AUSTIN, November 28, 2005 — I woke up with the morning soon coming in the window of our hotel room. I hadn't slept well, but I didn't feel like staying in bed. FFP had gotten a shower. I put on the slippers and robe, made coffee and got a shower. FFP went to get a paper. I hadn't ordered one brought to us. They offer the Statesman, NY Times, Wall Street Journal or USA Today. I couldn't decide last night what to order. I'd been getting USA Today in the Fairfield. Quite a joke. We get the other three at home. He came back with the Statesman. We thought of ordering breakfast from room service but decided to go downstairs and have it. I got

salmon Eggs Benedict. I'd been wanting a good Eggs Benedict and had recently tried the Driskill and Chez Zee and been dissatisfied. This one was perfection. The smoked salmon providing the same salty foil without the cutting difficulties of Canadian bacon, the runny poached egg and hollandaise soaking into the perfectly toasted English muffin.

So it's weird to wake up and instead of making the bed and going to water aerobics, to get showered and have a fancy pants breakfast among the power brokers of Austin. Yeah, the suits were there in the Four Seasons dining room making deals quietly at isolated tables.

We decided to check out and take a walk downtown. Now that's an odd beginning to a day to be in downtown Austin. We used to come dead early downtown and work out at the Metropolitan Club before it closed. That was different: dashing in there, sweating and dashing off to home (or work if we showered and dressed at the club) in the car, with rush hour surging the other way. Today we were walking around and we were doing it after the people had rushed into there jobs. The streets were pretty quiet. We saw a man in cowboy garb with long gray hair and a commuter cup near where we'd seen a guy with tattoos all over (including his bald head) explaining the modifications he'd made to one of those tiny stunt bicycles to another guy. Neither seemed to turn heads or be out of place here. That's Austin. We walked over to the Second Street district where toney shops are going in. We were again imagining being downtown denizens and walking to shops and restaurants. Which is not to say we can't walk to shops and restaurants from here. We can. We can walk to no less than two Greek and three Mexican places, a convenience store, drug store, two coffee shop bakery places and lots more. Heck we can and have walked to Central Market. There are pluses downtown, though. Like sidewalks. But still you have to remember that the weather is not always hospitable. In fact, today the wind whipped at us mercilessly. It wasn't awful but I did wonder if Dad made it to water aerobics given the temp and wind.

We went home after retrieving our luggage and car from the Four Seasons. So weird to be going home at this hour after spending the night downtown. We stopped at Camp 4 Paws and got Chalow. We did a bit of unpacking. I had good intentions of eventually going for a workout. But I never did. I worked on my journal. I made a list of things to do. I made a birthday card for my sister. I got some of the stuff I'm sending to Colorado ready. I went to the CVS to buy some Christmas-themed Pez dispensers to send the kids and some Christmas-wrapped kisses and some hair gel for myself. OK, and I bought some candy (SweetTarts) and ate it. The reason for the Pez and kisses is that I'm sending the Colorado relatives these containers with stocking stuffers and that's the whole of their present except for a little money. I got that all ready to send. Just need to take it to the mailing store along with the other Legos from my collection that I'm going to send and my sister's birthday present.

As the day winded down, we got the mail and I'd finally received something I'd ordered and that the online folks claimed was shipped two weeks ago. Naturally I'd just complained about it! I did some reading. Mostly reading about a book about Elia Kazan in the book review. I watched a CSI: Miami even though I keep saying I'm not going to do it. I watched an HBO movie called Yesterday. It was beautifully made and it really nailed the AIDS crisis in South Africa.

The day felt lost and wasted and dislocated because we started it downtown. But it was fun and something different, too. Before long I was asleep in my own bed, having the most strange dreams.