A Busy Day

Every morning, before I get up – actually, before I even open my eyes, I make a little plan for the day in my mind.  It is usually fairly extensive and precise.  On most evenings, I am disappointed because I have miserably failed in the carrying out of this plan.  Rebecca tells me that this is my own fault, because my plans are unrealistic.  On rare occasions, I actually succeed in my doing everything on my agenda, but not often.  

On a recent day, my plan was:

#1.  Get up early, make tea, take Margaret for her walkies, drink tea while reading the newspaper, and do crossword.

#2.  Garden for a while until Becca calls to say that she has finished preparing her sauerkraut and is ready to go garden shopping. 

#3.Go to Becca's, eat a Madeleine or two, and then drive to the garden store.

#4. Buy some nice plants and in particular, an amaranthus.

#5.  Come home and plant the nice plants.  Work on tidying on the rest of the garden. 

#6.  Eat dinner.

#7. Go to bed, and there read and knit until the wee hours, making lots of progress on my Eala Bahn.   This seems like a not too ambitious plan for a day, and one which a person could reasonably expect to execute. 

This is how the day actually went:

Task #1.  No problem – almost. I got up, but not really early.  Otherwise, successful!  Drank tea, read paper, did crossword.

#2.  Total failure.  Evidently, Rebecca was very successful in getting up early, because I was just finishing the crossword when she was ready to go.  So I rushed around to get dressed and go drink more tea with her, and eat my Madeleine.

#3.  Success! See #2.

#4.  Failure!  Her primary garden want was a particular sort of marjoram, and mine was a nice amaranthus. We went to the garden store, and were both foiled.  No amaranthus at all, and plenty of marjoram, but not the right kind.  Becca suggested that we try some other fabulous garden store in Ballard.  Ballard is miles and miles away and involves crossing a big bridge.  Both deterrents in my hate-to-drive book.  But….. we needed our marjoram and amaranthus.  We got to the garden store, only to find that it no longer existed.  Foiled again!  “As long as we are in Ballard, let’s go to Joanne’s Fabrics and get cable needles.  I’ve gone to three knitting stores and can’t find the kind we like.”  So off we went to Joanne’s.  They, of course, didn’t have the cable needles we wanted.  Came out, had a parking ticket.  Grrrr!   Becca knew of another garden store nearby, and suggested we go there.  Hurrah!  They had my amaranthus, but not her marjoram.  Becca pointed out that now we were near the U District, and could just go to Weaver Works. Surely they would have our cable needles.  So off we went, and, in fact, they did.  By this time, we were starving, and not too far from a vegan pizza place we had tried to visit on another failed shopping day.  Happily, it was open, and the pizza was terrific.  We also got ice cream floats.  Actually, I got a health food root beer float.  The root beer was so healthy that it was sort of cloudy white color.  Becca swore that it actually tasted like root beer, but in my mind, something white can’t possibly taste like root beer.  Unless, of course, it is root beer ice cream.  But whatever it tasted like, it was yummy.

#5  I did manage to plant my plants and do a little other gardening, but by the time I was done, I was knackered.  #6 had already been taken care of on our outing, so I fast forwarded to #7.  Unfortunately, there were no wee hours for me, and I skipped reading or knitting and went directly to sleep way too early.  A total waste of a lovely free evening.  Yet another day filled with unfulfilled goals!!  But a fun day after all.