Not So Fast

I'm not feeling up to my life right now. Out playing tennis in the wind yesterday, I made a lot of mistakes. And when I did something right it didn't seem to matter to me.

Today's photo is a shop window reflection of a yoga place that was dressed up for the Marathon the other weekend. I don't run. Twenty-six anything? I don't think so.

Right now I don't have an injury. No excuse. No strained knee. No strained toe. No strained lower back. I was a little allergy dizzy yesterday morning but it was gone when I was playing tennis.

I've worked on my taxes. That's depressing. But I've almost got everything together for the CPA. Two partnerships haven't shipped K1-s. I have swithered over whether to bother to claim some non-cash donations. (What did you pay for the little antique table you gave to the Settlement Home? Why $200 I think, or so, there was still a tag on it. What is it worth? Who knows? And the wine the ballet and symphony auctioned off? It makes me tired.) Although in the post-Obama-appointee-we-will-vet-and-yet-what?-I owed taxes? climate I'm a little more cavalier than ever about taxes. And, oh, by the way, I'm sure that they will find a way to make me pay more taxes.

I'm feeling slow. And lazy. And useless. Probably because I am. I need to straighten and clean. I need to exercise. I need to get my car washed. I don't know why I threw that in, but that is one thing about our parking here which is open to the wind...cars get very dirty. I'd like to be reading and writing but I'm blogging.

Last night we had a real downtown stroll in the cold wind. We walked to a party room at Whole Foods for the release of the new issue of L Style/G Style and then to the Paramount to see Lily Tomlin. (Hmm...was it just me or was that sort of boring.) We wanted to get into the Elephant Room to see Jeff Lofton do a Miles Davis tribute but there were a couple of dozen people waiting on the cold sidewalk at 10PM. So we walked to Taste and ordered some sweetbreads and foie gras. Allegedly the chef saw the offal order and said "Is that Linda and Forrest?" He came out and talked to us. We enjoyed the organ meats. I had a little Montrachet and FFP had some Mouvedre which I also tasted. We were tired and we came home. And this morning we slept in until almost eight.

I sit here watching Face the Nation, having already watched most of Sunday Morning. I have the good life. No demands except the ones I'm making on myself to clean, organize, read, write, exercise. Well, the demands of the IRS loom but I'm on the case. So can I relax and enjoy my freedom and leisure? We'll see. I tried to work the Sunday NY Times magazine crossword but it completely eludes me today.

When I called my dad today he said a friend of his had died and services were Wednesday. I volunteered to take him. Next week is not a bad week with some expected and unexpected free time, time to get things done. But then things heat up with some social stuff and SXSW film fest and some promised relative visiting.

It Dawned On Me

That's this morning's sunrise, captured by himself, FFP.

Lots of random things occur to me (and happen to me) that don't get recorded because, in spite of having three blogs, they don't fit into a coherent (yeah, right) whole to slip in anywhere. Well, today, I'm just going to catch up with a few random threads.

I actually finished a book. Marcel Bénabou's "Why I Have Not Written Any of My Books." If anyone else finds it amusing that I managed to finish that (short) non-book (according to its author) while several other books lurk (half-finished, half-started, bought recently but not cracked open) then go on, laugh. And I'm not doing a good job of keeping up with newspapers either.

One book I bought is Diana Athill's "Somewhere Towards the End." It's about growing old, approaching death. I hope I finish it before I die. I keep thinking the title should be "Somewhere Toward the End." Yeah, I can't stop trying to edit myself or others.

That's really a problem, the constant editing. I sometimes even spend a bunch of time writing and re-writing an e-mail. Today FFP wrote a draft of an e-mail, sent it to me for editing then sent it. Sometimes editing gets in the way of writing.

Last night we went to a very hip opening of a very hip show at Arthouse at Jones Center. This British artist Matt Stokes created a film about punk rock and collected a bunch of Austin punk rock ephemera to display with it. I realized that, while I am not (and probably never will be) a punk rock fan that I loved the exhibit and the people at the opening. The film was a very santized way to experience the art of punk and art made from punk. Cool. I talked to a venture capitial biggie who is a friend of mine and told him I read his blog. He said he read mine, too. (Yikes.)

After the opening we went to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. I had a glass of Pinot Noir and the very excellent carpaccio.

Today I played tennis. The cold swirling wind lessened my enjoyment and I made too many mistakes but I enjoyed it. We got out in the wind again to go to Whole Foods and buy limes, mango sorbet (some mango margaritas are in the offing), yogurt, bananas, vegetarian barbecue, hot tofu dip, green onions and a tomato. A few groceries and not so much we couldn't easily carry it home. It was cold and windy, though, and we decided that even though we had said we'd go to a cocktail party at Long Center that the sniffles would win out...we are staying in the rest of the day. And...I'm going to get some things done even if it's just read the newspapers or even a book!

Shadow Me

I'd been noticing a scratchy throat and fighting it off with hope and Echinacea. (The latter may not boost the immune system but I believe it does so maybe it has a placebo effect.) FFP was feeling poorly for a few days, too. We chalk it up to allergies as we don't seem to have fever, but who knows? I feel like a shadow me, not quite in touch with my world when I have to take decongestants so that I don't have to have a Kleenex permananently attached to my nose. I can't take the "non-drowsy" formula because they make me crazy. Right now I'm trying to time my decon effects to see if I can go out to a movie tonight and not sniffle or cough. I haven't developed a cough yet but that may come. For some reason I was sweeping up in cyberspace and realized I had a similar attack last year at about the same time.

I hope it is really just allergies and I'm not (and wasn't yesterday before I felt as bad) infectious. Because I went over to Dad's yesterday and I'm always afraid of giving the old folks something. Of course, they all (including FFP actually) had 'flu shots and I did not. Still no aches, no fever. Probably allergies.

One always tries to rush these things, to change the shadow before the angle of the sun moves. But it always just takes a certain amount of time. Just like the healing on my strained knee and stubbed toe and the cycle of all my chronic little tics and ups and downs. The earth turns and sometimes you feel a lot better before you stop feeling at all. I am barely dripping at all right now, two hours in on another dose of decongestant. Maybe I'll get a cup of tea. I already have a round of sympathy from FFP. I take these same pills when I fly to stabliize my ears so they will pop. So it reminds me of flying to take them. Yeah, if I'd been on that plane from LaGuardia to North Carolina, I would have probably fallen asleep while it was on the tarmac and the whole thing would have been like a dream to me. I was on one flight one time where we landed in an emergency 'brace' mode. Everything was fine...the computer that showed the status of something was messed up. But some people still got hysterical and were still hysterical the next day when we were rebooked to fly again after staying an unexpected night in London. (We were flying from Zurich to Chicago.) I am amazed that those people in the Hudson managed to be as calm as they had to be to save themselves.

Dizzy Me

I have rocked and will rock again but today I'm mostly dizzy-style rocking. Allergic to oak pollen I'd guess. Yesterday I saw an actual green cloud of the pollen, like a West Texas dust storm, only green as grass. The fine pollen is covering everything. I guess it got in my head and caused some sinus irritation. So far no sneezing but just dizzy especially when I first get up. I've taken two generic allergy pills from Costco and hoping to be able to function properly soon.

I had to talk to the hospital pharmacist about Dad's drugs to prepare for his surgery and fortunately they could pull it up from his last one less than two months ago because I was feeling less than confident in spite of a printed list sitting in front of me.

Well, it's time to deal with financial stuff. I hope I'm competent to do that! My downsizing is stymied at the moment by a need to carry some full boxes around and bending over and picking up heavy things makes my head spin. Ditto going to the gym to lift weights although I've got to get around to that today.

The picture was taken in SoCo. Blackmail was the shop. Maybe. I think.