AUSTIN, Texas, August 9, 2005 — I wake up when FFP is getting ready to go to the dentist. But I go back to sleep. My dreams are full of swimming pools and Dad and other things that are not all that surprising. And yet in your dreams things come together in surprising ways.

I have promised to take Dad to the doctor today. I want to see what the endocrinologist has to say. I'm so hoping she won't prescribe more medicine. I'm hoping the tests are normal. We seem to be in an OK place right now and it would be so nice to stay there for a while.

I finally get up and get a shower and dress and

go pick him up. We make our way to the doctor's office. It is behind the North Austin Medical Center. Inside that complex is a small rehab hospital where we spent a couple of months in 2002 trying to get my mother on her feet, get a remission of the cancer, get her walking and home. She never made it. Dad and I cringe every time we pass the place.

We go to the endorcinologist's office and I sign him in. He's been here before so no paperwork. That's good. The office is very new. It's all wood and fancy columns and plasma TVs but they have scotch-taped signs everywhere. Signs about being late for your appointments or how they will report results. As we are escorted inside there are signs about how to find the lab and checkout. You'd think they'd spend the money for some attractive signs. We get an assistant who asks about changes in address, etc. and then drugs. "The only new ones are the ones you prescribed," I say, looking at the list written out by me in the chart. She copies these from another page in the chart, somewhat grudgingly I think.

The doctor comes in. His blood tests look just about normal she reports. She feels his neck and seems newly amazed that he is getting along with his giant goiter both metabolically and from the standpoint of swallowing and breathing. Nevertheless, he is. She decides to run more blood tests and see him in two months. This office seems very efficient at cranking through office visits and consults. Still, we escape with no new prescriptions so I'm not complaining. I drive Dad back to the house and let him out and go home.

At home I have some cereal and nonfat yogurt. I start watching review films for AFF. I get interrupted by something. Then FFP starts looking for a VHS tape we have around here somewhere. I finally have an idea where it is. But it is the 'last place we look.' Yeah, well, anyway, we looked a bunch of places. At one point we stuck a couple of 'captured from TV' tapes into the player. One was Wimbledon coverage from 1980. Yeah, I know. I thought the tape would have deteriorated so much that the decision to toss it would be easy. Instead I was tempted to sit down and watch it. FFP wandered off and I kept looking. I was surprised how many VHS tapes I found sitting around. Lots were labelled as tennis coverage I taped. I found the tape that initiated the search. It was a copy of an Austin City Limits taping that never saw airwaves.

It's always satisfying to find something you are looking for no matter how inconsequential it seems. But it is dismaying to sort through the other dusty stuff to find it. I always try to toss at least one thing in the trash in the process of one of these searches. This time it was a VHS tape about some long-forgotten (and probably best-forgotten) work project.

The maid shows up and I take that as a cue to go work out. I do fifty tough (for me) minutes on the bike. But then I'm spent. After a couple of static lunges I go home. It's five o'clock. I guess I'll watch a few more films for AFF. When the previewing period is over, I have to say it will be a relief not to watch movies in quite this way.

Before I get very far FFP suggests going to the Whole Foods Planet downtown to eat something. I shower up and get ready and we do just that. We dawdle over a ten buck (well, $9.99) cheese plate. A fantastic deal if you don't count the three glasses of wine (about $25). We see five people we know. We wander the store a little. FFP picks up some toothpaste and we get something to eat for tomorrow. (Some prepared salmon 'burgers' with lemon and chive I believe.)

At home I watch one film I can't finish. It had promise but it drifted fast and the acting was wooden and production quality poor. I watch another to the end. It loses me, too, but I watch until the end (as I almost always do).

We get ready to go to bed and review a couple of shorts. So many films this year. I can't believe that there are still films to watch, films that haven't been watched twice as of yet.