The Fine Art of Idleness

I had every intention of blazing through this weekend. Determination was at the helm of my Friday afternoon when I took off from work an hour early after skipping lunch, and I crash through the front door in a frenzied rush. Work, or maybe my life, is more tense and often when the weekend has arrived you will find me leaping about the house in purple rubber gloves and ammonia in tow. I'm a cleaner. There's no denying it. From baseboards to air vents, I work out my tension on the inevitable dust (and cat hair) which seems to be ever accumulating from sources yet unknown. I have only been living on my own for nine months now, but I have a solid routine; dust, scrub, vacuum, repeat. Of course, these tasks are made even more enjoyable by a somewhat eclectic itunes library turned up at maximum volume (when I say "leap" around the house, I mean literally!). This weekend was no different. As I wiggled about the house, whipping my Swiffer duster with attitude to Aretha Franklin's "Respect", I could feel the tension of the week melting away… until I started vacuuming. That's when the burglar alarm was tripped. If you have never lived alone, I don't know if you can understand the kind of fear I felt. You see, I am very cautious of my safety. The alarm is always set, each door locked thrice, and all windows bolted. And yet, there I stood in the middle of my kitchen alarm blaring, vacuum blasting, and music on high. I froze. Suddenly, my own home was no longer safe to me, and I spent the next few minutes peering around every corner thinking I was just moments away from being assaulted. I reached for my house phone, but couldn't dial out. Even though I had already silenced the alarm, the phone must have been tied up trying to call the alarm company to alert them. By the time I got to my cell phone my hands were shaking so badly, I could barley unlock the screen and speed dial my dad. Of course, he was at my door in no time. What we discovered was that the "glass break" alarm had been tripped, so we went to check out all of the windows. As it turns out, one of the windows was unlatched. I don't know if someone was actually trying to break in or what. I do know that my house is thoroughly locked down now.

Still, I have to say that I have not been so scared in a very long time. The "fight or flight" response must not have been present in my state of panic because I was in more of the "deer in the headlights" mode. So petrified I couldn't even move. I guess it is the utter point of helplessness. I hate admitting that in a way because I am single and as such know I need to be able to defend myself if necessary. All I can hope for is that I learn from this experience and understand the better course of action in the future.

Needless to say, the scare really put a damper on my weekend of motivation. I stayed huddled up on the couch all Saturday under a quilt. I knitted, turn the TV on low, left the alarm armed and kept all the doors locked. It is truly an awful thing to be scared in your own home. Because I did not get out to run errands or cook and bake as I had planned, I had the time to start a little knitting project I found through Lion Brand Yarn (www.lionbrand.com). It's a simple little shawl. So far, it is turning out well, but if this warm weather keeps up I can hardly see when I will have the use for it again.

This is a very simple pattern if you are a beginning knitting. You can find it here: http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/khs-prayerShawl.html?noImages=

I chose to use the color "parfait" as I thought the model on lionbrand.com was too much like fall.

I also had a chance to read a few more essays from my new book "A Tea Reader" by Katrina Munchiello. This is a great book for someone who loves tea. What is even better about this book is that it is simply a collection of essays relating to tea or the tea experience, so most passages are a few pages long at most, making it great to pick up, read for a few minutes and return to the shelf. One of my favorite passages so far is called "The Spectator on Tea", author unknown. Written by an Englishman in 1907, it's quirky sentences like…
          What he wants when he is jaded, body, soul, and spirit - when the day is glowering in to the unsympathetic twilight of early winter, and he has before him the long journey into Suburbia - is the soothing effect of the fragrant cup sipped solitary, or with only a good companion who knows the mercy of silence.
…that pull at my heart and whisk me away to cheery old England with its coal fires and snug family dens.

Today, however, I was more active. Up early, I ran only to the grocery store and worked in the kitchen for the rest of the afternoon. Fortunately, this was a productive cooking day. For, not only did I get several dishes cooked and one chocolate cake baked, but also, and most importantly, everything tasted great.

In the end I would say this has been a most unproductive weekend, but what little I did do, I did well.

…I still cannot bring myself to turn on the vacuum cleaner again. Maybe tomorrow...