The Randomness of the Ideal Day

I went downstairs to get the dust mop for under the bed and came back with a glass of wine and half a sandwich left over from lunch. I remembered the mop when I saw the bed from the top of the stairs but by then I’d moved on.

I already did a lot of cleaning in our bedroom, vacuumed, dusted, and, get this, repaired the lamp shade!

The edging on the expensive lampshades from my beloved mother-in-law’s house had detached and was hanging in a big loop, has been for weeks. I pondered it last night during the long two hours I was awake looking out the window, waiting for sunrise, thinking gee, I’ve really slept a long time and I want it to be daylight so I can have coffee and read the paper and plot my day.

I’d decided then in the dark that today I would buy new lampshades. I would have to do this online because the lighting place we go to is a bizarrely cramped and crammed place with thousands of lamps and lampshades and various oddities like life-size Elvis statues and gorillas playing jukeboxes and I knew Covid would be dripping from the ceiling fans. This made the remarkable deals we might realize there less attractive.

But then this morning, it hit me! I could fix the lampshade! I could be like my mom. Resourceful. Handy. Cheap.

Is that what you did today, Jan? Fix a lampshade and vacuum your bedroom?

No. I did a lot of other socially acceptable things. I had a meeting. I sent emails. I was outside for a good while, hiking with my dogs and I have the long underwear on to prove it. Also, mukluks. Because I love winter. I also considered how to fix a short story I wrote a while ago, called Snow Door, and considered finally taking a riding lesson from my friend who operates Stepping Stone Farms, a horse rescue/therapeutic riding stable. This last idea I’ve picked up and put down 10,000 times including last night when I wasn’t thinking about the loop hanging from the lampshade.

So, to answer the question about what my idea day looks like. This. This would pretty much be it.

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Written in response to the #bloguanuary prompt: What does your ideal day look like?