Holiday Pressure

Parties, presents, decorations, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday. Pressure, deadlines. Get those gifts in the mail, make your plans for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve.

Really I don't feel pressure to do much of anything. I resent all the 'last chance' sales filling my inbox for black Friday (extended!) and giving Tuesday. I never give on giving Tuesday. We have an organization here in Austin called I Live Here/I Give Here. They organize this one day of giving in the spring. All kinds of matches and contests arranged. But they, of course, take a cut. I refuse to give in this time. Just say, sorry, I'll give money in a calm and unhurried manner when I am ready. And don't get me started on GoFundMe and facebook giving. I was once discussing online with a local director of a non-profit long ago about the reasons that stymy fundraising. I suggested 'donor fatigue.' You are wearing me out emailing, calling, mailing expensive promotional pieces. Often without regard to what I've already given or committed to give. So, that's my bah humbug of the season.

Today was just the perfect weather for tennis. I had on sweatpants, a sweatshirt and another jacket. Cool and sunny. No wind at all. Never sweated, never took off the jacket. Later in the day, it warmed up and we walked to the post office and the drug store. Barely needed a jacket. Besides doing those errands, I stopped at the grocery store on the way home from tennis. (And purchased salad dressing, salsa, jalapenos, tortilla chips, an apple, two bananas, some guacamole.) I have to drive to tennis because the club where I play is four miles away. I got the bad news that the two younger women we play with on Tuesday are going to quit playing with us to do an activity that they think will make them better players. Ha. My other companion, who is 88, was not pleased but looked resigned.

Except for the shopping errands, I didn't accomplish much today. I'm hoping to do some cleaning tomorrow and then get out some Christmas decorations. Maybe. We have evening plans every other night until Sunday. I just keep procrastinating. There is more time to get these things done, so I take it. I've planned some trips, though. I wonder how many more years we will be up for trips? Especially to Europe?

And that's my ramble. I'm going to get stuck into my finances and bill paying for an hour or so.

It's a Racket

No, it hasn't snowed in Austin this winter. But a few years ago, it did. 2011 I think. We had some light accumulations and it was still pretty cold. My friend (who was only 80 in this picture) and I got another gal to take our picture with a phone. This clay court had a patch of shade and the snow hadn't melted. We actually played on the one next to it or maybe a hard court. I know we actually played although I don't think there was a fourth victim. This isn't the coldest day we played because...no mufflers or gloves.

We don't get a lot of snow in Austin. (Understatement.) Unfortunately for the last few years we haven't gotten enough rain either. The temperatures occasionally get chilly, more rarely actually cold (below freezing) and the wind can bite a bit.

Suffice to say: it's hard for me to give up my tennis game.

The nice lady on the right above organizes a social game every Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday. She's done this a long time with different casts of characters. Most her age have quit the game (of tennis or, you know, the entire game). However, the other Saturday regulars are both older than I as well. I have participated for about 10 years. We try to play three sets of doubles with each partnership. If I'm there I start with this kind lady. We play for two hours or so. We hit a lot of balls. Most points are won when someone makes a mistake rather than by clear winners.

When I'm on the court, a lot of the rest of my life falls away. I concentrate on the balls, my racket, the wind, a leave scurrying across the court, the sky, the trees, the sounds of other games on other courts. It's a microcosm of life with pretty simple rules and yet with infinite possibilities. Yes, I'm moving around a little and that's nice. But, more importantly, it's almost like two hours of meditation. Sure we talk on changeovers of family and errands and all the things outside this space. But during the game one confines oneself to calling the score, apologizing for a bad shot and complimenting someone else's efforts.

Tennis is a comfortable time for me. A special place impervious to what else is going on. When we have a rain out or can't play due to a holiday or because we can't get a foursome, I'm not that disappointed. A break in routine is nice. But once I'm on the court I'm very present in those moments and it feels fantastic.

Less is More

I snapped this picture on a beautiful day in December when the temperatures didn't seem as threatening as they do today at the Gables Apartments near our condo tower. Dripping faucets inside apartments seems like overkill if you leave your heat on...what? Our condo has been set for the heat to come on if the temperature at the thermostat reaches 60F. I think anyway. That hasn't happened yet but the current cold front may make it happend. The temp has been dropping since I got up this morning and seems to have settled just below freezing. With temperatures, at a certain point less is not more. But this summer during the days and days of 100F plus temps any drop was welcome.

There are other times that less is more, though. Covering some news stories, for example. Eating, drinking.

Also: stocking up. It seems like a good idea to people. They are walking through Costco and they think, yeah, I could eat that many (pick one) nuts, chips, ounces of cheese, etc. But sometimes it's good to not stock up too much and just eat what you have around. When the weather turns bad, people strip the stores of food and water. How long do they think they might be stranded. Don't most of us have enough cans of chili to get through a crisis?

I once was the owner of two beat-up VW Beetles. Somehow we got the idea that having a 'spare' car would relieve the times that we had one car in the shop. (Our other car was a rotary engine Mazda. Remember those.) But. It was a pain. It expanded the times one car needed some work by 50 percent and there was insurance, license, inspection. More trouble than it was worth. And you had to have a place to park 'em, too.

Now, sometimes it's reasonable to stock up on stuff. It's best to have enough underwear, socks and blue jeans to get past the next wash day and enough dishes to fill a dishwasher before you have to run it. But lots of other things, you know, you don't need so much of really. And stockpiling is a really bad idea. You really only need a certain number of pairs of shoes or T-Shirts (but those things multiply, don't they?). You only need a few watches (um, do people even use them any more or just tell time with their cell phones?).

But most of the complications of our life? They are from having too many things going, too many duties, too many households to manage, too much of things we should have never gotten into. From letting too many people grab your time. I've spent my retirement looking for things to do but, at the same time, jettisoning responsibilities and stuff. Some responsibilities are pesky, though, and grow and grow and there is nothing you can do to make them all that much simpler.

But...if I'd made a New Year's Resolution it would have been to remember 'less is more' and to try as hard as I can to simplify things in my life.

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.

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!

Fact and Fiction

I discovered Sunday while we wandered around East Austin taking in a couple of Artist's studios that mirror glass is being used for some interesting in-fills and remodels. That's me then reflected in the door beyond the interesting rusty iron and mesh fence.

Mirrors and reflections. Versions of images, versions of truth. I was riding the recumbent bike to nowhere across the hall in the condo gym this morning. As I knocked around on this free Friday, I'd been thinking about what to write in here and why I did it. Yada yada. I'd been considering moving my protagonist (one Cliff Pogonip) along that concourse outside into a warm August day. First he'd meet some folks and learn the identity of the harried woman. By the way, I changed that paragraph to say she scurried, putting harried and scurried into the same sentence which sounds silly but I'll leave it for now. Hmm...and that word harried. Interesting word. But I digress. Here we go, out into the August heat.

Pogonip wasn't tempted to buy the papers. Even if he had been he had no change to plug into the machines. He didn't think he had any U.S. dollars on him at all. In fact, nestled in a cardboard travel organizer delivered to his London apartment yesterday, there was a hundred dollar bill and several twenties and fifties. It had contained ticket info on a flight to New York, a ticket to fly to Austin and a thick itinerary with car services, dates, times. He'd dug into the stuff to see what time he was being picked up at the apartment and to find the ticket info. On the flight over yesterday he'd fumbled with the packet and found the car service information and already filled-in forms for entering the country ready to be signed. He'd been whisked by a car service to the apartment in New York that was his but was fully occupied by two aspiring artists, one a painter and one a playwright. He had slept fitfully in an alcove with a curtain that contained a bed, nightstand, chair. His tenants were out for the opening of an off-Broadway production soon after he arrived and asleep when he slipped out of bed, showered and went downstairs to catch his car. He'd plowed further into the folder to find the info on his morning car service and Austin flight. He supposed that somewhere in there it said who would meet him at the airport. He didn't look. Instead he pulled out his phone and powered it on. There was one new missed called. He didn't listen to messages but called the number of the missed call.

OK, I didn't get him outside. So sue me. It's fiction and it goes where it goes.

Speaking of which, it's fiction. In the paragraph prior to the one above, presented to you first on November 16th, I mention the newspaper headline about a terrorist attack. ("Two Austin Men Dead in Berlin Attack."). Did I feel a frisson of synchrony on the bike this morning when, on CNN on the little TV in front of me, the headline came on saying "Two Americans Killed in Mumbai." I did not. I felt a bit betrayed by fact trumping fiction. Sort of like the writers and producers of a "Numb3rs" episode must have felt when that California train wreck occurred after they had spent a boatload on an episode about a train collision. (They taped David Krumholtz talking about how it was a coincidence and they were sorry for the victims and showed it before the episode.) I didn't feel too bad though because my investment in my fictional terror attack is small, after all, and I don't believe it was predictive, psychic or any other phenomena.

Fact and fiction are all of a mix anyway. Oh, some things are real. All too real. There was one of those religious stampedes today where people get killed in the rush. Well, it was the religion of consumerism. And the guy had a heart attack, but people were hurt in the Wal-Mart rush to get some goods and maybe they trampled the guy. It reminded me of those pilgrim things where people die. But you can't make this stuff up because, if you do, it just seems ripped from the headlines. Every fiction is fact. Every fact appears from a certain angle, made-up.

Our Friday is not black. But it is bleak. The weather that is. We got out to take some cleaning and mail our holiday postcards and ended up eating at Pecan Street Cafe on East Sixth. They have been there since before we married and they are still there and still serving a lot of the same dishes. Like the spinach crêpe that I had. It was cloudy and threatening. Downtown wasn't it's usual bustling Friday self because of the holiday. It drizzled on us a bit on the way back. We decided that staying in and drinking coffee and reading would be a nice way to spend the evening. I have things that need doing. Neglected chores (clean the kitchen), neglected sorting and filing. But I feel lazy. I feel like letting myself think and read. Next week social events loom and a visit from relatives. Obligations.

Where am I not today? I am not at the mall. Or shopping at all. My e-mail in box was full of special on-line offers and I did look at some. But, no, not tempted. We are listening to that iPod I bought a while back. FFP wanted to create a Genius playlist and after fumbling a bit I figured out how to do that again. I was in the middle of writing my little novel paragraph above when he asked me about it. So I'm sure it is different from the paragraph I would have written without interruption. Now if I only knew if it would be better or worse. That's fact influencing fiction in the moment.

Where to Begin?

Where to begin? Or end for that matter.

I appeared on Friday to agonize over home. I've had a lot of thoughts since early Friday. And a couple of nights of dreams.

The dreams, then. My dreams night before last took the form of writing collaborations. Amid the usual (for me) dream scape of lost luggage and weird logistics of going places I'm not sure I need to be, there I was with sheaves of yellow legal paper with lots of handwritten notes for a novel of some sort. I seemed to be collaborating on the work with someone else (who remained quite vague) and then with a different person. I was untroubled by this apparent lack of loyalty and, with this second assistant, agreed to make the two principal characters, apparently based on us, dead in the book. Not dead as in dead and gone and not influencing the action in the present, but dead as in ghosts who could only see each other.

Last night my dreams were more usual. We were walking a long way, but I'd lost my shoes. FFP was helping me along. My stocking feet felt good. We were on a moving sidewalk for a very long time and then a set of colorful triangular steps that seemed perilous and to not be where we were supposed to be walking. In my dreams I'm often walking or driving when the walkway or roadway becomes something else again.

Why am I talking about dreams? I don't know. My little piece of the world has seemed dreamlike for a few days. I'm not sure why. Perhaps I have settle into the condo enough to internalize some of the facts of living here. Like you can't hear it rain. Not that it has rained much since we have lived here. We've had a drought. But at the old house you'd wake up and hear the pitter-patter on the roof and windows and that was cool. I'm sure it could rain hard enough that we'd hear it in here, but it would have to be quite a storm. It's nice to wake up on Sunday and see that it's been raining, though, and not worry about the paper being wet. The newspaper guy delivers the papers to the concierge who runs them up to the hallway in front of our door. Nice.

We are also noting how our place is so small that it's hard to lose track of each other or our stuff. That's good. Of course, we can be 'home' and be in the mail room, storage area, gym, parking garage, lobby, etc. That's weird.

It feels more monumental to get the car out now. Friday night we went to a opening of a big wine and gourment shop in Hancock Center. Too far to walk. Since we were already in the car we battled the IH35 service road to go to an Italian place on E. 11th. When we lived in the 'burbs (close-in burbs, though) we'd jump in the car at the drop of a hat. We'd jump in the car (sometimes both in separate cards) and go to the club to use the gym. We'd sometimes drive to a restaurant that was an easy walk away. Certainly going downtown or driving to a restaurant far afield was no big deal. I'd walk out to the garage seven minutes before my tennis game at the club (or any other event there) and figure I wouldn't be too late. Now I need to add seven minutes to get to my car and get it out of the building. And, for meetings at the club at night, there is a lot of pesky traffic in the way. I think this is basically a good thing. We went to luncheons on Friday and Saturday that were downtown and all we had to do was walk over. No driving downtown and no finding parking or using a valet and waiting with everyone else after for the car. Last night we went to a dinner party at some friends' apartment in the Monarch. We just hoofed over on our feet with five bottles of wine.

I've been thinking more about the novel. You know, the one I've posted two paragraphs of here in the harsh light of blogland. (Here and here if you are following along.) I was going to get the guy to meet up with the person picking him up at the airport, have him learn who the woman sitting next to him was, etc. Move him along. This would require, however, deciding on the weather. Will it be hot when he steps out of the terminal? Will he remove his blazer against the heat of an August or will it be pleasantly cool and sunny. Of course, if it is May-September it's probably hot, but if it's October-April it could be anything. So I have to decide what time of year it is and then, if it isn't in the prolonged Austin summer, I have to decide whether, you know, it is a twenty degree day in January or a sixty degree one. Of course, maybe I could just take this guy outside without comment on the weather, his clothes, etc. But it doesn't seem right. Even if you don't write these things you should have established them in your head. And, to be honest, if it's August, he felt the heat in the jet way between the plane and the air-conditioned terminal.

The real actual weather in Austin today is dreary and around sixty. We have tickets to see Chekhov's "Three Sisters" in the afternoon. I can't concentrate long enough to read the synopsis on Wikipedia. I think I have a little hangover. Nothing too serious. I'm just a little dreary myself. Wine flowed last night and some guy whipped up a cocktail that I believe involved gin that I may have (OK, I did) had one of. I have lots of things I need to do like wrap a present for my father-in-law, print mailing labels for holiday cards, clean the condo. We were thinking of visiting a few galleries in the East Austin Studio Tour before going to the play.

But. Where to begin?

Few Guarantees

I had a few minutes before going off to the club to play tennis. I put up this photo which reflects me in a window of Day of the Dead figures, this one colorfully dressed with an elaborate cigarette holder. Cigarettes or no, we all die, I thought. I started this entry, before going to tennis, but I didn't like where it was going and didn't finish it. I went off to play tennis after receiving a call that, because of some earlier rain, we were on a clay court.

We were on and off the clay courts. It kept trying to rain. Once, when it stopped, we moved to a drier one. Another shower and we gave up. I decided not to go to the gym. Instead I went to the Lamme's candy store. They weren't open yet. But they had a sign that the candy I wanted to buy (because my uncle asked me to send him some to give as gifts) would go on sale the 20th. I made a phone call to see if they could wait that long. They need it by Thanksgiving. That should work. I went in the camera store. I looked at some point and shoot cameras (smaller, more zoom than my current ones) and talked to the guy about SLRs. I didn't buy anything. Just can't bring myself to spend money right now on gadgets. Not when I lose thousands of dollars a day on stocks and mutual funds!

I took my car in for maintenance yesterday. I don't drive much but time goes by, things age. Th car is nearly eight years old. I decided to replace some bushings to stop noises. I spent a lot of time in the waiting room of the dealer or in the desolate neighborhood nearby. (I used to live not far from here. But this area is a little more desolate than that because it's mostly commercial except for a high school.) I watched people who were waiting for cars. A very pregnant woman with a tattoo. A very obese woman with a large cross around her neck, reading a book that seemed like a romance title. She had another book at the ready should she finish that. There was a lawyer counseling someone over the phone while pounding away on his laptop. (They have nice waiting areas, with Wi-Fi in one and cable in another. I walked to Half Price Books. I bought some used books on tape for my father-in-law. I saw an interesting book about Paul Bowles with facsimiles of journals and pictures for $5 that in more acquisitive times I would have purchased. I went to a cheap Mexican place for some cheese enchiladas.

I always try to give my cars a chance to not break down on the road by getting them checked and serviced. But you never know really. Once we had a water hose rupture on our Accord (the -1 Accord, not the one we have now) days after a maintenance check.

Before I left for tennis today, I was just about to say to FFP that my plan for the day was to clean the house. But you hate to make promises. Life has no guarantees. I said nothing.

There is only one thing that is sure and inevitable. And it isn't taxes. However, you just don't know when the end comes, for you or anyone else. And there's the mystery. This morning when I started this entry I thought I'd had something to say about death somewhere in blog- or journal-land and sure I enough I found this.

I'm home now and thinking about that cleaning. Maybe I'll do it. No guarantees.

Life has very few guarantees, you know.

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.

Chaos and Randomness

There is nothing like wind, rain, hail and natural disasters to show you the profound randomness and transient nature of things. As people in Myanmar and China dig out from unthinkable rumblings of our earth and people around Central Texas look at damaged roofs, cars, broken windoows and toppled trees from our recent storm, we sit here, snug for the moment. We didn't even lose power Wednesday night. (The grocery store where FFP usually shops did, though, and we had to go to a second store for refrigerated and frozen items.)

Everything is like glass before the forces of nature. And the forces of manmade munitions. But someone survives (or has in our known past). (Picture is a detail from a photo taken at Art Works on West Sixth a couple of weeks ago.)

It certainly puts into perspective the uncertainties of moving and getting TV service installed in the new place and getting walls painted a different color. It makes you realize the nice thing about a financial cushion when you watch a shelter being set up in your own community for people without power. "I think I'd check into a hotel," I say. "Uh, yeah," says he. Of course, but for the grace of nature and all that. You never know. Keep your feelings of invulnerability in check, madam. Yes, I will.

Things happend. I'm wondering, by the way, how those palm trees and stuff on the pool deck (ninth floor, west side) of my new home fared in the storm. (It came in from the west and seemed to do the most damage on the west edge of things.) I think they plan to use that area for a grand opening which is, gulp, next Thursday.

Life comes at you fast, as the commercial says. Today I am really, really going to get some things done. Yes, I am. I will have relative duties next week as well as the craziness of all this, um, moving stuff. But at least we have no uprooted trees (at the moment) or broken windows. We aren't buried in rubble or surrounded by cholera-infested waters. There is that.

In the downsizing wars we had trouble filling the garbage can this morning but we scrambled around and found some more stuff to throw away.

I'm Here Somewhere

Shop windows in New York are an embarrassment of riches for the reflection artiste but fumbling the camera out from the case which was tucked in the overcoat on my belt was sometimes too much trouble.

Returning from a trip gives me a barely there feeling just like this shot.

Especially when sleep gets thrown off. We arrived home in the wee hours of Wednesday. Didn't help that I had a Wednesday night meeting to attend which took me away from poking around the house putting things right. Didn't help that FFP suggested going to Fonda San Miguel restaurant after my meeting. The one beer I drank was very sleep-making. I might have had a glass of Pinot in my meeting, too.

Thursday I had a tennis game and, while getting to the club by nine and doing a couple of sets of singles and a workout in the gym went a long way to revitalizing me and grounding me in my real life, it didn't help me catch up on sleep or chores.

On Wednesday my dad stopped by and I examined his eye and took pictures to send to my sister and nieces. He was complaining that he was going to need another blethoplasty. (He had a plastic surgery to remove sagging skin on his eyelid so that he could see better. I think it made him look like an old man doing an imitation of a surprised monkey. But it did keep his aging eyelids from poking his lashes into his eyes.) I told him this seemed to be caused by a small amount of swelling, closing the eye down a bit. So on Thursday (after my conventional Thursday dilettante start of a few minutes at the computer followed by tennis and gym) I decided to go over to Dad's after my shower and look at his eye. It seemed more closed to me than Wednesday. I did a couple of errands for him and I took another picture. When I came home I compared the pictures and still it seemed more closed. FFP and I had two different downtown events. But before we rushed off for that I called the doctor's office and they said someone would look at him on Friday morning.

All of that is to say that on Friday I had to get up earlier than usual and go pick him up and have him there by 8:30. The eye seemed more open than the day before and if it had been steadily opening I would have not bothered with the visit since we have an appointment with the surgeon on Monday. But we were there so they checked for infection, proper pressure. The ophthalmologist couldn't see his retina because the gas they injected is still in the way, but things seemed to be going OK. (He says he can see a 'water line' in his eye. That's the gas which his tissue will eventually absorb.) So, I was a worry wart but I felt better. I went home and tried to catch up on financial stuff and getting things orderly around here and then we went to see a couple of short operas at the UT Butler Opera Center. They were good, but I was tired. (Possibly that was exacerbated by stopping at Fino on the way for some food and a bottle of wine.)

So today it's time to find myself and find my routine. Although routine seems to be flying out the window as we prepare for this move. Our trip to New York was the only trip we've allowed ourselves until the real estate vortex is only a memory. (Although a couple of nights in Austin hotels purchased at charity auctions and maybe a trip to Dallas and/or Houston could happen.)

Meanwhile, I'm be here somewhere, online and off.

Weather Changes

Yesterday's temps were in the 70's. This picture was taken a couple of weeks ago at the pool at our club. The temp was somewhere near freezing and the heated pool created a fog of steam but wasn't tempting any swimmers.

Everything ebbs and changes like the weather. We age, things break, the things we do, the people we see, the battles we're fighting are always changing.

I learned or relearned a number of things yesterday while working on cleaning out our storage room. Ballpoint pens dry out faster then felt tips when left unused for years. Liquid paper (yeah, I know, how often do you use that) will dry out and encrust the little brush so you pull out a naked little tube from the bottle. Yes, I'm still allergic to dust. No, it's not easy to figure out what possible use some things ever were to you. Yes, no matter how much you toss or return to clients you will still find yet another video tape of a commercial or old school PMT or negative. And, yes, you can offer just about anything on the Austin Yahoo Freecycle group and get multiple potential takers. And anything left on the curb will eventually be scooped up. We tossed, we found new homes for things. Both of have stuff in our cars to deliver to various groups. I walked across the street with a load of stuff to give the neighbors. I prepared a Freecycle batch of several cubic feet. The garbage can is overflowing and we are moving to bags with pay-as-you-throw stickers. And it's days until trash pickup.

I was glad yesterday when it was time to switch gears, take a shower and go out to a charity event. The moderate weather gave us a chance to leisurely stroll down West Sixth. Leaving the piles and messes and dust behind. Until today. Must work on it again. Watch hours of pre-game and a long Super Bowl? Nah, I don't think so.

Unprepared

The mayor and TxDot and the city workers said we were 'prepared for the worst.' If fact, not even.

I can't believe it. The mail didn't get delivered yesterday. "Neither rain nor snow nor dark of night?" The papers did get delivered yesterday (except no Wall Street Journal) but today no papers.

It is teetering on thaw. Right at 31 degrees according to the TV. The street in front of my house looks fine. The ecocrete in the driveway in the picture lets air as well as water through to the lower level I guess and looks frozen. The icicles are icicle lights living up to their name. But just a few more degrees. And it will all be forgotten with only a few damaged plants and tree limbs and some runoff.

Apparently we 'ran out' of sanding material so they closed some flyovers and such. And the airport was supposed to "get some de-icer from Houston" but it didn't arrive. Lots of cancelled flights.

We officially can't deal. I've finished all the newspapers we actually received, finished my book. I even started shredding stuff and cleaning my office. OK, I didn't get too far with that. But it's something. I've been going through old clippings that are five or more years old and shredding receipts from the same era. Maybe it will thaw this afternoon. But until then...time to really get busy with the organizing and downsizing and such. Or maybe just get another cup of coffee and read?

I can't wait for the club to open and let me get to the gym. I've even resorted to doing sit-ups and stretches around the house. I'd take a walk but, oh well.

Fortunately the power has stayed on at our house and, more importantly, those of the parental units. And no one has run out of food.

Wonder what would happen if we had some really bad weather for a really long time? OK...warm up already. I'm doing something useful in the interim. Really. Because who needs grocery receipts from 2002?