AUSTIN, November 29, 2005 — I shook off a very strange dream and finally got up about 7:30. In this dream, I didn't seem to really be present. It was more like watching a movie. First there was a bank robbery. Someone was drilling a hole to get in the place to get money. There were some innocent bystanders who became abetters. Then they started this kind of front doing recycling. Very confusing.

You make a schedule. Keep a calendar. Today ours said 'LB tennis 9am.' That's it. I got into tennis shorts, sweat pants, polo, sweatshirt, tennis shoes and hat. I decided to drink coffee,

work on my journal and talk to my dad until time for tennis. While I was at that, my cell phone rang and it was the orgnaizer of this month's tennis for the older set on Tuesday. She wanted to know if I thought it was too cold. I said if it wasn't windy I thought it would be fine. She called back a few minutes later and said that it was too cold according to one of the others. I was secretly relieved. Now I could make up my own schedule for the day. I could work out when I wanted, get my mailing done to Colorado (which would help clean up the messy guest room). All on my own schedule. I am, of course, dangerously prone to idleness when I set my own schedule.

The mess in the guest room really needed attending. So I sorted through that. It was sort of depressing. I wanted to stop and play with the Legos. Very seductive toys with all the interlocking. But I persisted and got it organized for mailing. This took a long time and I had to break for lunch along the way. Finally, I loaded my car up with Legos and some stuff for Christmas for the folks in Colorado and some stuff for my sister whose birthday is coming up. I went to the mailing store and got them organized for shipping. I had a little headache but I felt good to have a few things checked off my list.

Then I went to the club and had a short workout (35 minutes on the recumbent bike and some ab and lower back exercises). I went from there to the grocery store and bought yogurt, two kinds of onions, broccoli, sliced American cheese (FFP likes it), club soda, tonic water, tomatoes, spinach, lettuce mix, bananas, and Marie's Bleu Cheese Viniagrette salad dressing. FFP had hinted that we needed a few basics so I did the shopping. I make him shop too much.

When I got home the maid was working. I put up the groceries and hid in my office making and writing 'thank you' notes for my Thanksgiving hosts and a gift I got recently. When that was done, I really felt like I'd accomplished something. Well, I check things off the list, that feels good. Maybe the cancelled tennis today was a good thing.

I had a little headache so when the maid left I tried two Advil and a hot shower. My buddy SuRu called just as I got dried off. She wanted to go out, but FFP wanted to work on one of his projecsts. So the two of us decided to go out and catch up. We had no plan when she picked me up. We decided we might see a movie if something was coming on at the Alamo at the Village in a reasonable time that we wanted to see. The Harry Potter movie wasn't starting for an hour so we blew it off and went to the Star of India and had some Onion Naan and some curries. I drank some hot tea and that combined with the hot shower and Advil finally got to my headache.

When I got home I was going to try to do something useful but I ended up reading newspapers, working a couple of crosswords, watching the end of UT basketball, Criminal Minds and the news. I had a Jack Daniels and water, too. Then I watched a Law and Order: SVU where they mananged to roll up the following 'ripped from the headlines' themes: pedophilia, Hurricane Katrina, anthrax poisoning, homeland security [Ed. Note: what's with lower case? Author: you get it, you know you do.], Alzheimer's, journalists jailed for failing to reveal their sources and maybe others I slept through. Why do I watch this stuff? Yeah, I was kind of useless in the evening but I got all that stuff mailed and I got my desk organized (pile of receipts for family budget, pile of returned holiday cards for updating the list, pile of 'other stuff to deal with) and I updated my 'to do' list with the other things I need to do. Um, yeah, productive. I stayed up too late with the TV and papers but, finally, sleep.