One Year Downtown

Hard as it is to believe, we closed on our condo a year ago. So one year downtown? Wow. It's true that we didn't sell our house until August, but we spent almost every night down here after we closed and (that same day) moved in a few things (a sleeper sofa, two chairs, boxes of CDs, a tiny flat screen TV we got off the Internet, a coffee table whose glass top we kept having to move around as we finished out our place out with built-ins, electronics, some new furniture). We spent a lot of our days at the house, packing, cleaning, tossing, organizing. We left our Capresso at the house and moved in a new coffee pot at first. (I knew we were committed when the Capresso came downtown and we tucked that new drip pot away for the disastrous day when our beloved caffeine machine fails us.)

There are pros and cons to everything, of course, and sure there are things I miss about being in my old neighborhood. I miss the restaurants that were convenient there (Fonda San Miguel, 34th St., Blue Star and Billy's on Burnet), watching nature unfold in the yard (although I don't miss trying to tame it or the poison ivy) and I miss being able to go out to my car if I forget something without riding the elevator.

But being downtown mostly rocks. All in all I might like to live in a more expensive building but it's hard to imagine a better location than this one with three restaurants (two well-established now and one soon to open) and a grocery store downstairs. Then there is Whole Foods only a half mile away and a multitude of other bars, restaurants and coffee shops within a half mile or so. We are right across the street from our beloved Butler Dance Education Center, the home of Ballet Austin, and really positioned for events there. We can easily walk to Long Center, the Paramount and, though it's a bit further afield, we've made our way on foot to the Blanton, Erwin Center, PAC, KLRU studios and Harry Ransom Center at UT. I was talking to one of the neighbors in my old hood the other day and they said it was just an illusion, a mindset, that it was no further from our old house to, say, the Performing Arts than from the new place. Actually, it is a mile and a third further. This is pretty significant, adding over two and a half miles of walking to a round trip. And, of course, walking downtown from the old place would be beyond daunting to me, not to mention time-consuming. Of course, we could bike but I'd be a danger to myself. Bikes, in fact are a dange to me when they don't yield to pedestrians in crosswalks or they ride on the sidewalks. I've become more sanguine about it over the months but it still makes me mad to be crowded or almost sideswiped by someone on a bike, riding where they really don't belong or disobeying traffic rules. I dodge and anticipate now, though. I also think we walk faster and smarter from all the practice. We sense when bikes or cars are going to threaten us. As it gets hot, we seem to find the shady side of the street more easily, too.

We can walk to Old West Austin, Clarksville, SoCo, South First, South Lamar. We claim any place we can easily walk to as our neighborhood. In the picture above, FFP stands on Bouldin Avenue as we were walking home after having Sunday brunch (a taco from Torchys trailer). It isn't hard to find your way home with a beacon like that.

We can go to Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar or Alamo Ritz and see a movie while eating and drinking beer. We can go to the Elephant Room any night of the week and see jazz.

While we don't have a yard with squirrels, birds, geckos (and pests, too), we do have an expansive view of streets and buildings and Lady Bird Lake. We can walk down by the lake and see plenty of plants and turtles and ducks and squirrels. We can walk to several parks. It is really nice to have a view of a vast sweep of sky. We can see east and, from the balcony south and north. A few steps across the hall we have a western view. We've enjoyed watching construction downtown on the Austonian, the W, Spring and, when we walk around, the Four Seasons.

We've worn out shoe leather and discovered innumerable things down here even though, in the past, we came downtown often enough. The good news is that Cathy's Cleaners picks up and delivers our cleaning and they do shoe repair.

Having sifted and sorted, we have to be more heartless about getting rid of stuff and not letting it pile up quite as much. Magazines and papers have to go to recycling sooner. The place is too small to tolerate not putting stuff away and picking up after ourselves a bit. In the old house, we sometimes locked the dog (who sadly died before we moved) and piles of junk in a room for a party. No such extra space now.

We still get lots of magazines and papers, though. The three papers are delivered to our door in the morning. No wet papers ever again. And nothing could ever stop us buying books so, one day, another purge will have to happen.

It's been a great year, really, if the first three months were a little tough going getting the house ready and sold and getting this place like we wanted. We've gotten into the rhythm of being downtown and what it means to drive certain places away from downtown during rush hour. (We mostly avoid this.) Our cars sometimes sit for days and if it weren't for our parents and our visits to the club (it's about four miles away...if not too far to walk, too time-consuming). Our life really is simpler in lots of ways and we are trying to find even more ways to make it so. We are banking at banks we can walk to and our main broker has a nearby office, too. We try to make every trip count when we leave the building, too.

We plan to live here until we can't take care of ourselves here or we claim our death. It will be interesting to see how things look in five, ten, fifteen even twenty years if we and the world last here.

We are going on a trip in a couple of weeks. We won't need a house sitter...a friend in the building can stop by and check stuff and retrieve mail if we like. The concierge will hold packages. We could even take a bus to the airport although we would have to walk a half mile to the Airport Flyer stop. Wish there were a closer one. They might want to reconsider that bus route based on all the residents on this end of downtown! (But I doubt they will...Capital Metro is too involved in massive fiascoes to consider something as simple as having a bus go a half mile west to make it convenient to, literally, probably 2000 more people. Not that I can't walk a half mile with my luggage but will I in the Texas heat?)

Yeah, it's a new, simpler lifestyle. It is amazingly, better in a lot of ways than I dreamed with no major disappointments. And if you are reading this and you are someone I see in person, please don't ask any of the following questions: (1) have you moved downtown yet? (2) do you love it? (3) are lots of the condos vacant? (4) how will they ever fill all those condos? (5) which building do you live in? (6) where is that? (7) how do you ever manage to get provisions living downtown so far from a grocery store? This last one is the funniest. While we have to drive a little over two miles to a Randall's, I bet many people who ask this live much further from one or at least as far. And we can literally go downstairs to a convenient store and deli for many things. And the biggest Whole Foods in the world is a half mile away and ridiculously easy to walk to.

It's not Manhattan, but it'll do.

Generally Speaking

Generalizations are dangerous. Everyone is sitting at a different juncture, looking out at certain things and interacting with the people and things near them while watching a film reel of things just out of reach. Of course, with TV and the Internet and old school newspapers and such that passing parade of 'other lives' is congested with scenes from here and yon, with images imagined and brought to life with pictures or videos.

I snapped a photo in one of the penthouses in the 360 at a benefit party. I decided that going out on the various balconies would get better pictures. But this one shows the Palmer Events Center through the window, from above. You could live up there and that would become one of the exterior views in your life, as common as breathing to you. Just as our views from our windows and balcony have become a little expected if not ordinary to us.

We are all doing things that wouldn't seem that weird to others but things which are not what they are experiencing. We grab onto things where we can relate. People talk about their illnesses and their cures (two people at dinner last night had done acupuncture). Folks chat about TV shows, sports events, movies that they watched separately but can now discuss and analyze. We are interested in people talking about places we haven't been, things we haven't done but, in our heart of hearts, we want to have been there and have that first-hand experience.

When we generalize about people, though, we need to remember that while their age, race, sex, sexual preference, diet, habits, wealth and where they live shapes them, it shapes each into a completely unique individual.

Does this all sound like I have nothing to say? Yeah, that's pretty much it. I've thought of writing a piece about how I hate Internet and Text abbreviations (and yet made one up myself the other day). I've thought about writing something about the walkability of my new home. But, no, this is the drivel you get. Sorry.

The Fire Next Time...

No, not a fire. But this sunrise in the chilled water steam looks more like a fire than the last post, even, huh?

I don't have anything coherent to say today. (My friend Jette said on Facebook that she was 'impressed by her own incoherence.' I thought she said 'imprisoned' which I get. Impressed am I, too, by mine.) I think I'll just dash off a bunch of random stuff. Follow along if you wish. Otherwise, see you later. (I have posted another couple of amusing, well to me, Journal of Unintended Consequences posts if you are looking for alleged coherence.)

So, random things. Not random things about me necessarily which a lot of people are doing twenty-five of lately (but not me, so far I'm resisting or maybe editing my batch in my head). But anyway random stuff.

That chilled water from that plant? Expensive to use it turns out. We thought it would be an efficient cooling option. But it costs $14 a month to have access to the chilled water to cool and it is decidedly expensive to actually divert some across your fan. Ah, well. Maybe it's better for the environment? Don't know. For the last month or more, we haven't turned on either heat or A.C. but we have to pay $14 bucks in case we do. A person can do Netflix for that. Oh, well. Still haven't had to use the heater in this place which is electric so you know that wouldn't be efficient. The bad news is that the place is being heated by computers and TVs and computer peripherals. So yeah. Wasted electricity.

My 98-year-old father-in-law just called me to remind me he gets an extra deduction for being blind. I figured out they didn't owe any income taxes, but he also figured that out. With a magnifying glass no doubt.

Reading list: I finished Bénabou's book as I think I mentioned. I started another small, light book suitable for carrying around when I go somewhere with just FFP and we take books to read while we eat, wait for a performance to start, etc. It is Milan Kundera's Slowness. What do I like about Milan? That he is not afraid to write fiction and he doesn't impose unnecessary rules on himself, it doesn't seem, and just plunges in and if characters or scenes get in the way, to hell with characters and scenes. Which makes me wonder several things. Should I buy (and maybe even read) his book on writing novels. Would it help me with my problematic novel project or would it just become another book I haven't read. Which, if I can be allowed to digress, leads me to another little side project which is how to use technology to present the novel being accidentally and haphazardly written here as a whole. This caused me to do some brief, futile searches of some techie sites. I'm always assaulted with just the information I do not want to read. And I'm reminded that, even for the little HTML I know I constantly forget actual syntax.

But back to reading. I'm falling behind on my newspapers. That's because I've spent too much time working crosswords, trying to get further into the week in The New York Times and working the unsatisfying but still tempting ones in the Austin American-Statesman. This reduces the input I have for The Journal of Unintended Consequences. And I have an outstanding (and in my mind's eye coherent) essay for this space on newspapers to complete as well. One reason I'm behind on the paper's is that I haven't been riding the recumbent bike as much and the couple of times I've done it I have been reading Ulysses. I'm determined to get through to page 933 of the edition I'm working on before I book my trip to New York for Bloomsday this year. I purchased this edition in Dublin in 2004. It was the hundredth anniversary of Bloom's Day but I was there after the fact, in September not June. Anyway, I'm on page 758. Bloom and Stephen are in the livery stand having something like coffee. This will be my first complete trip through any edition. Joyce was not afraid to write a novel either. Stream of consciousness and unconsciousness and all that.

Other books (and magazines) lie neglected, partly finished. A book of conversations with Woody Allen. Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I recently purchased two books from Amazon. Covers are stiff and uncracked. I was well into E.J. Kahn, Jr.'s Year of Change when somehow I put it aside. Really good book. E.J. Kahn in 1994 died after a car accident. (I sometimes wonder when reading a decades-old book what happened to the person who wrote it in the interim. So I looked up his NY Times obit a few weeks ago.) Reading Kahn's book made me wonder if I owned The New Yorker and Me. Which was Kahn's first book about his relationship with that venerable rag. Did I mention that I own The Complete New Yorker and that, recently, I printed out the Salinger story "Hapworth 16, 1924" from the June 19, 1965 edition and read it. FFP was going to read it, too, but I don't think he has. We read an article about Salinger in the NY Times on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday which mentioned the story. Salinger is not dead, but he's a recluse.

So, not doing as much reading as I'd like. We are quicker to recycle papers and magazines these days, but they are still building up too much. And I secreted a large pile in a storage thing by my my chair and I really need to clean those out so I can store other things in there. (These are from, I'm afraid, last summer when we were in the deep throes of moving.)

I've been watching some of the Australian Open. I am especially interested in the Federer/Nadal match that will occur tonight. I may watch it live. Or not. I'm much more interested in that than the Stupid Bowl. Who is playing again?

Did I mention that I hurt my back playing tennis? That I just keep playing anyway. I need to do a good 'core' exercise program when it heals. Assuming it will. I always assume such things. If it's broke, it will heal. With our bodies this isn't always a correct assumption but it's a helpful one.

It's a nice day for a walk. I think I'll take one. We are going to see Austin Lyric Opera's "Rigoletto" tonight. We will walk to the Long Center, too, I think. Did I mention how glorious the weather has been. It has. Although everyone, myself included, seems to have had a cycle of cedar fever.

FFP is listening to opera and making himself vegetarian barbecue for lunch. I think I'll have some. (OK, did that. Had a Chimay with it. So sue me.)

So, yeah, random stuff. Not going much of anywhere. Sort of like my life. Next time, though. The fire.

The Wasteland

This is a picture of a vacant lot in the Rainey Street neighborhood. A careful look (maybe blow it up) shows our building in the distance. There are vacant lots near us, of course. Although about the only one not turned into parking is the one the Feds own for a federal courthouse project, the former site of the infamous Intel Shell. (Your government can hold property, off city tax roles, your money invested without trying to get revenue for you to help pay the national debt. Maybe Obama will build the courthouse as part of his works projects. Maybe he will just build a parking lot and give someone a job running it. But I digress.)

All I'm saying is that the wide sidewalks and trendy shops and cafes in my neighborhood are still a beachhead. While the neighborhood with this debris-strewn lot has fancy condos and apartments and a new Mexican American Cultural Center, it has some unreconstructed, not-yet-gentrified areas including some run-down houses across the street from this lot. Our neighborhood has the decommissioned Seaholm Power Plant and Green Water Treatment Plant that are vacant, waiting a grand mix of homes, shops, hotel, etc. but which for now look like an abandoned industrial wasteland. Near Whole Foods, Book People, GSDM and the Noknonah Condos there is a single, old house with a trampoline and volleyball court out back. I think that is great myself. It is this jumble that makes a place livable to me. In our old neighborhood we had that. Sure, you sometimes wished your messier neighbors would clean up or that certain areas weren't zoned commercial, but then you enjoyed the patina of the neighborhood (and being able to walk to a seedy convenience store and a burger joint).

Cities evolve. Every time I'm in New York, Paris, London, Berlin, etc. I remark on the construction, destruction, the ebb and flow. I can see tall, new buildings rising outside my window but I can walk a few blocks and see a house built over a century ago. I like that.

Some people are saddened by any bit of blight, by anything that isn't brand new or a trendy reuse like Lambert's Fancy Barbecue in the old Schneider Store. That's not me, though. In any urban environment, any place not built from scratch by a developer (ugh), there are grubby bits, older houses or apartments or even vacant lots. Things to contrast with the trendy wide sidewalks of Second Street. (Which, by the way, I do love.) I'm happy, personally, to see things torn down, rebuilt, renewed or, sometimes, just happily decaying, waiting for another day. We have this tendency to think that nothing should ever change, that it should be spruced up or bought new and then remain that way.

The truth is that I even like the look of the wasted lot and the dead tree in its own way.

By the way, yesterday's 'Home Alone' entry was annointed as a 'Best of Holidailies.' I feel very honored since I already received recognition for 'A Long Way from There to Here.' Holidailies has been a good ride of writing for me, I think. Maybe I've cleared some cobwebs and can do some real writing. Or not.

What a Way to Start

The good news about the New Year's Eve celebrations is they are just festive with no gift exchange and religious overtones. The bad news is: what a way to begin a year...with a bang, yes, but drinking and staying up late and then you start the first day of the year getting up late, sort of behind. And then you realize: yikes I can't start the new year on the books without taking care of a couple of things on 2008 and saving some info for the CPA. And then you realize that you have to start taxes and that is so depressing. A friend called to say Happy New Year and said I should be glad I had money to count. Can't you imagine going into tax season as a Madoff investor? You would have horrible tax issues and no money. Or even as Bernie himself. He had to turn over a list of his assets by yesterday to the court. When did you last update your own list of assets? Does it include yachts? Still, it's an excellent exercise.

I wrote the above paragraph earlier. I had some breakfast, read some of the paper. Then I set a timer on my Mac desktop and started working on some year end and month end bookkeeping. I spent about three hours on it. I still have several things I need to do. I wrote them on a little 'to do' list on a Sticky and decided I would do my blog. Holidailies lasts another four days, I believe. So I have to do it. Yeah, not really, but doesn't it make you feel better to know you can do something every day even if it's kind of indulgent? FFP is taking a nap. We slept in this morning a little (9 o'clock it was almost when we finally got up and stayed up). But we were up very, very late. FFP took the picture above on the pool deck last night at midnight when the fireworks over Lady Bird Lake were erupting. We stayed up a while after that visiting with friends. We stayed up a while longer reading. I probably drank too much. Wine and champagne it was.

So, here we are. 2009. I've made the stickies for my promised New Year's Resolution. Which is to spend some time each day doing things that I never get around to. The three hours I spend today on bookkeeping? Doesn't count. It is stuff that eventually gets done and doesn't get shunted aside indefinitely.

I feel like I should go to the gym or go for a walk. I don't think we will go out to eat or go to a movie today. FFP has some writing he has to get done. But we may get cabin fever. (Would that be condo fever?) A walk would probably cure it. Going to the gym doesn't do the trick since it's just across the hall. (Can't go to the club today, even if I thought starting the car was a good idea, because it is closed.) But right now I'm listening to iTunes execute a play list of jazz tunesI made with "Genius" starting with a Roy Hargrove track. I still bridle when Apple uses Genius for people or software, but that's me. (Did anyone see the Simpson's Mapple episode? Loved, loved it. But I digress. But you know me...I think digression is the better part of valor.)

While I was goofing off, FFP got up from his nap. I wish I could nap. I'm not good at it. FFP can doze well in his chair or (as in this case) go to bed and catch some winks. Maybe I'll take a nap today. That would be different.

Well, before I continue too far down the digression path...I want to make a beginning of 2009 comment. I may expand on this in my other blog, The Journal of Unintended Consequences (which has fallen into disuse because it was overwhelmed with material). But I just want to make a list of the things that the press keeps telling me I did in 2008 and prior to that that I did not do.

• I did not run up credit card debt I had no hope of repaying. In fact, I paid cash or charged for thirty days only all year and for lots of years before.
  
• I didn't ignore that I might lose my job and health insurance. Rather I prepared financially to quit my job and buy insurance.
• I did not invest in things that 'looked too good to be true.' (Well, maybe a couple of times, but I knew the risk and it was usually some financial advisor dispensing and drinking the Koolaid.)
• I did not buy a house I couldn't afford with a toxic mortgage with zero down at adjustible rates I didn't understand and then blame someone else when I lost 'my' house. (If I had, though, I would realize it wasn't ever mine! Hell, you don't even own a house you own unless you can pay the tax collector thousands of dollars a year.)
• I did not assume real estate would always go up and buy property to flip.
• I did not gain two pounds. (I have done that, on average, sometimes in the past. I'm pretty sure that I'm pretty much the same as I was last year. Yes, I still could use to lose ten or twenty pounds. Shut up.)
• I did not buy an iPhone or any other smart phone. My phone doesn't take photos even. It is seven (more?) years old. But it works and the (original) battery still takes a charge and has good life.
• I did not cut back on eating out. And, contrary to the wisdom I heard on TV today I'm not going to start packing a lunch to go to work because I don't work. On the other hand I won't be saving money by not buying lattes. I don't buy lattes. I drink coffee out sometimes, but it's usually a brew, French press or an Americana or espresso. Mostly I drink many cups from my expensive Capresso machine at home.
  

I often look at the world and wonder what kind of place it would be if everyone were a little more like me. It isn't a pretty picture, in some cases. But it would be a world without Golden Arches. Or Starbucks. I'm just saying. And there wouldn't be an ARM.

So I'm tired of hearing 'it's our own fault' and stuff like that. Speak for yourself, journalist person.

Well, that's all. I'm going to the gym. Then I'm having a shower. Maybe a walk after that. Maybe I'll read a book. Hope you have a nice holiday and that your hangover yields as easily as mine did if you have one.

You Can't Go Home Again

By rights I ought to feel silly pointing to this building (shot here reflected in the pond north of the Palmer Events Center) and saying "I live there." I don't, though. Feel silly, that is. People do find it exciting or shocking, though. Austin hasn't been that much of a high rise living town until recently. Before the 360, the 18 story AMLI and the Monarch, most apartment and condo projects were shorter and lower key. But we are movin' on up to apartments in the sky. OK, our place is not on such a high floor. I am a little tired of answering the questions about how we like it, do we miss our house, do we miss the space, the stuff.

By rights I should miss our old place. Miss the pretty yard, the space, the stuff I left behind, gave away. But really I don't. It's the same old, same old really. Wishing I could/would find the time to clean out the drawers, shelves, cabinets and the storage unit in the parking structure. Wishing I would find time to write. I am forced to keep things tidier, I guess, because the piles would be in my face.

In spite of living at the "Shoal Creek Manse" (as we called it, tongues firmly in cheek) for about thirty-one years, I don't miss living there. And I finally realized why.

I don't ever settle into a place, I don't think. Not in a way that makes moving difficult. Maybe I did as a kid. I started out living in a 2-1 farmhouse with a basement and a screen porch (which got enclosed at some point and became a narrow tiny bedroom for my six-year-old self at some point). I knew nothing else, really. Except the grandmother's house which, come to think of it, had a porch that had been converted to accommodate my old granddad. (He was twenty-one years older than my grandmother and thus a quite elderly man when I was born. And I don't mean sixty. He was seventy-three when I was born.) I do remember not liking to spend a night anywhere but my grandmother's house or at home. Possible exception was my aunts' house in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas. Gradually I became comfortable with being away from home. I even sought it out, eager to see things, have adventures.

When I was about ten, we moved. To a bigger town than the small town with my grandmother's house. (Our farmhouse was outside this smaller town.) We moved to a brand new tract house in town. It wasn't a city but this town had a bowling alley. Imagine that! I don't remember being disturbed by moving. My whole family went, of course, and we still saw my grandmother. Sometimes she took a bus and a cab to get to our new house and come take care of me.

That little 3/2 house was my home for ten years. I went to the elementary down the street and to the old Junior high and high school 'in town.' I rode my bike around the neighborhood, learned to drive and drove around town. (I wasn't allowed to drive far out of town, but I had a friend that lived as far east as we did west and we were back and forth all the time.) It came time for college. I'd be going away to live in a dorm. I got to take a couple of trips that summer after graduation. And while I was gone on one of them, my parents packed up and moved to a suburb of Dallas so Dad would be closer to his work.

I never really lived in that new house. (Another 3/2 tract house, with a bit bigger family room.) Oh, I did go there on school holidays, I lived there one summer and commuted to my college town. Between apartments and situations I'd move in with all my stuff and out again. When I graduated from college I got a job in Dallas and, too broke to put a deposit on an apartment, lived with the parents for quite a few months, paying my mother rent. It was a crash place for me. The very friendliest of places to light between here and there.

I moved to Austin in 1975. I rented an apartment that I would live in for less than a year. I married FFP and joined him in a little 2/1 house that he'd bought several years before. A little more than a year after that we saw a 'For Sale' sign down the street and bought a bigger house. Which we remodeled four times, making it bigger and bigger, until it had three bedrooms, two and a half baths, a large separate office with wet bar and a large entertainment room. (At 550 square feet, almost as big as the first house.) The master suite had been expanded to include a commodious bath and a pretty big walk-in. The basic house always had tons of storage, fairly good-sized bedrooms and a huge kitchen with walk-in pantry. It wasn't a manse, but it was big, especially compared to the tiny apartments and tract houses and dorm rooms I'd lived in.

Do I miss that big house? No. It never felt like home. I realize that beyond the farmhouse or that first tract house, no place ever did seem like anything but a temporary place to sleep, eat, entertain.

If I feel I 'want to go home' what it really means is that I want to exit the company and clutter and be alone in whatever abode that is. Maybe a room someone has loaned me in a house. Maybe a hotel room. Or a condo in a high rise. Home is me, alone, writing. (Or in the modern era, blogging.) Or just thinking. I can even be 'home' in public if I'm not with anyone. People can be all around as long as they aren't with me and don't require anything of me.

FFP is an exception to the people rules. I can be in close proximity to him and still feel at home. I do enjoy some alone time when I don't feel that what I'm doing (cleaning, playing music, dragging things out of closets) might disturb him. But I can certainly be 'at home' with him in the room. (Like now.) In the old house, we had office space as far away as possible from one another. (Not really intentionally, just the way it happened. We called and e-mailed each other. We still e-mail each other. So sue us.) As we moved out and fixed up the house, we moved into the large office together and now we share a small one. I'm at home here. But I'm just as much at home in a coffee shop somewhere with a notebook or my laptop. Home is in my head somehow. We have made our place more comfortable here since we were 'camping' in the living room but I'm no more at home here now.

Yeah, homesick is something I really can't feel. I can miss seeing people. I used to miss FFP and the various dogs when I'd be on a trip without them. I used to miss seeing my parents. But the structure and surroundings? I could enjoy them, some were more comfy and accommodating than others, but I could never really miss them. If I didn't have a comfortable place to be, I'd regret that. And I'd feel lost if I didn't have things I wanted in close proximity to me. I could miss a town, I guess. I've certainly come back from Europe missing Mexican food and I've missed places I've been because of the things to do (entertainment, museums, cafes, bars, the streets). But I'll sleep happily here or there. We have everything we really need and enjoy from the old house here. So, no, I don't miss it. I find I miss some of the neighborhood restaurants and coffee shops that aren't quite duplicated downtown, but I'd miss the ones around here and their particular joys if I was back there.

You can't go home again because it's not a spot with GPS coordinates. At least not for me.

Take Your Time

Take the time to look around. Take the time to enjoy your leisure. Even if you are using the 'free' time to clean your house and fret over your finances and update your calendar and organize stuff. You have the time, enjoy it. Go down the by-ways and alleys. This one is between the Austin Club and the buildings west of it. (I usually show the prettier, intentional picture on Austin Daily Photo. Not that I didn't take this one intentionally. Just not with a pretty motive. At least it's not a reflection. I'm sort of tired of them. You?)

Take the time to blog. Yeah, I was cleaning house but right in the middle of a task I started blogging and drinking coffee. I'd gotten distracted by some sirens. I went out on the balcony to hear them better. I'm listening to my new iPod on the sound system playing a play list it made up from our CD collection. You pick a song and it picks ones to go with it. Who knew? It's pretty clever really. But not genius. Which is what they call it. And what they call the people who work in the Apple Store. Hmm, yeah. But I digress.

When I retired, I had all this time, but I fretted over spending it. I obsessed more about allocating my time than I did when I worked. I obsessed more about time than money. Not that I obsess about money a lot. I don't.

When we started getting ready to move there were all these important things to do. Or so I thought. I squeezed leisure around sorting and packing and tossing and planning the moving and the condo redo and fixing the house to sell and on and on. Now there are days, like today, when only a few things are pressing. When I have scads of time to clean, to catch up some of my projects, to work out. Maybe even time to think.

I want to take some of the time to get the condo clean. I'm my own maid. Did I mention that? How many times? Anyway, FFP is a big help. He takes out the recycling and takes things to the dumpster and does laundry. Does most of the shopping. Arranges the flowers. I once thought that I'd be rich if I had fresh flowers around most of the time. So, yeah, I'm a richie! (Points for knowing what movie has that line.)

I want to clean today because a friend is coming by tonight to see the place for the first time. I want it to look pretty good. First impressions. I think this friend should sell her house and go back to condo living. Not that she could sell right now, but anyway. Once she had a condo. She had major damage in the Northridge earthquake of '94. Structurally it stood but lots of damage to the interior. She wasn't inside. But I digress again.

I think I'll go back to cleaning. My mood is improving, I think. It's been bleak. It needs to rise to a point in the next fifteen minutes that is high enough to keep going when the stock market opens. If you know what I mean.

So, take your time. Go find the feather duster. Get things clean. Workout. Write. Read. File. But take it easy. Take your time.

Taking Time to Notice

One really needs to take time to notice one's luck. To remind oneself that even when a day seems filled with things that don't work and make one angry that those things are trivial. One also needs to observe how one's fortune far exceeds that of most everyone else. Most of our friends have faced or are facing much more serious health problems or they are struggling more for money. A lot of people still have to work. (How does anyone find time for that?)

It's also important to take note of what's going on around one's own little nest. Sometimes I think I notice TOO much around here and not enough outside. I've been fretting over some cosmetic things FFP says don't matter much, that he wouldn't notice if I didn't notice.

I took this picture from the Long Center Terrace. I photographed the 360 from over there plenty of times. Our building really wants to be noticed from other there, set apart from the tall buildings on Congress.

Most of all one needs to notice when one is happy, take heed of what one is doing when there is that sought-after peaceful, satisfied feeling. Then repeat those moments. I spent a few hours at my club on Tuesday. I thought I was going to play tennis but there weren't enough folks for doubles and the one other lady didn't want to play singles. I went to the gym and had a long ride on the bike to nowhere finishing up a book I'd wanted to finish reading for a while. Then I had a coffee/yogurt smoothie and a breakfast taco and then I lifted weights and did sit-ups and stuff. Very slow and leisurely. Then I went to the locker room in the pro shop which I had completely to myself for a shower and grooming. I took my laptop to the club house to wait for a meeting and popped it open and read my e-mail. Someone came by and said the meeting would be in the pro shop so I went over there and ordered some food. I met with a sub-committee I'm on and then we walked the construction site. I felt peaceful and unstressed. (In spite of the worries about the construction project.) I realized that I really enjoy exercising, reading, relaxing. Yeah, of course. But sometimes I do forget.

This morning (which started off cool and sunny, almost but not quite fall) I played tennis and while I was playing I so enjoyed it. I even enjoyed the feeling when I got back to the condo and I was moving stuff around and cleaning up the place a little and then taking a shower. I felt I should go visit with my sister, but when I called Dad he said my sister and my brother-in-law were not back from going off somewhere to visit friends. I felt I had a little reprieve from trying to go out and compete with traffic for the ACL festival and the UT game. I like it when people entertain themselves.

Yesterday was a bad day, mostly, although I made myself stop, breathe and appreciate more than once to get through it. I must remember to repeat the things I love, over and over, as long as they give me that pleasurable feeling.

Hope

Lots of people are looking for hope these days...including this graffiti artist who thoughtfully put a message going both ways on the hike and bike.

My mental landscape veers between hope and anxiety, bouncing around like the stock market.

So far we don't think our unit is impacted by the massive leak in our building and don't think they will be wielding their sledge hammers in here. (Although they gave us a scare yesterday by sending us an e-mail about removing material from our unit).

It's a cozy little nest, this place is, exactly like we want it with a few exceptions. The shades aren't right yet and there isn't a sub-woofer (although the surround sound is awesome even without it). Many channels we are paying for are 'searching for satellite' a lot of the time. There are still a few pictures to hang and a couple of small pieces of furniture to work out. Nothing cosmic. It's really peaceful and lovely in here.

When you step out the door, however, there is a vaguely industrial smell, fans blowing and wallpaper whipping around some bare studs, baseboards pulled off. When the elevator stops on other floors you hear the roar of fans and see piles of debris. Going in and out of the place feels strange. When you get close to the door there is that roar. I've become obsessive about cleaning my place and reorganizing. Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

People wiped out by Ike and other floods, residents of this very building whose units are like the hallway all have far more reason to let the thing called hope fly away. But, as it says in a part of the poem (by Emily Dickinson, of course) not so often quoted:

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've been trying from the beginning to think of this condo as a permanent place, a home for many years. Now I simply see it as a resting place before the next storm.

Oh, My. Chained Melody!

Well, if the drilling in the next room was worrying me yesterday and I'd found a few things to complain about that guaranteed I was going to have to have workmen back here another day and it all seemed futile...well, that was nothing! The guys working on the AV decided they had to go to their truck for something. Then they popped in and said 'FYI, there is water pouring out of the telephone room.' They were right about that. Yikes. One condo, a one bedroom, separates us from this little room with all its phone wires and cables and routers for Internet and TV. About then the gals came out of the sales office down the hall and said we had to evacuate. It was about three and I'd just started to eat a late lunch of some cheese and crackers. (I'd had a taco and a banana for breakfast earlier and I don't usually do breakfast so I was a bit off, but I'd gotten hungry.) So, yeah. We lock up and go down the stairs with our four workmen. And we don't get back in the place until around five. It looks like 9-11 except no one is hurt. Lots of fire trucks, firemen running up the stairs, EMTs standing by with stretchers. The EMTs gave water to over-heated people. Finally I went into the Mulberry, a wine bar on the first floor, which kept operating. We sat in the cool (AC still working) and had beers and I had a sandwich and thought of that delicious cheese on my counter.

So, yeah. Worse than having guys drilling in your living room.

What happened, apparently, is that a sprinkler pipe burst on the 19th floor. I think the people on 19 were put up in hotels. Water remediation teams had to climb to 19 with equipment. Because water went into the elevatoars and they didn't work. They still don't. My workmen had to climb up here to work on the AV and they are going to have to remove the ladders and tools for the shade guys as well as their own. On the stairs. Now, we are on the 10th floor. Imagine if you live on 29 or 33 or, I don't know how high it goes where people are living, but WOW. Supposedly we will have one elevator 'some time this afternoon.'

And I was worried about drilling in my living room. And Ike (which seems to have turned his cheek to us but has sent thousands of refugees our way).

I went up to eleven and rescued my friend's poodle yesterday afternnoon who was unhappy and confused at being drug down eleven flights of stairs. My friend got home from work and we drove to the eighth floor and walked back up, changed and drove out of the place from eight and went to Ruth's Chris to drown our sorrows. We weren't surprised to find no elevators when we returned. We drove up to eight and climbed the two flights (three for my friend).

This morning, FFP called about the newspapers. The concierge said he hadn't had time to climb up with them. Yikes, who would expect that anyway? I went down and got them. The climb up was a little harder than yesterday when I was running on adrenelin. Of course, I was chatting with my neighbor who lives on one side of the telephone room. He didn't get water but the guy on the other side did.

When you are looking one way, something always happends somewhere else. Of course, I am cooped up inside now with workmen (who had to climbe the stairs) who should have finished yesterday. By the time that's cleared out, the weather will probably turn bad. So it goes. It could be worse. I could be in the path of Ike.

The picture was taken on Second Street I think.

What Makes a Home?

What makes a home anyway? We've been 'living' in the condo off and on, mostly on, since June 2. Almost two months.

I guess if you have a working kitchen, shower, bed then you can make a home.

The kitchen was reasonably functional the day we moved in. We brought some pots and pans, glasses, plates, silverware and a coffee maker. It wasn't long before we decided we had to move our favorite coffee maker. The refrigerator, stove, microwave, disposal, etc. were all functional.

For seating we had the movers bring a card table and Costco folding chairs as well as our ultimate 'sitting and reading and watching TV' chairs from our old bedroom. Yesterday the bar stools, chairs, table and console you see above were delivered. They'd been in the warehouse a while because we thought they were a bit fragile to have around while cabinet makers drug in hundreds of pieces of wood of varying sizes up to about twelve feet long. We still have to have lighting guys come in with lengths of track and anchor drills for sag support. And big screens TVs to be delivered. But we couldn't wait any longer. I feared the stuff would disappear from the warehouse. And a card table and folding chairs just didn't cut it any more.

We slept on the sofa bed until Monday when, our custom platform bed having been delivered, we got the new mattress. If you enlarge the picture above you can just see that the bedroom is finally not empty save a massage chair and a lamp. Who knows when that new sofa bed will be opened up again? We like to say that the Extended Stay America on Sixth is our guest room.

Really things are functional now. We need office chairs and lighting desparately. We would enjoy better sound and TV. Although a Bose, a 19inch LCD and the right attitude have gone a long way towards entertaining us. Not to mention the scores of bars and restaurants within walking distance of our front door.

Eight Days and a Dark Place

It's been eight days since I was visible here. You are looking at a dark place. I've been in a state of euphoria or a dark place, swinging between the two. These office components were actually supposed to be a lighter stain. We decided we liked the dark okay, but we wish they had used it in the living room so we could have seen it the way we ordered it. We are living with it rather than sending a million little pieces back to the shop. It took them hours to load the trailer with the components to get them here and have us say, "oh, switched the stains." Anyway, it was chaos getting it in. We haven't quite got it finished. There is a punch list of little staining touch up they have to schedule. The room needs light. We recieved no fixture at all in the ceiling junction in this room for our umpty ump dollars. The bid for the track lights I wanted came in on the stratospheric side of implausible. Must get light, though. And new office chairs. And phones, lamps, supplies properly placed. We did get our computers moved. Mine has an annoying problem connecting to the rest of the network. Supposed to get some help with that today. I'm still upset with Apple that the Bluetooth wireless keyboard and (un)Mighty Mouse doesn't work better. They just arbitrarily quit working. Fortunately neither FFP nor I are relying on them. I have the wired versions (the wireless keyboard doesn't have a number pad but you know Mac isn't good with numbers!) and switch when they decide to quit working. FFP blanched at the little toy keyboard and we set him up with a much less sleek and design-driven wireless USB keyboard.

But progress is promised on all fronts. A bid for lighting we might can swallow, the glass desk top. A mattress delivered. (Monday! We've been on the sleeper sofa for six weeks plus I guess. We now have a platform bed that looks naked and alone with no mattress, a retreat for a monk or something.) Tuesday we get our real dining table, chairs, bar stools and console. We decided we better get them delivered before the warehouse lost them. However, we still have the install of track lights, shades (if we don't change our minds) and a speaker system and AV stuff. We'll try to cover the good furniture as we did with our couch and chairs and such while sawdust, paint and stain and six workers were swirling around to put in the cabinets. Finally it will be finished and we can start creating situations that need maintenance, failing to clean often enough, letting dust and piles of papers to be dealt with accumulate.

Meanwhile, at the old house, where we spend time sorting, packing and tossing still? Chaos. And the threat of needing to vacate in less than three weeks.

On the euphoria side is the fun of popping out to have salad and pizza at Frank and Angie's and watching the frenetic nightlife of Saturday night downtown from the safe remove of the tenth floor.

Changes

Things are changing so fast for us now. Downtown we are living a temporary lifestyle, sleeping on a sleeper sofa, using a laptop; the two bedrooms are largely empty awaiting built-in furniture. Monday work starts on that in our place (it has been happening in the cabinet maker's shop up to now). At the house, we continue to fix things up for sale and discard and redirect possessions. Two bedrooms, four closets, the original living room and a hallway are empty, repainted and floors refinished. A potential buyer pulled an inspection and we picked up a few more things to do from that. (And other things for which we said, um, OK so what?? or WTF? That's always the way with inspections.) I still find myself at the big house needing a shower after tennis and fortunately there is still a supply of soap, shampoo, towels, underwear, etc. I keep putting on shoes and jeans and polos there which end up at the condo. (I keep my tennis shoes that I play tennis in with me at all times so I have them for the next game. Tennis is my bulwark against change. It's the thing I do that's the same to keep the change from overwhelming me. FFP has some of these things, too.)

In this photo, fragments of reflected FFP and I appear in the window of Las Manitas with its signs and fliers. Also reflected is the growing Austonian. This was taken in June. The Austonian has started to peek up in view from our condo, too. We also are watching the progress of the Legacy apartments on Rainey Street from our condo. And from the exercise room we watch the Spring rising. (That's another condo building.) Things are changing and not just for us.

A couple of my friends have had to see parents go to more managed care situations of late. Our parental units rock along in their houses. My dad was outside today trying to get a little water on the foundation. (If you don't live in Austin, we are amidst a severe drought.) Not much has changed for them which is good. They don't tolerate change well.

Change is everywhere and I'm having to adapt. We've lived (or camped) in the condo long enough that we have to do chores here. Sweep the floor, do the dishes, feed ourselves, wash clothes. We still find the house needing these things, too. We still have maid service there. We are sorting and moving stuff around in the house and migrating stuff downtown. We have to get out of the way of the work that's going to be done there, however so that's another issue.

And so it goes. Change. Change. Change. And yet the old familiar house, the familiarity of Dad's house and the new and growing familiarity with our downtown condo and the places that surround it.

Objects Are Closer....

We were walking across a little plaza where Third Street ends going West. Part of someone's shattered rear view mirror was there. I shot this picture of the palm tree and our building before depositing it in the trash.

Bringing our 'surviving' objects to the condo and living close to them is making everything appear closer. Things are lightened from their surroundings and yet sometimes bulky in the new, limited space.

I wish I'd planned more about what stayed, how it was organized in this place. When we have our built-ins a lot will change, though. I wish I'd organized the stuff that looms at home a bit more.

But all my wishing won't reduce the load. Only tossing and giving and thinking about the stuff again does that. To cheer myself up, I think of everything that is already gone, away from us, in the landfill or the lake of secondhand things loose in the world.

Green

The blur in this photo is the UT rowing team flashing by on Lady Bird Lake (Town Lake to you old timers).

When we announced our intention to give up our house in the urban 'burbs (not that far out but with a little land around the house and a creek behind) people would 'tour' the backyard and sometimes they would wave a hand around and say "but won't you miss all this?"

We'd think of the time we spent working on the place, planting and weeding and chopping and the expense of paying others in recent years to do mowing and edging. (I once edged myself with a weed whacker. Whoa. That was hard on the back!) "No," we'd say uneasily.

"But you had all those great parties!"

We would both think, at that point, of all the effort to get things looking perfect, about how hard it was to get the ponds looking good and squirting water, about cleaning out the potting shed dozens of times (fighting against rat squatters often enough). About trying to have fish in the ponds when the raccoons like sushi. We'd think of the four of five giant cans of Yard Guard fog it took to tamp the mosquitoes for a four to six hour period for a party. We created an illusion of green wonder. But it was an illusion. Sometimes we used the yard for our own pleasure. We'd sit at the solid limestone picnic table after a party inside when the weather was nice. Or we would take The New York Times outside on a Sunday and lounge on our chaises and read and doze. (We'd often have to ignite citronella sticks and spray insect repellent on ourselves to avoid the bites.)

If we wanted to wander nature beyond our contained area, we could occasionally (during drought) walk in the Shoal Creek bed. Or we could go to Ramsey Park a mile away (and boring to boot, all developed with a ball field, swimming pool, playground and no interesting natural stuff although one time I saw Austin's monk parrots in the trees there). Northwest Park, a bit further afield has a nice pond. There is a wet land park behind Central Market that is kind of nice. Point? I do have one.

From our downtown condo, we can be on the Lady Bird Lake Hike and Bike Trail in about a minute. There are things growing. There are swans. And last night I happened to look out the windows at about 8:20 and there were curling black ribbons over the lake which I recognized as the Mexican Free-Tailed bats going out to dinner. It was really an amazing view of them, showing no individual bats but the flight patterns (in several directions) of the whole group. (Yesterday we walked under the Congress Avenue Bridge and smelled the bats, too, by the way.) It is a better view from our place than from the Four Seasons where they are just curly streams but you are close enough that the patterns aren't as obvious. I'll have to walk down to the bridge some time and see that angle. (Although inside in the cool with a drink is my favorite way to watch nature. Not really. Well, sort of.)

We hope the move will be green in another way, too, eventually. (When we don't still have the house and our parents in two other houses.) We hope we will use our own two feet to walk to get groceries, dry cleaning, eat out, buy stuff. That we won't drive somewhere every day to get exercise. (I haven't given up tennis and it's a little far to walk there, I think. At least in the current weather.) We could walk to a lot of things in the old neighborhood (which can't be said for a lot of truly suburban areas).

So for everyone who thinks we've given up a private park for a bunch of sidewalks, well not so much. And no watering bill!

Housekeeping

We stopped by to check on my dad today. When he finishes newspapers he tosses them on a chair next to his. Same with junk mail, anything destined for paper recycling. When I stop by I always pick up all the papers and put them in a grocery bag. Sometimes he asks me to load or unload the dishwasher, too, as it requires more bending than his back needs. Today he asked me to unload it, but I found it mostly empty. Maybe the maid did it. There were a lot of dishes on the counter, though, so I put them in the dishwasher and washed his little French press by hand that he makes his one cup of coffee in every day. He keeps up the good fight (with the help of his weekly maid), but he always appreciates us doing a couple of things when we stop by. A little housekeeping.

When you have three houses, it can take a lot of housekeeping. How can there be laundry at both houses? And dishes? And dust?

Dad pointed out the other day that if you don't live in a place, it can "deteriorate fast." It's true of course. Sometimes even if you are living in it, the deterioration sets in.

I have good intentions, of course When I live in less space, I'll be a better housekeeper! Meanwhile I chase between all the houses and I'm always spotting something that needs to be done. Sadly, we've also found the need to buy new things for the condo. As much stuff as we have, we don't have the 'right' think for a spot.

The picture is a heirloom tomato ripening in a new bowl we bought at a charity auction for the condo.

We have brought some things to the condo from the house and made little areas that look fresh and new from our old stuff, rearranged. That's sort of fun. Even though we are waiting on some built-ins before we hand all our art, FFP had to hang a few things or he just wouldn't feel comfortable.

Too many houses. To keep.

The World (well Austin) at My Feet

We came back to the condo and did a few chores and decided to relax 'a minute' and faced our chairs to the windows and watched some dramatic lightning and the bike race. FFP decided to take a nap and he was blocking my view of the bike race so I moved to his chair where you see my laptop and my foot and part of my view. I can watch the bikers going around the corner of Guadalupe and Fourth and I can watch the traffic jam caused by the closed streets at Fifth and San Antonio. I might drift off to sleep, but first I have to fold some laundry. I didn't really think I'd ever get to sit downtown and really just look out the window. It's tempting to never move or go outside but just watch from here.

Temporary Quarters

Until, say, the middle of August we will be living part time at the condo under a "temporary quarters" arrangement. Our custom bed will be built at some point, we will have a mattress we already paid for delivered and voilà, we won't be sleeping on the sleeper sofa. I was making it back into a sofa each day or at least when we had guests coming by, but I've stopped doing that and just spread a new comforter over some new sheets and added throw pillows pillaged (pillaged pillows, cool) from the master bedroom at home.

The master suite at home is a shadow of itself. Gone are the chairs we had in front of the TV. They flank the bed in this photo and are our official chairs for beginning life here. Ditto the couch, only not posing as a bed most of the time. Our joke is that the Extended Stay America on West Sixth will be our guest room. No, the condos don't have a unit you can rent on a short term basis for guests.

Also visible in this picture is one of the lamps we brought from our bedside in the old master suite. If we can get some more lighting installed in the ceiling we can maybe ditch these. Or we might buy something new. I'm terrible at picking lamps and liking lamps I pick. You can also see a couple of books stacked by FFP's yellow chair. They are on a temporary end table of a Palaset cube (see below). The end table issue will be resolved when the couch is against the wall (it was out from the wall for measuring and painting and we have just left it for future stuff) and when everything else is in place. I'm using an ottoman that converts from table to seat and has storage and rolls around. This was also filched from the master suite at the house. (I moved some other side tables to the spot at the house that originally were used in the media room when we watched TV in there). I'm thinking of trying to find another similar thing to buy.

Lastly, in the picture above you see a small flat screen TV and some other stuff and a tangle of wires. I bought the TV for the office (which has no furniture so far, just boxes and a couple of lamps, neither of which is destined to stay) and to use for the 'interim.' I figured we could watch it until we got a fancy flat screen screwed to the wall after we got built-ins. Below it is the DirecTV HD DVR. DirecTV has a monopoly here. We still have Time Warner and three (!) receivers at the house. One is a DVR. I think it is dutifully recording Jeopardy episodes I'm not watching. I took the DVD player out of our master suite, though, and it and its cables are adding to the mess here. (Now if I can just remember to get the remote from the house.) In addition I added a wireless router and its power and Internet cable. I added the cell phones and chargers there and another surge suppressor was needed. So. Wires and more wires. Won't be able to hide wires until we have built-ins and even then, you know, life is wired. (Although I've added a printer that is wireless. So, while it's plugged into the wall, is just off by itself. On a temporary piece of furniture, an Elfa rolling cart.) The TV and components are resting on two Palaset Cubes. They are made from some sort of plastic that you can sand and paint. I bought them about thirty-five years ago when I lived in an apartment in Dallas (actually it was in Highland Park). I grouped different ones with drawers and shelves and doors and put a desk top on them. These guys followed me from place to place and while the desk top disappeared years ago the cubes were everywhere, supporting things in my office and Forrest's and providing storage. I figure they will have a new life in the storage room I have here eventually. Although we are talking about painting some to use in a little space beside the door.

It's funny what things cling to you and what things go away.

What you can't see in this picture are the Costco folding chairs and card table that are standing in for our beautiful new dining table and chairs which we are going to leave at the store's storage until we aren't doing construction. Truthfully I like this spartan yet functional existence. I type on my laptop at a small built-in desk where I have a phone and answering machine, too.

We have moved a lot of things but not enough that we don't have closet and cabinet space to hide things away and tidy them up. Everything is just a few steps away in this place (except the car and storage unit which are down the elevator four floors). We probably save steps. So we need to step across the hall and go into the fitness center for a few more rounds with the cardio machines. Or else walk some place to have dinner.

Vertiginous

I shot this picture out the window at the south end of the hallway at the condo. I was standing there the other day and realized that one could get a good case of vertigo there. Or one could just uproot everything at once, live in two places, puzzle over a new environment with an ever increasing cast of new neighbors.

Heck, we were driving in our 'burbs neighborhood today and we met a guy at a stop sign on a giant unicycle. First I thought he was a guy that we'd seen before but then I realized that the other guy was on one of those old-fashioned cycles with the large wheel in front and a tiny one in back.

Everything seems odd and disorienting. Clearly we have two (or more of everything.) We have enough clothes and shoes in the condo closet to sustain us (especially for the blazing hot days we've been having). There are also a couple of pieces of luggage there. But the closet in the house looks full.

Today we are trying to move our favorite coffee machine downtown. It leaves us without a way to make coffee at the house, really, unless we hunt up some ground coffee and some hot water (I took the kettle to condo, too) and use a French press. I could bring back the drip coffee maker, but it seems futile and backwards although without our office built out I'm still bringing stuff back to file and such.

I'm making a plan in my head for how the installation of built-ins, AV, shades, lighting can go in the next few weeks. There isn't much I can do to speed things up except sign contracts and bug the condo people about approvals and make appointments to bring in stuff on the freight elevator.

FFP thinks he will feel better with one piece of art on the wall so we are going to hang a poster in our bathroom out of the old bathroom.

A creepy feeling of sadness, excitement, anger, futility, vitality, confusion and a strange calm has come over me. The latter is from sitting in the condo in the one room with furniture watching something on the TV and/or reading and having coffee or a drink. It's very focused with a minimum of distraction. Like being off on a vacation with a minimum of 'stuff' along, just enough. Being in temporary quarters where you have stuff to eat and drink and all the clothes and toiletries you need and some entertainment but not too much 'baggage.'

I want to just sit down, though, and work on a creative project or read a book and not think about what isn't working at the condo or how much will be disrupted by our projects before we are settled or about how we have to empty and sell this house. Of course, I was always wanting that ever since retirement and something always seems to be in the way.

We are so lucky, though. We have two places to live that are high and dry and not in a war zone. Even with the roar of motorcycles we aren't bothered by the noise downtown as our friend who just moved in seems to be. She's also bothered by the light from the AMLI and Frost Bank (the condo people were too cheap to put shades over the door and another pane in the condo). Not me. I'm going to get shades but not black out ones, just something to reduce the solar gain. I think anyway. I'm really pretty happy in the glass box. Especially if the other rooms where furnished with a proper bed and proper office respectively.

I'm rambling, huh? I'm a little dizzy but not as dizzy as I sound in this. One step at a time, right? Meanwhile, FFP suggested that we test out downtown restaurants we hadn't tried before and we started trying to think what they were. Now doesn't that sound like fun? We ate a traditional breakfast today at Blue Star in our 'burbs. I fished a book by Tobias Wolff out of FFP's car and read it while eating and drinking coffee. Nothing settles me down like eating and reading. There's a lesson there. A stabilizer in the vertiginous sea.

Age Appropriate

Yesterday a friend of ours closed her condo. She called me on her cell and I stepped out on our balcony to see her peering through the railing of hers, one floor up and a few doors to the south.

Silly? Yes. Forgive us.

More and more people are moving in. OK, most are younger than us. We have two couple friends in the 'hood, though, who are our age and live in other downtown buildings. And our friend who moved in is younger but still 'our generation.'

We went out for some Mexican food and then walked over to Congress which was taken over by the Republic of Texas Biker Rally. I I saw this customized three-wheeler and thought "now I might could ride that!" Sure an SUV could take you out, but you wouldn't fall over or need as much finesse. Finesse has become more and more missing from my life.

I was thinking about my options yesterday for AV equipment, motorized shades, lighting and how long it was going to take to get the custom bed and bookshelves and desks and I realized that we would be the end of the summer or close to it before we had that stuff in and had everything ready here. I knew this before but what I didn't know is that, as I said in the last post, we'd keep sleeping here a lot of nights. Sadly, we seem to have two of everything so we can go back and forth. There are dilemmas, though. I'm considering packing up the Capresso and bringing it here although the new Cuisinart drip is serving us well down here. (I'll use it later to make decaf for friends or a pot of coffee to quickly fill a thermos or to use some special beans that might be too oily for the Capresso's internal burr grinder.) Yeah, coffee is important to us. There are probably a dozen coffee shops within three blocks of here, too. We could walk to several from our old house for that matter.

But I ramble. I've accepted that for another two months or so, life will be neither here nor there. And today, I've got to find time to go to our other house and visit my dad. Tomorrow is Father's Day after all. I was thinking of bringing him down here for a visit. I wonder if I could use the handicapped tag so we could park closer to the elevator and whether the elevator will keep working. Oh, yeah. The elevators worked for a couple of days. They are going to have to get this thing worked out, I tell you.