The last nice day

I feel like a raving lunatic. It’s funny because all the things that I might think made me feel this way were okay as they happened. Not ideal, but okay. A bunch of cooking was going on and there was a baby in the kitchen. It was an overly ambitious project on what’s going to be the last beautiful day for a while.

Donny was going out to Dad’s to work on Ian’s new washer/dryer, and I thought his mom might go out for the ride. I told her, “The weather’s going to turn tomorrow.” But she was determined. In one of those moods where she’s got something on her mind to get done and that’s all there is to it. So I calmly adjusted my expectations and did whatever I was asked in that way you can have of going about things when you don’t know what you’re doing. Just following instructions.

The dish being made sounds like shish luban and Katie wanted it done because she had so much luban in her fridge and it had been made for the purpose of creating this dish, and too much time had gone by (in her estimation) since it was made. So I stirred the luban for about two hours. Katie wanted to relieve me. She said, “That’s a monotonous task.” I said “I’m good at monotony.” Anyway, that went fine even if it was a little chaotic (Cheerios spilt on the floor and crying and yelling and stuff like that).

Then I came home to the beautiful day and the quiet house and didn’t want to leave but I’d told my mom I’d stop by for a couple of things having to do with a shower we’re giving this weekend and from there my plan was to grocery shop. Mom was thinking ahead to all the things we might need – the work to be done, and the TV trays and all that, and I was feeling anxious to get going, which I hate about myself. When I finally got out of there (it was only a half hour or so) I started to rebel about going to the store but had to because Donny’s got corned beef in the crock pot and I said I’d get cabbage and carrots. I’d planned all day to do my shower shopping since I had to go to the store anyway, but by then I thought, “Hell, the weather’s going to turn tomorrow. If I just run in for the cabbage and carrots I can still get a little of the day.”

Of course, the wait in line was one of the longest ever. The woman in front of me with a nametag pinned to her shirt was obviously just off of work and not about to let me go in front of her with my two items. I got in one of my “I hate this” moods, which I get into often in grocery stores, and I was truly appalled that there wasn’t a single express lane for a person like me. I was really pissed to be having to plan my afternoon around food in the first place, even while it crossed my mind to be appreciative of how seldom I have to do it.

I think grocery shopping is much more of a chore than it used to be. Maybe it’s not, but it seems so.

Got home, grated and chopped the carrots as fast as I could, threw in the potatoes that I’d washed yesterday, thinking we were going to have the meal for St. Patrick’s day, which didn’t turn out due to the lateness of the time by which we got started on it, and then calmed down just a tad as I walked the carrot shavings out to the compost pile, which hasn’t been turned since last year. But at least I was out the door.

Then I thought I’d sit in the sun by the back steps since there wasn’t much of it left and the falderal of carting things out to the cabin, where it’s not nearly as sunny, seemed as if it would be wasted effort given the hour (ALREADY 4:00!!). But I couldn’t see the laptop screen at all in the sun, and so I made the trip, and have been typing furiously since, just because I can, with the cabin door open and Sam chewing sticks in front of it.

Whew! It takes a lot to get myself un-riled up – which I got somewhere during the day for no particular reason except maybe a combination of reasons and that feeling of wasting a day that’s going to be the last nice day for a while (according to those in the know). It’s 60 degrees and tomorrow will be 40. That’s enough reason to put everything off that you can…and to not spend ten minutes in the grocery line for TWO ITEMS. (I am in a "typing with caps” kind of mood).

Joe Soucheray (a regular columnist for my daily paper) wrote a column years back about the horror of summer weekends when you try to get in about 25 things so that you can relax. That’s what it reminded me of. Living with a rush that you can’t help but feel.

But I’m far too familiar with it. I do it all the time. Rushing to my quiet room as if I can’t wait another minute to get there, overly stimulated like a kid with one of those labels, but one who knows that they’ll calm down if they can just turn it all off for a while.

Why writing feels like turning it all off I can’t say. You’d think you’d sit in the sun on the back steps after going through such conniptions about being out in it, and it being gone tomorrow and all that, but there’s a need in me to get it out, to just blow my mind through my fingers the way emptying a stuffed nose into a hanky clears my head. And to be perfectly honest I feel deprived if I can’t get my hour for this somewhere in my day. Add it being the last nice day of the month to the mix and you can maybe see where I’m coming from…or not. Doesn’t matter. I feel better.