Going Through the Motions

There is something about this holiday gap between Christmas and the New Year that always makes me feel lost. On Christmas Day, I drank two Bloody Marys. Started drinking early, too. I actually don't think I had another drink, but one can't be sure this many days later.

Anyway, I feel lost. Yesterday, I went through my regular routine. I was up a little late (7:30). I had coffee and did the puzzles in The New York Times. (It was Saturday and I conquered them all so that took a while.) I turned the TV on because it's cold outside and I use it to warm up the room. Haven't had the heat on all winter! Put it on BBC News. I read the rest of the Arts section that I found interesting and then almost finished looking at yesterday's papers, save the front page of the NY Times. I got interested in a couple of stories in it and have yet to finish.

We walked across the footbridge to Trader Joe's because I wanted salad for lunch. (I'd already had a taco that FFP got from the Farmer's Market Taco Deli stand.) I didn't have any 'green stuff.' We get a mixture of kale, spinach, and chard called Power to the Greens. Came home with a Fuji apple, a birthday card for my nephew-in-law, some cheese sticks that I'm going to add to the appetizer plate for tonight, a fake chicken in orange sauce frozen thing FFP wanted to try, chicken tenders (actual chicken) for a dish he's going to make tomorrow night, a small baguette, a microwavable Indian Tikka veggie thing I wanted to try, some olive tapenade (for the apps for last night) and five Lemon Luna bars (why five I don't know, FFP added to cart). And, of course, the greens. The total was only $24.94. The bill always seems cheap at Trader Joe's!

I made a salad. The greens, some chopped apple, some broccoli, some raisins, some carrots, shredded cheese, green onions, and Greek Feta dressing. I read a little bit of today's The Wall Street Journal while eating. I put away the food I'd drug out.

Then I sat at my computer. Pondering cash flow to pay my bills, my 'to do' lists and where we stood after the wild week on Wall Street.

I decided I deserved to sit in my chair and read, perhaps to doze.

Around 4p.m. I put together some appetizers for the event last night. I ended up with a lot of choices for what to include and how to combine it. Some endive topped with olive tapenade or Boursin cheese, some celery with pimento cheese, little toasts with paté and a sliver of gherkin, and zucchini topped with Boursin. Something like that. Challenge was figuring out how to get them in something we could walk across the lake on foot with. I managed it and we made it there. We had dinner with food brought by the other couples (much tastier and better thought out), drank wine, watched a show of singers giving tribute to Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong backed by a number of musicians from the local scene plus a bunch of the Austin Symphony.

Today was cold and rainy. I got out for my lunch with some girlfriends. We chattered about growing old and our various challenges. I ate fried avocado eggs benedict. Which somehow sounded better than it was. I didn't do anything constructive all day. FFP wanted to go out to the restaurant down the street (Fixe Southern House) for dinner. I had a couple of Manhattans with some gumbo and fried chicken and kale salad.

Sloth isn't becoming, but I do it so well. I would make resolutions to do better in 2019, but why? I wouldn't keep them. If I need resolutions, I only need to look back.

Kitchen Confessional

I love to eat. Whether it's cheap Tex-Mex (photo: Aranda's Taqueira, 2005) or fine dining. I eat all veggies. I love steamed fresh Brussels sprouts, al dente haricots verts. Not as big a fan of English Peas. I love delicate little gourmet dishes with precious bits of sauce piped on in fanciful swirls. Foie gras? Bring it on? Your spinach, green bean or sweet potato casserole. Sure, I'll have some. Fish cooked in paper. Things expertly grilled.

I'm not a huge fan of rich desserts heavy with cream and chocolate, but sure I'll have a bite.

However. I have a phobia for cooking. Now I'll go into the kitchen. Because that's where people keep the coffee maker, the beer and the chips, jalapenos and Costco shredded cheese for nachos. Oh and fresh fruit, crackers, cheese and other snacks.

Some coffee-making is somewhat complex but I've always persevered. I'm kind of like those crack addicts delicately boiling stuff in a spoon. Not sure what's that's all about but it is obviously necessary like the methods for extracting coffee flavor into water that are essential to my addiction. We do what we have to do.

I can also boil water. I'm uncomfortable if you want me to then add pasta but I will boil eggs. My technique: put eggs in salted, cold water. Bring to boil. Turn off heat, cover and leave for 15 minutes. Cool in running water. Peel. I'll save my recipes for deviled egg variations for another day.

But about those deviled eggs. Yeah. Chopping and mixing aren't so bad. My resistance arises when heat and timings and butchering and carving and all that are mentioned. With deviled eggs if you get the eggs cooked and the halves neatly divested of the yolks (start with extras because some will be failures) then you just have to mix whatever with the yolks and put some of the mixture back in the halves. Chopping, mixing, but no more application of heat, no turning, flipping, etc.

God forbid you want me to do baking where things have to rise and be mixed in proper proportions, etc. Better a skillet saute dinner where things can just flow and you can see the onions become translucent.

I like to stand in the kitchen and chop things. Onions even.

And I don't mind a mess. Come to my kitchen. Make a mess in my kitchen making something wonderful and I'll clean it up without a whimper.

The truth is that cooking is hard work. And some of it is exacting: baking, handling meat, etc. Souffles? Ha. And if you have the means you simply have to walk in some place and look at the menu. Last night I had a wonderful seafood risotto (Bess). But I would never, ever make one. At lunch yesterday (posole and a Southwestern Caesar at Mirabelle) and my companion mentioned buying the same corn used to make polenta at Enoteca for himself for a Christmas Eve dinner and for a friend as a present. And I was thinking, "I think I'll go to Enoteca and have polenta!"

I get that if you don't have the money, you have to cook. Been there. Skillet dinners, pot of beans, salads (chopping only). And always lots of things you eat without prep.

Yes, I confess, I have major phobias in the kitchen. And this time of year I have to say: "I don't cook turkey! Ever."

There, I got that off my chest.

Another Day

FFP actually took this a few days ago. But, yeah, every day the sun comes up and you figure your schedule out and bumble through. It's Sunday and the temperature out is pleasant according to my computer. So it would have been a nice day for a leisurely walk. But my actual plan is to walk to a restaurant on Congress (El Chile) for a press party and ASA fundraiser. It's a short walk (about ten blocks). We'll return to the condo after that. I should probably exercise or do some chores at that point, but, if I feel like the twenty block (round trip) walk hasn't necessitated another shower, I won't do those things but, rather, probably sit around and read the Sunday papers.

We'll dress up a bit and go this afternoon to a graveside service at three. After that we'll come back, change and go take my dad on a outing to a friend's house for a (belated) birthday dinner. We have good news on the Dad front: he felt strong enough to maneuver his walker down his sidewalk to the curb to get his mail and papers. After five weeks and six iron infusions, maybe he is less anemic.

That pretty well shapes our day. Looking at the calendar for next week...I have morning things four days (incl. Saturday) and social things every night except Thursday (when FFP has a board meeting). All the events are fun except for a finance meeting at the country club and I've no complaints about being busy having fun. But I hope to find time to do some cleaning and to reorganize the kitchen. We bought a toaster oven we'd like to keep on the counter and our beloved coffee maker is back from the repair depot and the counter is just too cluttered. I think I need to find a place to put away some liquor bottles and stuff like that. The cabinets have been poorly organized since we moved in. There should be plenty of time during the days for this work. Yes, but...will I do it!? Will I find other more fun things to do? Some of the time, probably. I also need to get serious about some gym work.

Well...I wrote the above before we had our walk and some food at the party. I eschewed the alcohol (of course, it's too early) but I still feel the need for newspapers, another coffee and maybe letting the eyes drift downward.

Manhattan

This is the view from our friends' apartment they are letting us use this week. Yeah, the Chrysler Building. Cool.

We haven't really hit our stride yet, but we've eaten at two favorite places and gone to Crawford Doyle Booksellers. I love that little store where everything seems curated so you just see so many things you want to buy (or that you have a copy of at home and think you should read or read again).

There was a huge parade on Fifth Avenue for Puerto Rico day. There were police barricades on Madison where cars had not been allowed to park (or been removed) with the barricades out into the street as if to accommodate large numbers of people. People were going by with flags of Puerto Rico, everything was covered with them.
We ask one of policemen (there were one or more on every corner) if there was going to be a parade here, too. "No, this is for the aftermath," he said. Oh. Large crowds. Aftermaths. We don't do that well. So we decided to rest up a bit before the evening.

One of our reasons for being in NYC is the literary-geeky Bloomsday readings of James Joyce's Ulysses. We have just added to our schedule an afternoon reading that will include a friend reading part of the book. Add this to the evening one at Symphony Space on Tuesday and we will be thoroughly ensconced in Joyce Tuesday. (For the uninformed, Joyce's book takes place in one 24 hour period beginning the morning of June 16, 1904.) Yes, I've 'read' it. And maybe I even understood a little.

So far we've had an easy time getting into the two restaurants we tried (where we only called in the hour before to get a table). We saw lots of empty tables for lunch today on Lex. And we received the sad news that our favorite downtown Austin wine bar, Taste, had closed. Yeah, it's officially a recession. Well we'll be spending some money around NYC and then we will come home and keep supporting the other restaurants and venues and charities we love. But will it be enough?

The Monkey and Me

I'm under the gun because the Internet provider in our building is going to cut off service for three hours today to improve the line speed of our connection to the Internet. So I have to blog now or go to a coffee shop. I'm glad I don't do any real work from home. So I'm putting off making my bed to tell you about my last movie in the film festival.

We considered watching a double header of a French film and a Dutch film. We took along a delightful playwright and filmmaker from the conference so we 'got out the car' as we say now and picked her up at Austin Motel on South Congress and drove to the Bob Bullock Museum by the University and snagged a parking place to avoid the garage. Even though we park in our garage all the time we still hate strange garages. We were way early so we quizzed her about her life and told stories of a party that we went to at the museum.

We just ended up watching the French film, "The Last Deadly Mission." It was so dark (literally and figuratively and it was supposed to be the Riviera) and bloody that they had to put in a fluffy cat and a cute puppy to soften it. Even that didn't help when they introduced snarling German Sheperds as well. I mean brutal, bloody crime scenes; terrible violent memories; dirty police offices etc. (If there was a bright, airy beautiful home it had to include a bloody crime scene.) At the end you knew certain things were going to happen and I suddenly thought "OK, there has to be one last surprise, what is it?" Oh, OK. Up the body count one more. Of course. I see.

We went to Jeffrey's bar. Business was slow at Jeffrey's. FFP says business was slow where he had lunch yesterday and he heard rumors of business being slow in other restaurants. The economy is starting to weigh down everything, I suppose. But our Internet is getting faster so I'll be able to watch my retirement funds shrink more quickly. At least it's supposed to be faster. Will it even work later today? Also...all the people that bought into VOIP phones won't have phones. Most people work, I suppose, and are gone in the middle of a weekday, but the concierges and building management have VOIP phones.

[Picture is me and the monkey in the shop window of Monkey See, Monkey Do on South Congress. Really there aren't many monkies on my back. Although I did have two cocktails last night and they really socked me!]

Eating and Drinking

Yeah, the last two days I've been eating and drinking to take a break from packing and sorting. But "Eating and Drinking and Packing and Sorting" seemed like too long a title.

Yesterday after tennis I wandered down to the gym to see if I could find a missing commuter cup (I think I left it there the day before) and to say 'hi' to FFP because his car was in the parking lot. I would have worked out a little but FFP was leaving and, after we pawed through the lost and found to no avail, we decided to go to the pro shop grill and get a salad. This was more satisfying than going home and looking through the frig and pantry. A Cobb Salad with boiled eggs, bacon bits, avocado, diced tomatoes and such. Tasty. The night before, as I admitted yesterday, we went to Fino and actually we had more than 'drinks and apps.' I actually had two drinks and a glass of wine. And we ate an entrée. I took this picture while we were having apps and drinks on the patio. That's the bartender's version of a Sazerac. He used Herbsaint which gave it a real anise quality.

Anyway. The food was good and it took my mind off all the sorting and packing.

After my tennis and lunch yesterday I came home and plotted how to move out of my office. I've been sorting stuff out of the files, closet, bookshelves and drawers for months and months. But the time has come to figure out how to move everything out. I have room to move my computer and printer upstairs, I think. But the bookshelves are going to have to go and a huge desk arrangement will have to be disassembled. The thing is 36 inches deep with a couple of six-foot sections held together by a necessarily huge corner piece. It needs to move off the floor it's on so the floor can be refinished. I've thought of putting it in what we call the storage room which is actually a heated and air-conditioned space behind the garage and below FFP's office. If it would fit, it would show that room as usable as a family project room or office. Of course, some things have to get out of the way there. I swear it's a puzzle like one of those we had as a kid with the little plastic squares with numbers that had to be pushed around until they were in order. Except that there are hundreds of pieces.

I decided I had to box up books I was keeping. (Theoretically. I keep winnowing down the ones I'm saving.) It was a step I could take. Without thinking too much about all the other steps. Of course, I had to think about where I was going to store them. In the aforementioned storage room there is a closet under the stairs. At the moment it was pretty full but with mostly empty boxes. We cleaned out under there and we had tossed or given away so much stuff that we had lots of empty boxes. We knew we'd need these but we put them under the stairs to get them out of the way. Now I decided full boxes of stuff from this office would have to go there for the interim. So I pulled out all the empty boxes. I found some boxes for some cheap (World Market) dishes we'd purchased for one particular dinner party. I'd decided they didn't have a place in our condo lifestyle so I used the boxes to get them out and get them ready to give away. (Fourteen dinner plates and fourteen salads.) I moved all the empty boxes out of the closet and started packing up books I'd identified as keepers and changing their location in my database to the boxes they were in. We've kept a database of our books for years. It was never completely accurate or up-to-date and now it contains hundreds (if not a thousand) books that we no longer own. I'd also placed a bunch of books on Library Thing. Actually a 'bunch' is too strong. Less than a hundred. Anyway, those are the ones I packed away. All nicely cataloged so I know what books are in the (three) boxes. This attention to detail will not last. I won't even say 'probably' won't last. It won't. So goes all my organizational ideas. I just have to accept that. I have to look with kindness on the stuff we are getting rid of and how many cubic feet it constitutes.

But back to eating and drinking. This sorting and packing is crazy-making. It's so much nicer to go out to eat. Last night we went to Zoot with three friends. We had a perfectly lovely meal and a fun discussion. I briefly quit worrying about how to deal with all this stuff.

But back to all that. Perhaps the urge to catalog each and every book I keep will encourage me to get rid of more of them!

One Last Time

No, it's not my last post on Visible Woman. In fact, I seem to have become rather addicted to posting every day. (Displacing from downsizing, I suppose.) I shot this Sunday, a detail in a thrift store window of mannequin feet and my friend and I reflected. And, no, it probably won't be the last time you see a shop window here reflecting the not so mysterious photographer.

But I've been thinking of the phrase "one last time" a lot lately. As I clean out a closet I think "this may be the last time I clean this out before I move out forever." Or as I look at the winter-bare backyard I think "this may be the last time I wait for the blooming, budding, leafing out of spring." Certainly as I schedule things to be fixed and maintained I think "this may be the last time we have to take care of this particular thing." When we put something in 'curbside mall' or take it to the thrift store I think "I may never see that object again." (Usually followed by "thank goodness!")

I found it all a little depressing for most of yesterday. I'd spent the day with the elderly and in my own not-so-young head. First trying to get a stopped-up sink fixed at my dad's house. Watching the seventy-year-old handyman try to do it and my dad, weary from his 'chores' sitting on his walker seat, everything and everyone seemed old and broken. Then, after giving up and calling a professional plumber and worrying about my dad just supervising them, I had to take my ninety-seven-year-old father-in-law for a haircut. I mean he's amazing. But still. Everything you do with the old folks feels like it's in slow motion and it might be the last time. When Dad had me stop for provisions, he mentioned that I should get a gallon of milk. "It's a little heavy for me at the store, but I can lift it from the refrigerator." What a winding down of capability life is, I thought, curling the grocery bag with the milk in it as I went to the car.

Later my computer guru stopped by to haul away an old external hard drive, a printer and a fax machine. (He not only consults on the new stuff but hauls off the out of commission for recycling.) He is a former ballet dancer and IT guy and now a student finishing a computer science degree. We were talking about my desire to get a new computer setup (it's been quite a few years around here) and he pulled out his Mac Book and started showing me how he ran it with VMWare and XP and Apple windows. He is so young and eager that it made me feel better. Not that he's that young. He's in his thirties, having fulfilled his dream to be a professional ballet dancer before going back to school. I told FFP later that I would pay him just to come over and cheer me up.

FFP and I went back to a place that's recently reopened after a fire for dinner. Mother's Cafe in Hyde Park. We've probably eaten there a hundred times, enjoying the vegetarian fare even though we are omnivores. The menu is still very similar. I wondered how often we'd make it there when we lived downtown instead of North Central. At least I made it there 'one last time' for a Mom's Reuben (an open-faced sandwich where the rye and kraut and cheese have never seemed to miss the meat).