Seeking the Cinnamon Roll

These cinnamon rolls were at the Farmer's Market on Saturday. They looked close enough to my grandmother's that I bought one. The guy helping me at the empanada stall that sold them ask if I wanted frosting. "No, I thought, we never had frosting." "No," I said. I heated the thing up in my microwave and ate it. It was good. It was closer to Deedy's (that was our nickname for my maternal grandmother) than, say, store-bought one or the ones that Upper Crust (I love them, but not for this) purvey around town that somehow contain so much butter or something that we call them 'gut bombs.'

But this one, enjoyable though it was, was not like my grandmother's offerings. Maybe it was all in the dough recipe. She made these transcendental homemade rolls for holidays. She made a traditional yeast rising dough. (Left to warm and rise on the part of the stove where the pilot light was, remember those? With a dish towel over the bowl.) And she made dozens and dozens of rolls from the dough. They tasted sweet themselves as yeast rolls will. (Come to think of it, no one comes close to her recipe on those either, not even Threadgill's whose giant yeast rolls have to be seen to be believed and taste sweet in that yeasty way.)

I think my grandmother made rolls often, eschewing the 'brown and serve' ones at the store that my busy mother resorted to serving. (Not that Deedy wasn't busy. She had her elderly husband to care for, her chickens, babysitting us, babysitting other peoples' kids, making clothes for half the town, all that scratch cooking to do for all of us.)

But at holidays? She set aside some dough. Put butter, sugar and cinnamon between layers and rolled out cinnamon rolls that came out as big flat wheels of delight, just cooked enough, just doughy enough, especially in the center. We ate so many (and the rolls, too, sopping the homemade turkey giblet gravy off our plates) that I don't know how we arrived at adulthood as fairly skinny kids. (Yeah, later I gained weight easily. I'm wearing one of the rolls above now!)

I remember one Christmas when my cousins and I were watching her make the cinnamon rolls and clamoring for more of the butter, sugar and cinnamon. But she just smiled and ignored us.

One year I decided I would learn to make these rolls from the master. I never did, of course. Baking is the worst of cooking for me because of the accuracy required. I don't have the patience and concentration. From this session when I tried to learn, I remember only one thing. When she added the yeast to the warm water she 'hid' it. She almost filled a measuring cup with some flour and then put the yeast there and put a bit more flour in. This she added to the warm water.

"Why do you hide the yeast in the flour?" I asked.

"My mother always did," she said.

Of course, yeast is delicate. If the water was too warm, it would kill it before it could do its work. The flour coat meant that there was more margin for error in the warm water, I think. The science of baking is interesting. But like I said, I didn't and don't have the patience.

My mom and my sister both actually made rolls and cinnamon rolls and used the time-honored recipe from Deedy for a while. Then I think they switched to something easier. And they stopped making the cinnamon rolls. And then Mom died and my sister became disabled and I doubt she attempts it now. And, really, it was good but never quite the same.

During holidays of old, the presents sometimes were a disappointment and sometimes Dad wasn't there because he was working, but Deedy usually cooked the perfect meal that was everything I wanted. Turkey (I was a white meat kid, then), homemade cornbread dressing, homemade giblet gravy, those rolls, those cinnamon rolls. I'm sure there was an array of things I avoided like green beans or cranberry sauce or salads, too. (I was a picky eater as a child.)

Oh, those cinnamon rolls. Never to be duplicated. Even if the same recipe was scrupulously followed by someone, it would, of course, never be the same.

It's a Wonderful Life

Did I mention that I saw this radio play of "It's a Wonderful Life" over at the theater at Penn Field (Austin Playhouse King Stage) Saturday night? It is the story of George Bailey but done as if six actors were performing it as a radio play in the 1940's. They took on multiple characters (Mr. Potter is also one of George Bailey's kids, not to mention the head Angel, helping Clarence!) The cast did the sound effects like on old radio. Its run is finished now so this isn't a review. (In fact, it wasn't on my radar until one of the gals I was going out with on Saturday suggested it and found that they did have a few tickets for that performance.)

Anyway, I like that story because I'm rather fascinated by the way chance and actions conspire to make life what it is. The premise of "It's a Wonderful Life" is not that George Bailey has a great life. He really doesn't. His dreams were thwarted. (Oh, you might count the wife and kids in the drafty house as a great life, but that's you.) No, to me, the fascinating premise is that George gets to see the world with him erased, as if nothing changed except that one little thing never happened: the accident of his father's particular sperm and his mother's particular egg getting joined. He doesn't see the aftermath if he succeeds in jumping off the bridge and drowning. No. He gets to see the world truly without him.

Just as an aside, before I continue, there was an article in The New York Times this week about the movie and one man's experience with it. There is a funny bit in there theorizing that maybe life would have been more wonderful without George.

So. Have you ever thought about that? What if you hadn't been conceived? You weren't an aborted fetus or a baby or child killed in a tragic accident. You just were not there, never thought of, literally never conceived.

It does change things, doesn't it? Maybe my parents wouldn't have had a second child. If my sister was their only child, things would have been different all along the way. Maybe my mother would have gone back to school four or five years earlier when my sister started school instead of when I did. They could have given my sister more things and avoiding sending a second kid to college, gotten financially solvent sooner.

When my parents grew old, however, and their support system in North Texas was disappearing, they wouldn't have moved to Austin to be near the baby child and get some help from her. They might have moved to be near my sister in Colorado, but I doubt it. My sister had a cerebral aneurysm rupture in 1998. At that point I bet they would still have hoped that my brother-in-law would retire and he and my sister would move to Texas. My sister had a long recovery and many set-backs. She can do many things but she is handicapped by the hemorrhagic stroke and the other strokes that followed. The first time my parents visited her, in March 1999 in rehab in Denver, I took them there, worried about them being in the snow and ice. They might have tried to move there all the same. My sister had children and, starting in 2000, grandchildren there. My mother would still have had Multiple Myeloma, I suppose, and I suppose it would have been eventually diagnosed. Certainly she would probably still have died in 2002. Although one never knows.

So I see my Dad. Alone in that house in the Dallas suburb? Moved to Colorado where the thin air bothered his breathing after a few weeks? But, who knows, maybe better off. Maybe without the burden of another kid, my parents would be strong and vigorous and both still alive. Who's to say?

The other close to home thing is wondering what my husband of thirty-plus years would be doing. He says if he hadn't found me he would have never married. But I wonder. He might not have started his business less than a year after we married if he hadn't had a partner to pay bills. He might not have been there to take a call from a young man at UT selling gray market IBM PCs and do advertising for him as his business morphed into a build-to-order and sell direct PC firm. I'm betting that he wouldn't have bought a bigger house that same year he started the business. He might not have purchased a building to run his agency during the Dell era. The doctor who now owns that building and the house we bought that year would probably have put his practice some other place.

I wonder if the man who never met me because I didn't exist would have ended up in a condo downtown. My bet is that he would have married someone else who was smart and driven but wanted children and ended up in Tarrytown with some way too intelligent smart ass kids that he nevertheless loved unmercifully. Or maybe he would have left the company where we met, but not started an ad agency in Austin and, instead, moved to some other city. As an only child he would be looking back to Austin at his very elderly parents and trying to see that they were all right from a distance.

Then there are the jobs I had. I wouldn't have been there to write certain lines of code, to create certain bugs and avoid or fix others. I wouldn't have been there to think up software ideas or squash others' visions. It would have been different. Better? Worse? Barely noticeable? Hard to say.

I don't really think the world would be that different without me especially once you move out of a pretty tight circle around me. But little things would be different. There would be one less site on Holidailies. (Or more spookily someone else doing a site called Visible Woman! But that would be an entirely different site anyway.)

Well, um, that was an instructive line of thought. But since I do exist I have to clean the condo and go have lunch and dinner with friends who would be doing something else today. In fact, one of them would probably not live in Austin if we hadn't met forty years ago or so. So they'd be doing something someplace else. We are having lunch with Dad who wouldn't live in Austin. Whoa, it's just too weird.

Do You See What I See?

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Of course not. Beyond the obvious religious implications (only a certain number of people acknowledge the star of Bethlehem, the Christ child and such), we don't see or hear (or for that matter know, as in the third verse of that carol) what others do. We are in a different spot with different sensory tools. Our brains are wired to interpret things in certain ways.

This shop window reflection looks almost bucolic because some growing thing (I'm not sure if it was a tree inside or on the sidewalk) imposes its random pattern. But it was taken on the decidedly industrial turned bar Fourth Street in the Warehouse District. The Christmas Balls (and the sign which says 'Please Present ID on Entry') are at Oil Can Harry's bar, one of the most venerable gay bars around.

I see me, hiding behind a camera and a pink cap. Has it occurred to anyone else that these images of me, reflected in reverse and often obscured remind one of identifying bank robbers in disguises. (I almost said in 'costumes.' Isn't it interesting that costumes and disguises can be the same thing, with different intention?)

Anyway. I digress. This isn't about crimes or even me and my reflection. Except to say that not everyone is seeing, hearing and knowing the same thing.

Living downtown has reminded me over and over of the mathematical reality that a very large building can completely disappear behind a shorter, closer building. This phenomena of disappearing and reappearing makes walking and driving around a city so interesting and, let's face it, a bit disorienting. I can be very close to a forty story building but not be able to see it because of my distance and position from a much shorter building. Yeah, every fifth grader knows this. Still, the fact of it is shocking sometimes.

Another interesting perspective is how two people can sit in the same room and experience completely different things. Of course, if they are reading a book or newspaper, there is that. Worse, if they are both reading and writing on the vast plain of cyberspace, they can be in a different world. FFP reads the Drudge Report and sends pictures of Mother Ginger VIPs to people while I write to you, dear readers, and look up the mathematics of perspective and prowl Holidailies for new thoughts. I've been over here trying to fix little problems in my Windows XP under VMware. I'm surfing a different wave.

We think we have a shared experience. But, depending on where we are standing, it can be very different. It's amazing that media assault can inform a large number of us on Madoff, Caylee and Caroline Kennedy, given that we are all looking in different directions with different obstacles between us and the tall buildings (or the big stories). It's also fairly amazing that so many people, after two thousand years, think they see a 'child shivering in the cold.' Who's to say they are wrong? And it is a nice song.

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.