Feeling Blank

This mural that looks perpetually unfinished (like ads or pictures might appear in the boxes) is on North Lamar just south of the Tavern. Where you, my faithful few readers know, I was on Tuesday.

On Tuesday I thought maybe I'd finish 'tricking out' the condo. Oh, I knew something would probably be missing or wrong and need fixing. Big projects are like that. I knew a hurricane was coming and was vaguely worried about how bad the offshoot weather would be in Austin and how our building and our houses would fare. I'd become increasingly disgusted with how our brand new high rise operates, how poor elevator service is and such and so was vaguely worried about getting everything up to the tenth floor on Thursday.

Thursday didn't go too badly. After FFP got the concierge to open the door to the loading dock door and figured out how to operate the freight elevator himself we got the stuff up here.

Then, of course, the unexpected happened. The thing about the flood (or leak as I call it or as the building management calls it an 'incident' or 'water flow' problem) is this: while I escaped damage (apparently) in my condo, many people did not. The water was, quite literally, about ten feet away. The elevators got flooded. They are operating haphazardly still (which, frankly, they also did before). There are dirty streaks inside them where water flowed. Frankly, one is put in mind of an ancient and subsidized apartment. Remediation equipment is all over the place. There are harried residents fighting a battle between the developer and the management with their insurance companies and lawyers at their side.

I feel helpless, of course. I love my condo and except for the unfinished shades (which also need some adjustment) things are just the way I want them. But it all seems ephemeral. I will never feel like it will last. I see water coursing down the walls, damaging the book cases and the books I've so carefully assembled. I see it damaging my art, my electronics. Nothing seems safe.

Of course, people say that we don't want to let this get out (that we have these problems a mere four months after the building is occupied) or we can never sell or lease our property. But, you know, you are required to disclosed anything you know about such problems. Can't escape it.

As time goes by, if they get the elevators working and assure us that they have inspected and re-inspected whatever systems failed and all remediation is done, then I'll become more comfortable and complacent. Probably I won't get flooded by a leak. Something else will happen. It will come out of left field when I'm comfortable. On Shoal Creek I fought water. Water came in the garage in the '81 flood (from the street not Shoal Creek) and we fought it back with a French drain and sealants. (In that flood, water reached into our yard on the bluff and knocked down fences, too.) Water main breaks happened in our front yard three different times. Our pressure step down valve failed and water erupted in the garage where the service entered the house. We had sprinkler system leaks, roof leaks, condensation line leaks and toward the end a leak in the service from meter to house and had to rebuild that. I thought that I'd worry less about water on the tenth floor of a brand new building developed by a company experienced in high rise construction.

Time will pass. I'll worry about something else. Meanwhile I'm going to revel in living where I want to live. Being urban. But I won't forget water. Beside the building is a creek. It is, in fact, Shoal Creek. Of course, it won't rise to the tenth floor (or if it does, you know, goodbye Austin) but it could rise up and lap around the building stranding us here. The lake could come up here. Tom Miller Dam could fail.

After the Northridge Earthquake in '94 my friend who had lived there moved to Austin. She said that for a long time she would look at glass objects on shelves and think 'that is going to break in the next earthquake.' Even though the objects were here in Austin where the earth doesn't move that often.

So I'm seeing water damage. But my future disaster is probably something else.

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.

My New Neighborhood

One of the first things we did when we moved downtown was make dates with some couples who already lived downtown. We'd met them downtown for meals before or visited in their places, but this was to inaugurate downtown friendships in this new way: WE LIVE DOWNTOWN, TOO! One couple mentioned how many places they walked to and it seemed like they really walked a long way. Since the weather was moving into the teeth of summer, it surprised me. But the longer we are down here, the more we realize how easy and fun it is to roam around on your feet.

When I walked to The Tavern on Tuesday for my friend's book signing, I realized how easy it was to roam over to things in that stretch of Lamar. Not just the venerable Tavern but Wink Wine Bar, an interesting looking health food snack bar, Betty Sport (sport stuff for the ladies) and Twelfth Street Books. The latter (where the picture was taken) is a real live (as opposed to WEB only) erudite secondhand bookstore. Most of those don't maintain a storefront anymore. (I saw my friend David at Momo's the other night and he used to run a great place called State House Books. He is still in the business. Only just virtually.) Which reminds me: my dad and I somehow got on the topic of 'book rate' postage and wondered if it still exists. And, yes, it does.

But I digress. My new neighborhood. Yesterday I only got out in the neighborhood for that walk over to the Four Seasons. I felt cooped up because, for the rest of the day, the closest I got to getting out was going to the parking garage to get some books out of my car and going to the concierge to get a package. I ordered some bookends. Given our decoration strategy (bookshelves, bookshelves, bookshelves with art and artifacts and gewgaws mixed in, all artfully arranged in the aesthetic of devil may care modern collector), our decorator said 'bookends are our friends.' However, only the right bookends work, in my opinion, so we gave some away, saved ones we thought would work and have used things that aren't really bookends. It looks nice, but we are still in the market for a few cool bookends.

But, yeah, digression from new neighborhood and walking in it. Did I mention that I'm stuck inside again today with workmen doing my 'final' AV stuff and motorized shades? Did I mention that Hurricane Ike has promised some stormy weather late tomorrow and early Saturday?

But really the possibilities for things to be walked to are endless. When we moved in, a friend who had been leasing in the Brown Building waiting for his place in this building, turned us on to the delights of Torchy's Tacos which had a trailer in Little Woodrow's parking lot a hop and skip down the street. But they moved! To S. First, I believe. Some people we had turned on to Torchy's just walked the mile and a half each way to satisfy their Torchy desires. Cool.

So, yeah I'm stuck inside getting stuff that makes you stay inside: fancy shades to block the early morning sun and fancy AV equipment. So, you know, you can stick in a Blu-Ray disk at seven in the morning and watch Blu-Ray DVDs all day long with surround sound. I've never seen a Blu-ray disk played (except maybe by accident in a store) and I've never owned a flat screen HD television bigger than the nineteen inch one I bought for a temporary one back in June. I don't own a Blu-ray disk. I thought of buying one (1) Blu-ray Disk but I couldn't find one at Costco. I didn't look too hard.

I wish I were out walking. Guys measuring and drilling in my condo make me palpably nervous. Forrest finds errands to do although I don't think it makes him as nervous. He knows I ordered this stuff and I have to answer questions. Although I can't imagine I'd know the answers.

There are so many places I could walk to. Even to the University on a good day. Or take the 'Dillo up there and then walk around. I could go to the Harry Ransom Center or the Blanton, shop on the drag. Heck for the price of the AV and shades, I could take a limo up there every day for a year or two probably and have them wait while I had a burger at Dirty Martin's.

We proved the other day that walking to toney SoCo is no problem. I could shop for weird bookends at Uncommon Objects. We could explore South Lamar, North Lamar (see above) and S. First. We could wander in old West Austin and Clarksville like we did the other day. Of course, downtown offers many wandering options. The library is on Guadalupe, not far away. It's true that the homeless population has made the Central Library a home away from no home, but there are still books there for ordinary people. Wait! I have enough books in the condo (after furious downsizing of them and with a few boxes pending at my dad's house) to last a reader a lifetime. Especially a reader who gets The New Yorker (fifty issues or so a year) and who has subscriptions to two seven-day-a-week newspapers, one six-day-a-week newspaper and one weekly newspaper and who occasionally picks up at least one free weekly. Ruined by Reading. Which is the title of a book that I don't think I gave away. I think it's still in a box at Dad's house.

I could walk to a myriad of coffee shops and write on my laptop or in a journal and look literary. I could walk to the Capitol and take a tour.

But today I sit, logged onto the Internet and worry at the sounds of drilling in the next room. Maybe I'll pop the DVDs of all issues of The New Yorker from 1925 through April 30, 2007 into my iMac and browse around. But I'd sort of rather be walking.

I Forgot to Say What I Ate

So, yeah when last seen, the Visible Woman promised a report on lunch. Day before yesterday's lunch! Hmmm. Where does the time go? That isn't my refrigerator but a window display on South Congress showing trendy products in an old refrigerator. The window was intended, during these dog days, to project coolness. In more ways than one.

So I had a panini sandwich for lunch day before yesterday. It had pesto on it. I was in a wine bar but I had water to drink. I'm thinking I went incommunicado after that last note precisely because I didn't want to describe my terrible diet. I think there was some of the ever popular arugula with that sandwich. For dinner on Monday, I had guacamole, hot sauce, chips, enchiladas and a beer. My companions were being good. They had guac and chips and stuff but had salads they didn't finish. And tea, not beer. I topped that off by buying a single, large Hefeweissen at Royal Blue on the way back from the restaurant and drinking it at home.

Yesterday, the good news was that I didn't eat anything until about 1 or 2. I was busy. I played tennis, ran a couple of errands and went to my dad's house where we washed the filter on his HVAC unit and I sorted some books to bring a few more into the fold at the condo. Didn't have time to eat. When I did, I chose, um, nachos! But just water to drink.

I walked to the Tavern (12th and Lamar) around 4:30 and it was plenty hot out so a cool Newcastle was nice when I got there. I wasn't just wandering around looking for a cool beer...could have done that steps from my building front door. A friend of mine was having a book signing for her book. I've known her since I first moved to Austin and while I rarely see her any more I thought it would be a great chance to catch up.

Dinner last night involved a couple of glasses of wine, a peach and arugula salad and risotto and (the shame of it!) a share in some rich dessert.

Too much food! So what did I do? Go to The Four Seasons for a delicious Market Breakfast which had heirloom tomatoes, local sausage, local Goat Cheese and eggs and a griddle cake. I don't even eat breakfast usually. Now I have to stave off the desire for napping and accomplish some of my goals for today. Hmm...what were they again?

Onward

I have lifted my head and will now move onward. I will finish sorting and straightening the stuff that didn't already get tossed. I will do creative projects. I will learn new things. I will entertain my friends with witty conversation that never touches on the topics of downsizing and moving. I will make a book of shop window reflections. I will call this one 'Butterfly' and wonder if people notice the building reflected in the glass. I will buy strange black frocks and mix it up with society types. Well, maybe scratch the last part.

The weekend was kind of strange. Between me and VMWare, I bollixed my Windows image. (I'm running MAC OS X and XP on this machine). My techie tended to blame the setup and the software, but, you know, I pay him. I must pay him one day to teach me the magic. He got most everything back and what he didn't recover I think we got all fixed up from the data backups. This happened Friday night and Saturday I tried to fix it and recovered stuff to my laptop and Sunday he fixed it for me.

I played tennis Saturday and then, because I was part way north, made a trip to Costco and then my Dad's. He wanted D batteries and toilet paper. He had a stash of the latter in the garage but he didn't notice it. I visited with him, did a few things for him that he can't do and sorted three boxes of books. I took two boxes back to the condo because we do have some space for books still. You have to mount the ladder to get to most of the rest of the space, but this is where books as decoration comes in. Who has time to read anyway?

Actually I now have times when I choose between reading the papers, reading a book or The New Yorker or writing. Or watching TV. Or, you know, eating and drinking.

Saturday we went early to Lambert's just as they opened when there was no one at the bar but staff chatting and getting briefed. Craig, the actor bartender who looks like some famous actor or maybe an amalgam of two or three, served us some food and I had a cucumber gimlet (with vodka substituted for the gin they recommend). OK, I had a glass of wine, too. We came back and I finished reading an interesting article in a New Yorker that was a couple weeks old and watched some of the U.S. Open tennis and then we went to the building's media room and watched the U.T. football game with a few other residents while a private party raged outside in the clubroom. The sound-proofing is good...the sound only rushed in when someone opened the door.

I spent five hours on Sunday, closer to six really watching my techie minister to my computers and network while I was going through some paper files and straightening them out. A lot of stuff got moved rather haphazardly at the end. After that, I had cabin fever. Or, in this case, tenth floor condo fever. (FFP had been out to take stuff to my car and storage and to get tacos and across the hall to work out.) We headed over to Taste and sat around eating stuff and drinking wine and picking out some party wine to take home and working the NY Times Sunday magazine crossword and talking to three of the owners of the place who were around working and planning. Then jazz started at five so we listened for a while before going home and reading some more Sunday papers while alternating between tennis and football and watching "Mad Men."

A good weekend. Except for the computer woes and evertying seems to be working out now including some new features we added to the mix. I don't think FFP started his car since Friday night. (When he drove five of us to see Elaine Stritch at Austin Cabaret Theater at Mansion at Judge's Hill.)

This morning we had a little shower downtown. I was supposed to play tennis so I called the captain of the team I'm subbing for and said "You know, if it's going to be a rainout I don't want to start my car!" But she said it wasn't raining and had only sprinkled a little earlier. I went and played. It went to three sets, but I was on the winning side. It didn't hurt that my partner (tall and twenty years younger than I) hit a few aces and service winners in the last game.

So here I am. Back with the details. I'm going out to lunch. I'll report back. No unexamined meals. I'm going to be a better correspondent. With you and with myself.

The Unexamined LIfe

After you die, people write about you, sum up your life. If you are somebody, maybe someone writes a biography or you write your autobiography while you are still around. (If you are nobody, you write a memoir!) Old Plato said it.

"The life which is unexamined is not worth living."
--Plato, Dialogues

I just finished writing a little piece about a friend who died last year for another friend to use in a tribute. I have so much material about this friend that it's hard to hone in on a couple of pages of words and quotes and a few pictures. The e-mail file for this friend has almost 2000 pieces of mail. As I struggled to keep my facts straight (even the year something happened sometimes eludes me sometimes) I appreciated the scattered online journals that I kept and that e-mail file and files of paper journals and records.

I realize that I've neglected any kind of journal for some weeks except a few scattered and distant entries here that now seem full of self-absorption and self-pity and short on facts.

The other day a friend said something like 'I'm tired of the examined life.' Not me, though. The better record I have the better I feel...even when I can't locate anything in the heaps and piles of pictures and words. I wish I had a record of every bite I'd ever eaten and every movie I'd ever seen and every song I'd ever heard. So. I've got to get back on the journal bandwagon. Online and/or off.

While thinking about this entry, I tried to find the above quote by looking in my old journal entries housed on the IPOWER host. All my WEB pages on this service were out of service. Very disconcerting.

This reflection picture, by the way, is from the store VIVID although in the picture name I identified it as Uncommon Objects. You live, you lose track, you die.

Reflecting on Who I Am

I am grappling with my new life and all its components. Yesterday I had a meeting in my old neighborhood and afterward I tried to locate new owners of our house because they got some of our mail (because, of course, the P.O. can't seem to forward it all). I didn't find the owners but it was weird ringing my old door bell, standing on the porch and checking out whether wasps had rebuilt the nest we'd eliminated right before we sold it. Then I made the trip downtown from the old house which I've made so often this summer. True, it's not that different from the trip from my in-laws house a few blocks away to our new abode. I made that trip the day before because I had to do something for my mother-in-law. We made the trip back and forth so many times, trying to clean out the old house, live in the new one, move stuff.

Today I went to the old house again, got the mail and visited with the new owners in their house. It is odd it not being my house especially with some of our old furniture still there.

I suppose I'm settled in the condo, but sometimes it feels surreal being there. I don't plan to leave downtown until Tuesday. Unless we decide to do something I haven't thought of as yet. That's weird.

Who am I? Where do I live?

Stopping to Reflect

Time for reflection has been largely missing until the last week or so, but finally there has been time to slowly and calmly ponder things. I've even had time to go through a few old photos and receipts and try (and fail) to catch up on my newspaper reading. I've been nervous the last two days while lighting was installed. That's almost done, though, and the condo is peaceful and calm. Over my shoulder, FFP is typing either a column or an e-mail and making a phone call. My desk is neat as a pin. I've done my daily checking of financial stuff. I have a couple of hours before a dinner date and can read or watch TV. Or, you know, blog.

There has been much going on in the world while we worried our little corner of it. The Olympics and that little dust-up between Russia and Georgia. Now the U.S. Open of Tennis and the Democratic Convention. I've satisfied myself with random bits of the programming, mostly consumed off the DVR. I'd be trying to clean up something or follow a workman around or fret over where I'd hidden something and I'd walk by the TV and see a bit of synchronized swimming or whatever, watch and marvel and go on. They repeated Michael Phelps' feats (and that of his relay teammates) endlessly so you couldn't miss those. I'm going to keep up with the U.S. Open similarly. I caught a few shots today between the times the electricians cut off power to the living room.

It's feeling comfortable here (although I really wish my comfy office chair would come in). I have stuff to catch up on that I've let go while trying to move out, move in, fix up, change address, etc. A teeth cleaning, a car maintenance and a haircut come to mind. Always something more to do. The Austin social season is cooking up also and events are starting to edge onto the calendar from September to May. I'd like to plan some trips.

But, hey, right now I think I'll catch a little tennis and finish reading the Sunday newspaper.

The Half Life of Objects

Shot this photo today on West Sixth while taking a long, languorous walk with FFP, my friend Suru and her dog. This store had some interesting objects like this alphabet doll. Some objects d'art and 'stuff' and books made the trip downtown with us, some things we left behind or gave away. Interestingly, my friend SuRu captured a few things from the house that we were leaving behind but which met the aesthetic of her place one floor up. It's neat to see those things working up there that we would have otherwise abandoned.

We think the things we brought, the things we are adding in from shops and the things we plan to acquire will look good. It's amazing to think of all you own, have owned, will own. I once tried to make a list of things I owned. I reviewed this recently, thinking about where that particular list of stuff went. Now that I've reduced a lot of the stuff, I'm taking the time to go back through and sort it and organize it. I'm sure that I've totally forgotten some things or where they went.

It's OK, though. Stuff comes, stuff goes. We come along and then we, too, are gone, taking some of the meaning from our collected stuff.

Perhaps I often sound too materialistic here. But, really, all this angst about possessions is my attempt to rob them of their power. Really.

Big Sigh

I should be relieved. I'm out of the house. Of course, I still don't have the lights, shades or TVs I ordered and the glass desk for the office still hasn't been delivered and I don't have the chair I ordered for the office. (Forrest and I contend for the one we managed to get while we wait for it.) But I should be relieved. Somehow, though, I felt happier and less dislocated when we were camping, living in the living room, sleeping on the foldout bed and eating off a card table, sharing a laptop and with a lot of our stuff hostage in a house we weren't living in. Really, honestly, this is nice. Just enough stuff. Well within reach. When we have the new lights and all and that office chair, it will be, if not perfect, really nice. Why the let down? Just the usual 'after crisis' let down, I guess.

Well, That's That, Isn't It?

There I am, snapping a shop window on Second as if I live in the neighborhood. Of course, I've lived here, more or less, since June 2. But now I don't have another home to go to for showers, TV, the occasional sleep and sorting, sifting, tossing, cleaning, tossing, freting. Most of the 'stuff' that survived is tucked into this place, the 43 square foot storage unit in the parking garage or at our parents' houses. And a lot of it still needs a bit of sifting. And organizing. We haven't completely lost anything (that I know of) except for a remote to a DVD/VCR that I bet shows up if I go through everything. Which I will. One day. Meanwhile, I'm going to try to get this place finished with all the lights, AV and shades we want installed. And buy a few more things (or get them delivered). And then WHAT? You tell me.

Countdown

I snapped this reflection of my outline against a mural being painted in a space that I guess is going to be a design studio last night. After a hard day of moving, we were walking to have a good meal and a glass of wine. We are exhausted with the effort to move every last thing we want to keep from the big house by Thursday night. The new owners say we can take our time, but things work out better in a sale if you make a clean break of it. We are now working our way through rooms, only leaving things we are giving to the new owners, tools that we are using (tape, scissors, packing, boxes, bags, etc.) and things we need to give special attention to. I am feeling more like the black outline of myself than the colorful swirl of the mural. But that will change. Soon I'll have one home and although I'll be surrounded by boxes of books and artifacts that haven't found a place, they will be books I love, books that survived sifting and sorting up to ten times to make the move and artifacts that escaped, over and over, a trip to a charity sale. All will be well. But must survive the week.

I Wish I Had TIme to Tell You

I wish I had time to tell you all the feelings of this move. I wanted to vacate the house by the end of August. The buyer wanted in two weeks earlier. Well, who are we to quibble? We would have probably left a number of things to the last minute in any case. That's why they call it the last minute.

We have started to give away very nice things that we bought for the house or people gave us. Some have a different aesthetic than our new place. Some won't fit. The charities are starting to get something besides moldy books and slightly worn and out-of-date clothes. Actually we've been giving away pretty good stuff all along, but you wouldn't believe the stuff we are giving away or leaving behind for the new owners now that our feet are to the fire, the guns to our heads and all those clichés that sound odd in the plural.

When it's over maybe I'll have more words. And pictures.

What Makes a Home?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eight Days and a Dark Place

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

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

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

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

Taradiddle

The other morning I made my regular morning call to my Dad and he said "I have a word for you." He disappeared for a moment and returned to the phone and said 'taradiddle.' Then he spelled it. He found it while reading "Out of Africa." I looked it up (online, of course) and found:

taradiddle
1. a trivial lie;
2. pretentious or silly talk or writing

This seemed funny and appropriate to me somehow.

And I think it is a tribute to my dad that he is still finding words he doesn't know in books he's reading. That's probably the reason he's lived as long (and as independent) a life as he has.

Transient

I'm the opposite of homeless. I'm homeful. This hasn't made me feel more at home, however. It's made me feel at loose ends. Like I'm on an odd working vacation in old haunts.

I feel like I'm on a trip and I keep losing my luggage. As I predicted, things are always in the wrong place. Need to write a check at the house? Checkbook is downtown. Come to the house and get a shower after tennis and then try to find a pair of loafers you like in the closet. Things I like to wear keep migrating downtown. I have to carefully sack up my sweaty tennis clothes, however, and take them downtown to launder them so I'll have them when I head to tennis.

When we are at our 'big house' we will go to places in the 'hood like we are folks returning to an old neighborhood where they once lived. Downtown we feel at home in the neighborhood and in our place but we have so little stuff down there that it is exceedingly odd.

There is still enough stuff at Shoal Creek to lead a life. I have a set of toiletries, a few clothes (although besides the loafer shortage I find that I never have a belt and keep going through ones FFP obviously hasn't worn in ages looking for one I can steal).

We keep thinning the stuff. Shredding ancient financial statements and business records. Putting out our 'free' sign with junk at the curb. FFP took another load to the thrift store, several boxes of kitchen stuff, clothes. I don't miss any of it when it's gone. Of course not. In the wake of all these departures, however, the stuff seems to be blooming and growing. Maybe it's dragging open cabinets and drawers and places of refuge. Maybe it's that there is some secret river of stuff that flows through this house.

I feel like I'm on a trip. I've taken along some old clothes and hope to just leave them behind as they get dirty. I haven't actually done this in the past, leaving behind worn out underwear and jackets and shirts with elbows almost (or actually) worn through. I wouldn't do this now if I were going on a real trip. Heck, I might get something new to wear.

The picture above was taken two years ago when we took a car trip in our old Accord. We'd driven straight through until we got to Baltimore where we stayed an extra night so we could have a look around, go to some museums. I don't know that we'd even thought of moving out of the house then. Forrest was settling into retirement. We wanted to go somewhere. And we did. I feel like a lot has changed since then.

Since I have so many places that I randomly find myself these days, I've been having a rather eclectic reading list. Our papers are delivered downtown, dropped in front of our door by the concierge. Sometimes at night I read them there. I have taken a couple of books down there that I'd been trying to finish forever. I have been reading Tobias Wolff's "In Pharaoh's Army" in Forrest's car. (And also when we are out in his car and we go somewhere to eat, just the two of us, which is a time when we read and only converse if the reading leads us to something we want to discuss.) I found myself reading magazines still scattered around the house when I'm there or a section of newspaper from months ago. While eating a sandwich in the kitchen of the house the other day, I read a little booklet of Globe Facts that turned up somewhere and that I was about to toss. The earth is almost a perfect sphere. However, the diameter from pole to pole is twenty-seven miles shorter than the equator diameter. This isn't stuff you need to save a little booklet for reference. (The booklet probably came with a globe I bought at some time in the past.) I should throw it away. But here I am reading it while eating a Thundercloud sub. We never seem to have food at the house and we have gone to the nearby Thundercloud for sandwiches several times. We have revisited Fonda San Miguel Restaurant, Billy's, Blue Star and Mother's in a similar sort of goodbye gesture. But we'll probably still go to these places. We went downtown when we didn't live there, after all.

There are so many things that need doing that I'm often paralyzed from it. I run away to the other house or suddenly 'have' to blog or do something on the computer. Inch by inch I get things done, though, or by power of suggestion FFP does them for me.

One thing I haven't found time to do is keep up my personal journal. I'm sure I'll regret that one day. I'll be trying to figure out exactly when something happened and then information just won't be there. Meanwhile, a pile of hand-written journals awaits the thinning in the storage room at the house. That's a tough one. I get set adrift on a river of memories and can't find my way back to shore.

In a way, when I'm not worrying and obsessing and trying to figure what the heck to do with something, I'm enjoying this. It's like being on vacation in two spots in my own town. I've become used to the keys and access cards for my hotels, found my favorite coffee spots and yet I'm distant enough from work and duty to just enjoy reading for pleasure. Then the work and duty comes roaing back.

Everyone says I will look back on this with amusement, that it will all be over one day. I guess. It seems to have become a permanent lifestyle.

Changes

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

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

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

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

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

Objects Are Closer....

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

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

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

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

A Place for Reflection

Yesterday, Independence Day, I caught the reflection of a flag fluttering in one of the porthole 'windows' of the Avenue Lofts. This spot, The Visible Woman, in all its incarnations (it has had a life going back to 1999, first on its own as WWW.VISWOMAN.COM) has always been a spot for reflection (and not just the photo kind). Lately, as I've gone through the motions of chores and duties at both my current 'homes' lots of reflection and introspection has taken place.

Living in the condo with only part of my possessions and no furniture in the bedroom or office has been interesting in many ways. The kitchen and bath are pretty fully outfitted. Despite that I have everything needed to shower, change clothes or cook a meal at what we've come to call 'the big house.' (Of course, there isn't much food at the house and no coffee maker since the little one cup french press got cracked.) We have fully embraced living downtown, stocking the kitchen partly from the Farmer's market, walking to restaurants and bars (and to last night's fireworks party at the Headliners Club), walking on the hike and bike trail and downtown streets, familarizing ourselves with things in our new, dense 'hood. I have the goal to visit all these different places anew, walking to them.

Deciding what stuff to bring to the condo and making new piles at home of stuff to discard or give away has necessitated a new round of touching and thinking about possessions. I've been loath to buy new things while this goes on. Of course, we've made big and little purchases for the condo, things we didn't have at the house or didn't have the thing with the right 'aesthetic.' I've avoided buying clothes, books or new gadgets. We are going to have new computers and TVs here eventually because of the necessity of reducing footprint.

I like my downtown perch and look forward to the day that it's my only spot. I'm ready to look forward and escape the pull of nostalgia that I get in the old house among the memories. I've taken a holiday these last two days and it's hard to know what to do with myself. I watched tennis, read, did a little cleaning around the condo (cleaning is SO much easier with lots fewer square feet...especially when there isn't much 'stuff').

I wish I had something profound to say, but I feel full of cobwebs and confusion, able to focus on the smallest things but losing the big picture, maybe.

Green

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

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

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

"But you had all those great parties!"

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

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

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

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

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

Housekeeping

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

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

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

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

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

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

Too many houses. To keep.

Overheated Nostalgia

The picture is from last June which, it seems to me, was not as hot. In any case, it was provided by a junk shop on South Lamar.

I have spent the last twenty-four hours or so at the old house, Shoal Creek manor, the burbs. It reminds me of my younger days of drifting around, making lots of use of other people's couches and spare rooms and hospitality; of sometimes being left alone in a space not exactly mine (maybe the parents' house, an aunt's, my sister's, maybe a friend's place) and being welcomed to use, consume, read anything I liked. Last night Forrest and I sorted through some food that was left here and found an unopened package of mild cheddar and some Saltines. I made coffee with the one cup French press, boiling water in the tea kettle I retrieved from the condo. When I flipped on the flame, I thought, "pretty soon you won't be cooking with gas." We found a couple of frozen entrées in the old refrigerator's freezer and had them for dinner. I found a bit of small batch bourbon in the bottom of a bottle to go with mine.

Today I'm goofing off around two areas of the house while the floor guy works diligently on the old 1951 floors. I should be doing something useful. I took a box labeled 'sort!' into the big room at the back of the house. I watched some Wimbledon, snacked on some Boursin I found in the frig unopened (barely beyond its 'best by' date) and got interested in an article in an old New Yorker that was in that box. Also in the box was an abacus I bought in San Francisco's Chinatown in 1966 along with the crudely translated guide to using it. (The latter still had its price tag: twenty-five cents. "You can be sure...........if you've got ABACUS You don't need a paper or pencil. It releives you of intricacy of tedious ciphering.) The summer of 1966 my sister and I took a languid trip west to Sacramento where she left me with some people who were parents of a friend of hers and took my VW Beetle off to visit with her husband at his temporary duty station at some Air Force Base. I welcomed the solitude, really. The couple seemed lonely as their daughter was grown. They went to work each day, but left lots of snacks and they treated us to that trip to San Francisco, I think. I would go out in the backyard and 'work on my tan' for a while, reading. Then I'd sit in the AC and watch TV and eat snacks. (Those little Goldfish crackers were a favorite that summer.) I taught myself to add long columns of numbers on the abacus. I never bothered to master multiplication but I could fly through adding up a big sum. I walked around the neighborhood and took what I thought were artsy pictures of houses and cars. I wrote long letters to my friends and, if I remember correctly, got some answers while I stayed there.

That staying around my own house of thirty years now gives me this feeling of scrounging, of life put on hold but full of possibility, is, I think, amusing.

I worked out today in the gym at my club. Back to the house to check on things, I pondered which place to take a shower in. I feel dislocated, distant and yet wonderfully able to concentrate on my old abacus and remember that old self, seeking adventures in the junk of a Chinese souvenir shop. It was impossibly exciting in its own way.

The guy doing the floors has been marveling at the accumulated gunk that has built up in fifty-seven years (we don't think they've EVER been refinished). There is some of that gunk in my brain, too, and I keep hoping that cycling through the junk again and again will finally sand it down and I'll find the person I'm supposed to be in my seventh decade on earth. It won't be a moment too soon to figure this out.

The World (well Austin) at My Feet

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

At the Market

There are things you miss by having a Saturday morning tennis game. Forrest went to the Austin Farmer's Market downtown today. He ran into old friends of ours Johnny Guffey (a famous waiter at the equally famous Jeffrey's in Clarksville) and Gordon Fowler (a painter and husband to famous singer Marcia Ball). Johnny had his poodles out for an outing, too.

Happily (?) we have settled into an easy life of living two places. I'm typing this on a computer at the suburban (well by condo standards) house and I'm about to take a quick shower here and then we have plans for goofing off in both neighborhoods for the rest of the day. I should be downsizing. But tennis and goofing off really call to me.

Temporary Quarters

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vertiginous

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Age Appropriate

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

Silly? Yes. Forgive us.

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

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

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

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

Home is Where the Heart Is

I'm not sure where my heart is or if my heart is in it. I keep working through the issues, moving along, checking things off lists, real or mental. I like my condo home but I feel despair when I'm knocking about the deserted house in the 'burbs. There is so much to sort, so many decisions to make. There are things we can't move until we have the built-ins built. This is a saga, but, ultimately I think they will look good and fit the odd walls better. When we sleep at the condo, we have to make up the sofa bed. (We are building a custom platform bed.) Still we keep sleeping here. Because we need to meet workmen here or because we just want to wake up here or because we don't want to go home at night after dinner downtown. When we do sleep at home, it feels right to be there and we have most of life's necessary elelments there. (As well as here.) You know: computing with the Internet, coffee, a few clothes, food, booze. Life won't be simpler, though, until we really only live one place. Financially expenses are inflated by the condo monthly costs and our income is reduced by having too much money in real estate. But we can't get serious about selling the house until we get the condo ready to receive the last of our possessions. (Oh, yeah, I know. We could put stuff in storage somewhere. I'm trying to avoid that.)

Every day we get closer. I hope anyway. My heart is in the downtown lifestyle for sure. I just hope my head can get around it and I can pull it off.

[Photo is some kids' art in the window on Congress of a Latino Arts Gallery.]

Notes From Downtown

I haven't been keeping a good 'personal' journal of what is going on with me. (I usually write down some notes in a Word document about what I do each day. Boring.) Last night I sat down to try to post here. (I already received one "Are you OK, Visible Woman?" note so I knew, given the statistics of such things that roughly four of you out there were wondering the same thing.) So. Yeah. Now, Austin Daily Photo has been going along, dutifully posting a pic a day. So there's that.

But what wisdom to post here?

I just couldn't decide.

Should I talk about sampling tacos downtown? (Las Manitas and Jo's so far and both are great, I must say.) But that's kind of boring. Lots of tacos in my old neighborhood, too.

Should I talk about the parking garage. How, being on level 6, it takes two minutes to get in or out? How the door from the elevators to parking sticks and we can't get them to fix it yet? Boring.

OK. How about what feels like 'home' at this point? Sometimes we stay in what we now call the 'big house' and we have a computer setup there with bells and whistles (scanners/printers/copiers, wireless, etc.) and we have a fancy bed we bought in 2004 and Time Warner Cable and DVR. Several rooms are almost empty. One room has too much stuff in it, stacked with paintings and such from other rooms. Our bedroom is missing our "TV-watching, sleeping, reading" chairs because they are at the condo. The Capresso, our beloved coffee machine, is still at home. We have a new Cuisinart drip coffee thing at the condo. We will ultimately use the Capresso every day at the condo and the Cuisnart as a backup or to make decaf for friends. We are back and forth, though, and need to be caffeinated at both ends. One of my neighbors said that they know when someone has really moved and that is when the computer moves. Well, I'm typing this on my laptop at the condo where Internet miraculously appeared in the wall when we moved in and, tonight, a nice wireless signal has also shown up. So, yeah, is someone moved when the computers move? Or the coffee? Well we have both at both ends. Confusing. And possibly, um, boring.

I feel pretty much at home at the condo, really. Oh, I have to go through quite a bit of stuff to make and unmake the sleeper sofa but after a few nights camping on it I have to say it is comfortable enough. Our night light is the Frost Tower and the green light band of the new AMLI building. I can see the red H on the Hilton, too. We are going to have a platform bed built and we have a new mattress ordered for it. But. First we have to (1) get the plan approved to attach some cabinetry to outside walls; and (2) get the cabinet guy in here with materials and get it done. I'm hopeful, though. The closet people almost did their thing today. Tomorrow they promise that things will be finished, that the right lengths of things and the proper brackets will finish it off. And, I feel better now that we have painted the walls something that is not white. Made the place feel better and more personal.

I could talk about the saga of the hot water heater. How the inspector I hired found that the lower element was burned out, how they repaired it without a washer and it leaked, how there is still moisture from somewhere in the upper element. (I had it inspected again!) Yeah, but, boring, yes?

Hey. I could write about how really close Whole Foods is to us. I walked there today. It was pretty hot but I didn't break a sweat. I had some tuna/avocado rolls and a Naked Juice Green Machine Super Food and then I bought some Hummus dips and Tofu dip and chips for the Austin Film Festival kids and walked further west for my film team meeting. FFP was handling the 'big house' and met me there. I was unbelievably smug about walking to Whole Foods and the Festival office. (It's less than a mile, but hey. I'm Urban Girl. OK, Urban Old Lady. Whatever.)

Did I mention that I got DirecTV installed (only choice here) and then over the weekend couldn't get some channels? But I commandeered the installer in the lobby today and he replaced something to strengthen my signal. I just have a 19 inch TV here but HD is reasonable.

Wait. Wait. The elevators. Actually today they worked OK although it was a bit slow getting our closet guy's stuff up and down. But we have had some annoying outages. Ho. Hum.

I know, I know! I'll talk about Lance Armstrong's bike and coffee shop next door. They are even delivering some free pastries and coffee to the club room for a while. Yeah, nothing much to go with that topic.

I guess I could talk about all that stuff still at the 'big house' that I don't need. Or how exciting it is to look forward to the day when we can pick and choose the art and books to come here. But then, what to do with the stuff left behind? Are you as bored with downsizing as I am?

Well, none of it matters much, does it? I met a woman yesterday whose life is so clearly delineated by tragedy that it completely refocused her life. Forever. There are lots of people like that, but most of us think that whether the TV works or we can find our socks matters.

All this typing. Still no focus. Well, anyway I'm here. I'm marching on. I have too many homes.

Embrace the Chaos

That's my motto for the day. For the coming days. (The photo is a shop window reflection photo of my nieces taken on South Congress of the window of Off the Wall, a weird little place with a combination of vintage and new mostly unnecessary items.)

I lost my favorite commuter cup yesterday. I probably left it on the tennis court. Not turned in, though. Have you ever noticed how lost and found deals are full of good stuff but never your stuff?

I worked out today a little. As I was using the recumbent bike and some weights I realized that I will probably be using the gym at the country club far less now that I have a gym at my building.

I have been moving stuff from room to room, trying to get things out of the way of the movers, collecting all but the bigger pieces of furniture in the living room, stuff we plan to carry ourselves in another room. I have possibly packed the last box for the movers although I may pack one more. FFP cleaned out the cupboards in the galley kitchen in his office (sink and small fridge with cabinets and a counter top). He finished a job I started a few weeks ago. We found stuff for the thrift store (almost two cubic feet), stuff to take to the condo, a basket full of garbage, etc. He said, "I've been in this office eleven years." Yikes. It's true, we finished this renovation in January 1997 and he moved here from a building we owned and leased the building out. Hard to believe.

So why am I blogging and not getting my act together? I believe it's ye old paralysis in the face of an overwhelming bunch of stuff that needs doing.

I'll Keep the Light On

Tomorrow we close on the condo. In a perhaps foolish move we will also have about a half a truck load of furniture and a few (maybe twelve} boxes delivered with notations on the outside that are sufficiently vague to make me open most of them to find anything. It will be crazy and dislocating. FFP has the idea to spend some nights soon downtown. You might see a lonely light on the right of the column in this picture, low down, just where the tiny balconies begin. (By the way, notice how there is a streak on the lighted circles at the Long Center. They are reflecting the 360.)

We've hired not only a mover but two other people tomorrow to supervise the activities at both ends. Oh, and a lawyer for the closing. My modus operandi now is to hire a new expert whenever I get overwhelmed. I hope all my experts get along where their purviews overlap. I think they will. They must. I'm too old for this!

I might not post too much for a while, but I know I'll be tempted to do it, to drag Visible Woman readers (as well as Austin Daily Photo ones) along on this adventure.