Thursday, December 18, 2008

Bored

"[S]he refused to be bored chiefly because she wasn’t boring." Zelda Fitzgerald, 1922
I was momentarily vexed by what I was about to accept as oncoming ennui...however, I remembered an old and very annoying saying of my mother's: "If you are bored, you must be boring...interesting people are never bored." Usually it worked to stop my whining about having nothing to do. Ultimately, it was a challenge, of which I am a big fan. In fact, without one, I fall into just the state I am currently trying to avoid.
"The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity." Dorothy Parker (1893 - 1967), (attributed)

Boredom is a sickness...a nasty little virus that can be passed from one unsuspecting individual to another as quickly as a good thought can be lost when you're nowhere near paper. And so that's where I've come...to virtual paper with my virtual pen to engage my brain and stave off the infection.

Today was a snow day. In our little town at the northwestern corner of Washington, snow is somewhat of an anomaly. It doesn't happen often, which is why our city has no way of coping with it when it does. To make things worse, I live off the highway, on a private road that is not maintained by the city or the county. It's a dirt road with lots of pot holes; one of the residents of our back-road haven occasionally uses a tractor to put gravel in the holes and smooth out the worst spots. For the most part, it keeps the road reasonably usable. But, when the snow hits, it all goes to hell, which, by the way HAS frozen over (so I'm thinking I'll be getting the pony I wanted when I was a little girl any day now).

This morning, shortly after the joy of finding out it was a snow day had settled to contentment with a cup of coffee, my husband called me from a block away to tell me he was stuck at the bottom of the hill and that he'd need me to bring the shovel and the broom. He couldn't leave the truck because it was stuck in the middle of a turn, so anyone coming down it would ram right into his truck. Not an unreasonable request, really. But, it was 7 in the morning, the baby was running all over the house, I was still in my pajamas and my car was buried in half a foot of snow. The only way I was going to get to him was to drive (even though it was a measly block). So, I pulled on my boots, trudged out to the car, and put my key into the lock...the doors were frozen shut. By the time I managed to get in the car, get the snow off of it, and get the baby buckled up in the back, he called to tell me he was on his way back. Well, of course he did.

He spent the next half hour putting chains on my car, so I'd be able to get out in case of emergency, and then hiked up to the highway to take the bus to work.

Which leads me to this...why is it when the snow come down in buckets and the roads are slick as snot, people all over feel this sudden urge to run out, get in their cars, and go somewhere they don't need to go? My husband could've stayed home today, off the roads and out of vehicular danger...but when he called in, the news was that customers were coming in steadily. Now, he does work at an auto shop, so you might think people were coming to get snow tires put on or to have their cars winterized. No. Just plain old customers. My guess is, the Walmart parking lot is packed and Safeway is doing a brisk business. Other retailers are probably doing just as well.

And I'm at home going stir-crazy. I've polished the copper bottoms on my pans, cleaned the top of the refrigerator, learned how to upload videos to youtube, read a few magazine articles, taken pictures of my son playing in the snow, done a few loads of laundry...

Why is it that when I'm at work, I want to be home, but when I'm home, I don't know how to relax? Ugh. It's another ailment of mine. It takes at least 3 to 4 days for me to accept being on vacation.

And I just got a call that it has officially begun. School is cancelled tomorrow, too.
"The secret of being a bore is to tell everything."Voltaire (1694 - 1778), Discours en vers sur l'homme, 1737
So, I'll spare you the details of the rest of my day.




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