Is It Ever Enough?

[The W Hotel which is under construction near us is due to have condos in it in addition to hotel rooms, bars and restaurants and the Austin City Limits Music Hall. There has been a sales center on site for a while but now they are completely redoing the sales center. Or so they say. We wonder if the condos are being ditched for hotel rooms. So, naturally, I co-oped their sign and shot my reflection in it.]

Did you ever wonder what would happen if you really, finally got everything you wanted? Would there be a point where, really, it was enough?

The Pleasure of Wearing Things Out
Except for things that are consumable and things that wear out, I have everything I need. And most of what I want. It's a pleasure getting a new pair of tennis shoes, new underwear (thanks, big Sis, for that Christmas present) and a new Polartec hoodie. I was thinking the other day that the towels and bathmats we are using are now about four years old. They are holding up pretty well, but it will be fun to replace them.

Naturally, I love buying food, booze, meals out, experiences (tickets to things and travel). But one is limited in the amount of this that one can consume. I guess I could crave more caviar and champagne, but, honestly, I get enough of that to suit me. I would love more trips to Europe and I suppose I could get used to limos and private jets, but really just having the money for a few trips on commercial airliners, a few taxi rides and a few car service trips, moderate to expensive (to me) hotels and museums and restaurants is fine.

I like things that you spend money on and then they are just pleasant memories.

Second Home Not Required
Guys like Madoff (and the people whose millions he invested) needed multiple homes. And yachts with more square feet than my condo. I am not pleased that I own another home besides this condo. Dad lives there and that's great, but I fear that one day I'll have to dispose of it. The prospect doesn't interest me. My in-laws own a little cottage, too. Ditto on not looking forward to disposing of it for them. (Or even owning it if we outlive them which I think most days we will not do.) I wouldn't want to have multiple homes to manage. Let alone boats and planes. Oh, sure, you hire people to manage it. But I have trouble managing help. No thanks. I once said that, left to my own devices, I might live in hotels.

Gear, Gadgets and Autos
I'm pretty happy with my computers and cameras. I know that my seven-year-old (more?) cell phone will have to be replaced at some point. Not today though. Battery still takes a charge, sound crystal clear. I bought an iPod. I got some new computer gear for the condo and flat screen TVs and a Blu-Ray player and surround sound. We're fixed for a while. I do have in mind some new digital cameras and a GPS gadget, but I've put this on hold while I do some research. And, of course, I have the money to buy them if I want them. I'm going to get one of those small computers for travel, too, I think. Maybe. One day. Still researching.

My Hondo Civic is eight years old. It has some dents and dings. It runs fine and gets 30mpg in town. I made my commitment to it by doing some semi-major fixes last time I had it serviced. I don't drive that much anymore. FFP's Accord is only a couple of years old. Seems like brand new. Has an XM radio. Cool.

So, gear and wheels: very satisfied, no desire for a Mercedes or an iPhone (not just now anyway).

And, if I want something I could buy it.

Art, Artifacts, Collections, Furnishings
We can't accumulate too much more art or artifact or furniture without throwing something out. Which, along the way, I'm sure we will do. Not now, though. Of all the things I've dabbled at collecting, that's all pretty much at an end. Not that we don't acquire the occasional thing, but I really am amazed at some of the wholesale accumulation I did in the past. I must say, too, that much of that 'stuff' has moved along the pipeline to, hopefully, be reused somewhere.

What Are These Guys Thinking?
So what goes through the millionaire (billionaire?) mind as they build homes with tens of thousands of square feet, buy yachts, accumulate collections of paintings and sculpture with pieces worth more than my condo? Oh, I understand throwing a big party and having a bunch of people eating and drinking. I understand wanting a nice car. Really. (Although I'd much rather have someone to drive me around in my Hondos. Oh, wait, I have FFP.)

Do these really, really rich folks ever think about reaching a point where it is enough, pretty much, and consumables and maintenance and refreshing is all that's needed? If I can get there, is it possible for anyone? I know that my mom never really got enough stuff. She always wanted a bit more. Just for the thrill of having what she once did not or having something new and interesting. Even when she was dying I could see this. I don't think I'm so different from her. I just think I reached a normal human saturation point we all have. I think Mr. Madoff and his ilk may have damaged saturation meters, though. And that may be part of the problem. Part of what drives people to steal.

Also, I belong to a country club, too, but not one like the Madoff crowd. (Nor would I want to belong.) Which, in any case, was in Florida, a state that doesn't call out to me.

Having Enough Feels Good
Having enough food, clothing and shelter. Having health needs met. Having some fun! Tennis this morning at the country club. (Roddick worked out on the court below us. Does he have enough? Or would being number one for a while be enough?)

Anyway, I had a great time with my three friends playing tennis. A walk over to the Farmer's Market to buy some Texas Pecans for my dad for Christmas. Some pastries from the empanada stand. I'll have a meal and maybe a movie or performance with some friends tonight.

I have enough. It feels good. If I get depressed it's not something cars or electronics (or even travel and meals) will cure.

Secret Pleasures

I started dutifully working on an entry for this blog this morning. It was a whine about "I'm not in the mood for it" entitled "Enough with the Holidays." Really. And maybe I'll work on that one and post it eventually. (Holidailies will suck out all the available words like Austin Daily Photo does images.)

But I decided to start over and write a different one. One with the provocative title of "Secret Pleasures." No not that kind of secret thing. Nope. But instead things like this:

• The secret pleasure of just typing away on a nice keyboard. Just leaning back in my Liberty Chair (we got new chairs for our new office in our new condo) and typing on my Blue Tooth iMac keyboard. I usually use the USB one that has a numeric keypad but, just typing like this, I put the little wire-free Bluetooth number in my lap. I type, touch typing as I learned when I was a kid. (Amazingly I found myself in a career where, eventually, there was a keyboard under my hands, more often than not.) I still love to see words appear in the white space, all neat and punctuated. The time to just play around on the computer, reading stuff and following links is fantastic, too, but those of you who know me probably know I'm happiest saying something myself. And just typing.
  
• Playing with kids toys or, at least, admiring them. I collected toys for a while. I even collected a pile of Legos (one of the most wonderful toys around) which I eventually gave away to my great nephews. I actually put together a few Lego toys here and there. And we all know about the infatuation with bendable, posable figures. I'm over it and only kept a few toys for decoration in the condo as a nod to where I've been. I don't know where my admiration for toys came from...maybe those many years of unrequited longing while looking at the annual Sears toy catalog followed by an era when I had more money than sense. Over it now, I still get a secret pleasure from looking at toys. Like the (disarmed) Buzz Lightyear Room Guard presiding over my side of the office. Sometimes I think I'll go get a Lego toy and put it together or find a compatriot willing to play a board game or put toegher a jigsaw. But I usually satisfy myself more than that would with something from the following list:
• Taking digital shop window reflection pictures (or really any pic involving a reflection).
• Blogging.
• Reading other people's blogs even, no especially, those that are full of simple mundane details of their everyday lives.
  
• Reading. Especially the newspapers. Even the obits. And filling in the squares of the crossword in the Times and smiling to myself if I detect a theme. Even if it's a punny theme and even if I profess to hate puns.
  

So...what's the problem anyway? How can I be depressed when I can step into the other room, pick up three papers and settle in to read them with a cup of good coffee. Where's the problem, huh? Tired of the papers? There's a jillion books. And when you tire of reading and want to write (or want to cheat on the puzzle by looking something up on the Internet), step in here and access the always on Internet connection and connect and type away or read other people's endlessly fascinating blogs.

So OK, maybe these pleasures aren't so secret. But I do have them in reserve, ready to trot out when I'd otherwise be whining.

Sense Deprivation

The seemingly strange decor on this tree in which I'm reflected? Hands doing American Sign Language. The tree is in the Scarborough building windows, decorated by deaf students.

I was depressed yesterday. Not clinically. People always talk about clinical depression and I don't think I have that. I get up in the morning. I get over it. I think it has a cause. You know it's OK to feel bad if there is a reason, right?

In most things I'm lucky, but I can't stop the march of time. And it occasionally gets me down. Not so much from my own point of view. Being sixty is odd because you feel some age-related syndromes but you still amaze yourself being able to walk a few miles, do exercises, play tennis, climb a ladder, lift things. That's me anyway. Your hearing is going and you have to wear glasses, but you can remember what stories you've told sometimes and have an interesting non-repetitive conversation with friends.

What depresses me? The parental units. When I'm in my condo I revel in the fact that I was able to simplify things a little, get rid of some stuff, get things like I want them. When I'm in their houses and see all the stuff collecting dust, when I'm trying to do something to bring them into the late twentieth century if not the current one, it is depressing. Because I know that at some point we quit changing and things sort of close in around us and can't be budged. While we may have avoided that for a few years by busting out of that too-big house and its baggage, I know it will come for us, too. We'll forget who we have told our few sad stories, we won't be able to walk and drive around and expand our field of view. FFP's folks were always a bit closed in but the inability to drive and walk very far finished off any trace of adventure. My dad is happy to sit in his house, changing nothing, maybe giving away a few things. He likes to get out more than the in-laws but increasingly it takes a toll for him to do it and he resists and isn't that sorry to not do one thing then another.

I love the folks and while I roll my eyes at their repeated stories and misunderstandings of the workings of the modern world, I enjoy being able to have them around and their connection to our past.

But I don't want to be them. Oh, sure, I know people ten, fifteen, even twenty years older who still seem much younger, physically and mentally. I wish I thought I could be one of those people. And I'm going to try to be. But. I worry. Not about death but about infirmity. And a narrowing of the world. (Although all the parents stay well in touch with the world according to CNN, it's not the same.)

We took an overnight trip to San Antonio this week and that made me happy, to get away and see something different. Maybe I'm feeling closed in because that was the first time we got away from Austin (unless you count those two days at the spa in the northern reaches of Lake Austin) since February.

I shouldn't be depressed. I should be happy. I have the lifestyle I want, things are simpler in our household so that we can do and see new things without too much baggage. Sure the world is falling apart financially and otherwise, but luckily I doubt Madoff would have given us the time of day so we have some of our money left. We can continue to live our profligate lifestyle as we like to say.

Where is all this coming from? Yesterday I was trying to install the phone with the Phillips Lifeline capability for my in-laws. The buttons and the phone that was just a phone until you pushed the button around your neck was overwhelming to them. A major mystery. My mother-in-law seemed mesmerized after the beep test when we had her push the button and the voice came over it and identified her by name. She gawked as the call center asked if she needed help and had to be prompted to say that she was testing it. I hope we can succeed in this great technological leap where we failed with VCRs and answering machines and such. The house has no clothes dryer or microwave and FFP, Sr. listens to cassette tapes on a machine sent to him by the Blind Commission. We have offered a CD player or even an MP3 so he could catch up to audio books now so widely available in those formats, but we know it's futile. Innovation time has stopped. But the scary part is I feel it happening to me, too. I don't want a new piece of software to replace some ancient one I use or I resist the iPod. (Although I finally got an iPod and was pleased.)

What is it that makes us, sometime before we die, just refuse to go further in some ways? It seems that we say "I'm stopping here, go on without me." It isn't just infirmity that makes it happen. No. Sometimes it happens to people who are healthy, mentally and physically. We seem to shut ourselves off from new experiences or ideas as if we are blind and deaf to them or unable to grasp them mentally. Or maybe, just maybe, this resistance to embrace where the world is going is a sign of decline itself. Maybe there is a seventh sense of adventure and openness to change that we lose.

My depression lifted slightly last night. We went to a basement jazz club and heard some twenties and thirties influenced jazz with the Jazz Pharaohs and Liz Morphis. Enjoying old stuff isn't a sign of decline. Shut up. Who could like rap? We had a friend along who helped us have a lively conversation. We went to the Ruth's Chris bar, bumped into other friends, had some good food and driink. Yes, we drank. Then we returned to our place with our friend and had some 1995 Pinot Noir from our cache that was still tasting good while watching "Friday Night Lights." Yeah, we were engaged with a changing world, we were out and about, even if we were sort of doing our 'usual' things. And, yes, OK, we were drinking. Maybe that is propelling me all the faster toward decline.

I think I'll go exercise now. And read the papers about all the big boys falling from grace in Ponzi schemes. That will cheer me. No doubt.

[Note: My tendency towards being down in the dumps is not helped by a fog outside that is so thick we can't see past one block. When we got up, we could see the buildings on Guadalupe and no further. Now we can't see even the AMLI one block away. I hate it when my brain is fogged and so is the world. Or maybe it's better this way. Maybe a bright sunny day would be offensive.]

Loyalty and Patriotism...and Peace

Today's Holidailies theme is "Let There Be Peace on Earth." Although a little notebook sits in front of me with a few writing ideas, this one sounded like a good one.

Today's picture was shot on Fourth Street. I'll leave the symbolism of the flags to the readers with this one tip: the OCH is the bar's initials where the flags fly.

There has never been peace on earth, evidently. I'm no historian, but war, killing and conflict seems to propel history. It almost seems, dare I say it, necessary? If you are Christian and believe that capital G God (yours) "so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth on him should not perish" then you still have to admit that you might die in a war promoted by religion and enjoy that endless life in a metaphysical way after a not so peaceful existence on earth.

The thing is: we promote loyalty to (fill in the blank) and patriotism which is loyalty to a loose amalgamation of people with artificially drawn boundaries. Be true to your school. Fight for your rights. Respect the flag. Flags representing ideas that draw us together and apart from others.

Don't get me wrong. I understand fighting. If someone votes to make you a second class citizen because of (fill in the blank), then you fight. If you compete in athletics or business, you show up to play and win and defeat others.

Where does the peace come in? And would we even recognize it when we saw it?

I feel that the first step to peace on earth is understanding what propels the opposite state which is conflict and war and competition and, dare I say it, differences of religion. When you say that it sounds so silly. Just as silly as in 1963 when John Lennon wrote words that still sound, well, like a wish for a world completely different from the earth of our history.

Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

John Lennon, 1963

Change of Scene

Sometimes it's good to have a change of scene. No, the picture doesn't reflect that. I was so cold yesterday in San Antonio that I didn't want to get out the camera and take a picture. But we got a change of scene by going to San Antonio, staying in a drafty attic 'penthouse' of a Bed and Breakfast downtown, eating in a fancy restaurant with some old friends on the Riverwalk and yeah walking around in San Antonio in the cold. Which is odd. Although we used to traditionally visit San Antonio in late May back in the era of rain and it always, always rained on us.

The picture is a reflection of an odd design shop in the 'new' AMLI building near us downtown. I haven't much else to say today although I have a couple of essays (if you want to call them that) in mind for the remaining Holidailies entries. We shall see. Anyway, go out there and get yourself a change of scene. We arranged this because we bought the stay (and a discount at the restaurant) in a charity auction. It made us act on seeing some old friends and that was good. The riverwalk looked beautiful (if chilly) with all the lights.

Consumer Price Index

I read a post on Holidailies, guided there because it was a Best of Holidailies selection. A detailed tale of managing a severe cash shortage. I need these things to remind me that we are lucky to usually have the cash to pay the bills and to send to relatives at this time so their holiday can be less stressed than this person. In fact, my niece who was designated to be Santa for stockings and kids' gifts with my money said in an e-mail: "We have presents for ALL! HO HO HO. Ok we have little presents for the big people and big presents for the little people. Ain't that just the way of the world?" They don't have a lot of money but they do have food, shelter and some gifts for the holidays. I worry that one of my nieces' husbands will lose their job. Or that my other niece, who has been waiting tables on the weekend while her husband looks after the kids to make ends meet, won't be able to make enough because of the downturn.

In this house we are thankful that we are in a position to not worry how to pay for gas in the car. We can go out and eat, have drinks, give money to our charities. Heck, in this condo we haven't even had to turn on the heat so far this winter let alone worry about how to pay our electric bill to pay for heating.

But. Sometimes the price of things just stops me in my tracks.

We went to a UT Women's Basketball game yesterday. (The women won, beating Tennesee who was ranked just below them in the polls.) Years ago (really a long, long time ago) we gave a small endowed scholarship to UT for a woman athlete studying journalism or communication. Really, we gave this so long ago that I think it was our first major donation to anything. Anyway, they send us tickets to Women's Basketball and we attend and, if we ask, they give us admission to the booster 'club' before the games. Yesterday we went in there. I thought I'd have a beer (which you cannot buy in the stands). After the bartender pulled a Shiner Bock, I was readying a dollar for a tip when she said the price. Seven dollars. Seven dollars? This beer is made in Central Texas. No one, anywhere, not even at the Four Seasons had ever charged me seven dollars. I don't think anyway. (I'll have to check the Four Seasons although I usually drink wine there. Haven't been there in a while.) Anyway, plastic cup, belly up to the bar service. Seven dollars. I had the money. It just shocked me. I didn't have an extra dollar, though, and the quarters in my pocket were to ride the 'Dillo bus back to downtown. So if that bartender was counting on me tipping, well I was too flabbergasted to do it.

I am glad I have money for a beer here and there, out in some public place where they can gouge you. I paid $4.50, plus left the half dollar for the bartender, for a Fat Tire, poured from a bottle into a plastic cup, at the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar Saturday. Expensive but not gouging so much. There was admission to the place, but there was live music.

Anyway, I'm just saying. Just because I have the money doesn't mean I won't balk at a certain price level. I'll never buy a drink at a game again. And, by the way, that 'Dillo bus used to be free. (Unless you consider that the Capitol Metro gets a cut of our sales taxes.) The transportation guys were trying to promote less driving of cars in downtown. Now it costs fifty cents. But, sadly, yesterday the two buses we rode were empty except for us. We missed one bus, which we saw pass us, empty, as we walked to the stop. So the transit folks are paying for empty buses going around and around downtown and UT. With my tax money. It's sad. I wonder how many people would ride if it were free. It does matter what you charge. Especially now when people literally don't have it in their pockets (or in a failing bank).

I noticed it said in the newspaper that miles driven in the U.S. dropped before the run up in gas prices and kept dropping when the price came down. Yeah, people. Some people don't have jobs to drive to, money to spend at the mall and they certainly aren't hankering for an out-of-town excursion with maybe a hotel stay if things are tight. So price makes a difference but some people won't be able to buy, no matter the price.

When I went to the convention center Saturday to the Christmas Bazaar, I noticed there was a sale of National Geographic products in another area of the center. Giant piles of discounted books, maps, toys, some backpacks and the like. Maybe National Geo had a mail-order biz or mall stores and were closing out the stuff. It was interesting because people had their carts piled with stuff. Maybe they were getting a toy or book for everyone on their list for ten dollars or less, thinking what a bargain it was. There were guide books to New York City and the like. Maybe it's good reading even if you can't afford the trip. The lines to check out purchases were longer than the ones at Costco the other day. And there, as I mentioned the other day, the carts were full of food.

Times are hard out there for our neighbors. Businesses will fail, people will suffer. And I don't think it will be over soon. And more and more people will be looking at prices and wondering 'is it worth it?' I just wish the politicians would do the same. What price for each job saved and for how long? It all seems like fodder for my Journal of Unintended Consequences which I just can't seem to write for these days. Perhaps because there is just too much to say.

[Reflection is in the Spaghetti Warehouse glass, a venerable family place on West Fourth in an old train shed. We never go there and I imagine it is seeing less business these days. But who knows?]

Get Serious

Yeah, I won't be buying the little red dress in the shop window of Estilo on Second Street. Get serious. (And yes photographer LB does seem to be positioned, camera in face, to make a shot that I won't call by name for fear of attracting the wrong WEB searches.)

Yeah, I'll continue to wear blazers and slacks (pants suits they are quaintly called for women) and dressier tops and slacks and sweats and shorts and jeans.

I need to get serious, really, about something which is why I gave this title today. Picking the photo was just a matter of randomly picking one I took yesterday and had edited. But I need to get serious about my photography if I'm going to do it. If it's going to be shop windows with my reflection, then fine, but I need to stop using years-old point and shoots and old software (which I haven't learned that well anyway) and get fancy equipment and wait for the right lighting and I need to call it art and make an artist's statement and make quality prints and frame them in shadow boxes surrounded by found objects and mirrors and reflective things and put high price tags on them. I need to nod indulgently when people are attracted to them but repulsed by the prices. Because really, just snapping these eccentric pictures isn't a worthy endeavor without all that.

I need to get serious about organizing my space and my files and my finances. It isn't good enough to shrug my shoulders and act like I don't know WTF to do about investing my retirement funds. I need to be confident like the guys on TV who just know what stocks are beaten down to a low from which they will ascend without setback or scandal or obsolescence of their product. I need to be a serious investor who reads prospectuses and studies financial sheets. Have you ever seen a prospectus that wasn't a yawner from the get-go? And you know all those pretty people pimping the investments aren't capable of interpreting them either. This new Madoff scandal is amazing. I don't believe any of my investments are affected, but it gives you pause, huh? Yeah, I must get more serious about investment.

I need to get serious about exercise, too. There have been times when I actually kept exercise logs. Online. When I seriously thought about how much I was doing and when. Similarly, with diet. I have been known to at least write down all the junk I ate in a vain (but serious) attempt to reform.

I need to get serious about writing, too. It is not good enough to make up jokey business cards that say "Pretending to Write but Really Just Blogging." Either take it seriously or don't do it, right?

But retirement for me just doesn't seem seroius. It is this frivolous 'becoming something soon' time like childhood. All the serious decisions are somewhere in the future when you will be smarter and more in tune with your body, feelings and talents. Maybe it is a second childhood after all. And what could be serious about that?

The Worlds We Build

[Photo was taken last year of some of my eclectic Christmas decor.]

I was playing tennis this morning with some ladies. They are three of the Saturday regulars for a round robin doubles group. (We play one set with each partner.) One of the ladies told me one time that her granddaughter had called her 'random.' I found this hilarious. Because this woman has built a tight little world for herself that is anything but random. She tries to schedule tennis every Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday. She will concede to play California or Australian doubles if she gets to stay on the doubles side. If it's a particularly fine day, she will play a set of singles with me. On Wednesday and Friday or days when tennis doesn't work out, she exercises in the gym, maybe walks back to the house. She plays Bridge at particular times in there somewhere, too. At home, she meticulously records shows on her VCR and watches them in chronological order with the result that she's watching stuff that is years old. She has a little 'nest' set up where she watches shows. She goes to bed before nine every night. Eleven months a year she works in the warehouse for the Settlement Home Garage Sale on Mondays. She and her husband go out with their children a few times a month. Anyway, her life is programmed and West Austin and some towns surrounding Austin are her unrandom world most of the time. She and her husband used to take lots of exotic vacations and they did recently take the grown up grandchildren on a cruise in the Mediterranean. But there is just nothing unpredictable or disruptive about her life. Which made me laugh when she told me what her grandchild had called her.

But, of course, we are all pretty predictable and mostly try to build our worlds so there aren't surprises, at least no unhappy ones. We know what activities we enjoy and schedule them. I certainly find a lot of joy in my little world, predictable though it is.

Every once in a while, though, you want to venture into someone else's realm. Or just introduce some surprise and chance into yours. Moving downtown has changed our focus, shaken us up a bit. There is something different about going to a Christmas party we usually attend at a law office at 8th and Congress but walking there from home. And then walking to the Long Center for the "Nutcracker." (Which we also always attend but this is the first time at that venue.) And then, while people wait for valet parkers, we walk back across the lake to Taste for a late night meal and drink, visiting with people who also live in the neighborhood.

Our new world isn't so different from the old, but we are inventing some new rituals. However, I think that today I will maybe, just maybe, go look for those bendable posable Christmas guys like in the picture and make this condo look a little like my old world.

In The Pink

I dug around in old pictures and this one from last March gave me the title of this post. Now. What words am I going to put with it? The Holidailies prompt today is another about Holiday celebration. ("Tell us about your unique/beloved holiday traditions in your part of the world"). Yesterday, while trying to 'celebrate' my in-laws 70th wedding anniversary, I suggested where we might go for lunch on Christmas. It seemed to overwhelm them a bit, but they were game. Anyway, no more entries about holidays for a few days.

I guess I am "in the pink." I don't have much pain or discomfort. Little aches and pains and afflictions I suffer from...I have learned to put up with them. Best not mention them or they will get worse. When I see the old folks, when I see them complaining about their back and knee pain, I feel young and strong. That fades when I leave them and I am around my young friends while I ponder what will happen to me in my seventh decade.

I'm behind with things I should be doing and I should have lots of time for things now, really. I got through the move. I got this place fixed up so that workmen are no longer having to be called, cajoled and accommodated. But the paperwork, tidying, organization, etc. I promised myself I'd do "when there was time" is languishing. Oh, I'm getting to the things that have to be done. One does that. And I'm spending a bit of time reflecting over coffee and editing pictures and typing into blogs.

But where is the organized and manageable existence I promised myself when I owned one less house and this one was the way I wanted it? Where is the time to tidy cabinets, get the files organized, catalog the books (let alone read those four I'm in the middle of), get control of the piles of newspapers and get a proper amount of exercise?

I don't know. But this minute I'm going to get up, dress in some sweats and go with FFP to the club. I should work out here because the trip to the club will waste thirty minutes, he will be done exercising before I am ready and, if I didn't go, he'd make the emergency trip by the Randall's to get yogurt and coffee by himself. Leaving me some time to...to what? To get my stuff organized? Write? Read? Yeah, right.

One wonders how when I worked I managed to get anything done except for showing up there and doing that. But I did. Sometimes it seems like I got more accomplished outside work. But. I was younger.

Depression and Christmas

How is Christmas in the Depression? Yeah, the economic kind. Although that other depression crops up, too, doesn't it? This time of year. Even catches up with people who didn't get laid off or have mutual funds or whatever.

My mom, pictured above in 1978 working on a homemade Christmas decoration, loved Christmas. She trotted out her brightest red clothes, decorated everything, made a lot of food and invited everyone over. Today's Holidailies writing prompt is to share a recipe. Besides the peals of laughter from those who know me at me giving cooking advice, I just couldn't even get into sharing a cheesy spinach casserole my mom and I used to both enjoy preparing. But I digress, this is about Christmas and that other kind of depression. But, come to think of it, times were never very flush for my mother, back in the day when she made such a fuss over holidays.

Yesterday I had to go to my dad's neighborhood and do a couple of things for him. I decided to check out Costco if the parking lot didn't look too horrible. Dad needed paper towels and I thought I'd get one of those giant packs for all the families we shop for to share and pick up some cheese. But not if the store was overrun with people buying electronics and toys and, you know, Christmas presents. I got a pretty good parking place (it was a weekday, but two weeks before Christmas??) As I went around the store getting cheese, yogurt dip, paper towels, toilet paper, Ibuprofen, chips and crackers (stocking up for the holidays), I looked in the other people's carts. This is something I frequently do, finding what other people buy sort of fascinating.

What struck me about the shopping carts yesterday at Costco? I didn't see any toys. Two people had some Christmas wrap or tags and one lady had some gift-packaged candy. Most carts had basic foods, paper goods, snack trays or foods and wine. Lots of wine. I didn't see anyone buying cameras, computers, iPods, luggage, toys or other gift items. Mine was a small sample, of course. I did see several people taking an interest in a gingerbread house kit and one guy buying those fake log things for the fireplace. (It was cold and windy out.)

It was just one moment at Costco, but I had the feeling everyone was getting ready to hunker down, to cocoon with their loved ones and eat.

In the evening a friend and I wandered out of our building to get a bite and a drink and encountered several Christmas parties...two occupying all or part of a restaurant we couldn't therefore get into and a third occupying a big table and part of the public area of the place we finally settled on to enjoy our bites and libations. I'm sure these events had been planned for a while, of course.

I'm thinking that people are eating. And drinking. And thinking of staying home and sharing fewer gifts but maybe more conviviality. The depression may have forced our hand in the matter. And that other kind of depression? Well, it always sneaks around me this time of year, but this year is no worse than any other.

A Long Way from There to Here

I'm leaning on a Holidailies writing prompt today. Three loaded questions (two in the second sentence) stare at me from the Holidailies portal today.

Do you still live in the place where you grew up? How far away are you now, and why?

I was born in Texas. I live in Texas. I'm a few hundred miles from the farm where I spent the first ten years of my life. I'm so, so far away. And whoa! That pesky "Why?"

My parents spent a couple of years in a house near my grandparents (his parents) on a different farm. The war came. My sister came. My dad had a brief stint in the army. Somehow my parents ended up on a little black land farm north of Dallas that her parents owned in a little house built, I think, by my maternal grandfather. I remember the house; my makeshift bedroom in a tiny enclosed screen porch when I got older; the livestock (milk cows, pigs, sheep and lambs, the occasional goat or horse); my dad milking and my mother making butter while I drank warm cow's milk from a half pint bottle; crops of cotton and corn. My dad had a job besides the farm as a hospital attendant at the Veteran's Hospital. There were a few other farms with houses on the dirt road to our farm. One belonged to a family with one daughter, between my sister and I. One belonged to that little girl's grandmother.

The picture is from 1954. I had begged for the toy tractor you see, but I remember that it wasn't as satisfying to ride on the gravel (there was no pavement anywhere on that farm save a tiny porch) as it was in the appliance store where it was sold. (I don't know why the appliance store had ride-on toys, but they did. It was a place where we bought refrigerators and washing machines and the owner was a friend of my parents.) The older girl near me is my sister. Yeah, matching dresses. The other child is, I think, a cousin of mine. The auto was one of several Oldsmobiles that my parents owned at various times. (My dad was friends with everyone at the Olds dealership, too.) We are in the driveway of the farmhouse. I remember the toy pith helmet. Don't know where we got it, but it was one of my playthings for a long time. One of not too many. There was a BB gun. An Erector Set. They would come when I was a little older. We had a dollhouse built by the granddad who built the house and some dime store furnishings for it. We imagined toothpaste caps were glasses and made toys out of other detritus. I'm not sure if we'd gotten a TV at this point. We had a few books, not many. Soon, my mother would go back to school to get her college degree and teaching certificate. In about four years, we'd leave the farm for a small town where she would teach.

The house of my childhood is gone (burned down) and the land is disected by a major highway.

I don't feel like the child who lived there really. I'm in a high rise condo where I could barely discern the storm last night (although we raced through the rain and sleet to get home from the restaurant). On that farm, in my tiny room with windows on three sides and a huge pecan tree swaying ten yards or so from it, the weather was immediate even when you were inside.

I don't feel like the child who longed for that ride on toy tractor or treasured the few toys. I don't feel like the child who drank that warm from the cow milk on the basement steps, watching my mother make butter. I don't feel like the child who invented worlds from sticks and stones or made a fence with a broad top and a discarded key into a motorcycle taking her on dream adventures.

I don't feel like the child who would dream of owning books and toys and all sorts of things that she would one day find she could afford. I don't feel like the child who made dream rocket gadgets from a cardboard box and discarded lids and such and then would one day find that amazing things that she could barely dream of (computers, cell phones, music players) were real and easy to obtain.

I don't feel like the child who believed in Santa and also shook every gift under the tree she'd help decorate with foil icicles and a collection of long-held decorations.

On the other hand, I don't relate so well to the adult who dined on steak tartare and other gourmet dishes and shared expensive wines with friends last night.

I am miles and miles from the farm. The why is tangled with the desires of the modern world, first of my parents then my own. I am nowhere near the farm. But am I home? The path from there to here feels pre-ordained. But surely many choices were made. I even vaguely remember making some of them, fueled by lists of 'pros' and 'cons' that were soon discarded and replaced with a gut decision.

Dear Santa

Dear Santa,

I could use some new clothes. Even FFP says so. (He got a fifty dollar gift certificate from his favorite clothing store. He said wondered if they would be upset if he used it for some cologne he likes, knowing they were hoping he'd buy something expensive, fifty bucks off. I offered that he should buy some clothes, but he said "You need clothes. I don't have a place to put them.") Really I probably do need clothes. I did buy one new fancy tank top, jacket and belt a couple of months back. Last night I was relieved that the invite said 'cocktail attire.' If it is less than black tie, I wear a custom pants suit and a fancy blouse (don't have enough of those either) and hope it is acceptable. But those custom suits were made, when? The last ones maybe a decade ago? That's probably generous. The off-the-rack red blazer I wear every Christmas? I think FFP claimed it was three decades old the other day. Yikes. I haven't had a new pair of shoes in a couple of years except for tennis shoes. Although I have had some complete overhauls at the shoe hospital of some of my Cole Haans and Ballys.

But, Santa, see the outfit in that window. Yeah, no way. I want simple clothes, pants about 99 percent. I have a long velvet black skirt which, topped with something dressy fulfilled the 'ball gown' requirement of the one white tie event we ever got invited to. Yeah, I know. White Tie. FFP looked like a diplomat, though. But he had to order the white tie.

I want pockets, too, Santa. My custom blazers have two inside pockets and outside flap pockets. My custom pants have slash pockets. The only off-the-rack blazers I'll tolerate at least have an inside pocket.

I hate shopping for clothes, Santa, is the only reason I'm asking. I did buy a gray Polartec hoodie the other day at the pro shop at my club. I had a gray fleece hoodie that I tossed when we moved. The zipper didn't work well and it made me mad. It was cold and I'd forgotten the cheap black sweatshirt (pullover) I usually wear. Most of the ladies wear is too small (even in XL) in those fancy-pants pro shop brands, but this was a Men's Medium. Fits pretty good except for the sleeves are a tad too long.

But I digress. The trouble, Santa, is that I want new custom pants and blazers. I want some after five custom-made, too. Maybe a tuxedo-look with sparkle. A fashion that keeps coming and going. I have a Men's tuxedo I had tailored that I accesorize but it isn't the same. I want new Cole Haans and Ballys to appear without scouring the outlet malls. Heck, I might be satisfied if the full-tilt stores didn't show so many three-inch heels. Flats, forever, my friend. I paid full-tilt for the 'tuxedo pumps,' little part patent flats I wear for after five. We walk to these events and stand up once we're there! And what's with Cole Haan getting in bed with Nike and making a lot of casual shoes on Nike lasts which hurt my feet instantly though? I hate that. They used to make casual shoes I could wear.

I like good clothes that last forever. Guess that's what I have in the closet, mostly, except the end of forever is coming. Forgetting fashion (and that's easy around me), there are signs of wear I'm afraid.

Fortunately, Santa, I'm fixed for casual. I have a stack of men's size 34x30 Style 560 and 550 jeans that fit great. I have T-Shirts, polos (a few venerable give-a-ways from my old job and some ancient worn ones that look as if they were intentionally distressed), knit work-out shorts, sport socks, hiking socks, denim shirts, a couple of pairs of nice tennis shorts. I'll be needing a new pair of hiking boots in a year or two.

Really, Santa, if you do custom dressy stuff...come by and measure some time. Otherwise, you know, keep turning out Wiis and iPods. I'll buy my own electronics.

Love, LB

P.S. We sent the card below this year. We do hope you find us even if we don't really want any gifts. Just stop by for some nog. Or, you know, wine. We have lactose-intolerance at this house.



[By the way, a letter to Santa was the Holidailies writing prompt. Thanks. I enjoyed that.]

Decorating....NOT

I'm not decorating for Christmas, nor shopping for presents nor planning a great feed. (Unless you count planning to go out to eat with people.)

Today on Holidailies the writing prompt is "Describe your holiday decorating techniques." I don't need writing prompts, really. If I take the time, I can sit down and write. No problem. I use blogging as a way to avoid: (1) cleaning; (2) exercise; (3) dealing with financial stuff.

But. FFP started the laundry so some cleaning chores are going forward. I may take a walk in a bit and even get in the gym. (Yeah, right.) And I dealt with a financial thing that required a phone call this morning. (I'm consolidating my much-depleted retirement funds into a single account for more organized mis-management.)

I'm not decorating, though. IF I did, I'd be posing little bendable Santas here and there. Oh, I have a few other things (ornaments, stockings). And I like to scatter the cards people send me around, too. I had my techniques down in the old abode, like putting the decorations in and around the glassware collection. Or just clearing off a shelf and filling it with bendie Santas. Some friends who also moved into this building said that they weren't decorating, that they had just gotten their basic decoration the way they wanted it and didn't feel like transforming it into Christmas. Still, I'm not sure that I won't decorate. But if I DID, it would involve lots of bendable, posable, collectible, festive, holiday figures posed among the books and knickknacks that are already a part of the basic decoration.

And maybe I will decorate. Maybe I'll shop for a few gifts, too. For the parental units at least. But I'll do it at Book People or some local spot. And I will eat too much even if I don't cook it. So who's to say I'm not 'celebrating.' But I might not think about any of these things any more today. It's not even the 10th of December yet. Why do we push these things so?

Un-Festive

Do I have something to say today? Yes and no. It's a beautiful day. I don't feel festive. Picture is a shop window reflection on Lamar between Fifth and Sixth. I took a walk while FFP was off doing something for the ballet. I even went into a shop. I thought I might buy something new and festive to wear to a party tonight. I didn't see anything, though, and now I have to riffle through my closet and find something to wear. I don't feel festive.

I want to knock out an entry and say something and catch up, Holidailies-wise. And really, yeah, I just know I have something to say. Something to get off my chest.

Today's writing prompt, though, is about changing the past. I won't go there. Don't believe in it. Could you make things better by changing the past? I wouldn't try it. Nope.

I think the thing about not feeling festive is maybe what I wanted to say. I don't think there's a cure for it. I will say that I'm looking forward to the holidays for this reason: as our social calendar hurtles toward Christmas and New Year's there is a bit of time when there are actually some blanks. I know it supposed to be a family time and I hope that FFP and I have some nice walks and meals out during this spell. I know we are going to have a little outing. We are actually going to leave the Austin Metroplex for a short time. For the first time in a while.

Well, off to find some festive clothes for my non-festive self. Maybe the party and the clothes and a little alcohol will do the trick.

Memory Fault

In the computer biz you can get a memory fault when some bad memory has an incorrect check digit which means some other bits that are on should be off or vice versa. I think anyway. I worked with computers (rather than using one as now) years ago. Well six years. And when I retired I'd gotten too far from things such as memory faults. Except for my own, of course.

Anyway, Jette gave us a Holidailies writing prompt for today and it is "Your most vivid memory from last year's holiday season." I remembered next to nothing about Christmas last year. So...I resorted to my blog to reset some check bits. I was being daily with the Holidailies last year so there were some of my memories there, forgotten by me. Actually it is more like getting an archive that was pushed off to tape than correcting memory, but that is old school. Disk space is SO cheap now. Whatever.

Last year I wasn't in a festive mood, I don't guess. I'm not one to decorate for Christmas anyway, and I hadn't done a thing. A friend of mine who has been going through an extreme health crisis since early spring 2006 wanted to come over and have a short visit and drink coffee and 'put together a jigsaw puzzle.' (Something my mom used to like to do and she'd join in on when she came over.) So...I cleaned out a storage area under the (one) staircase in our old house and pulled out Christmas stuff. Mostly I have bendable posable Christmas theme figures. (See above for my favorites, Jack Skellington from "Nightmare Before Christmas.") I scrambled around, decorating the big meda room in our old house. For the last time as it turns out. I found a pretty simple 500-piece jigsaw with a Christmas theme and made a place to work on it. My friend came over and we put together a lot of it, sipped coffee and talked about old times until she was tired.

If I could remember things, this would be my most vivid holiday memory from last season. My friend is doing some better these days. She had a checkup over the week of Thanksgiving and I have to find out about that. This year, the condo is devoid of decoration, save a small pile of holiday cards we've already received. But there is still time. Also, if I could remember things, I would have finished this post and got it recorded on Holidailies yesterday when I started it. Visiting with three elderly relatives and my dad made me forgetful. So I guess my perfect holiday attendance is already spoiled although I know there are some rules rattling around the venerable Holidailies allowing 'catch ups' as long as they are some hours apart.

Holidailies is Open For Business

A big shout out for Chip and Jette for creating a portal for the Ninth Year for bloggers and online diarists and journalists and various hangers-on. Holidailies is officiailly Open for Business.

It has already allowed me a big laugh by directing me to a report on YAPPIR (Yet Another Pop Phenomena I Refuse). There are things I read about and marvel at but about which I never catch the fever and climb on the fan train. "Twilight" (books, movie, buzz, possibly merchandise) is the latest of these. Like "Harry Potter," various rappers, several TV shows about paranormal politicians (OK, I made that up) I will marvel from afar at book sales, movie weekend numbers, etc. reported in The New York Times. To further my appreciation, I now have this blog entry. I know nothing about the blogger but I really got a laugh. Permit me to quote:

The movie was exceedingly cheese-ridden. Fromage extraordinaire. Aged cheddar. Blue cheese with extra bleu. Squeezie cheese from a tube. Cheese with a nozzle. Cheetos. Doritos Blue Cheese with Buffalo Wings. Monterey PepperJack.

Yeah, I was drawn by the blurb on the portal or I would never have ended up there. So, Holidailies is open. Let the wonderful accidental stumbling into others' lives begin. It's not unlike City Daily Photo only more emphasis on words. Much as I love pictures I love words more.

In other news: we went to a big charity event at the Monarch last night. It was very well done and I hope they raised a lot of money for Equality Texas. I talked to so many people, made introductions. I also got to see Oliver and Craig's apartment decorated. I think they have six trees, maybe more. Our decoration so far? A handful of Christmas cards people have sent. There is a mild threat I've made to get the Bendable, Posable Christmas figures, mostly Santas, out of the storage cage. Anyway, I need to get another invitation over there when I have my camera in tow to get some pictures.

In still other news, my relatives (two aunts and an uncle) are visiting my dad from Dallas. They went off to Luby's (a cafeteria) to eat last night when they were left to their own devices. The car they were driving refusted to start for their return trip and a circus ensued until they got a new battery for the car, my dad got a ride back to his place and then got his van and went back to guide them home because they didn't think they could find it. They didn't call me for help which is both disturbing and heartening. Most of my day will be spent with them. After some chores and a little exercise. And so the days of our lives as it says in the soap opera. Yeah, Soap Operas. Except for a brief fling with "Dallas" back in the day, soaps are also YAPPIR with me. Even six years of retirement haven't driven me to daytime TV. Although there is a small "Jeopardy" addiction I'm now kicking due to lack of time to consume all the stuff on the DVR.

So, OK Holidailies is open for business and I hope everyone enjoys the spill of words. I know I will.

[Shop window photo is Tesoros Trading on South Congress.]

The Way We Live

I snapped this doggy and his calling card on the East Side Studio Tour a couple of weekends agon. No, his house with the Suburban was not on the tour. He did give a gruff bark or two. It's an interesting area, where things collide, rich and poor, old and new. We live in our enclaves, one way or the other but sometimes there's an invasion.

I'm trying to be 'daily' here and I have a couple of obligations that might keep me from the computer so I thought I'd share this photo first thing this morning.

Point of View

Last Friday, after Thanksgiving, I was thinking about how we all look at the world through a very limited point of view. (Isn't that a series on IFC: POV? Anyway.)

We stayed in most of the day, last Friday, getting out to do our errands and have lunch. I think we ate at home in the evening.

At some point, I was sitting in my chair in the living room. It might have been afternoon. I was watching the cranes at the Austonian and the W work sites. We are in a position to see some of the work and progress on these projects. Not like our friends in the new AMLI, though. Their POV is looking down into the W site from their balcony. The building will creep up past their balcony one day. We couldn't see the Austonian until it was about ten stories and got over the sight line interference of the old, shorter AMLI.

Anyway, I was watching. I knew the W was getting worked on because the cranes were swinging around. The Austonian didn't look active. I take heart every day when I see activitiy on these construction sites. I wonder what the workers are thinking. Some came here from Florida, I know, when work dried up there. Now, these buildings are still going up, but what happens when they are done? When they don't need your trade on your current job. Because not many new things are breaking ground. I have no idea what it feels like to be an itinerant construction worker. I can, in fact, only see the handiwork from one angle, usually, out my windows. When I ride the bike and workout across the hall, I can see a bit of the Spring and Gables construction. One day I happened to see them hauling two porta-potties to the top of the building. They were swinging in the wind. I wondered if they'd use the crane to take them down to service them. I'll never know I don't suppose.

We only observe such a narrow slice of what there is. We expand that knowledge by reading and watching films and television and listening and studying. Yesterday I was trying to picture the location of Nigeria. I didn't have a good picture in my head. I was pretty sure of the area (there's a Niger river there, n'est pas?) but the exact layout of it and other countries around there (Benin, Togo?) I couldn't picture. How can you understand people when you can't picture the boundaries of their country? For that matter, who remembers the geography of Canada and Mexico? I saw an episode of Jeopardy the other day and the contestants totally flopped on a bunch of questions about Canada. (Much to the chagrin of Alex Trebeck who was born in Canada. Isn't that a great phrase, "much to the chagrin of?" Or not. Depends on your point of view.)

Yeah, point of view is everything. We can divorce ourselves successfully from certain things by our choices of where to be and what to read and what to pay attention to. I've noticed that we are so well insulated from cold and wind here that I haven't turned the heat on yet. I check the temperature on my computer. When we lived in a 1950's drafty house on pier and beam, you could feel the cold under the floor and near the windows. I'm sure a prolonged cold will creep in here, but it feels isolated. I used to go outside, too. When we had the dog, I'd take these breaks to let her out and stare at the backyard, meet the weather and wind face to face. One of us (usually FFP honestly) went outside in the elements to get the paper. Heck, when we went to the office upstairs over the garage, we had to pass outside through the cold garage.

My point is? I feel sealed in here and feel a need to get outside every day. Not just on the balcony either. Somehow that point of view is so weird it's not 'being outside.'

So I'm just rambling here, that's for sure. I'm getting toned up for the Holidailies. I'm 'just typing' as a section of my old 'online journal' used to say. Fact is, I've been rereading that old journal, the entries from 2001. So maybe when I'm at a loss for something to write for the daily exercise then I'll just recount what I was doing and thinking seven years ago.

[Today's picture is of windows in the Whit Hanks complex on Sixth showing the wares of an antique shop with some excellent deco furniture I would have coveted before I decided to abandon collecting and abandon a cool deco bar in the process. That's us reflected, of course.]

What Have I Done?

You know how I have committed myself to post every day on Austin Daily Photo? Well, now I've committed Visible Woman to that same regimen of dailyness from Dec. 5-January 6. Why? Because it's the Holidailies challenge and, well, no one seems to know why we sign up for these things. Of course, I could have signed up ADP and it would have been a slam dunk. Why didn't I? Because it isn't really a good one with which to compete for Best Of in Holidailies-land. And, no matter what I say to the contrary, as long as there is a reader panel and as long as something might occur to me that is entertaining or profound in a thirty day period, why not compete?

Today's photo is of the shop window of Vivid. This store plans to change their format, I understand. For now it is Vivid, though.

I haven't decorated for Christmas. The jury is still out on whether I'll do that. But I'll put up pictures of other people's decorations here. Especially if they are in a shop window with nice reflective properties. I did a tiny bit of cleaning. I plan to do some more. My tennis game that usually happens on Tuesday didn't happen. I exercised in our building's gym instead.

Yes, well, I'm glad Chip and Jette are running Holidailies this year once again. It gives me a nice path into a bunch of good reads. And we can all give each other the inexpensive gift or our writing during this bleak economic time.

Unfinished Business

I don't know where my time goes. Yes, blogging. But yesterday, save a brief entry in Austin Daily Photo, I didn't blog. (You missed me, right?) I also didn't type in a private journal or write on old-fashioned paper. So, where did the time go?

I didn't clean the kitchen. Several times I set a deadline to get in there and get after it. Oh, we cleaned up after our meals and such, washed dishes. But it's been a while since I cleaned off the counters thoroughly, dusted the bottles of booze on the counter, etc.

We got up a little late, but I think we were out of the bed and had it made by 8 o'clock. We watched CBS Sunday Morning. Drank coffee. Talked about taking a walk. Which we never really did. Rather we walked to Whole Foods and ate at the fish bar (I had trout with kale and some grain dish and a Ginger Beer). We bought a few things of prepared food. FFP took the groceries home and I took some pictures in the neighborhood for Austin Daily Photo. (When I say we didn't 'take a walk' I mean we didn't go far enough for exercise. The round trip to Whole Foods, even with my detour, isn't much more than a mile.)

When we got back, I got stuck into updating financial spreadsheets and Quick Books, doing end-of-month for the business, checking accounts and credit cards, paying some stuff, recording muni bonds we bought. Simple as our life is, this kind of stuff takes some time and then, the next day, there is more to do.

Finally, I took a break with the New York Times magazine crossword which I found unsatisfying for some reason. I read some other parts of the newspaper. I decided at one point that I'd clean the kitchen in one hour. Instead, when the time was up, I went to the gym across the hall. I just rode the recumbent bike until I was all sweaty. I took a shower. FFP and I ate dinner, each separately making a salad and eating some other stuff. I had a little wine from the bottle we'd opened the night before. I went through all the Sunday papers and read some sections from other days that I hadn't read. We watched a movie on DVD about a crackhead teacher and coach and a little girl who befriended each other. ("Half Nelson.") We rent this stuff from NetFlix and I dont' know when it got in our queue or why. We happened on "Slingblade" on IFC and watched the end of that. We can watch that movie over and over for some reason. Then we just watched IFC and they showed another movie called "Love and Sex" and then some doc about nudity and other censored acts and references in movies. I just left it on this channel while I read until it was late. I didn't get any of my books read, just papers. And the papers are so depressing. So I do this every night and go to bed depressed.

This morning I have to take my dad to the eye doctor. It is the most bizarre parking thing. They have about six or seven handicapped places for this medical office complex next to a hospital. If you don't get one, you have to park in the hospital lot, taking your chances for a place remotely close to the office where you are going. He could take himself (although they may dilate his eyes, so you know, better not to drive I guess), but he could end up walking a block or two with his walker and that isn't good. Whatever. I'll drive out there and take him. I'll take some reading material for the waiting part.

So, when I wonder where this day went and why I didn't get things done, I'll know. I blogged about getting nothing done. Then I did an errand for my dad. Heck, though, maybe I'll clean the kitchen today. You never know.

Companions

I sometimes wonder how I'd get along without FFP. (Pictured here in my shop window reflection fashion.) I don't like how that plays out in my head, to tell you the truth.

Oh, I do lots of things independently and do have friends and relatives who provide some help and comfort.

But I rely an awful lot on FFP. Not just his handling of many of the details of our lives (social, chores, financial). I also rely on him to be there to reassure me that whatever I'm doing is OK. He did this throughout my career. He does it now when I go off and play tennis or work out instead of doing chores or accomplishing anything in retirement. If I goofing off, he says it's OK. so I can do things I should be doing when the spirit moves me without a lot of guilt.

It's also good to have someone around to talk to, to bounce things off of, to laugh at things with and to share discoveries with. We are always reading something aloud to the other one or showing the other one something on the WEB.

Right now I should be doing some cleaning and going though my inbox and updating the budget. But I feel like blogging, drinking coffee and reading the paper. Which I will do. FFP will say it's OK. That I deserve it. That he "isn't doing anything worthwhile either." (Which may or may not be true.) Or he just won't say anything and I'll know it's fine.

I'm always so pleasantly surprised when I look up and realize he has taken out the recycling or trash, cooked some salmon, done the laundry, done some other chore.

Yeah, but mostly I just like talking to him, watching movies with him, listening to music with him. I don't mind spending some time by myself. I even used to take vacations apart from him and spent a lot of time away on business trips.I did fine on those trips. Enjoyed my alone time to some degree.

But I'm comforted that we will be together again when we're apart. Sitting home reading in our separate chairs or back-to-back doing something at our computers. Going out to eat, just the two of us, taking along our books or magazines to read. Going out with others knowing that we'll both probably want to go home at the same time.

This morning I was playing tennis. There were only three of us so I took on the other two for three sets of "California" or "Australia" doubles where you play against two people but they don't get to use the doubles alleys. I was having a really good time and thinking what a good time I was having. FFP has only played tennis a few times and isn't into it. But I felt good when it was over and, on my way home, my cell rang and he said he'd been working out and was going to shop for groceries for us and his mom. So, yeah, as soon as my independent activity was over I was happy to link up with FFP.

It's no wonder, I guess, that I feel that he's essential. I've been married to him more than half my life. Amazing.

Fact and Fiction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dirt and Stuff

Trying to be my own maid (and secretary and bookkeeper) is always a challenge. (No, that's not the floor of my closet. The photo was shot in Uncommon Objects Sunday. I resisted becoming a typewriter collector and I haven't owned a pair of boots in years although I'm often tempted.)

Yesterday and the day before I tried to move some of the dirt around and straighten things a bit. On Tuesday I ran out of steam after giving the main bath a good cleaning. Yesterday I managed to do a lot of dusting and to vacuum the floors and the one small rug. I usually just use one of those Swifter things but, occasionally, you have to suck it up. The dirt that is. I didn't move a vacuum here and haven't bought one. (I'm not sure where I could store it for one thing.) My friend who lives on 11 has one that I borrow. So added to having to get it out and use it, I have to go upstairs, haul it down and later take it back. I've seen that several people have those robot things that go around apparently on their own vacuuming. Hmmm. Anyway, I needed to give the kitchen a good cleaning, too, but I haven't got around to that. I thought I might do that this morning but writing on my holiday postcards (secretary) and updating our budget (bookkeeper) with last night's eating and drinking indiscretions and, well, blogging have taken up the time. And I need to exercise before I go eat a big Thanksgiving meal at the club.

I have to say that we are very circumspect about buying stuff these days. The condo can't swallow stuff like the old house where I had a walk-in closet in the bedroom and seven other closets and a storage room, wine storage room, walk-in pantry, tons of kitchen cabinets and drawers, many file cabinets, desks with drawers, beaucoup bookshelves built in and free-standing, media cabinets, a double garage, etc. etc. Sure we have crammed as many storage opportunities as possible here and given away much of what occupied that space, but it does seem, well, finite. Very finite. That's a good thing, I think.

My in-box on my desk is full of things I need to do, though, and my files and some boxes in the extra closet need sorting and trimming. I didn't succeed in getting here with everything trimmed down and organized.

This closed-in feeling has brought me up short for Christmas shopping. FFP and I don't do much for each other, usually, just giving blessing to something the other person would want or need anyway and getting what we want for ourselves. We usually buy some token gifts for the parents. (Book for my dad, audio tapes for dad-in-law and a calendar or soap or something for mom-in-law.) But in years past I've bought gifts for friends, toys for my great nephews and niece, gifts for my sister and brother-in-law and nieces, etc. I just can't do it this year. Everything time I look at on-line come-ons or ads in the paper or stock in stores I feel that the stuff is not desirable but burdensome. So I've completely abandoned the nieces/sister crew to their own devices with an economic stimulus package of checks from me with minimal instruction. If friends bring me presents, I won't be prepared to reciprocate unless I buy a few emergency things but I haven't gotten the spark to do that.

This morning's paper was groaning with ads for deals tomorrow (Black Friday). As I looked through them I thought, "But you would have to pay me to go to the store tomorrow." So I tossed them all.

Ah, well, the more stuff you have, the more dirt you have to deal with. And this season seems to be rife with useless things. My not favorite: a marshmallow shooter. Huh? What's wrong with toys like Slinky? (The woman who ran the company making that classic toy died recently.) But a marshmallow shooter? Can you think of anything messier or stupider? Can you even plug an iPod into it?It seems all the gadgets have an iPod dock. Even now that I have an iPod I'm not tempted by these things. I do still want a new digital camera (or two) and a GPS. (I saw an ad for one digital camera that had a built-in GPS to identify where you took the picture. Which I want but in a smaller camera.) But I haven't had the umph to not only spend the money but learn to use them and sort through all the accessories, etc.

I'm just pretty bah humbug, I guess. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and dusting stuff in between. I do notice that things get dusted around here that wouldn't have at the old place. The maid didn't dust very much, but I always expected her to do it and wouldn't do much myself. And, of course, there was so much more stuff getting dusty and square feet of places to pile it. So...things are cleaner now in the smaller space, I think, even with my bungling attempts at being the maid.

As I write this final paragraph I've failed to work out much (a few weights) and made it through a Thanksgiving buffet with all the parental units. I'm sleepy. Maybe I'll nap while not cleaning or working on my Christmas cards.