Idle hands

I’m not sure what the quote, “Idle hands are the devil’s playthings” means, because I have idle hands these days and they are often very creative and doing work for good.  I’m sewing again!  I’m knitting again!

Now, truth be told, I suppose I could be sewing warm little sweat suits for starving, poor children or I could be knitting scarves (I haven’t mastered mittens and/or hats yet) for the homeless – but I am making spiffy things for me and a scarf for Marty and I’ve started an afghan for my living room.  I probably won’t finish it until 2013, or I’ll run out of yarn and realize it isn’t big enough to be a real afghan and the store won’t have more of the yarn anymore so it’ll be some weird-sized lap blanket, but my intentions are good.  I think perhaps I should go buy more of the yarn while they still have it and I have coupons and it’s on sale.

I must say I’ve sewn some phenomenal skirts and tops that I’m quite enjoying.  And God knows, everyone needs spiffy casual skirts and tops for lounging around the house watching TV.  That’s when I get out of my PJs at all.

That sounds sort of sad and depressing, but not so.  I get out of my PJs some days.  For instance, on the days when I finish a new skirt or top, I almost always put them on for a few hours before it’s PJ-time again.

Here’s the thought that has been confounding me a good bit while I’ve been unemployed.  I know that at some point, my unemployment will run out and I’ll have to get a job (Wal-Mart Greeter or BJ’s Receipt-Checker, perhaps), but what do people do with their time once they retire?  I know that some get busy traveling or playing golf or playing Bridge or Mah Jong or – well, with something, but there must be an awful lot of puttering involved in being retired.

It’s hard to imagine unemployment with no end date.  Correction: with a permanent end date, but no one wants to think of it that way.  I mean, once you retire, that’s it.  You’re done working.  Now, my dad did the retirement thing for a while and eventually, he decided to opt for a part-time job at a golf course instead of actually golfing.  And it’s been great for him.  He’s 79 years young and he works three or four times per week and it’s really good for him and he enjoys it.  I wonder when he’s going to retire again.

The funny thing is that I think that will be me.  I think when I’m done working, I’ll take some time off to putter and then I’ll get a job at Target part-time.  Target is, of course, my happy place.  It’s the magical place where I go to meander the well-lit aisles of variety and quality products at reasonable prices.  Marty and I went to a Wal-Mart (do they call it a “Super” Wal-Mart or a Wal-Mart “Super Center” when it has a food center too?) in Plymouth last weekend and I must admit that, although I did not reach the level of nirvana of Target, I quite enjoyed the variety of products at reasonable prices.  And they had a pair of jeans that fit me!  What?  No, really.  They did.  For $18.  I still don’t believe it either, so you don’t have to believe it.

Everyone should have a happy place.  Where is your happy place?  Actually, everyone should have more than one happy place.  I have many.  Siesta Beach in Sarasota, Florida, is my other “nature” happy place.

And one of the best things right now in my life is that my home is one of my happy places.  I’ve lived in houses that I liked.  I lived in houses I hated.  I’ve lived in houses about which I am indifferent.  But this is the first house that is a happy place.  I love my house.

So, I think the person who said that “Idle hands are the devil’s playthings” just didn’t have happy places and/or didn’t know how to play with himself.

You gotta know how to play with yourself.

And you can take that any way you choose . . .

Quiet time

Life is noisy.  It hasn’t always been noisy for me, but it’s gotten much noisier in recent years.  It’s easier to find quiet time when you live alone – or at least have a good bit of alone time.  Except that, in this hustly-bustly world these days, even when you’re alone, it can be difficult to quiet the noise in your head.

This is the first Saturday morning without bowling since last summer.  Bowling isn’t like so many other youth sports that have a season which correlates with a weather season.  Youth bowling leagues start in early September and go until May.  And for us, there are tournaments which always occur on Sundays all over New England.  So, today is unusual for that reason – no bowling league.  But also, today is the state bowling tournament and Spencer moved to a different league this year and they prefer to do their states all in one day instead of staying over night and splitting the games up over two days.  So, he’s bowling nine games in one day and he got a ride with a friend.  Mixed feelings here.  I’ve always been at states with him – in fact all tournaments, pretty much.  But I didn’t have to drive two hours in thunderstorms to Shrewsbury. So I’m counting it as a win for me.

Which brings me to my quiet time.  Marty is golfing (yes, in the rain) in a tournament this morning.  Spencer is gone for the entire day at a bowling tournament.  It’s Saturday morning.  And I am completely alone in my home with my doggies and old cat.  Nice.  Very nice.

I caught up on recorded shows on the DVR for a while.  I heated up some of last night’s leftover pork dumplings with ginger sauce (Friday night Chinese takeout – yum) for breakfast.  Then I turned the tv off and turned the heat up to 72 and sat in the living room for a spell.  It’s in the fifties outside and it’s not that it’s cold in here, but no one else is home to share an opinion about the temperature and I wanted it toasty warm.  It’s raining steadily now – after a couple of good bouts of thunder – love it.  And I listened to the quiet.

Then my mind got up to no good and started chattering like a 4-year-old after cotton candy and soda.  So I decided I needed to put myself in time out and I moved to a different chair.  I always sit in my spot on the couch.  Everyone has their one spot.  We all live with assigned seating.  Come on, you know you only sit in one spot in your living room, one chair in your kitchen or dining room, one side of the bed at night.  And if another family member trespasses by taking your spot, it’s disconcerting.

So, I moved to a chair across the room where no one usually sits.  When I sat down, all three of my pets lifted their heads and looked at me for a moment as if to say, “Hey, what are you doing over there?  What’s happening?  Do we need to be on alert for something new, exciting and different?”  Then they must have decided “not so much” and they went back to snoozing.  And I noticed how beautiful our Red Maple tree looks in full leavage (that’s what I’m calling it even though I’m sure there’s a proper word and I just can’t think of it).  It’s deep, red leaves are glistening with raindrops and the color set off perfectly against the bright green leaves of a bush behind it.  This time of year a lot of the green leaves are still that vibrantly, unnaturally neon lime color of green because they are young and newish and morning rain and late afternoon rain makes that green look almost electric to me.

Now that my chattering 4-year-old has left, and I came in to write this post to my blog, I spun my stool around to face the back yard for a moment and watched these two little birdies [fill in the blank on the type of bird, because I’m clueless] popping in and out of a bird house.  I only bought this bird house for decorative purposes a million years ago and used to keep it on top a shelf in my living room but now Marty set it out on the deck railing and lo and behold, these two little birds (Frederick and Lolita) have taken up residency (no rent, no lease, no security deposit!) and they are a blast to watch.

Frederick and Lolita always look so busy and intense.  I hope they find quiet time in their new home like I have.

Where is everybody going?

Don’t you all remember the lesson we learned when we watched The Wizard of Oz?  There’s no place like home (and by “home” I mean these great United States of America).  There is this pervasive notion that you are not evolved, cool, educated, cultured, intelligent or open-minded if you don’t struggle to contain your wanderlust to travel the globe each and every day.

We have an absolutely beautiful, diverse, amazing country folks.  Really.  You don’t have to go across the ocean to see something beautiful.  We have oceans, glaciers, dormant volcanoes, mountains, lakes (Great Lakes in fact), rivers (The Mighty Mississippi among others), valleys, deserts, cities, flatlands, badlands, wine country, huge redwoods, cacti, cowboys and Indians, country mice and city mice.  And other than Miami, everyone speaks English.

As kids, my family took a vacation every year.  We traveled all over this country.  Mostly by car, once or twice by airplane, and we saw most of the country.  I certainly didn’t think it was the bee’s knees at the time.  It just was.  There were some trips I remember being more excited about than others (spending a week at a “dude ranch” in Colorado, Disney Land, Disney World, first trip on an airplane – one of the “new” DC-10 Pub Planes, I remember), but in the end, they were all memorable and wonderful experiences.  I didn’t know how lucky I was to have had such a wonderful opportunity to see this country.  One of the best vacations we took was when we drove to Framingham, Massachusetts to visit some old friends of my parents.  They had 4 children who flanked my brother’s and my ages and we stayed at their house.  We went into Boston and to some horrible beach where the water was freezing and the big, nasty, evil, green-headed flies swarmed like – well, like flies, and tore chunks of our bare flesh from our bones until we bled . . . oh.  Well, not quite, but they bit us.  A lot.  We were supposed to leave after a week and go on to New York or some other exotic destination (the plans were never fully clear to me), but my dad got bit by some other nasty, evil bug and he suffered some sort of staph infection in his leg that rendered him unable to travel, so we stayed another week or ten days with our friends.  During that time, I rode a bike that was much too big for me and upon turning a corner with too much road dirt and gravel, the front wheel skidded out from under the bike and I wiped out, lodging a stone in my knee.  I still sport the scar.  By the time we all piled back in our car to pull out of the driveway and head back home to Illinois, every one of us was crying.

And that vacation was in Framingham, Massachusetts!  Not exotic Pompeii or the Fiji Islands or Morocco or the hills of Scotland (are there hills in Scotland – or is it the hills of Ireland?  Whatever).  And when we were in Framingham, Massachusetts, for the most part we stayed in Framingham, Massachusetts, at the house of some friends.  Best childhood vacation I can remember.  I’m not suggesting everyone pack up and vacation in Framingham, Massachusetts.  I swear I’m not.

And I’m honestly not knocking those people who feel they have to see the world, really.  I think what bothers me the most is this.  So many of these people (and you know who you are) who just “must see the world” and who just “have to see Ireland/Scotland/Greece/Australia/South Africa/Brazil/Thailand/London/France (okay, I’d like to see France cuz the food rocks)/Italy”: have never seen another part of this fabulous country outside of their home state, New York City and Florida.  And if you’re saying “Of course I have.  We drove from [fill in the blank] to Disney World when the kids were 6 and/or Aunt Edna and Uncle Bill live in New Jersey and we go to their house for Thanksgiving every year – God Bless Our Souls” – then it doesn’t count!

I know there’s a whole world out there.  And I think it’s magnificent that if you want to have breakfast in Bulgaria, lunch in Lithuania or dinner in Denmark, you CAN!  That is admittedly very cool.  I think that perhaps the fact that this world has gotten so small and accessible is a double-edged sword.  There is more to experience for sure, but there are down sides too.  The internet has made our world so small that we can meet and fall in love with people halfway around the world and THEN have to figure out how to be together.  Families don’t ever live in the same towns anymore. “The grass is always greener on the side of the [pond]” has permeated our perspective.

For me, traveling is not the easiest thing to do these days – and I’m way, way past the days of being able to carry everything I need in a well-worn backpack.  It’s certainly not the most relaxing way to spend my time.  It’s stressful to deal with making flights on time and passing through security and customs and communicating with cab drivers in foreign languages to get where you need to go.  And the idea of having to figure out how to ask “Where may I urinate?” in Albanian, Bengali, Laotian or Urdu does not a vacation make.   Any day I have to click my tongue to communicate “I don’t eat monkey brains for breakfast” is not a restful day of vacation for me.

I guess I’ve worked really hard, for a really long time to find, create, maintain and love a place I can call home.  And I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of seeing more of my own home country.  I hope I’m not a dying breed.

So, go travelers!  And enjoy your trips.  Be safe and enjoy and please send me a postcard.  And if you find you want to “get away” from your own personal rat race, but don’t have the time or resources to make it to the other side of the globe, I hope you’ll give the good, ol’ US of A a chance.

If you build it . . .

We’ve transformed our hot tub area by adding a gazebo!  Now we can enjoy it rain or shine and keep our towels dry too.  And during the summer when it’s hot, we will enjoy the shade but not the bugs  . . .