Floating

I don't seem to be connected to anything. Oh, I have my duties, my schedule. Today I was talked into playing tennis. Although playing four times a week is something I do not need to be doing. And I hate to disappoint my regular social friends the other three days. I am a registered sub for this team, though, and one of them had to go help a relative impacted by the hurricane so I relented. Then my dad told me yesterday morning that he had some edema in his legs. We decided he wasn't bad off enough to go to the emergency room, but needed to go to the doctor today. I told him I'd cancel tennis, but he improved some so we are going to try for the doctor this afternoon. We arranged to have dinner with friends we haven't seen in ages this evening. And so it goes.

Yesterday was social mostly. I did have my computer guy come by and install a fast Firewire drive on my Mac in an attempt to keep the VMware image backed up with Time Machine. Otherwise, we did our dog sitting duties for our god dog Zoey and took a walk and ate breakfast at Halcyon. In the afternoon we drove up to UT and saw a concert in the foyer of the Blanton museum and then came home and walked over to Long Center for a fund-raiser called Octo-Tea. A group of folks raise money for a fund (called the Paul Kirby fund) that helps people living with HIV-AIDS by providing emergency assistance for rent, meds, utilities, whatever. The group has raised over a million dollars over some years by having a loose band of people party on their own nickel or donations or both and charge attendees a fee that goes one hundred percent to the fund. This party was a dance party with a DJ on the City Terrace of Long Center and a jazz band in Kodosky lounge. There was food and drink and a silent auction but, mostly, we were there to see people and we saw a ton of people we know and met new ones.

We spent the evening reading (well, FFP watched a football game which miraculously was delivered by our dicey building DirecTV Sat service). I went out with my god dog's mom for the final walk. We were laughing about how she behaves when I take her out (looking longingly over her shoulder at the building where she last saw Mom). She stopped to sniff something. My friend said, "Come on, Zoey, or I'll give you to Auntie Lin." She handed the leash to me and the dog stopped in her tracks and whipped her head around to look at her mom. Hilarious. What separation anxiety. But it means I can't take her for long walks when I'm dog sitting. The further we get from the building the more she resists.

Well, I have to go play tennis and then see about my dad. It is a lovely day for tennis, still cool out there. It's hard to appreciate it, though, with other things on my mind and when I'm actually playing more hard court tennis than is probably good for my aging body. It's a good problem to have, though, as opposed to not having anyone to play with now that I don't have to work.

The other thing that has me at loose ends is a family visit. I'm not sure how long my sister and her husband are planning to stay with my dad or what they want to do while here. We have our schedule to keep, of course.

I'm not even going to mention the uneasy, floating feeling that finishing up the condo gives me. (Wait, I just did.) I know things are ephemeral but it does give me pause to invest all this time and money and then see places next door having sheetrock sledge-hammered out. I'm just saying. It adds to the floating, nothing is permanent feeling.