Weekend Plans: Small Pleasures
When I was a little kid, my mom sometimes had us get into pajamas that were fresh out of the dryer. This is something that only happened in the wintertime but, lemme tell ya, you’re shivering after getting out of the bath and drying off and you put on some footie pajamas that came out of the dryer hot enough to make the zipper almost too hot to touch?
For my birthday, one of the things I got was a new pair of slippers and these are the slippers that are all furry inside. When they’ve been worn about a year, you can wear them with socks but, when they’re fresh out of the box, they only fit if you take your socks off. And I’m wearing them now. That’s one of those things that makes having a birthday worthwhile.
There’s the joy of hopping into a bed with freshly changed sheets within an hour or two after taking a shower. Maribou is out of town this week (visiting friends in Montreal) and so I changed the sheets a couple of days early and it was absolute bliss. Tempted to do it again on Saturday.
And it snowed today! First snow of the year! So I gave myself a small treat of throwing my favorite hoodie into the dryer as I went upstairs to make dinner and, by the time I was done, I was pretty cold so I came downstairs and put on a hoodie fresh from the dryer. Aaaaaah.
Such very small things but, seriously, you put three or four of them together, you might not mind so much when you are batchin’ it for a week or so.
Which is what I am doing this weekend: Batchin’ it. I’m planning on leaving the house because I got a new board game for my birthday as well and I am looking forward to playing that (and posting about it next week)… but I am thinking that I don’t need to do the Petsmart or Costco runs this weekend. I’ll get groceries, sure… but the big expeditions can wait a week. This’ll be about sitting in the cold basement with the cats under a blanket that just came out of the dryer.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Featured image is “IMG_3664crop” by jbreitling. Used under a creative commons license.)
Yes, definitely. Sometimes the small pleasures are the only thing you have to hang on to in a world where everything is changing (and not for the better). For me, it’s getting done with the weekly shopping and having enough food in the house that I won’t have to brave the stores for another week. Or some chilly Saturday when I don’t have to go into the office and can make baked beans from scratch or some other “very slow cooking” sort of thing. Or loading up the bed with blankets when it finally gets cold enough to need them. Or receiving something you ordered in the mail, that’s a big thing for me these days.
Cold rain here this morning, though it’s supposed to be sunny (but fall-cool) tomorrow. I didn’t go antiquing last week because both cities I would have gone to were having “fall festivals” that would have meant crowds and difficult parking, so I think I will go this week. Not sure what else I might do but at least (a) I don’t have to go in to my office and (b) I won’t have to mow the lawn.Report
I admit to kinda liking grocery shopping. The zen to be found in wandering up and down the aisles, the small bursts of surprise and delight when I find that a particular apple is back or the blackberries are on sale.
I saw a meme on the twitters that said “I am ‘I am angry when they rearrange the grocery store’ years old” and I felt that in my gut.
(Checkout is awful, but checkout has always been awful.)Report
It’s not so much the shopping that troubles me; it’s the other customers. I’ve seen people playing tonsil-hockey in Frozen Foods, I’ve seen couples in screaming fights, I once saw a 10 year old boy berating his mother and calling her “stupid” because they didn’t go to a different store that sold the brand of whatever he preferred.
And yes, I am DEFINITELY “I am angry when they rearrange the store” years old, I have always been that old.Report
So, funny story. On Tuesday, the wife and I were settled in for the evening; reading, watching a little TV. All of a sudden she looks up from her phone and asks me, fairly pointedly, “Do you know what day it is?”
“Er Tuesday?”
“No, what date it is?”
So I reach for my laptop, check the date.
“It’s October the eighthhhhhohshit. Happy anniversary babe.”
We had both forgot. And it was only because she had set a reminder on her phone that we knew at all. So, tonight which is normally date night will be ramped up to semi-special date night. Fourteen years goes by in a flash.
I have been repainting the trim on my house, but as the temps have dropped lately, I think I am done for the year on that, so I will move on to inside projects. Next on that list is refinishing the stairs. 100 years of scrapes, scuffs, glue from when they were carpeted, etc. All that takes a toll.Report
Congrats!Report
Congrats!
(The first anniversary for Maribou and I, we had to dig out our marriage certificate because we couldn’t remember if we got married on the 26th or on the 28th. (We knew it was one of those.))Report
Yeah, we had to check various calendars at times. “is it the eighth or tenth?””I don’t know…”Report
So what y’all are telling me (life long single person here) that the sitcom trope of “one spouse or the other gets angry when the other spouse forgets what day the anniversary is on” is mostly a lie?
And that it’s not at all uncommon for BOTH to forget?
If something slightly less likely than a meteor striking the earth happens and I do marry, this will be a useful thing to remember. (I am pretty good at remembering dates but also pretty good at not getting upset when people around me forget “important” ones)Report
There is a point at which we ask “what did I get you for your birthday?” and “was it good?”Report
Heh. Yeah, after fourteen years, life kinda gets in the way. I guess one person could be really into it, or if there is an issue in the marriage it might wallpaper over it, and so on. But when things are good, and my marriage is pretty good, those things that you do to show love, like buying her flowers on rough days, showing up with some beer for him, whathaveyou, happen because you know the time is right, not the date on the calendar.
It’s kinda like when your car is running great, you are on a favorite road and that one song comes on the radio, and you just realized that all of your shifts were perfect, because you just weren’t thinking about it.Report
It probably depends. We remember, and we just had our twentieth this summer. Birthdays we may go out to eat, but we usually don’t make a big deal of them because we tend to buy stuff that we want during the year. I’m sure not having children is part of this, as we can focus on us.Report
A really nice cool front arrived this morning, well embraced, as yesterday was 92F. Sis said it was snowing up north yesterday. I guess it’s cool enough to do some metal work, and plant some beets. Maybe go for a walkabout.Report
Some Jack O Lantern walking tour in upstate New York then apple picking on Sunday followed by my first Columbus Day off of work in more than a dog’s year. I am hoping to hear from one or two redheads, but then again I am hoping to win the lottery. Fortunately the former is more likely.Report