Wednesday, March 10, 2004

A Journal from Austin, Texas.
A Project of LBFFP Stealth Publishing.

not a cloud in the sky

When I drove over to the club about nine or nine-thirty (or maybe it was ten), it was one of those Austin days when the sky is so blue that it makes your heart ache. Cloudless sky. Cool yet warm. Stayed that way all day.

The master suite has TV...although I guess we should have bought a big amoire to hide it?

JUST TYPING

Cloudless sky.
Perfect blue.
A certain light.
For a few days in Austin.

Food Diary.

breakfast

nothing

lunch
[Star of India]

rice, curries (lamb balls, spinach and cheese, peas and cheese), two pieces Nan, tomato soup (small), some salad and such

snacks

strawberry banana protein powder apple juice yogurt smoothie (320 calories says the maker at the club)

dinner
[34th Street Cafe]

glass red wine
slice of bread with olive oil
small pizza with apples, proscuitto and brie

Today I
- felt full from the time I consumed the smoothie but kept eating anyway.

Time flies....

I waited for the handyman to arrive to finish the baseboards in the closet but FFP was back from the club before he got here. I went to the club. I'm comfortable leaving the handyman here...he's family. Plus by then FFP was showered and dressed and working upstairs.

I'd agreed to have lunch with SuRu and she'd agreed to help me pick and haul the track lights for the bedroom.

The day was so nice that after that we were going to take our books into the yard and read. Only our yardmen showed up to mow at that moment. We sat in the big room and SuRu read her book (Rabbit, Run by John Updike) and I read newspapers. The yardmen don't take long...they use huge platform mowers and giant blowers. They don't stop for the hard stuff like chopping back the bamboo. When they are finished, we go out into the yard and I take my book (the Calvin Trillin). I don't like to read newspapers in the yard because the wind catches them. When I retired, I thought I'd spend lots of spring days in the yard. Hasn't happened. I seem to be in motion most of the time. But I do spend some lazy minutes reading in the yard. When we go back in the house, I start moving stuff around...putting shakers back in the big bar, stuff like that. I find a couple of silver things and polish them. Then I move some socks and T-Shirts and stuff like that into the closet and drawers in the master suite. I actually toss a couple of pairs of socks. Woo-hoo. Two things down (or is it four?) 9,996 (or so) to go. After a while we go to 34th Street and have dinner (SuRu goes along).

When we come home, I settle in and read the day's papers and some old ones and watch a little TV. Then I move to bed, catch a little massage from the bed and listen to jazz while reading my book.

Reading.

Newspapers.

Feeding a Yen [Savoring Local Specialties from Kansas City to Cuzco] by Calvin Trillin. Calvin has a way of finding foods I've never once experienced that he has sought out and had over and over again. This makes me jealous as I am an adventurous eater. Calvin has met up with some of the major domos of chowhound.com and made money writing food books. Plenty to envy about old Calvin. He does mention that his wife died, though, the Alice of Travels with Alice and Alice, Let's Eat. Shame.

nothing

Exercise

It's a Tangled
Web we weave...these
days of our lives.

A couple of random word strings in spam subjects that I found amusing: "no waiting room in clinic angle" and "dread privileged rugged purest illusions stung minutes" They nspired a poem:

Privileged dread.
Stung minutes.
No waiting room.
In illusion clinic.

One year ago
"Our ISP is unilaterally dismissing us. I guess I'm glad because their service is awful. But what to switch to and how to do it seamlessly?"

Two years ago
"I'm thinking of giving up the journal again. I think that if I didn't do the journal that I would work on other things. Books I mean to write, getting my office in order, working on our finances, learning more about putting Web pages together and digital photography and video. It's like an essay I was reading by Anne Fadiman about mail. She quotes Hemingway writing to Fitzgerald as saying, 'Such a swell way to keep from working and yet feel you've done something.' The thing is: is my other possible 'work' somehow better than these entries? "