Today's Pointless Activity

It is Ellen’s birthday this coming weekend, which I used as an excuse to shop for and create a pointless craft.  At some point in my youth, I heard the aphorism “Time that you enjoy wasting isn’t wasted time.”  I have really taken this to heart over the last 40 years or so.

I spent the morning cleaning for the cleaning ladies.  I used to feel guilty about paying ladies to clean my house. Then I read an Alexander McCall Smith book set in Botswana, in which the wise protagonist Precious Ramotswe chides her neighbor for being rich enough to provide others with work and not doing so.

It’s not that I’m too lazy to clean my own house - I’m sharing my wealth!  But I can’t let the ladies think I am a slovenly housekeeper, so I spend hours making sure there isn’t any dirty underwear lying about or crusty pots on the stove, etc. etc.

I used to leave the dog at home with the ladies but he has developed anxiety about the vacuum cleaner which causes him to empty his bladder on the staircase, so now I have to take him with me to run errands.

He travels in the back of my Cadillac in his crate.  We think that the dog’s consciousness  effectively winks out of existence while he is in the crate.  He doesn’t make a sound and I tend to forget he’s back there.

I took the dog home once the ladies were safely gone and then I went to a Michael’s craft store.  For me, being in Michael’s is kind of like the dog being in the crate.  I was in there for nearly three hours, as if time had become suspended as I wandered around idly thinking about crafts.

My ostensible purpose was to buy a “substrate” for my collage of doll pictures, but I got way more than that.  I wonder if it is physically possible for me to live long enough to finish all the projects I’ve started…

I bought Amy a whittling kit, because that is the sort of thing she enjoys.  We had a pleasant family evening eating polenta, watching the Bachelor, drinking white wine, and crafting.

I did finish my gift for Ellen, and I hope she likes it.