the procrastinating girl

The Late Show

I was just wondering if procrastinating is a weird form of being late to the party.  Given my psychotic compulsion with time, I am never physically late to anything, but, metaphorically, it's another story.  My birthday doesn't arrive for another three weeks (or rather, seventeen days, three hours and twenty-six minutes), so, as the November baby, I had the baked in pleasure of being the last to qualify for my driver's license.  And then I failed my road test.  Twice.  Other late-comings didn't leave quite the same mark.  I waited until I was a 20-something to allow peanut butter into my world and that took very nicely.  The hot dog I tried back then?  Not so much.  And there's a party to which I was already very late.  It's the tale of the Guess jeans, the ones I was sure my mom bought me for Chanukah circa 1983.  So sure I saved the unopened box until night eight, the grand finale, when I confidently ripped off the blue and silver paper to find, wait, a dictionary.  A dictionary, I should say, that I still own and use.  So I'm laughing as I type this post while stationed at my favorite post.  It's a place with one very small and unabiding lamp, but tonight I'm using this contraption called, um, a booklight?  Zoe has one in hot pink.  Late as always, but tomorrow for the doctor I will be right on time.

Garden Slug

There is an elephant in the room.  And I don't do well with elephants.  I don't mind large animals.  Since childhood, my favorite has been whales.  I find polar bears inordinately adorable.  I even rode a camel once in Israel.  And I did happen to marry a very tall man.  But when it comes to elephants, I have a problem.  I like things in my life to be acknowledged.  Cards on the table.  I have something hanging over my head and each day it goes unresolved, I become less optimistic that it can happen.  It's the garden.  Last year, we had a big, bountiful veggie and herb garden that was tended to by our family.  It was roto-tilled, staked,  fenced, planted and watered.  For the next time, we had plans to compost.  I know!  But, unfortunately, this year we are down a man.  A big man.  My husband had surgery and can't move his right arm.  At all.  So it's basically up to me.  Roto-till?  Is that French for 'strained lower back'?   I am torn and need to decide.  The little ones will start inquiring as soon as the thermometer starts to rise.

Fate Accompli

Yesterday morning I was still inexplicably drawn to my unending spring cleaning projects.  The weather was glorious.  The kids were cooperating.  It had the makings of a perfect Sunday.  Yet those boxes, untouched for the previous 106 weeks that we've lived in this house, needed attention.  So I knelt before them, almost in prayer, to see what they held.  I felt they owed me something.  An Egyptian staff encrusted with jewels?  A yellowed photograph depicting a relative steeped in scandal?  A missing earring?  Well, here's what I got.  The box for my running watch.  A long piece of shoelace.  Unidentifiable electrical cords.  As I sifted through the wreckage dejectedly, the phone rang.  It was Nancy asking if we wanted to go to the city for the afternoon.  Always happy to move on from work, I left my bedroom floor covered in bits and pieces of my own stupid mess.  But I felt no guilt.  No pain.  The park was filled people.  Energy.  Blossoms.  And about an hour into our visit, an old man walked right next to us while holding the hands of two much younger women.  As if I needed further proof that the decision to abandon ship on my cleaning project was a good one, this would have been perfect evidence that there is some such higher being.  My first Woody Allen sighting came on a perfect Spring day.

Spring Cleaning

It's late.  I had intended to start this post earlier, but my house was bombarded with a relentless electrical storm along with golf-ball-sized hail.  Apparently, spring is here.  Aside from the petrifying dose of mother nature, how else can you note the change of seasons?  This morning pre-Grape Nuts, I began to attempt to declutter.  It's truly an annual phenomenon.  And I have to move slowly or I'm liable to pull something.  I started upstairs.  Back in December for Zoe's birthday party, we had moved all the playroom junk up to the office.  And. there. it. has. remained.  The path from door to desk chair had become a life-threatening obstacle course.  Dramatic?  Have you ever mistakenly stepped barefoot on a wooden block?  Oh, it's a world of hurt.  As I was making 'keep' and 'give away' piles, I found a white plastic bag from Target.  Hardly unusual.   This one contained school supplies.  At the beginning of the year, I had bought different notebooks and folders, not knowing exactly what kind Sydney needed and assuming I would return the extras.  Right.  Of course these now unreturnable items can be used in a second by my songwriter-poet-artists-to-be.  I wish I could say the same for the toddler size 7 shoes I found in a bag next to my dresser.  Any takers?

The Domino Effect

I read only a handful of periodicals with regularity (Vanity Fair, Dwell) and subscribe to, well, none.  That all changed a few months ago.  I saw a promo deal for Domino magazine and actually mailed in that flimsy postcard thingy.  Did I affix postage?  That seems unlikely.  But, like magic, I began receiving this wonderful shelter pub right to my door.  God, America is wonderful.  Then, the bill came.  It was tiny, mind you.  Equal to the cost of about eight organic squeezable yogurts.  Or enough oil to heat my house for 27 minutes.  But I had to pay it.  And we know how that goes.  The bill sat.  Waiting.  For attention it never received.  I even felt a minor pang of guilt as I brushed past it to dive onto the couch and delve into the latest copy moments after it arrived.  But, as I found out yesterday, Domino will arrive no longer.  It is shutting down.  I am very, very sad.  Curling up in bed with my laptop to read design blogs just doesn't work quite as well.  But, at the same time, I've found myself in another situation where my laziness has been rewarded.  Not only did I get a free ride for a few months, but those who have pre-paid for a year or (gasp!) two will likely be pawned off on another 'similar' magazine like Architectural Digest.  Similar?  I think not.  I would never have tartan walls.  So, I'm glad to be kept out of that mess.  But I'd still rather have my Domino.

Pump It Up

Please forgive me.  I don't think I've ever gone this long between posts.  But the holiday build-up compounded by the national holiday that is our Miss Zoe Holiday's birthday (yes, we actually named her that) left me pretty overwhelmed.  There was no moving of those dates, no matter how much childish foot-stomping went on in this house (um, that would be mine).  During particularly chaotic times like these, the mundane details typically fall through the cracks here at TPG central.  As they would elsewhere.  Or so I tell myself.  Just the other day a card in the mail reminded me of a certain detail that most certainly can't.  We need to have our septic pumped.  It was last done by the sellers when we bought this house almost two years ago.  Not having your driveway shoveled or your gutters cleaned can be fine.  And with the financial crisis, you can definitely let your lawn go (our landscaper could winter in the United Arab Emirates for what we pay him).  But I don't think this one can slide.  And, yet, I think I've already lost the card.  Won't you be my neighbor?

Clipping Coupons

I am a conscientious consumer.  But now that words like 'depression' are being thrown around to describe our nation's economic state and not our President's mental one, we are all getting a crash course in spending wisely.  Luckily, I don't have very extravagant needs.  I know when items fit within the overall framework of our budget.  I buy things on sale.  All the time.  But I won't go to Costco, because I would probably save $8 buying toothpaste in bulk, but spend an extra $216 on things I don't really need like enough grapefruit to feed North Dakota.  Coupons have also eluded me for years.  But just yesterday, I stumbled upon the worst kind, the folder of expired coupons.  And these were no ordinary $1 off of unscented Tide.  These were special 'Welcome to the Neighborhood' coupons that had been sent to us by local businesses after we moved into our house almost two years ago.  Most of them, like the wine store, were good for only a month afterward.  They went right into the trash.  But one doesn't have an expiration date on it.  And it's for quite a bit of money at a place we happen to frequent.  So, should we give it a shot?   Tackiest thing ever? 

Lag Time

Today is a tough one in terms of TPG housekeeping.  It marks the end of my calendar.  As previously reported, just last week I came to the unexpected and unwanted realization that my datebook was ending.  And end it now has.  But, to quote Maria, who herself was quoting the Reverend Mother, in The Sound of Music, "When one door opens, somewhere there opens a window" (alright, I'm really paraphrasing).  Just this morning, as if on cue, FedEx was kind enough to deposit at my door the wall calendar I had advance-ordered several weeks ago.  My Stendig has arrived!  But it arrived with a hitch.  It doesn't start until January 1st, 2009.  This leaves me languishing in calendar limbo for the next three months.  In the meantime, should I just take notes on the outside of Stendig's huge cardboard tube?  You know it's just going to sit in my hallway until New Year's Eve anyway.

The Sad Truth

Because I need to be quick today.  Because I have nothing to hide.  Because this blog is supposed to spurn me into action.  Here's this morning's post:

Return to Sender

Usually during my day, I realize there's something I need around the house to make it function better, faster, easier.  At times I'm slow on the uptake (it took me years to buy those tongs you use to take corn out of scalding hot water).  Others, the lightbulb is more obvious (my empty living room).  This week, I stumbled across a wonderful addition to my dysfunctional little universe.  Unfortunately, it's not mine.  And I'm late giving it back.  Say hello to my new best friend, the US Postal Service Mail Bin.  When we got back from vacation, we had about 50 pounds of mail through which to sort (about two pounds of it necessary).  It all was handed to me by the bitter-for-no-apparent-reason postwoman (Postal carrier person? She's just postal?) in this clear plastic box.  Once its contents were emptied, it moved naturally to the side of our couch where, I must say, it's a perfect fit in front of our small side table.  And it has already made itself useful, holding discarded catalogs from the post-vacation haul and new ones from this past week.  And I love its modern typeface and clean lines, really a standalone art piece.  Don't you think?