BUSY, BUSY, BUSY

 

When other people say how busy they are, I translate that to mean how important and productive they must be and how much stuff they must get accomplished on a regular basis. I rarely feel as busy as everybody else is. Maybe because “busy” for me means sitting all day in sweatpants in a writing haze periodically feeding my muse with peanut m&m’s. I’m not out in the world like all the rest of the busy people getting it done. But today – a Saturday, no less – I found myself very busy for a change. So I decided to dissect my day so I can give myself some recognition for everything I’d surely gotten accomplished. Maybe a Type A personality has been hiding all this time under the comfy Sherpa blanket I use while binge-watching Bravo. Maybe busy is the new me!

Well, let’s see. This is how today went down:

7:00 AM. My 12-year-old son, Harry, wakes up on his own, ergo I should be awake, too, so he plops on my bed. Carl the cat joins us. I’m starting to feel like I’m in a page of The Napping House.

Harry feeds Carl then announces he’s doing his math homework before breakfast “to get it done.” I suspect aliens have switched my son, but I like this version, so I go with it.

He refuses to give up his summer wardrobe even though it’s 54 degrees out. The aliens have returned him.

8:45ish. Drop him off at the UCONN program for kids who like engineering. This is the first day and I am shocked we are on time.

Go home and revel in the fact that I am up and showered so early on a Saturday. So now I have 3 hours to get started on the (hopefully) final read-through of my manuscript. Let me just get a couple of things taken care of…

9:15ish. Put a load of laundry in, clean litterbox, take the “new” dehumidifier that’s been sitting in the basement since June out of its box so maybe it’ll get used, pay some bills.

Make myself a nice breakfast since I have so much time. Post a photo of nice breakfast on Facebook.  

Watch 10 minutes of Pioneer Woman. Can’t believe I’ve only seen it twice in the last year and a half and yet I’ve seen the re-run that they’re showing now.

10:30ish. How can it be 10:30 already? Remind myself I was going to start reading my manuscript.

Realize I haven’t printed out my manuscript. Begin printing. Old, slow printer. Try to recycle and use the backs of paper I’ve already used. Paper jam. Fix. Re-start. It prints from beginning. Push every button to get it to stop. Paper jam. Insert page numbers. Re-start. Printed manuscript in hand.

11:00ish. Too late to read manuscript. Run to Olympia Sports for some overpriced heel inserts before picking up Harry. My bum foot will need them walking hundreds of miles at The Big E fair tomorrow. (Ok, maybe not hundreds, but without the insert it will feel like it.)

At Olympia Sports and I suddenly remember that I bought gel inserts when I was at CVS the other day. Also remember that I left the clothes in the washing machine at home.

Run home to stick clothes in dryer.

11:30ish. Search for house key I JUST used to open the door. 

11:45ish. Find house key in the bottom of my sunglasses case. 

Now I'm late. Drive like a banshee to get Harry.

Not late. Pick up Harry.

            Me: “So what did you do for your first class?”

            Harry: “We just made some prosthetics.”

            Me: “Starting off slow, are you?”

Drive all the way to Rockville library, the only library that has a copy of the fiction book he left at school that he has homework on. He looks around for books to take out. He decides to choose only from the oversized section.

1:00ish. Leave with 32 pounds of books.

Stop by a craft fair to see a friend who was selling some products made by Harry’s art teacher. Coasters sold out, but lovely chat with my friend.

1:30ish. Head to Harry’s beloved Swap Shop at the Transfer Station (read: Dump) so we can continue to live in the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s. He picks out albums for his record player, cassette tapes for his recorders, plus movies for his most recent under $6 Salvation Army acquisition: a state-of-the-art 1990’s VHS player. He picks up some classic movies and fills a large plastic bag with stuff he “needs.” I tell him he certainly doesn’t “need” any of it, while asking the volunteer for a box for the Christmas breakables I’m taking home. On the way out, he takes as many old National Geographics as he can carry. (If you’re looking for a Nat Geo magazine from 1968-‘72, we’ve probably got it.)

On the fourth trip from car to house to bring everything in, I wonder if the neighbors will recommend us for TLC’s Hoarders.

2:00ish. Late lunch on the deck. Beautiful fall day in the 60’s. Harry rubs his goosebumps throughout lunch, unwilling to acknowledge he’s chilly in his shorts and t-shirt.

Harry plays with swap shop loot. I text with my sister in NY who just completed her first 5k and finished 2^nd in her age group. She literally just took up running 3 weeks ago. I pause scanning the pantry for dessert and vow to train for a 5k. Ooh, ‘Nilla wafers. What was I saying about running?

Walk to the pond behind our house so Harry can play in the mud with the frogs and I can do some meditating. “Mom, look at this frog.” “Mom, look at this wall of sand I built to make this stream.” “Mom, look at these bugs in the sand.” “Mom, look at…”

 No meditating. 

 

Back to the house to do the rest of his homework. On a weekend! Blasphemous.

4:30ish. Is it nap time yet? 

Fresh air from the open French doors is making Carl frisky. Play time with kitty.

Take the very wrinkled clothes out of the dryer from this morning.

5:15ish. Wonder if late lunch is enough justification for a cereal dinner.

Some computer down time for Harry. For me, wash dishes from lunch and prep for tomorrow’s trip to the Big E.

Guilt and hunger win over laziness. I make fish tacos for dinner.

7:00ish. Loveseat. Sherpa blanket. Harry. Carl. Me.

            Me: “Are we going to the movies to see Storks tonight?”

            Harry: “And leave the house?”

            Me: “You’re right.”

            Carl: “Purrrr…”

Carl, also Type A

BACHELOR IN PARADISE: THE EENY MEENY MINY MOE OF MARRIAGE

       Bachelor in Paradise! How have I never seen this show before? I've been watching it this season because I'm single now and when I go out, it’s only to buy cat food and bird seed, so my evenings are relatively free for new TV shows.

       The show’s premise is this: Some decent looking twenty-somethings from past seasons of The Bachelor/Bachelorette who learned zero relationship lessons on those shows get drunk daily on a Mexican beach together. Every day or two a new person joins them so there is never an even ratio of men to women. If the new guy or girl is cuter than the guy or girl they just spent the day before with, they are suddenly in a new relationship. It's like the whole of your twenties dating life condensed into three weeks. I have to say, being 50 never felt so good.

       Of course, this being a Bachelor franchise, there are rose ceremonies hosted by Chris Harrison. This is where paradise turns into hell for the ones who haven’t made a “connection” (i.e., they’re not as good looking as the person who just arrived). They are publicly told that no one wants them, and they are forced to leave Mexico immediately. You have to wonder how many women’s nightmares Chris Harrison shows up in. 

       The ones who are lucky enough to have found their soulmate based on the sheer fact that filming is coming to an end, get the delight of spending their last night in the fantasy suite. This is the show’s way of announcing that the couples will be having sex, which adds to the humiliation of the ones who get broken up with the next day. Because the final day is when they either break up or they get engaged. Because that's what the natural next step is, right? Nineteen days of making out on the beach and then a proposal or else we’re done. As one of the women put it, “If we don’t get engaged, we’re probably not going to make it.” Huh?

       The epiphanies continued the morning after the fantasy suite. One of the guys decided after getting matching tattoos of their combined names that maybe they should think things through a bit more. One woman said, “It was great having breakfast in bed together and finally being a normal couple.” Breakfast in bed is not a normal couple activity. Eating dry cereal for breakfast because the last of the milk is souring in his cereal bowl from the night before is more like it.

       Nonetheless, with Neil Lane handing out free diamond rings, three of the six couples got engaged. With such a solid foundation, I am certain they will make it to the alter and live happily ever after. The update confirmed it. After two whole months, all three were still going strong. As one of the guys said before he proposed, “I thought I knew what true love was in the past. But I didn’t. This is true love.” It’s kind of like what I say every time I start a new diet. “I thought the ones in the past would work out. But they didn’t. This one’s for real.”

       There was one guy who just couldn’t commit to the woman who declared her love for him. He had to break it off because he feels “too damaged to love anyone.” So what happened to him? They announced that he’s going to be the next Bachelor, of course! Why break just one woman’s heart when 28 more have signed up?