Austin, TEXAS, December 6, 2005 — Yep, I got a good night's sleep. When FFP got up and headed to the club I went back to sleep. My dad woke me with a call.

"Do you know how cold it is on my porch?" He asked.

"No, how cold?"

"Thirty-two degrees."

"Wow. Well, the tennis ladies called off tennis last night because it was too cold. I would have played."

"Well, I just thought I'd report to you."

"How are you doing?" I asked.

"OK. I have been using my breathing machine [a steam thing] and I got a new cartridge for my medi-haler. I'm doing better."

"What are you going to do today?"

"I'm going to write some cards. I'm going to stay in out of the cold for a while. Yesterday I had lunch with [his good friends] and [the husband] and I helped a lady get her car started. We spent two and a half hours and finally got her a new battery. You know, widows and orphans, you have to help them out."

He then smoothly ended the conversation saying he'd see me later. It was after eight. I'd slept well. Must just get up, I decided.

I had dreamt, though. One of the doctors on Grey's Anatomy had told me that this person I know [I won't even hint who it was here but if anything happens to them it will be creepy but just a coincidence in my world view] had died and described a botched surgery where they left some instruments inside or something. Other parts of the dream were about sorting and recovering stuff from piles of junk in a house. Including toys that were like Legos but not.

I got some coffee and published my journal and I realized that it is my sister's birthday. I sent her a card and some stuff but I should probably call her.

A little after ten, I decided I should try to get to the club and, you know, get out of there before noon because when I don't, well, there goes half the day. It didn't work, though. I started to surf some things I'd been interested in on the WEB. But I did get to the club in time to look up and see the clock tick past noon as I finished my fifty minute recumbent bike ride, reading newspaper articles on facial transplant, Iraqi issues, the artist responsible for dogs playing poker, buying things used and stuff like that. I've decided that my time on the exercise bike is one of my most concentrated efforts of the day. Otherwise, I'm way too flighty. Adult Attention Deficit Disorder Poster Child. But I sit there on that bike, burning over three hundred calories, reading every word of dense NY Times articles about esoteric subjects. I barely look up at the TVs soundlessly spinning soap operas, sports or news. Best job of concentrating that I do all day. I wanted to leave after I finished the bike ride but I didn't. I did some situps and some static lunges and then I left. Not a great workout. If only I'd get there earlier.

When I got home, I was starving. I ate the rest of the leftover salmon, cold with a little Marie's Bleu Cheese Viniagrette dressing and some green onions and carrots. Then I had two Clementines and a 3/4 ounce wedge of Laughing Cow Cheese. I went in my office with the intent of just checking up on a couple of things and then getting busy on the guest room. I checked my e-mail, looked at some things on the WEB and then called my sister and wished her a happy birthday.

I knew the maid was supposed to come, but somehow didn't think she would. Her arrival was announced by Chalow not barking but pawing and sniffing at the door. She knew the maid would bring her a treat and she did.

OK, no problem. I didn't want to work on straightening a room while the maid was mopping and vacuuming and whatever. So I decided to work on the financial stuff on the computer. I tweaked some basis numbers FFP had put into our online trading account because of a merger. I spent time looking at other stocks we own, wondering whether we should sell or hold. I didn't have any clear goal in mind and therefore didn't really accomplish much. FFP has been busy, of course, analyzing our cash position, figuring out where to get the cash to pay the property taxes and making decisions. I'm so useless.

When the maid was gone, I ate some nachos. (Bad LB, Bad.) And read the paper and got showered up and groomed to go out. As we were headed out to the movie we ran around checking faucets and putting a few plants inside since it is supposed to get really cold.

The movie was a slapstick comedy called The Ringer about a guy and his uncle who try to rig the Special Olympics. Yeah, I know. Sounds lame. And the movie is a slapstick comedy, too. I mean I've yet to see There's Something About Mary (the Farrely brothers produced this one although it was directed by Barry Blaustein and written by Ricky Blitt). I admit I laughed and laughed at this though and was touched by it. The disabled actors they found were having so much fun that it was very engaging. Johnny Knoxville was very convincing as a guy who found them much deeper than he expected to. I think maybe because he actually did. After the sneak, the Farrely brothers, the director and Johnny Knoxville plus five other actors took the stage for a talk. There is so much tension around being politically correct around people who have any sort of difference but I was impressed with how Johnny Knoxville and the producers and director had engaged the disabled actors on a human level to make comedy and obviously just considered them actors. A little under the credits vignette with Eddie Barbanell doing Romeo was impressive because the lines were beautifully delivered. After Q&A was declared over, Eddie, who had been very talkative already, gave everyone a pep talk about taking intellectually challenged (Is that the term? They have a term they prefer now.) to this movie and let them see role models of people reaching goals. He ended up saying "I think we are...equal." You know, in this movie you could really see that they were equal and, in some cases, maybe better than people who were less different. Who wouldn't attract a stare on the street. Because they were strivers. There was another John (besides Knoxville) who doesn't seem to be credited in imdb but I think it was John Taylor after looking at Fox Searchlight's site which is hard to operate and made me feel intellectually-challenged until I switched to Explorer from Foxfire and even then. Anyway, John Taylor. He was hilarious. Doing a Strangelove bit, talking about the other parts he'd had and obviously envisioning a career which he just may have. This guy from San Antonio, Leonard Flowers, was very gracious and played this egotistical over-hyped Special Olympics athlete with an entourage and bling bling which obviously wasn't him. That's acting, folks.

We got home from the movie and I had to see what different morons and mavens were saying about the movie on imdb.com. I really shouldn't waste my time. Then I can't believe it, but yes I watched a crime show. Maybe having a DVR is not such a good idea. Anyway when they have an eight-year-old kid paralyze a bully by stabbing him in the spine after he teases her and cuts off her hair at a Catholic school where she was unwanted because she had two mommies but they sued when she was expelled and then the biological mommy dies of lupus and the grandparents teach the kid to say she was abused by the other mommy with no rights...well, it might have been ripped from the headlines for all I know but the big brother driving the victim to the emergency room in the priest's car (which he leaves the keys in for parishoners to use) lost me. I mean who, even a priest, especially a priest, leaves the keys over the sun visor anymore? No more crime shows. I swear. Johnny Knoxville faking his way into the Special Olympics is more believable.

Tomorrow is the day that Holidailies begins. I have been suffering a bout of logorrhea here lately. Will the words dry up when the solemn vow to post " a minimum of 50 words or one photograph" arrives? Fifty words ain't much really...It seems I usually post 500 words and sometimes go over fifteen hundred. No hill for this stepper. Of course, the pressure to write may render me mute. You think? Nah. [Ed. Note: No guarantee of complete sentences or slang avoidance, though.]

Since I'm an 'after the fact' journaler and not a (ugh, spit) blogger, I won't post an entry in Holidailies until tomorrow (which is today as I type) is over. But I may speed up my posting at day's end to get into the fray. I mean I could link to this entry because I wrote it on the day the daily writing begins even though I dated it yesterday. But that's more thinking than I want to do about anything that is related to inconsequential typing on the WEB. I should start on my novel to displace from the suddend obligation to post daily.