug. Well, she's older, considering dog life spans and all. Dad is up to six different drugs a day. If you count the baby aspirin. I read in The New York Times yesterday that scientists have observed that creatures live to a maximum lifespan of six times the age at which they are completely mature. That age for humans is about twenty. (Although parents of college students may dispute this.) Ergo the maximum is 120 years. If "nothing goes wrong" the article stated. Interesting to note is that the oldest recorded human was 122 or something. Dogs are pretty mature at one and a half, maybe completely at three or less so their lifespans of usually not more than sixteen or seventeen is about right. Poodles have a long lifespan, for dogs, and seem immature longer, too. Our little Chalow is fourteen as of April. If she were human, she would be right up there with our parents. She doesn't need a cane yet, though. Even my mother-in-law said she was going to start carrying one when she went out.

So that's going to be my day. Finding the new doctor's office, getting Dad in there, dealing with that. Getting pills for the dog. Calling people on the phone. Have I mentioned before how I hate phoning? I so much prefer e-mail. Oh, I do phone. I do a lot of it. FFP probably thinks I never phone. Because, truthfully, I push it off on him a lot of time. If I could, I'd have someone phone for me all the time. Not really. That would be funny, though, if I had a secretary to phone my dad's doctors for him. As it is I sometimes get push back because of the privacy deals. I carry around a medical power-of-attorney and a full power-of-attorney for dad so if it ever comes to a real issue, I'm ready. It is my dad's shyness gene, I think, that makes phoning unpleasant for me and that makes him want me to do it. Add to that basic personality trait having a hearing loss and having some phones tweet back at him with his hearing aid and he really doesn't like phone.

So, yeah, my life is a dream compared to when I worked and had to call people in other countries on the phone. (Although I always hoped e-mail would suffice.) I used to deal with the little things I will deal with today and try to work and organize and deal with programs, presentations, problem reports, evaluations, marketing materials, documentation, bugs, bug reports, fixes, designs, proposals, hiring, etc. All requiring e–mail, calls, writing, meetings (ugh!). You'd think with that big bag of caca out of my life that it would be a dream. And, truthfully, it is a dream. And not the one where toes are disappearing or multiplying.

So, finally I call the GP's office (although they call themselves family practitioners today, don't they?). A nice assistant checks and my dad's stuff has been faxed to the specialist. Cool.

Then I call my friend who didn't get one of my e-mails. She got the one yesterday, but we talk about all kinds of things for a while. Dad calls while I'm on the phone with her and I tell him I'll call him back later. I call him back and tell him when I will pick him up for the doctor's appointment.

So by 8:45, I'm so relieved. I don't have to call anyone else today! Oh, well, maybe one person about a social thing. But first I'll have my exercise, thank you. Get it done well before I'm rushed about getting to Dad's to pick him up.

So I'm off to the gym. I do fifty minutes on the recumbent bicycle while reading about Michelin stars, goat meat and other topics in the Dining Out Section of The New York Times from last Wednesday. Supposedly you can stay healthy if you do a vigorous cardio activity three times a week for thirty minutes. I can't keep the weight off that way, however. I'm struggling to stay under 160 with my eating habits as it is. After the cardio, I do a few static lunges and some leg lift things. I should do more. But I go home. FFP is fooling with our finances, still in his workout clothes. Ah, retirement. He has found out that a stock we own has split. It is one we bought in three separate lots so we spend a few minutes looking up our portfolio info. I eat a banana and make the last phone call. My friend isn't home. I'm trying to set up a date to go to a museum at the university (Harry Ransom Center) and she hasn't answered e-mail. Maybe she isn't home and that's why. Ah, that's the life. When your duties revolve around making dates for lunch, dinner and enlightening museum visits. Of course, there is always the doctor visits for dad to 'take the joy out of life.' (That's a phrase of my dad's.)

It's eleven. I have to pick Dad up at 1:30 or 1:45, something like that. So I shower, have some lunch (pimento cheese sandwich, carrots, green onions, V8 juice) and watch some Wimbledon coverage and get dressed and groomed. I wish I could watch all the Wimbledon coverage but that would be a full-time job. And it would involve watching Steffi and Andre a billion times if you did it in real time and didn't watch the DVR version, which is my preferred method. My friend calls back and we finalize our social event. No more phone calls. Yea! We gab about several topics for several minutes. Soon it's time to go get Dad for the visit with the new doctor.

I get to Dad's even before we need to leave for getting there early which we always try to do. So he has me look through statements from doctors, Medicare and Blue Cross. Looks like his back surgery is getting paid for and his PT.

We head out early which is good because we have to wander around the wrong parking lot before finding the right building. I already have the paperwork filled out and I just get Dad's signature in a couple of places. I hand them a scan of his insurance cards. We are ushered into a tiny room. An aide asks some questions. The same questions that have already been answered by the forms. She takes his blood pressure. And we wait. An RN comes in and listens to his heart and asks more questions that have already been answered on paper. We wait some more. Somewhere in there my cousin's wife calls and while we are alone I call back and give her directions to Dad's house.

During some of our time alone in the tiny room, Dad says, "The only thing these doctors do wrong is keeping all us old boys alive."

"Maybe that's not it," I say. "Maybe you'd be better off without all these tests. Maybe they are actually ushering you guys out."

"That could be," he says. "They keep finding a test I haven't had."

So we finally see the famous doctor. She feels his neck, asks questions that have already been answered and orders a slew of blood work. (The blood work from the GP and hospital is not here in spite of my phone call. But they've never done the T2s and T3s or whatever.) She says come back and get a bone scan. She says something about his blood tests being affected by all the stuff they gave him for all the scans. So we go check out.

"Here," I say handing the counter the form. "Mr. Ball is done. She wants him to have some blood work and come back for a bone scan."

"How is Mr. Ball today?" she says. With that tone that says I should let him speak for himself.

"Fair to middling." He says.

"Is that Midland?" She jokes. But she is soon sorry. He explains that fair and middling or grades of cotton and explains the length of fiber issues, etc.

The gal offers an appointment time. We agree. Then she says, "Oh. But she wanted a bone scan." Then she has to offer a different time when that's available. We agree. He says he can come back by himself.

We sign in and wait for the lab work. He gets called for that. It seems to take a long time. When he comes out he says they took a lot of vials of blood.

We go home. My cousin's wife is sitting on the porch. My cousin's kid is sitting on the curb in the shade. She says he didn't like the wasps on the porch. My dad won't kill the wasps because he says they eat worms which eat the figs on his fig tree. Whatever.

We go inside and visit. My cousin's kid has visited Austin College in Sherman and Southwestern in Georgetown. He's having a calm summer.

"Are you getting any time for yourself?" My cousin's wife has lots of 'childing' duties in Houston with her own parents.

"Oh, yeah." I say. "He's doing so well the last few weeks. I get lots of what he calls 'days off.' I just go when he goes some place new so we can be lost together."

She says another cousin's kid is coming to town and may bring her grandmother, my dad's sister. Dad seems pleased about that.

Dad decides they will eat at NXNW. That is a good place.

I take off and go tackle some bumper-to-bumper traffic that reminds me of my trips home from work in this same neighborhood.

I get home. There are things we want to record on the DVR while we are out. But it isn't working. I unplug it and wait a bit. I go pick a bottle of wine from the cellar. FFP has picked two others. We will choose between them depending on the dishes at the restaurant.

We go 35th to Expo and down to Lake Austin to avoid Mopac. Our friends show up at the same time as us. We talk, order, open a bottle of Graves that's corked, order something from the wine list for a white, open a Pinot which is good if not great. It's an enjoyable meal although the chilled potato soup needed a lot less pepper. And a leek or onion presence that either isn't there or is peppered out of existence. The entrees make up for it, everyone polishing off everything on the plate. I had pork which was quite good.

We get home in time to watch The Education of Shelby Knox which we already saw at the SXSW film festival. We watch San Antonio lose, too. I flip on the tennis and get in bed with the remains of the day's newspapers that are still unread. I never got around to the budget, doing any further trip planning (unless you count talking to my friend about what we were going to do when we visited them). I didn't review any films either. So much to do. All of it fun. (Well, not the doctor's office.) So little time. But sleep is necessary, too. FFP comes back to the bedroom and wakes me up with the 'time to go to sleep' line. I was sleeping well. I lower the bed to the flat position and wonder if I can get back to sleeping that soundly.