I'd forgotten the importance of Saturdays to people with full-time jobs. Of course, not all full-timers have the luxury of Saturdays anymore, which is a doleful thought. However, speaking as a former freelancer, having a Monday to Friday job gives Saturday a golden glow.
Not that Saturdays are work-free. Saturdays are now for housework, but this has become easier since I began the Great Tidy, inspired by Marie Kondo. As usual, I have come late to a cultural sensation. Just as now I have a MacBook Pro and an iPhone, I have read The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up. That is, I skimmed half of it at the bookstore, and then listened to the audiobook on my new-to-me iPhone.
I am hoping for some life-changing magic, but so far I have only gone through my clothes and books and a fair number of papers. Miscellaneous stuff will be a challenge, but in the meantime, I pick things up and stuff them on the pile by the attic stairs (to go down and out; we live in an attic). Sometimes a kind friend with a car comes by and takes the stuff away to charity shops. This is wonderful, and worth the interruption of my work day, should the kind friend arrive mid-week.
My work day begins at 9, more or less. I had a lovely idea that I was going to work 11 - 7, which would reasonably overlap the editors' Eastern Standard time (a morning person, I drew the line at working 2 PM - 10 PM). I'm an early riser, so I looked forward to spending a few hours in the morning studying languages.
However, thanks to doctors' home visits, plumbers, electricians, medical emergencies, Holy Days of Obligation, and sheer exhaustion, I have finally worked out that it is better to start journalism at 9 AM and aim to finish around 7 PM, except on Wednesdays (Polish class 9 AM) and Thursdays (Italian class 9:30 AM). That way, it doesn't matter so much if there is an extensive mid-day interruption. (Language study has to be stuffed into odd corners of the day.)
"It's too late," said Benedict Ambrose yesterday when, at 7:30 PM, I rousted him out of bed for some exercise. An update on Joe Baklinski reveals that Joe, despite being in great pain, his muscles turned to mincemeat, gets out of bed constantly to see what his family is up to. Benedict Ambrose is the exact opposite. He would lie in bed all day long listening to BBC 4 in the dark if I didn't pop into the room at intervals to open the shutter; bring food; transmit news; bring the post; get him out of bed to exercise, to wash, to greet visitors. He responds to attempts to drag him from bed with complaints, then apologies and finally thanks. It's exhausting.
Exercise is usually walking around and around the front lawn, which is bounded by a big stone wall, a gateway delicately barred by a chain, and some woods. People walk their dogs in the woods and, if badly brought up, gawk at B.A. and me as we make our painful way around the quad. B.A. wears a thick white terrycloth bathrobe with a hood, so he looks rather like a Carthusian monk--to me, that is. I doubt the gawkers could pick a Carthusian monk out of a line-up.
B.A. hates being stared at, so the best time to go for walks is at 5 PM, which is when we know the House will be clear of staff and visitors, but the woods haven't yet filled up with dog-walkers. Naturally it is awful having to leave my desk when I am in the middle of an article I desperately want to finish, but that is the way it is--unless it is too cold. Yesterday afternoon was terribly cold, so after I went to the office in the Historical Stable Block for the post, my conscience allowed me to keep my head down until 7:30 PM, when I filed a piece about Cardinal Burke's proposed correction of Pope Francis, and went to see B.A.
B.A., a living skeleton, was curled up in bed under the duvet.
"It's too late," he protested when I told him it was time to get up.
"It's not too late," I said. "But you don't have to go outside. It's too cold. We are doing something else today."
"Something else" was a few very gentle warm-up exercises and the rowing machine. Complaining mildly and asserting that he couldn't even sit down in the rowing machine, B.A. sat down and, to our mutual amazement, rowed 20 strokes. It turns out he has some strength in his arms (and back) after all, which is astonishing.
Having rowed, he then sat on the sofa wrapped up in a duvet and watching "Celebrity MasterChef" on BBC iPlayer while I went to the kitchen and made potato pancakes (aka latkes aka placki ziemniaczane). Then, as B.A. was still willing to eat, I made an almond flour cake and custard to pour over it. Finally, I washed the dishes and swept the kitchen floor.
So yesterday worked out very nicely after all, and I was very moved to discover that more of you donated to the Joe Baklinski fund. I don't know why it is, but I am intensely sentimental about Catholic dads of eight who get hurt on the job. Maybe it's because my dad is a Catholic dad of five. If a wall had fallen on my dad, we kids would have been out of our minds with worry and fear---and he wasn't a self-employed stonemason. Until April, when he finally retired, he was a briefcase-carrying professor backed up by a fire-breathing union.
Meanwhile, I have already taken out the trash and the recycling, so before I get back to my Saturday cleaning tasks, I will begin to memorise a beautiful list of Polish trees and flowers. Hitherto my tutor has given me useful "Catholic" words and phrases (objawienie, for example, means revelation) useful to my new job. Thus I am curious as to why she has prioritised trees and flowers. Still it's a nice treat, if impractical.
Update: Although clearly married life has tremendous challenges when something goes terribly wrong--even when it is nobody's fault--it still feels better than being Single-and-unvowed-with-no-one-but-oneself-to-care-for because the point of Christian life is service, and when your spouse is chronically ill, it is almost impossible not to serve. Service is built right-in.
Meanwhile, being too busy also feels better than not being busy enough. One thing that has fallen by the wayside since B.A.'s diagnosis is my anti-depressant pill. For whatever reason, my brain seems to be churning out serotonin like a luxury chemistry set. Although I occasionally feel lonely, I sleep like a baby.
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