Letting Go of Stuff and People and Creatures

One thing I'm letting go of is always having a picture on these blog entries. It's enough that my Austin Daily Photo blog requires one. Go there is you just gotta get visual.

I've been cleaning out drawers in my office. Tossing things in the trash. Also, decided to organize all those little thing I do keep into a compartmentalized tackle box I had thought of trashing. Keychains, clips, pencil lead and erasers, velcro ties. Somehow this seems like an excellent idea because when we move to the condo rather than have those things you might need will be all organized in something instead of lurking in the ten drawers we will no longer have.

I'm letting go of Chalow, too. Every time we come home from being away we automatically start looking for her to let her out. When we get up each day, we once again notice that she isn't there.Today I was talking to a woman at the gym about moving to the condo and she asked if we had pets. I told her we put Chalow down and she started crying. I didn't mention my friend's death or that another friend had lost a son and another a husband. I had her in tears at the dog.

I'm letting go of my departed friend, Margaret, too. In writing her tribute I dug out a file labeled "Messages and Mid-Nineties Correspondence’." I've been reading that and I feel like my life is kind of unraveling backwards at the moment. I've also been shredding decades old carbons of checks. Memory lane.

I'm normally a forward-looking person. So I can normally let stuff go and look to tomorrow. I've got lots to let go of at the moment, I guess. So I'm a bit mired.

Goodbye, Friend

There weren't as many social opportunities online in 1995. But there were some. Like-minded people had been getting together in Usenet Groups for over a decade, bonding over similar technical and non-technical interests. I would scan a group called rec.travel.europe. The name meant it was a 'fun' or 'recreational' topic and not a technical one about the Internet itself or Usenet and such and about travel and, more specifically, in Europe. In July of 1995 I was giving advice on Berlin, where I'd just been, on the thread. Thanks to Google collecting archives I can still find the message I read in the summer of '95. The message was from a woman who'd traveled alone in Europe, something I'd done a bit of and something I might do again. FFP didn't travel too far then, because more than four or five days away from his one-man business didn't work well. I went places without him, for business and pleasure, or maybe had female traveling companions. So I thought it would be interesting to talk to someone else who traveled alone and was close to my age.

So I wrote a reply. Not to the thread but to the author: magie@iafrica.com. I didn't realize when I did that she wasn't living in the states. Just didn't notice the e-mail address, I guess. But she wrote back and said she lived in the Cape Province of South Africa and was a Scot who had emigrated to Canada in her teens, met a South African, moved there, raised two boys and divorced after over thirty years of marriage. And we began to exchange long e-mails about our travels. I had just made a trip to Berlin where Christo and Jeanne-Claude had wrapped the Reichstag. I probably sent her a journal from the trip. She managed to send me a journal from her '92 trip that inspired her Usenet posting. In November '95 she was off to Kuala Lumpar and gave me a detailed account of the trip. We began exchanging mundane details of our lives: friends, neighbors, outings, charities, work, family. She told me all about the Fish Hoek Surf Lifesaving Club where she volunteered training kids to become beach lifeguards and about her work with a handicapped workshop.

Margaret began to mail me postcards of the Cape with brief notes designed to entice me to come for a visit. At some point we decided that I would visit, in January/February 1997.

I went to Toronto on business in June '96. At some point Margaret had mentioned that her twin sister lived there. She insisted I contact her and meet her. And I did. After a meal and sharing some wine and a tour around where she worked, she said, "Margaret and I are nothing alike; but you two will get along well, too." Indeed, the non-identical twin sisters were very different, in appearance and personality, but both lovely, fun, warm women.

So, I traveled thousands of miles in January 1997 to arrive at the Cape Town airport and meet a woman I'd never met face-to-face. Three weeks later I had met so many of her friends that it just seemed right to have a 'going away' party to say goodbye. The above picture was taken at that party. (This trip deserves being blogged some day.)

In the spring/summer of 1997, Mags was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent surgery and treatment. But she mustered her strength and came to the U.S. in 1998, visiting Austin and other places with us and with other friends. (This elaborate travel itinerary deserves a blog of its own as well and maybe, one day, will get it.)

In 1999, a couple of my girlfriends and I went to London and Scotland. We met up with Mags and a friend of hers from the Cape in Edinburgh (they were attending the rugby world cup and visiting with Mags' relatives and friends in her hometown) and we met her younger brother and many friends of hers.

Mags would suffer a relapse of the cancer again in 2001, but would still manage a visit to her sister (now living in New York State) for the holidays. A friend and I flew to New York City on New Year's Day, 2002, to meet up with her and visit a few days with her on her way home.

In 2004, Mags' son was living in Dublin and she was planning a trip to Edinburgh with a side trip to visit him. She suggested I meet her there so we could be tourists while he was at work. Then he decided to move to Namibia. Undaunted, she rented an apartment at Trinity College and we still met there for a visit. One morning she woke with a swollen eye. We wouldn't know it for over a year but this was another tumor announcing itself.

In 2005, I once again flew to the Cape and visited Mags and other folks who felt like old and dear friends after meeting them in '97 and hearing about them for years in e-mail. Mags didn't feel well and when her eye became swollen again she asked me to take a picture of it and print it on her computer so she could take it to the doctor in case it had gone down when she visited him for an appointment that was scheduled after I would leave.

Finally the doctors decided a tumor was causing the eye swelling and gradually Mags became unsteady and had trouble seeing. She moved to a retirement home from her apartment but had her computer there and through March of this year was writing me with some of her usual wit and vigor. Then I had to rely on her son typing for her or reports from others. In one of the last messages she typed from the retirement home, in March, she said:

Yesterday afternoon I went with the singing group to Frail Care and then to the Alzheimer’s unit. They sing all the old songs like Hokey-Pokey. Some actually know the words while others clap their hands to the music, while others manage to sleep right through it. Fun though and I am sure they all enjoy it. I met up with an old friend, Joey Swanson, in the Alzheimer’s unit and she said “oh are you down here now?” Sometimes feel maybe I should be. Occasionally, I don’t know whether I am Arthur or Martha

You were neither Arthur nor Martha, my friend. You were a special one. Margaret, Maggie, Mags, whatever we called you, you were one of a kind. And you brought so many people together all over the world. Margaret's son, in reporting her death through her e-mail account said it best: "I miss her so much already." I will also miss all the friends I made through her because she stitched us together, communicating with us all and telling my tales to them and vice versa. I fear that I'll lose track of Babs, Gary, Jim, David, Rusty, Don, Dorothy, Dawn, Colleen, Sue, Brian, Buntu, two Andrews, Beatrice, Bryan, Patricia, Francois, Nick, Penny, Vaughn, Ralph, June, Ann, Paul, another Ann, Tom and many others. It was fun meeting all those folks and more. But Mags brought them to life with her e-mailed stories, too. And no one could do it like she did it.

Tennis and Stuff

I took up tennis after I got out of college. Before that my entire experience with the sport was a tennis racket my sister used in a college PE course and some discarded balls and a garage door. I'd wanted to take it as a PE course in college myself, but I never managed to get in and dispensed with college PE by taking gymnastics, field hockey, folk dancing and badminton. (PE was required back then. Do they still do that?) I hadn't every played any organized sport save a season of softball when I was eight or nine.

But after college, I was commuting to my job in Dallas with a co-worker from my old college town, Denton. I was taking a graduate course at night or on Saturday or something and living in a ramshackle apartment I'd shared with college friends but was now renting more or less by myself. My friend and co-worker was a good tennis player and showed me how to hit a forehand and a backhand. Using the practice wall at the college and that old racquet, I started playing.

Without ever having a lesson, I built up some simple skill and started hitting for fun with friends. When I moved to Dallas, I got serious playing with co-workers and with a retired guy I met in a bar. I bought another racquet, but it was a discount wooden model (wood was it then) and cost about five bucks. When I moved to Austin, I found a few people to play with and, at some point, organized a USTA team. I was so into tennis! I played, I bought clothes and equipment. People gave me tennis-themed knick-knacks. I coveted all things tennis. I bought my first color TV in 1977 because I noticed in a store that the ball in a tennis match showed up so much better in color.

I finally realized having a team was a lot of work to give other people an opportunity to play tennis. I just played in parks with friends. I had several long-term games where I'd meet a friend in the park at 6:30 or 7, play an hour or an hour and a half and go home, shower and go to work. Or I'd meet a friend early on a Sunday morning and play at the park and then maybe go to a joint for Mexican breakfast. I watched TV coverage intensely. When we got our first VCR, my big focus was recording tennis matches. (That's why I have all these as-yet-undiscarded VHS tapes of twenty-year-old McEnroe matches and such. Yes, they are deteriorated. But I'm still having trouble tossing them.) I used to have an elaborate Breakfast at Wimbledon party, complete with multiple TVs, pastry, coffee, champagne, strawberries and cream and tennis and Wimby-themed door prizes.

I finally decided that tennis was too complicated and made me buy too much stuff. Not to mention inspiring others to give me tennis-themed pens, posters, bookmarks, etc. I still buy new shoes now and then and have my tennis racket restrung or regripped. I have an oversize Wilson Hammer of composite something and it is about ten years old. I bought a backpack tennis bag I intend to keep for a long time. I have to buy balls, of course. If I find a case at Costco, I'll buy them and use them for a year since other people pop cans all the time in my games. I have three pairs of shorts I like to play tennis in and some polo shirts. I have to get a new cap now and then due to profuse sweating. My current favorite is grimy and rusting from a metal button in the crown. I bought some wonderful new socks the other day but only after I had discovered severe wear in the ones that were used over and over, for tennis and gym. These new high tech ones are reserved for tennis now.

In 2000, we joined a tennis club. I didn't immediately find a lot of games at the club and they restrict guests to two visits a month. But gradually I became a substitute for regular fun doubles games that had been going on for years and for teams organized by others. Now I play two or three times a week. I'd like to play more singles but so it goes. There is a singles championship coming up and maybe I'll sign up for that in the duffer division. (Actually they are ranked by USTA levels.)

I've greatly reduced the 'stuff' and bother surrounding my tennis passion, though. There are some towels, head bands and wrist bands in my bag and my spare glasses with the clip on sun glasses and a spare hat in case I forget one. I try to have a new can of balls at ready in case it's my turn. I give away the used balls mostly although I have some in the trunk in a ball hopper in case I'm inspired to practice my serve. Which I rarely am.

In going through my stuff I've found some tennis 'souvenirs' (other than those old tapes) and think maybe I'll offer them to the kids who run my club's tennis programs. Somewhere around here I have a Wilson T2000.

And the picture? (You still reading?) Well, it's a bendable posable figure of a tennis player. But, I think, maybe not one I own. Maybe it is one someone was selling on ebay. Then again, who knows? Because the boxes of bendable posable figures are still lurking under the stairs.

Tennis is still my passion. But I'm not so into the stuff of tennis anymore. Nor likely to organize a tennis event or give a tennis-themed party. Still, after I escape from the year of real estate heck, carefully timed for the year of world real estate crisis, I plan to try to make trips to each of the grand slam tennis tournaments (in London, Paris, Melbourne and New York). And, OK, maybe I'll bring back a little souvenir!

Complicating VS. Simplifying

Simplifying is what I'm all about just now. It's taken a sad turn, though, with the death of our 'last pet.' We knew we wouldn't get another pet when we lost her and we knew it was coming. In the past, we had 'overlap pets.' We initially got another dog for company for our first pound pup, Lucky. Lucky came to us in 1981, fully grown, probably a year or year-and-a-half old. That second dog was an Old English Sheep Dog. His name was Oscar. Some of our friends called him 'Damn Lucky.' Because he was adopted from the pound even though he was a pure bred dog. He wasn't 'show quality.' Anyway, Oscar just got eleven years of life and after his passing the younger Chalow was adopted from another family (they got her from the pound) and we found out she was born around the time of Oscar's death. Lucky got seventeen years (he always was Lucky!) and gave it up in 1997. Chalow carried the canine role around here admirably until last Monday. In this picture she basks in the morning sun while waiting for someone to come along at the front door. In the last few weeks, she was too deaf or weak to muster much response to the mailman and we were forced to listen for him or check on his arrival ourselves.

It will be simpler not owning a pet. But one spends the first five or six decades of one's life complicating things before we realize that simplifying is the order of the day. By then entropy is chasing us relentlessly. And we will never win. A full life, in some ways, is a complicated one, with other creatures to look after and trip over, with drawers and cabinets and closets full of things we've acquired, art we love on the walls, a place stamped with our personality. But after a while things press down on us and we have to look to more lightness.

Chalow Preece-Ball April 29, 1991 (est) -- September 10, 2007

Life is simple for dogs. Food, pats, elimination. Mommy and Daddy will decide when you need a bath, a dip, a visit to the vet. Have a nasty tumor? No insurance? Mom and Dad will pay for surgery and have it sent to A&M for evaluation. Liver failing? No matter. Special diet and expensive pills available. M&D will get for you. Sadly, we have to make a lot of decisions for our little furry creatures. We made the hardest one for Chalow yesterday. Her pendulous tumors weighed so much that her weight was unchanged in spite of a lack of muscle tissue around her bones. She was having trouble standing and walking and was incontinent more and more. She finally seemed miserable after putting on a brave face through many illnesses and troubles.

I'll miss walking her and taking pictures of her cute little face (before the gray nose and cloudy eyes) in different settings. We've had one or two dogs in the house for twenty-six years. People would ask about the dog going to the condo. I knew that she wouldn't last that long and it made me sad. But that's life. Chalow was sixteen years and four months old. She was born approximately the same time that we lost our Old English Sheepdog, Oscar. We always said she had his soul. It was a good, cuddly, loving soul. Hopefully, it's inhabiting a fluffy puppy at this moment.

So...How Did That Go?

I'm feeling less anxious about everything. And, in spite of the Wall Street Journal's assertions, Austin is still not so full of itself about designer dresses as you might think. The swells in this picture are having a fine time, though. That's us in the middle. My outfit is thrift store and hand-me-downs but some found it clever. (Most expensive item by far was the Cole Haan tuxedo pumps.) FFP consulted his fashion gurus and they said in sultry Austin a white dinner jacket on September 6th was fine. And the good news about not owning a bunch of designer dresses? I won't have to figure out what to do with them when I move to the condo. My dozen pairs of Levis are another matter.

Twinge of Regret

In late 2003 and early 2004, we put up with a remodeling contractor to build the perfect master bedroom suite. I took this picture shortly after we'd finished furnishing. I'm not sure it came out perfect (what ever does?) but I really love the room with its bed, sitting area, furnishings and the closet and bathroom. Am I getting a little twinge of regret at having to leave all this space and storage for a smaller place? Yeah. I think I'll get over it, though. We are going to buy a lot of new furnishings for the condo so it will both fit (space-wise) and fit in. One of my regrets is all the 'perfectly good' furniture we will give up along with, of course, some junky stuff left over from ages ago.

Fashion Emergency

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal had a front page story about high-end stores and brands infiltrating (for want of a better word) smaller markets. Date line? Austin, Texas. This has certainly happened in the Domain center. (See fancy shop window here.) Anyway, in this article they quoted some women I know about how they had all these new designer gowns for the upcoming black tie season. Um. OK. They say the season will start tomorrow night at a gala for Ballet Austin. Um. Yeah. I was just planning on flipping through my various excuses for finery, none from designers of note. And going to that event.

I really envy men. A couple of tuxes, some suspenders, ties, cummerbunds, tasteful black pumps, maybe a white dinner jacket. The tuxedo look for women pops up now and then. I embraced the simplicity. I got a real tux tailored for me. Paired it with tuxedo shirts or a silver shiny turtle neck. I even have a white dinner jacket. I think I got it at a secondhand store for twenty bucks. This party is so early in the season, that FFP plans to wear his dinner jacket.

I have worn gowns. But designer gowns. Nope. I got married in a dress I bought for $35.

So tomorrow night, among the designer gowns, I'm be the one in some dowdy black velvet pants and some top I find in the back of the closet. It said in this column that the reporters ask women now what they are wearing. In other words, who designed it. Something tells me, though, that they won't be asking me!

By the way, the photo was taken Monday of the window of the St. Vincent de Paul thrift store on South Congress. I love the way the mannequin has tossed aside those uncomfortable-looking red high heels and adopted a bored sprawl more suited to a pair of old jeans. You can see yours truly (in a polo and jeans) snapping the picture. Oh, and speaking of those heels. Did I mention that I have a pair of flat tuxedo pumps and, whatever outfit I have, that's what I'll be wearing to festively inaugurate Ballet Austin's new home tomorrow night?

Where's My Hat? Where's My Head?

This is a shot of some junk on offer a couple of years ago at, I believe, Uncommon Objects on South Congress.

Here are some thoughts I've been having lately: (1) Do I need all these hats? (2) How many copies of James Joyce's Ulysses do I need? (3) How many flashlights do we need in the condo?

We have about four dozen caps, I'll bet. And hats, too. Some are mine. I never wear hats any more. A cap on the tennis court until it gets too grubby and I switch to a newer one. Or buy one at the pro shop when I've forgotten one.

I'm reading a copy of Ulysses I bought in Dublin. But I think there are two more copies of it in the house.

The other night the power went out. I know we have a bunch of flashlights around here but it took me a few minutes to find the first one, then to find two more for FFP and the house guest. (Finding the second and third was made easier by the first! Isn't it frustrating how you try to flip on lights when the power is out?) We'll have a lot fewer rooms and spots to put things in the condo. That'll be a good thing, I think. Bet I'll still forget where I put the flashlights. Of course, with the house you always have the ace in the hole of stumbling out to the car and getting one. I've stocked the cars with the wind-up type which dispels the disappointment of finding one with dead batteries. In the condo, the car will be in the garage a couple of floors down.

Yeah. I'm sure it would be better to ponder world peace, the war in Iraq or why the Texas Longhorns could barely win over powerhouse Arkansas State. Still. Hats, books and flashlights. Much more tractable.

Yeah, I'm Here

Before the rain we walked to the coffee shop (Pacha) today and I took this picture of one of the Rosedale denizens idea of yart art. Our own junk left by the SUV load today. I would have snapped a picture but a lady representing the venerable Settlement Home garage sale came by and we loaded her up with what was, to be honest, a bunch of so-so stuff. It was stuff however. And it's gone. Oh, some of it was interesting. But still. Gone.

If you miss me when I fail to come over here, by the way, I've been pretty assiduous at Austin Daily Photo. Not as interesting, of course, as downsizing. Or is it?

Pretty slow day at the ranch today. Watching tennis from New York. (Nice weather there.) Watching it rain. Managed a trip to the gym for sweatification.

Possessed By Socks

They say your possessions possess you. If so, then I'm a good candidate for possession by socks. Today I went through lots of my clothes. I filled a bag for the trash, one for the thrift store. I found enough socks for a lifetime. These are still in the packaging. They were either gifts or purchases that I haven't gotten around to wearing even once. I found enough hiking socks for a hike across the country. Plenty of dressy socks. However, the other day I had to buy some short tennis socks because I was running out of ones without extreme wear.

But. I will not be buying any socks for a while! I also officially have all the shorts, T-Shirts, polos and jeans that I'll need for the next decade. I'm pretty well outfitted in the undie department, too. As long as I can stay my current fat size.

I have thought of other funny titles I probably won't use in this line. Like 'Gap the Woman' and 'The Woman who Thought Her Life was a Hat.' (I have enough caps to choke a horse but a lot of the favorite ones have seen too much sweat.)

I really must throw out more stuff. But some progress was made today.

And Lest You Think There is No Connection...

...in my reading material, I forgot to mention that the term quark comes from Finnegan's Wake. At least that is so according to Stephen Hawking and my online dictionary. I think I first encountered quark, my physics IQ not being so well-developed, as a soft cheese product in Europe.

Having caught up on my newspaper reading, by the way, I'm reduced to reading news that's no more than 24 hours old. This isn't the same as reading about the price of gas going up when it's really going down or reading about the Wimbledon final when the U.S. Open begins or drifting back to when people cared how The Sopranos ended. Reading old magazines and newspapers is really a trip. I am reading an article in an ancient (1989, I think) New Yorker in the bathroom. It's about the Oxford Dictionary dynasty.

Reading List Again

I might have mentioned that I was reading "The Unbearable Lightness of Being." I finished that. It is an interesting novel slipping in and out of narrative to discuss philosophy and the creation of character. I might have mentioned I was reading James Joyce's "Ulysses." That's not moving along too well. It's been displaced by trying to read my three daily and a couple of weekly newspapers. Trying to rectify that. I've been listening to "A Brief History of Time" in the car. The thing is we have all these books on cassette tapes and that media is being phased out. Just seems I should listen to a few of them before giving them away. I have passed "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" along which I finished a few weeks ago. I'm about a third of the way through "Ulysses." Maybe I'll finish by Christmas.

House Fluff

I've mentioned before the problem of cleaning out thirty years of accumulations of little 'house fluff.' The little pens, pencils, clips, keys, gadgets, tools and stuff that accumulates in drawers and old cups. This shot is of one of those little trays inside a drawer in my office that's designed to receive such stuff. I can see a manicure knife, a pen, a key (to my father's garage), a spare battery for our digital cameras, a gadget to read flash memory cards, pencil lead, tape for a label maker, some binder clips. What looks like matches is really a match-type box with a tiny pad of paper inside. This scene is repeated all over the house. In drawers in the upstairs office, in trays in the walk-in closet, in the kitchen. Some one is going to have to reduce the amount of this stuff if we are ever going to get out of this house without eighteen boxes of pens and paper clips. See here and here .

Bury the Hachet

A week or so ago I noticed a hatchet in the garage. Now we have done a pretty thorough-going cleaning of the garage and had it painted. My first thought was: "I don't think we will need a hatchet in the condo. My second thought was: "What have I ever needed a hatchet for even here?"

A couple of days ago a friend of mine who is beginning a series of three moves that will eventually land her in the same downtown high rise we'll be in, said "I found a hatchet and thought 'I'm not going to need that in the condo!'" What are the odds?

In the picture above you can see a few other things that survived the great cleaning sweep. Some booster cables, a huge pipe wrench, some sheet metal left from some recent repair job. I'm sure we will have to clean out the garage again before we sell the house next spring. But I don't think it will be as bad as it was before this round of cleaning.

Tear Down

One of our Realtors (a mother and daughter pair will represent us on the house sale next year) suggested that our house will probably be torn down. I can certainly see that happening. It was more, obvious, however that this house a few doors away would be demolished. Who knew Habitat for Humanity had a service to do this and at the same time salvage materials.

It's hard to think of our house as a tear down, but it's a good-sized lot and I guess I could see someone with enough resources gutting it or even taking it down. It certainly puts all the touch-up paint and cosmetic things in perspective, though.

Dark Mood

My life is going well as the summer winds down. We have a few social things going on but some free nights, too. We've finished with one volunteer duty. The parents are rocking along, the old frail dog is somewhat stable.

So why the dark mood? I'm just in one of those troughs where the downsizing effort seems daunting. And the financial markets are worrying. It's funny how we can be see-sawed by sub-prime loans when we are debt-free. (I just this moment saw a commercial for Countrywide Home Loans offering home loans, easy as pie. Aren't they bankrupt?)

So, dark thoughts are being banished. After I've sold those off to Wall Street types and exercised myself into a fog of good internally-produced drugs, I'm going to make some headway on getting rid of stuff and organizing stuff. (Did I mention that the Realtors was over here shaking their heads over the mess yesterday?)

Picture is compliments of Blackmail on South Congress. Black moods for sale. The little neon inside, visible if you click on the pic to blow it up, says 'Think Noir.'

It Lurks Under the Stairs

One of the spots that I need to get to in the downsizing effort is a little 'under the stairs' storage we have in our storage room. We built FFP an office above the storage room in back of the garage some years ago. The whole room is sort of storage (filing cabinets and shelves and flat files from the business, other stuff we store) but they made a door to access under the stairs for extra storage. Lurking in there are lots of things that need sorting. Among them are boxes of bendable, posable figures. I once collected them. Don't ask. When this picture was taken (2001), I had removed them from my office at work (yeah, I used to work) and stored them in a storage unit we had. The storage unit at the time had nothing else BUT these boxes. We'd rented it for my parents to migrate stuff to Austin they didn't want the movers handling and we had gotten all their stuff in a house. I'd put these boxes in the storage unit. But it seemed silly to keep the unit for some rubber toys with wires inside. So I moved them to that spot under the stairs. Since most of them have languished there except the Christmas-themed ones. I've trotted them out a few times for the holidays. I may have sorted and trimmed the contents, but I know that a few cubic feet of bendable, posable figures (yes, some Gumbys and Pokeys and lots of other themes) are under the stairs. Will I have the courage to attack this? Or, when I'm ready to move will I be tempted to put these in the tiny (43 square feet) storage unit at the condo?

Collections are sinister things, aren't they?

Please excuse my absence, I've been....

...celebrating a birthday for days on end. And cleaning out my pantry. And exercising. What? You say that given that meal, I need to exercise. Well, it was my buddy's food. And he couldn't eat it either and took half home. It was a lamb and lobster surf and turf. I got a piece of seared foie gras as the size of my palm. I ate it all. So much more appetizing than my pantry. Lumpy brown sugar, years-old rice (which was sealed in tupperware so probably could have been eaten, but not by me), questionable cans. And when did we corner the market on anchovies? Yeah, I'd rather eat out. We've tapped the wine collection in the almost week-long celebration, too. (An 80's Silver Oak, 1990 Phelps Insigna, stuff like that.) Yeah, I've been having a ball. But I've had to work out extra hard not to gain weight. So it's off to the country club with me. And then back to that pantry. We aren't going to collect food like that in the condo. Won't be room. And I can't say that I'll be sad.

Autographs

In all my sorting and slicing and dicing of souvenirs and archives, at least I haven't had to worry about an autograph collection. I never was into worrying famous people for their signatures. I have had to save a few letters and postcards which made me nostalgic for a real person vis-a-vis their handwriting as well as their words. The picture is of Billy Gibbons' signature on a giant decorated guitar that is currently on Congress Avenue.

And how's the downsizing going? Thanks for asking. Not badly, but it's making me blue, I think. I gave away seven or eight cubic feet of stuff, though, in the last week.

Tennis Nostalgia

Ever since I learned to play tennis, I've enjoyed watching it and reading about it. I learned to play a little in 1970. I don't play a lot better now, but I've played for most of the 37 years since.

In sorting old memorabilia, I found some ticket stubs for a tennis match from the (now defunct) World Championship of Tennis Tour. The Tour culminated each year in a final in Dallas. It never took on the importance of a grand slam, but it was right there in my home town before I moved to Austin. I had gone for a few years before this '76 event. If I'm not mistaken, my future husband went to Dallas from Austin to see part of this event with me. We would marry at the end of the month above. My memory is always a little vague on such things. I do remember seeing a match at WCT between a young (17?) Bjorn Borg and an aging Rod Laver (must have been forty).

Also, in, gulp, downsizing news...I have all these old VHS tapes that we recorded TV programs on. Some are pretty easy to toss. Say you recorded a "Northern Exposure" episode. It is or will be soon enough available on DVD. I already own a couple of seasons. No worries. A showing of the venerable movie "Casablanca" recorded off a TV airing? Already own the DVD.

But I found a VHS tape of the 1980 Wimbledon final. After 27 years the tape is still watchable although there are blackouts and static interruptions and obvious deterioration. I figured I'd watch a little of it, see how bad the quality was and toss it without a thought. I watched the whole thing. It is beyond fascinating for both the tennis and the culture. They play a tie-breaker in the fourth set that goes to 18-16 or something. They come to the net and, frankly, hammer out a better version of tennis for spectators than today's stars. And Borg's fiancée smokes nervously in the stands. Imagine seeing someone smoke in the stands today.

And what to do with this old video? Lots of tennis matches are available on DVD and the Wimbledon people used to sell this one. It is out of stock and, of course, it wouldn't be the U.S. version with all the old commercials either. Well, it occurs to me that I can't agonize over every thing this way or I'm never going to get through downsizing. Downsizing. Can't finish it. Can't quit talking about it.

Drowning in Memories

I said I wouldn't mention downsizing again. But it's hard to avoid. Some friend suggested that I scan some stuff and then discard it. Sounded like an excellent idea. Only. The discarding part is hard. Thirty-five-year-old ticket stubs. Gosh. Once you save them this long, it seems silly to part with them. Even if you scanned them. They won't take up much room in this box....

Oh, I'm finding stuff to part with all right. There's a box or two full of ephemera and souvenirs that are either going to an interested party or into the trash. If there was a little kid standing here right now, a little kid like I was fifty years ago, that little kid would get all kinds of foreign coins and stamps and stuff to cherish and 'collect' and play with. Only there is no such little kid here just now.

Another thought I've had for the last few weeks is how long it will take to go through all the pens, pencils, markers, clips and other stuff that we have in cups and drawers in every room. This stuff does accumulate. And since we have entirely too many rooms, some of it accumulates in every room.

Morbid Thoughts

Maybe it was Lady Bird's several day tribute with the funeral, fifty-mile cortege and the burial, all on TV. This shop window on South Congress (showing Day of the Dead folk art) seemed to illustrate my mindset. Anyway, I've been thinking about how we all end up. Even though we never know what the end will be. They say that but then you see people in nursing homes with Alzheimer's or in the hospice in the final stages of some fatal disease and you are pretty sure where they will end up. For some of us, we keep breathing for quite a while after our fate is sealed. For me, my body seems to be working. But the clock ticks. My dad seems obsessed now with his birthday. He told me a few days ago that he would be 91 in two months "if he made it." He doesn't have any new complaints and he is getting around and doing a few things. He's been coming to the club with me for water aerobics, climbing in and out of the deep end on the ladder. He's been trying to kill poison ivy at his house and he says he washed the filter on his AC unit. He shops, eats, reads, naps, visits with people, tells jokes. The mere numbers, though, seem to impress him now. Somehow this extra year over ninety more so than last year when we celebrated the 'significant birthday.' I think he does a pretty good job of living every day. I guess I do.

People who are struggling or who have already succumbed to the inevitable are on my mind just now. It happens.

Reading List

Picture of random books taken some time in the past somewhere in the house.

I am tired of talking about downsizing. That isn't all I do. Really. Right now I'm reading three books. Well, I'm reading two books and I'm listening to another one in my car. I go from riding the recumbent bicycle to nowhere and reading James Joyce's Ulysses to driving home in the car listening to an unabridged A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith on tape. At home I'm reading Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. OK. I'm reading that in the bathroom, I will confess. Too much information I'm afraid. Of course, I'm reading newspapers. The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The Austin American-Statesman. I've read a few articles in The New Yorker of late, too.

I'm about 200 pages in on Ulysses. (My edition has 933 pages.) So when I'm reading that I'm immersed in the conversations and stream of consciousness of people in Dublin in 1904. I've well-prepared myself for this endeavor. (See here.) Still it's a dense and confusing book. Fun, though.

I'm at least three quarters of the way through A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and it's been good listening. I decided to listen to the tapes since I still have a cassette player in my car. After I finish this listen I'm going to give them to a friend. So I'm transported to the early twentieth century there, too. Williamsburg, Brooklyn. A clearer exposition but lots of details of life there.

I'm nearing the end of The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I love the movie made from this book and I'm always thinking about it as I read. But the book has lots of philosophy and such, too, it's not straight narrative. So they both stand quite well, the book and its movie. Here I'm in the late '60's and early '70's in Czechoslovakia and Switzerland.

It's funny how the books you are reading occupy a little track in your brain. And when there are three? Well, it might seem like clutter but it works pretty well.

Reflecting

The big news here is that they are burying Lady Bird Johnson this morning. The ceremonies have taken all weekend. We didn't line up along the 50 mile route of the cortége. Instead we slept in and are sitting around the house pondering what to do with our Sunday.

Death is a time for reflection, of course. As are birthdays and the anniversaries. We've been celebrating a birthday for Forrest and last night attended a friend's party for her birthday. (She has the same birthday as Forrest actually.) There was great food at the party as the honoree is part of the food community and restaurateurs and foodies contributed to the pot luck. I took deviled eggs "à la Russe" as I call them. I mix up the filling with capers, onions, lemon pepper, lemon juice and mayo and top them with a bright colored caviar. When competing with foodies, deviled eggs are a good choice. Lots of people love them. No mater how many you make (I took 32 halves) you never take home leftovers. And usually no one else makes them.

It's lovely to have a day with no obligations. But it's an obligation in and of itself to not just sit.

A Cubic Foot of France

As those of you following along at home on the downsizing slippery slope may know, I often think of my 'stuff' in terms of cubic feet. As in "how many cubic feet did you take to the thrift store today?" A few years ago, I decided that my growing collection of travel guides and maps and clippings about places I wanted to go would be best collected in boxes so that when you got ready to go somewhere (or a friend asked for stuff about a certain place) you could just pull out a box. So it happened that I have a box labeled 'France' with about a cubic foot of stuff about France. Which would be sad enough if there weren't also a box with about as much material labeled 'Paris.' There are other boxes, too. For 'New York' for example.

This system of organizing the travel-related stuff works well enough. But now that I'm downsizing one has to ask whether all this really bears saving. Also, I found one very mysterious thing in this box. Stationery from a hotel in Paris. One that I'm pretty sure I never stayed in. OK, I'm completely sure I never stayed there. It is close to the last place I stayed in Paris so maybe we wandered in and got the stationery to remember the place? Or someone who stayed there brought it back for us? A look at the place on the WEB makes me want to go stay there! But where did I get this stationery?

So what did I do? I bookmarked the hotel's page on my computer. And I put the stationery back in the box with all the books, maps and language guides. And I closed the top. This will get decided another day.

Acquisition

Sunday we were visiting the South Congress area. Some businesses have moved or folded and the ones occupying space keep tending to the upper end of the scale. Uncommon Objects, its doorway reflecting us and the church across the street in this picture, has remained. Selling the odd and the end and always decorating their windows in an amazing way, they soldier on.

I've enjoyed buying things at Uncommon Objects. I've bought weird bookends, objects for the cocktail shaker (etc.) collection and some fake pastries. I once considered starting a fake food collection. Really. My problem for the years from the end of the eighties until 2002 was that I always had a rather large office at work tempting me to decorate with weird collections and stock it with books and such. And at home I had all this storage, many bookshelves. Every remodel (1994, 1996, 2004) brought an upheaval of moving stuff around that resulted in some divesting but eventually bringing more storage and more temptation. I had money and stuff was fun to shop for and look at. I dabbled in ebay. I went to discount stores. And I wandered into junk and antique shops and came out with stuff. People gave me presents. They were often inspired by my weird collections to give me really weird (but cool) stuff.

Given all the acquisition it is surprising that I'm not drowning in stuff even more than I am.

Much has been given away. Much has been thrown away. But I think I still have those fake pastries.

Brings you Up Short

Sorting through a box of things I'd saved for a collage project. (Remember there was plenty of storage around here if we were going to stay in this house.) I come across this 1997 photo. I'm sure this was a duplicate copy of this picture. I used some film camera or the other on this trip. I probably ordered several copies of all the photos I took. Who knows. The sun gleams off the Twin Towers as we sail down the Hudson on the QE2. Other pictures I have somewhere show my co-workers who were on the trip with this basic backdrop.

I saved the picture out. I don't know where the other copy is, at the moment. (Not that I looked for it.) I scanned it. As you can see.

The whole downsizing thing is depressing today. I have posted on Freecycle (a Yahoo group to give things away rather than toss them) to find a home for several cubic feet of weird stuff. We tossed some more books into the thrift store pile. We have cleaned off all the shelves in the hallway in preparation for painting the hall. I was talking to a friend who is also moving to the condo building downtown next year yesterday. We keep reassuring ourselves that it is OK to let things go. To not get depressed about it and just find good homes. We enjoyed the stuff while we had it. But, yeah, it's hard to know what to do with some of these photos! Here's one of me with eyes half closed, a case of bed head and a frown. Maybe I'll scan that one and put it up tomorrow.

And so it goes. I'm looking forward to having a lot less stuff. The process can get tedious, though.

Downsizing, The Subjournal

Part of downsizing is sorting stuff that has been sorted before. Including allegedly arty photographs of collage-like arrangements I took with my Polaroid 100 back in the early seventies. As I pondered what to do with these photos it occurred to me to scan them, creating more clutter on my computer, surely. And in this blog. But the photos are interesting and bring to mind other clutter, other ideas, other selves.

I thought of making a journal just about the downsizing effort. Instead I've just labeled entries here. (With 'downsizing' and 'stuff.') After all I'm contributing to two other blogs and there is a limit to the attention I should pay to blogging. When I should be sorting, tossing, deciding, consolidating, cataloging, arranging.

These little collages were arranged by me in an apartment in Dallas (well, Highland Park, actually). Before I moved to Austin (1975). I'd acquired an old type tray at a flea market, I think. I had also acquired some old wooden and iron type somewhere. The overgrown piece of okra? From my Dad's suburban gardening, I suspect. The bell peppers probably from the grocery store. (A favorite way to 'cook' for me then was to heat up some butter, thrown in chopped onions, bell peppers, mushrooms and sauté them and see what developed...maybe adding some browned meat and cans of corn, tomato sauce, whatever.) I didn't cook pasta that much but seem to have had some dried pasta on hand. Various ephemera I'd collected included wine corks, some ration coupons from World War II, Scrabble tiles, a rock that looked like a cameo, a ticket stub from the Deutsches Museum in Munich, a small ceramic turtle and a piece of coral. And a paper 'hanger' from a bottle of beer I bought on a train in some French-speaking part of Europe. It says "ne la jetez pas par la fenêtre...vous peurrirez blesser et même tuez quelq'un." Which, I believe says, given my limited French "don't throw it (feminine, la bouteille, the bottle) out the window...you might hurt or even kill someone."

It's interesting to think what happened to the things I owned at that moment. I only recently gave that Polaroid to a camera collector. I obviously saved the photos and the biodegradable things are gone. The coral? I don't have a clue. There are shells and natural things on a display in the house but no sign of that. I know that my mother-in-law tried to give the type tray away without my permission, it was retrieved and then, at some point I gave it away or sold it myself. I don't know if the type is still around. Mostly the stuff has flown. But the pictures remain. I remember taking them. Thinking them somewhat artistic, I guess, but not really being satisfied. I've always been intrigued by collage and wanted to create collages. Fact is, these photos turned up in a large box of stuff I'd saved only for the purpose of creating collages. Now, though, I've decided to save these photos in an 'archive' box. Sorting and sorting again. Only when I give stuff away or toss it in the trash is its fate sealed. I'm saving some of the stuff in this box with the idea that I'll give it to the arts magnet school for the kids to work into collages. But who knows? Maybe I'll throw the stuff away or sort it again!

If every piece of junk in this house gives me this much pause...I'll never finish downsizing.

Barely There

Ever feel like you are sort of missing from your own life? I don't know what it is but I feel disconnected today. Unable to solve some problems. A bit of a digestive upset (probably not helped by eating nachos, but hey I ate a 'good diet' yesterday and the upset came before that lunch). Doing things but not feeling like they are particularly useful. How to deal with that? Well, I usually deal with it by hibernating and reading and watching movies or TV. All the while thinking, on the back burner somewhere, about how to bring me back into my life. I think I here thunder out there. I guess it's going to rain again. Maybe the rain is the problem.

Junk as Art

Every quarter or so we get a postcard from the city announcing 'Large Item Pickup.' They promise to take lumber, furniture, appliances. They announce all kinds of rules and regulations. On the announced day piles appear at the curb. One of our neighbors had been accumulating odd items in one of their two driveways. Worrying that the house was becoming a hoarder house I was glad to see that a bunch of stuff is on the curb, hopefully waiting for the city trucks. (Which never arrive on the announced day, it sometimes is weeks after when they show up.) A piano stripped of its front and keys appeared among the neighbors stuff. It's amazing what accumulates and deteriorates in our lives. We have had some equally puzzling stuff hauled away from our place.

Oddly, since we are the downsizing royalty at the moment, we don't have anything on the curb. I'm not saying that we shouldn't have. I think there may be a few things in the storage shed that the city might pick up. But we have paid for hauling on a lot of stuff already. And nothing we could put out would look as forlorn and almost lovely as this old stripped piano in the rain.

Freedom

What was it old Kris Kristofferson said in that song I loved to hear Janis sing back in the day (the early seventies for me). Oh, yeah. "Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose."

Be that as it may. When I know we have no plans for an afternoon and evening and nothing to do tomorrow during the day on the 4th...the alleged celebration of the nation's freedom but really a day for too much sun and booze...it pleases me. I like some 'free' time. Even retired I look forward to it.

I'm afraid the sun (if not the booze) is going to be spoiled for a number of people by the incessant rain. As I write this I hear it continuing outside. Lakes are closed.

We plan to watch Wimbledon (if it's not rained out) and in the evening have dinner with some friends at their house.

No flag picture today. Just the reflection (yeah, yet another) of yours truly in a junk shop window on South Lamar.

Things to Do in Retirement

I retired in late September 2002, and, at the usual moment for such things (the new year), I made a list of resolutions (show here with comments made April of 2003). There were things on it both ridiculous and sublime. Well, the former anyway.

It is extremely sad that, well over four years later, so little is really accomplished from that list. As I like to say, I am always intending to write but instead I only blog. I gave away the video camera. So much for learning how to make a movie. I still use the point and shoot camera on the most basic setting. Although I have added lots of shots to the shop windows and reflections collection. I gave up learning to play Bridge. I gave away the large collection of Bridge books even. As the time approaches when downsizing is really, really needed (since we are moving to a condo) things are still a mess in most closets and storage.

But...I rode the bus! Now why I decided that I should ride the bus here in Austin (not the most public transportation friendly place in the world or even in the U.S.) I don't know. But I've ridden the bus twice in the last couple of weeks. Both times I wanted to go somewhere downtown or close to it. And I was meeting someone who was coming from the south but who lives close and could take me home so I didn't have to actually ride a bus back. Once I rode Route 19 which seems to be the domestic workers' express (since it goes by a prominent retirement home and lots of fancy houses). Once I rode route 3 which seemed to be a slacker express. There were rude, loud young people on board making sexually explicit comments and self-indulgent cell phone calls. Also, excessively using 'like' in their conversations. The domestics and yard men were better companions, speaking quietly among themselves in Spanish and English, tired from a hard day's work. This is a generalization, of course.

One problem with riding the bus from my current home is that you have to walk several blocks to get to a stop. Around a half mile, a little less. In the heat and with a wait at the stop, you can wilt a bit before the air-conditioned bus arrives. At 50 cents a ride it's a bargain, though, with gas costing six times that a gallon.

On one trip I went downtown. I had to walk a few blocks to my destination. But it was fine. And, of course, after a little walking around and dinner with friends, I had a ride home.

On another trip, I went to S. Lamar to the strip mall where the Alamo Draft House South is located (a movie theater that serves beer and wine and food). The photo shown today is the window of one of the junk shops there. Fortunately this bus goes down S. Lamar so no transfer was necessary.

I feel for people who have to ride these buses wherever they go, waiting for the late bus in the heat, having to transfer downtown to get where they want to go. And it was amazing how incredulous my friends were that I rode it. Even someone who owns a hybrid and worries a lot more than I do about the earth seemed shocked that I rode the bus to meet them.

Well, it took me over four years. But I finally did something I said I was going to do. Never say never! [Yes, I know that no one but me would even consider riding the bus an accomplishment. I often take public transportation when traveling. I once avoided taking a cab even one time in Berlin, even making the trips to and from the airport with luggage on public transportation. But here in Austin it seems an accomplishment. And if you had to be really dressed up and it was this hot...it would be a disaster!]

Looking Ahead

There is our condo building rising beyond the tangle of power switching equipment next to the Seaholm plant.

I thought of putting this entry into the Journal of Unintended Consequences. It's sort of the 'appropriate planning' vs. 'looking for happiness in the future and not living in the now' dilemma. It's really been on my mind as I struggle to plan for a significant move and see all these things from my past as I struggle to reduce my 'stuff.'

I've been reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. I was struck by this passage:

"People usually escape from their troubles into the future; they draw an imaginary line across the path of time, a line beyond which their current troubles will cease to exist."

I have done that so many times in my life. Not that I never lived 'right now.' I think I do that better at the moment than I ever have. But I remember so many times thinking that as soon as I (fill in the blank: paid off this bill, moved, changed jobs, retired, etc.) then I would have it sorted and be happy. Or happier. I'm trying hard not to think of the move downtown that way. I'm trying to think of it as just another stage in my life. I'm trying to enjoy my house while I'm still here and I'm trying to embrace sorting all this 'stuff' as a good and fun exercise.

Truthfully, whenever I look into the future these days, I seem to quickly retreat into the present. I'm getting older. Our parents seem perilously old. Then there are terrorists and global warming. Yeah, better enjoy the now.

Us At the Mansion

We have gotten to go to a few events in the last year or so at The Pease Mansion. (Scroll down a bit on this link to find some info on it.) At one of these events our friend Vickie Roan (owner of an elegant gift shop, The Menagerie) took our picture and the other night she found it on her computer and sent it to us. I think I'll put this on on our putative 'home' page. Not that we really update that much any more what with the blogs.

Discarding the Past

Sometimes it's tempting to discard some things because they are cards and letters I wrote and they show what a dumb a-- I was! Of course, my current writings (this blog included) probably reveal the same failings. Honestly, though I think I'm smarter now! If you click on the picture and get a larger version and a good look at some of the stamps you can see that this stuff is really old. You may well ask how I came to have letters I wrote? Because my relatives (my mother and, especially, two aunts) saved them and I later got them from them.

I couldn't bring myself to discard many of them. I did manage to reduce the 'archive' box I was going through, though, by discarding some other things.

Reading all the stuff in this one box has made me light-headed with nostalgia for that younger, more hopeful and, I think, more energetic self. A number of the letters were written from Europe in 1972. This was my "official youthful tramp around parts of Europe like someone with no cares in the world" excursion. In the days before e-mail I wrote letters and people wrote to me and it took many days to communicate. I didn't save the letters I got while on that trip, apparently. At least I haven't found them. I did find some missives from other people from later decades. I even dropped some people an e-mail and quoted from one of these letters.

Busy?

I am busy. Five days a week I get up for a morning activity at my club. MWF is water aerobics. We welcomed the instructor back from jury duty today. I would rather have more freedom from a structured class. But I am appreciating this class while my dad can participate. Today he put his hands up on the diving board and hoisted himself up at bit. Like a much younger man. So I'd rather not have a class MWF. But I'm glad I do. If that makes sense. Tuesday and Thursday I've committed to playing tennis unless something really comes up to interfere or it rains, of course. I'm not crazy about commitment but I love to play and this gets me out there and my companions are fun. Right now I'm playing most Wednesday nights, too.

I'm trying to get in shape. I would say back in shape but I'm not sure I was ever there. The water aerobics and tennis won't do it so I have to do some riding on the recumbent bike and some ab work and weights. It never feels like I do enough. Last night I walked the neighborhood with my friend SuRu and her dog. My dog isn't a match for the rest of us any more. Sad.

It is the busy time for film reviewers for the Austin Film Festival. The festival is in October. Deadlines loom, films pile up. We are first round screeners. Get the flicks seen by someone. We also go to screener's meetings...we started last Monday.

I've been trying to stay on top of our financial life. Every day I make entries into the budget, check accounts, enter checks into the budget or my dad's account (we pay a lot of his bills out of a fund he contributes every month).

I've been trying to blog a bit and keep up a little private journal. FFP and I are together keeping up the Austin, Texas Daily Photo Site which has been fun.

And the downsizing! I've been going through old boxes of 'archives and souvenirs.' Finding letters from friends and old letters I wrote to my aunts who are dead now (they saved them all) makes me sad and glad at the same time. It's very tedious going through all these pieces of paper and trying to figure out what to do with each thing. I feel I must read the stuff before deciding its fate.

I have a couple of committee meetings this week and another commitment or two. I've never had a problem staying busy in retirement.

Lazy Morning

Yesterday, I was all cheer about everything. I was working on the projects I have for my country club board. They are frustrating in the way that work sometimes was. You know the "I can't find the documents in the form I need them" and the "I can't find the latest information and decisions" and the "you can't please everyone in spite of the fervor of their arguments." And yet I just worked on it and didn't fret.

I stared at the piles around the house that are the detritus of the downsizing without sadness or retribution. I did note that some of the boxes and containers stacked around are actually...empty. This is progress, I think. I even photographed an old 'art' (we use the term loosely here) project of mine that I mentioned yesterday as being something saved from the dump. It's pictured above.

I exercised and felt good about what I did with no recriminations about how far I have to go.

I went out with FFP and wandered downtown (exhaustively recounted here) without fretting about what will happen when we move there or how I'll ever get my stuff reduced to a small enough pile. And I didn't fret about the fact that I haven't gotten my dad a present or a card even for Dad's Day and hadn't even arranged a meal or outing. I just suggested to FFP that we maybe try an extremely early dinner at Chez Zee where they were thoughtfully starting a Dad's Day dinner at 4PM. He set it up and we got the parental units to agree.

This great feeling carried over into the morning. I got up late. I blogged and sat around in my bathrobe. I made my morning welfare call to my dad. I didn't worry when he didn't answer. I figured he was at the monthly church breakfast. He was and called back later.

Yeah, nothing bothered me yesterday. The world seemed full and interesting. I didn't try to control everything. I thought several times about friends who are ailing. I know that these things can happen to me. That something will. But I felt joy in the moment, in my rich and privileged life. I wish I could do that every day.

What to Save?

I've made several decisions over the past few weeks about stuff to keep and stuff to let go. I told FFP yesterday that I wanted to keep my Ultimate Talking Buzz Lightyear Room Guard.

"I think he'll look good in the condo," I said.

"OK. Sure." He said. Not sounding really sure.

He gave Buzz to me (one Christmas, I think) and that's part of my sentimentality, probably.

I packed Buzz in his original box. He's ready to move. I'm pretty sure he won't be one of the objects that we use to decorate the house to interest buyers.

I also decided to keep an old cardboard cracker box covered with magazine cutouts and painted with some sort of decoupage varnish. I made it over thirty years ago. It's old enough to evoke a lot of things with me. I think, when I move, I'll keep letters in it or something.

The other day I almost threw away several notebooks in which my parents had meticulously collected columns clipped from The Dallas Morning News. The columns, by the late Frank X. Tolbert, recounted history and lore of Texas as he traveled around the state. Then I thought why not give them to my dad. I figured he'd enjoy reading them again after all this time. Indeed, he's been having a ball reading them and he's loaned out two of the three notebooks to friends who are enjoying them, too. It's amazing, that. In a day and age when dedicated book store owners are burning books, that people would read aging clippings. I think that some of this material was collected in a book that is out of print. Ah, yes, here it is at Powell's City of Books in Portland.

I was fascinated by an article in the June 11/18 issue of The New Yorker about the Harry Ransom Center and all the important archives they preserve. I'm not really much of a preservationist myself. I toy with the idea of saving things for posterity and then somewhat happily toss them. I think I'll leave preservation to others. The space for it and the dedication to saving just aren't in my nature. I'm keeping Buzz, though. For now.

Downsizing Gazette

Newspapers aren't really the problem. No matter how long they sit around eventually they hit the recycle bin. No. Things of more substance. Books. Worn out shoes. Toys. My excuse to have toys as I close in on six decades on earth? Some were for young folks who would visit. Some were 'collections.' I decorated my offices when I worked with silly toys and organized things for other people's kids. Nevertheless, toys are going to have to go. Some souvenirs, too. Old piles of photos are hard. And my latest dilemma are computer backups on tape and floppies that are a decade old.

I'm a bit stymied at the moment. But the pace will pick up again. I'll be soliciting people to take things, packing up stuff for the thrift store. And filling the 'pay as you throw' container. I've been concentrating on more ephemeral things. Like manipulating the bits and bytes of my financial life and watching media. And reading those newspapers that I'm giong to ditch in any case.

Cute...if you don't have to change diapers

I enjoyed visiting the relatives. Especially the young ones. Who can resist a smile like this one? Of course, I didn't change one diaper. And I gradually got to the point where I wanted things a bit calmer. I wanted to eat sophisticated food and talk to adults. But, yeah, what a cute smile.

Road trip over, I'm trying to tame a pile of newspapers. I've caught up a lot of personal financial stuff and have a bit more of that to do. I've gotten back into water aerobics and tennis, but I need to get back to the weights and aerobic conditioning. I've gotten started on some work for my club.

Last night and tonight I had nice restaurant meals with wine and peace and quiet. (Well, one of the restaurants was loud, but still, no kids.) I've recovered from all the driving, I think, and caught up lost sleep.

I need to, gulp, get into the downsizing again. The summer of purging. That's what this will be.

It's All Relative

My dad asked today if I wasn't glad that the close relatives were nine hundred miles away. And it's true that the distance allows us to lead our own lives and, when we get together, enjoy each other. Even squirmy babies and hyper kids. It's been entertaining and this little baby boy is cute. But, nine hundred miles is about right! We can see each other now and then. We can even drive that distance sometimes. In between we can look at Snapfish photo albums of the kids! Or share their antics on YouTube. Yep. That's about right.

A River Runs Through It

FFP is maintaining the home fires. I'm visiting my nearest relatives (sister, brother-in-law, two nieces and their husbands, three great nephews and a great niece). My sister lives in a largely uninteresting sprawl of subdivisions west of Denver. However, on my daily walks I can see the South Platte roaring through a natural area. Otherwise, it's been a bunch of amusing babies and making up tasks for the five- and seven-year-old kiddos and helping them assemble Lego toys.

I'm not sure how it counts in the annals of downsizing but a van load of stuff is staying at my sister's (ground zero of the need for downsizing) and with my niece with the boys.