Spare time

This has been a week of excessive spare time. There was little to do on Tuesday, nothing to do Wednesday, and breakfast with Lynn this morning. I have eight books in the house and have finished all but Hillary. Today I ordered a six shelf book case.  I also recorded recurring financial transactions today, and paid the Visa bill. And spent way over an hour with Lynn at breakfast.

Lynn has not been well. Her new kittens have not been well. They were neutered, and apparently didn’t take it well, though they spent so many days retching she thinks they contracted the “lurgy” at the vets. We spent ninety minutes discussing Molly and Toby, the new British shorthairs, and Laura. We certainly glossed over the world, just catching up. Life taken lightly when you have nothing to do, as neither of us does.

We did exchange cleaning tips before we left, in order for her to clean the bathrooms before the cleaning ladies came. I said the damn ring around the sink drain, and probably the tub drain, except I don’t wear gasses in the tub, irritates the snot out of me. I keep an old toothbrush in the toothbrush holder, just to scrub the grey from under the edges from time to time. “No, no, you need a toothpick for that,” Lynn said, on the way out.

In defense, I did spend an additional two hours today trying to stop a couple of recurring charges on the Visa statement, and then with Victor of a delightful accent, from Visa, filing a complaint to put a block on the charges. Time not wasted, as the sum of the charges is thirty five dollars.

Yesterday I had absolutely nothing to do. I decided to finish the last third of the last sleeve of the sweater I’ve been knitting for eighteen months. Not finishing a project is a chargeable offense, especially when I stumbled across the pattern for my fabulous short row yoke shaping sweater on the internet, also eighteen months ago, and have a bag of fabulous red wool to knit it, from Ruth, also for the last eighteen months.

About three o’clock yesterday I adjudicated I’d let another day go by. I did locate two socks with holes in the toes and darned the holes. They were different socks, one black, one blue (Dobby socks!), and I thought back to knitting them in 2003. The other exact pair have a total of three darns, one each to the toes and the bottom of one. I bravely started a new pair of socks last May or June. I take them to Laura’s dwindling therapy appointments, and am half through the heel of the first sock. It behooves me to repair the old.

Laura and I are talking vacation, and I need to text Caroline to see if she might want to go this summer. I can get them anywhere, some way, but cannot walk around, much. The two of them can get anywhere and back. I thought I’d suggest Finger Lakes and the lower tier to them (Watkins Glen, etal.) 

Then I thought of dangling Mt. Vernon, Monticello and Montpelier back out there. We did miss them last spring, and unlike the Jefferson Memorial and Starbucks, they couldn’t get there on their own, while they waited for Aunt Beth and Uncle Bill, aka Mom and Dad, to bail them from Washington DC.