Reflecting on Who I Am

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

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

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

Who am I? Where do I live?

Stopping to Reflect

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

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

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

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

The Half Life of Objects

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

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

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

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

Big Sigh

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

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

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

Countdown

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

I Wish I Had TIme to Tell You

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

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

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

What Makes a Home?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eight Days and a Dark Place

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

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

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

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

Taradiddle

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

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

This seemed funny and appropriate to me somehow.

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

Transient

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Changes

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

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

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

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

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

Objects Are Closer....

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

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

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

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

A Place for Reflection

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

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

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

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

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

Green

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

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

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

"But you had all those great parties!"

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

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

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

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

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

Housekeeping

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

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

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

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

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

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

Too many houses. To keep.

Overheated Nostalgia

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

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

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

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

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

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

The World (well Austin) at My Feet

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

At the Market

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

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

Temporary Quarters

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

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

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

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

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

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

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