no idle in idyllic

With my wife keeping me updated on grandbaby Zander from the other side of the country,  I have a little less than a week to keep it together while bachelor’n’ it!   In the last couple evenings, I had reached the last shred of ‘get up and go’, only hoping to make it to Saturday.  Yet there are a few things keeping me from a “sleeping in” weekend.  Two of these are Comet and Dexter.

Sheri joked with me before she left whether I would get bored with her off visiting.   Or would I hang out with the neighbor and drink a few cervezas.   That might have been a possibility but for my compulsive behavior to be “doing something” constructive.  After a few days of things piling up – I’ve had either tasks, work, commuting or church-activities  every day – in between starting the laundry and folding clothes,  I wanted to simply put the dishes away that were in the dish strainer.

That’s when my compulsion kicked in.   We have a cupboard that is half filled with plastic containers – we are always taking lunch or putting meal leftovers or cut vegetables into containers during the week.   But I almost never can find the right lid to go with the right container, or I find one but not the other.

So,  with the dishes done and waiting on the laundry,  I emptied the cupboard and matched every container with every lid — and here is what is “worse” – I NUMBERED each lid with its corresponding container.   Yep.  I’m “that” guy.

Now as I sit here,  with towels hanging in matched sets with hand-towel and washcloth, in the bathroom,  dishes arranged by sizes, and matched glassware styles with each other,  I am reminded of that old movie with Julia Roberts where she has that scary husband she ran away from  – the one with the obsessively neat towels? !    But I am not that guy.  There’s too much clutter and disorganization in the rest of my life (all self-caused) to ever demand perfection of anyone.

So this weekend may be less than relaxing.   I have an after-church picnic lunch Sunday that I am going out today to pick up supplies.   I am bringing something “Polynesian”, so I thought about cooking up some SPAM.  But since I have never eaten spam with anything other than eggs ( there was about a year as a starving college student that introduced me to the mystery meat),  I think looking up SPAM recipes are next.   Or I can do the weasel-thing and just have the Hawaiian BBQ place in town make me something to bring.

I thought whatever happened to “idle” in idyllic?

With the laundry done, folded, and put away, dishes washed, cupboards rearranged, trash emptied, and dogs walked (our routine Saturday hike),  I am planning to spend time with my youngest son over lunch.

And then the other half of my day continues.