AUSTIN, Texas, September 7, 2005 — The world is a mad, topsy turvy place. Especially for the displaced and distressed people of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi. But I will plod on in my relatively calm little world. I get up and get ready for my water aerobics class. Big news there is that the instructor's daughter (a Frehsman on a volleyball scholarship at Tulane) is now going to be going to school at Texas A&M. She took her there last night. The whole team will be there.

After class I do a bit over fifteen minutes on the recumbent bike, do some lower back and

ab stuff. I should do more but I feel I should go home. Sure enough, FFP has an interview and the water sprinkler guy is coming over to fix the water main repair damage. I watch tennis a bit, consult my pictures of the damage. The guy comes and we finally have to turn on the sprinkler station and get it to bubble up to start finding the (now covered) broken sprinkler pipe. I forgot to forage for the charts so we had to search through stations, too, because the ones near it are 1 and 2 and this one is 10. When we built the driveway a bunch of stuff changed, I think. The Culligan man comes to add salt to our water softener in the midst of this.

I watch tennis while I go online and take care of some things for my trip. Travel medical insurance. I never used to buy it; now I always do. I always joke and say that this is the insurance that brings the body home. Haven't ever tested it, though, for any policies I've bought for FFP, me, Dad. Not even for medical. And that's a good thing. It works as peace of mind, I know that.

The sprinkler guy finishes. He only charges $170 which seems like a bargain given how much digging he had to do. Then had pulled a good six feet of pipe out of the ground. I figure my grass would die or I'd be hauling hoses long before the city got around to it. Now we will wait for the city to fix the driveway. We may resod if they don't get it done by, say, spring.

I watched some good tennis on TV, got a shower, read some papers. FFP and I went over to Chez Zee for a little music fundraiser. We are early (well, we wanted to get a parking place). It's a cash bar anyway so we go in to the main bar and get a drink. The event is a fundraiser for the Creative Opportunity Orchestra. A gal who sings with them, Tina March, performs with a cello and keyboard. There is free food. We meet some interesting people.

We go home, get out the trash (FFP kept thinking it was Thursday and I kept going along...our day is actually Friday), let out the dog. I send a mass e-mail about a restaurant promotion for Katrina victims tomorrow. I watch Lindsey Davenport lose and start watching the Agassi/Blake match. What a match! It keeps me up until after midnight when one little shot takes Agassi forward (he's the past) and leaves blake behind (he's the future, I hope). I didn't know who to root for. Good stuff.