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February 29, 2000
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LB's day off I promised myself I'd just look around me and enjoy the day. No racing about, just relax. No attempt to get every pending errand taken care of. Yeah, right. Days off are stressful. Near downtown we visit the lawyer's office for some simple paperwork and some discussion of new wills. El Arroyo says: "If you are what you eat, I'm fast, cheap and easy." I am not working. Nevertheless while I sit in my home office I bat e-mail with people at work. I'm still trying to control the chaos. Stack by stack. The trouble is I stop to dwell over each bit. You wouldn't believe how much junk mail, papers, magazines are tipped into recycling if you saw how much is still piled about. The Four Seasons for lunch. George holds the car. We have a delightful lunch (tuna tartare and a Thai fish cake with a bunch of vegies for me; spinach salad and snapper and artichoke ravioli for himself). Hey...we are going to eat dinner there so why not lunch? "Let's just eat meals at Four Seasons until we run out of money," I say. "Sure," says himself. We see another of Forrest's 'Preece clan' cousins drinking champagne in the Café. (The first of the day was our lawyer...the other, older Forrest who is a first cousin as opposed to Forrest's dad Forrest, Sr. or his cousin's son Forrest.) The Driskill is a venerable institution and we've arranaged babysitting for Chalow the wonder dog so that we can check in and see what it is really like and have a brief getaway. So we go downtown at about 3PM and check in. Our room is in the historic part of the hotel but completely remodeled. It has a brick wall view, but it's really a very up-to-date room with Internet access available, a couple of phone lines and most of the nice amenities with one exception: there is no alchohol in the mini-bar. Visited with Cheryl, Juan and Benjamin while they planned a rehearsal dinner for his wedding. Forrest reads Forbes Magazine because he finds weddings tiresome. What could be more fun than picking food people won't complain about and wondering how to seat people? Packing for one night is pretty easy. Clean underwear, clean socks, extra shirt and pants, toiletries. I'm taking the 75th Anniversary Edition of the New Yorker, too. After a quick and early dinner with our friends at Four Seasons, Forrest and I wander about. We have a drink in the Austin Club bar where the wonks are watching primary returns. "I'm coming up on twenty years with the state," says one. "My grandfather was eighty-three when he died, but he had salt and pepper hair," says another. Perhaps not from the same conversation. They talk back at the TV, taking issues with the primary coverage and asserting that the parents of the six-year-old school killer should be punished for making the gun available. We have another drink in the Driskill bar. We amuse ourselves with 'stump the piano player." But it's too easy. We even walk along Sixth Street. Wow, it's become tawdry. Pizza slice joints, ATMS, homeless people, hawkers trying to get you inside for $1 drinks. Leslie the homeless guy running for mayor was out with his weird outfit and cardboard signs. He was amusing. A peaceful evening really and a good night's sleep.
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"He hath no leisure who useth it not." George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum |
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Austin art
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