Austin, TEXAS, January 13, 2006 — When I was driving home from the gym today, I was thinking of the fire we had last year in the oven (although it still works OK I think) and the smell in the kitchen (from a dead thing under the house?) and how I was going to cook stuff for the party on February 4th if we couldn't get a caterer and the estate sale that was attracting large numbers of cars to Shoal Creek and how I needed to get rid of things. And maybe other things. And I pulled myself up short and said my word for 2006: 'focus.' Just drive, get home.

FFP had talked two guys from the lawn service into crawling under the house and looking for a

source for the odor. They were there when I got home and had just extracted a possum carcass. It seemed pretty far gone, but we think the smell is improving. I don't know how this giant possum got under the house, but there you go. I cleaned out the drawers above the worst odor pathway and got out some baking soda and opened it up and put it where the bottom drawer was.

FFP says he got a caterer for the party so now we can worry about table settings, drinks and directing the caterer and not trying to make two or three courses for twelve people pop out of our kitchen from our efforts. We are sad. Still, I've enjoyed trying to learn to cook and plan to continue my efforts. It was, after all, one of my goals when I retired. If only I could focus on it.

I refocused myself on the table setting side of the party, wondering about tablecloths, decorations, name tags. I even made up a sample place card.

I tried to focus on the opera we went to see tonight. It was Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. I focused on the music, the soap opera of a story (more than other operas even) and the acting. The set and direction had been excoriated by the local paper. I liked the set and direction with the exception of these projection screens which showed random Russian art and stuff. They interfered visually when I glanced up at the supertitles even though those were less necessary than usual given that the English translation was sung. I guess they could have reduced the graphic sexual content, too, but I found it interesting focusing on how they managed to sing 'kiss me, hold me' while the other person was about to do it lustily. It was not unlike focusing on how someone dying of consumption can give a great version of an aria. Other patrons were not delighted. Our seat neighbors left at the intermission. Perhaps they'd planned that all along. The he of the couple seemed perplexed when I told him that it would be an hour and a half until the intermission. He's the same guy who has (1) had a drink in under his coat; and (2) listening to a sports event on earphones at past performances. Not the same performance, but still. Certain people were longing for the chestnuts of Puccini and such at the intermission. But I liked it and the singers and their acting and the music from the pit was really good.

Focus is a good thing. On the way home, nearly to our house, I thought "it's Friday the thirteenth but only for a little while longer since it's eleven o'clock and nothing bad has happened to me."