AUSTIN and MESQUITE, Texas, November 22, 2005 — This is not where I live now. It's where I used to live. In the abstract. I used to live where ugly IH35 was the norm. And franchises. Stretching as far as the eye can see. Even eating in them. Where hanging out with relatives and playing a game was big fun.

Much as I want to see all my relatives and really do enjoy seeing my dad enjoy them, too, I feel this is not where I live now. I want to recapture the time when I'd relish a meal out at, ahem, Red Lobster, but of course I can't.

All in all, it wasn't that bad a day. I go up in time to get myself organized and publish my

journal and be pretty much ready when my dad arrived (early as always) at my house. We didn't leave when he got there, though. We waited for the traffic to die down. It wasn't too bad either. We made it to Temple, no problem. We visited a nursing home. Now that's a place such as I've never lived in and hope I never have to. My dad rousted out my Uncle James (92 this month) while I took some photos of FFP's dad to his Uncle Calvin (90). Calvin was asleep but I touched his arm and he woke up talking. He always knows who I am, too. His nephews have a slew of wives and girlfriends. So it isn't that easy. He asks after my uncle, FFP's dad and mom, FFP. He loves the pictures. He could talk your arm off. But he has to stay closed to his oxygen.

My dad had managed to get his brother up and wheel him out of the unit and they'd both scored some juice from a lady pushing a juice card (he said). Uncle James pretended no way every visits him (or actually believes it) but the recent photos and the note on his marker board would belie that. Many people lied in bed with the toothless, open-mouthed sleep of the not quite dead. In my Uncle James' severe care area, sad cases sat around a public area. A man keens laments from one room when we come in and when we take Uncle James back to his room. My Uncle Calvin's roommate only sleeps, according to him. He'd like to talk to him I'm sure. He talks to the gal emptying the trash telling her he's saving the newspaper for a nurse who wanted it. He talks non-stop to me from the time I touch his arm until I leave. If you are here, is it better to be be alert or inert? I'm always touched here by the young faces in military outfits that adorn the area above the name plates. Men and women, once young soldiers and sailors, felled by the unbeatable enemy of man's will to dominate.

After Temple the road was dull save a stop at the Czech Stop in West for a pile of sausage rolls and sweet baked goods to round out the holiday feasting. I bought two Swiss Cheese, sauerkraut, sausage rolls and had them heated. Dad had said he didn't want anything but he took the fat little roll with the sesame seeds on top and dug in. He had taken the passengers seat, but he did offer to drive. I did it, though. The one highlight was seeing this strange breed of cattle. They were black with a broad white band around the body. Dad said they were Dutch Belted Cattle and had another name he couldn't remember. (I looked this up on the WEB. It is indeed this rare breed of cattle. He said he hadn't seen them in real life before, only pictures.) This was not the only weird fact Dad offered today. He told me the Balcones Fault (the ancient geological fault that heaved the Hill Country from the Coastal Plain in Texas) runs all the way to Ft. Worth. Someone gave him a copy of a book called Roadside Geology of Texas. I have the book, too. But he actually read it.

We were stuck in a miles long jam on IH35 near Lancaster where they narrowed the road to one lane and were able to observe the phenomena where hundreds of cars go by on the left when the right lane is closed. The sooner you move over to the open lane, the more screwed you are.

We got to Mesquite and checked into the Fairfield Inn, a low-end Marriot affair that is next door to, you guessed it, Red Lobster. We went to my aunt and uncle's apartment and visited for a while, had a drink as the cocktail hour came. Then we picked up a friend of my dad's and the five of us went to, you guessed it, Red Lobster. My uncle had some raw oysters there last week, he said, and they were good. Alas, no oysters. I ordered Rainbow Trout as did my aunt and uncle. They said they only had two so I ordered Grouper. This was long before the order was ready, but they still served every one else and made me wait a long time for my Grouper. The cheese biscuits were good, the salad was OK, the Grouper and vegies and salted baked potato passable. I looked around at the crowd. At my people: the lower middle class. I owe it to my relatives for making me address my roots! (Although Red Lobster would have been a treat beyond imagining when I was really young.)

We played a game called Spinner with a form of dominoes for a while and drank coffee. It's not bad, the life I left for whatever and however I live now. But it's different.

Dad and I took his friend home and headed to the hotel where I fought the Wireless connection and the TV for a while before working a crossword and going to sleep.