Spring!

OK, it's finally really here. Spring has sprung. We have (probably) seen the last of the snow, for the year. Yes, we could still get some (last year it snowed on May 20th), but I don't think we will. It's supposed to be in the 70s all week, or at least high 60s. Several days have chances of rain -- not snow. Hello, Spring! 

It occurred to me after Rocket Boy left to go back to St. Louis that I should have asked him to switch out the glass and put the screens in the storm doors. But I didn't. And since we don't know when he'll be back, the kids and I will probably have to do it ourselves.

Teen A says, "It's easy! Anyone could do it! Even [Teen B] could probably do it!"

So maybe it won't be that hard. I wish Rocket Boy were here to do it, though. 

I'm glad April is ending. I don't like April, try as I might. This past week I kept having these stabbing pains of misery. I tried to ignore them. There isn't anything I can do about them, not really. In some cases it wasn't even possible to avoid making them worse. On Thursday, Rocket Boy called me from the hospital, where he had been admitted the night before. Another bout of cellulitis, which his surgery was supposed to prevent. Oh well. He went home Friday, and last night he told me he might take a short hike today, so he's obviously feeling better. I think also he's afraid of letting his health problems get the upper hand. He has to get right back out there and keep exercising or his body will just give out on him. 

On Thursday afternoon, after I talked to him, I needed to do a bunch of errands, so I went and did them. In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have been on the road. I did my errands and I made it home, but I was so spacey. I hate it when RB has to be in the hospital and I'm a thousand miles away.

Friday, Teen B and I had tickets to see the spring play at the "other" high school in town, because our next-door neighbor was in it. They were doing "The Grapes of Wrath," of all things. What a great play to see when you're feeling sad. I was actually dreading it, and I certainly don't usually feel that way about seeing plays.

I'd gotten seats in the row with the most legroom and was amused to see some of our neighbors (one of whom has very long legs) seated just down the row from us. 

I thought the students did an outstanding job with the play, but it was so depressing. I read the book back in -- 10th grade? my parents gave it to me for Christmas that year, I think, or possibly my birthday, which seems weird, but there you are. Maybe I asked for it, is that possible? I was on a John Steinbeck kick for a while, I remember that. Anyway, the book was of course very depressing, too, but the story seems worse to me now because I'm more knowledgeable about Dust Bowl/Depression days, and also because it's impossible not to compare the situation in the play with problems today. The play specifically made me think of two groups of people: refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, Venezuela, etc., and (homegrown) homeless people. The book and play show how unfairly the Okies were treated, but of course it's possible to look at it from the Californians' point of view too: who are these people? why are they trying to take our jobs? why don't they go back where they came from?

Also, now that I have this new bit of knowledge about my own family history, I thought about the Palatine Germans who came to New York in the early 1700s and were hated and despised. Immigrants, refugees -- nobody ever wants them, nobody ever feels like they have enough to spare for them.

I started to cry at the end of the play, so embarrassing. Of course, Teen B didn't understand what was going on in the last few scenes, so I pulled myself together and explained it to him as we walked to the car. I was so glad the play was over.

But I went on being tender, easily bruised. I was reading The Sentence by Louise Erdrich, which I'd been meaning to read for a while, and it was going along OK, even though the book is set in 2019-2020, so here came the pandemic. But it's also set in Minneapolis, so suddenly here came George Floyd. And I thought, I can't read about this. I can't relive it. I set the book down and did something else. Finally I came back to it and forced my way through the last few chapters. It's over now, and so is (almost) April.

***

I like May. May is when all the flowers start blooming. In our yard, dandelions and grape hyacinth, and in other people's yards, all kinds of lovely things. And other people's lilacs bloom, and toward the end of the month, finally, our lilac, which has started making little green leaves (see photo). May is also the month when I can PLANT things. I'll probably wait until Mother's Day to buy my plants, just to be safe, but it's going to be hard to wait. But I can get everything ready in the meantime. 

This week I tried out my new simple schedule and it worked quite well. In the mornings I have two main tasks: FlyLady and writing. This week I got lots of cleaning done in the living room, and changed out various wintry-looking cat blankets and cloths on furniture for some that looked a little more springlike. I also thought I broke my vacuum cleaner, took it to be repaired, and learned that I just hadn't put it back together properly after changing the bag. They're nice at the vacuum cleaner repair shop and did not make fun of me (or charge me).

I also have ALMOST finished the draft of my novel. I have one chapter to go, so I hope I will be able to finish it this coming week. Regardless, I should be able to finish it before the school year ends. And then I can spend the summer revising and maybe by fall I'll feel ready to (self-)publish it. That's my current thinking -- that I'll get it all fixed up and then self-publish. And not promote it in any way. That way it will be out there, sort of, but I won't have to worry about anyone reading it or criticizing it. Is that, slightly, crazy? I'm not sure.

My two afternoon tasks are working on the files and working on the yard, and I made progress on both this week. The files have been stymieing me for months, so much of a mess that I didn't know where to begin. This week I finally made a map of what I wanted to put in each file drawer -- for three file cabinets, since the goal is to get rid of the fourth -- and started pulling things out and moving them around. Now with the three full weeks I have left before school gets out (that last week of May is finals week, so the twins will be in and out), I plan to tackle one file cabinet per week. Monday through Thursday I can work on one each of the four drawers, and then on Friday I'll work on whatever didn't get done the other days. Part of the plan is to get some of the drawers completely empty, move things over from the fourth cabinet, and then get rid of the fourth cabinet, move some other things around, and add one more desk to the room.

To rearrange the files I first had to jettison Rocket Boy's old system of organization. He had the main file cabinet (back when we didn't have four) organized as follows: 

• Top drawer: monthly stuff (water bills, gas bills, phone bills)
• 2nd drawer: semi-annual stuff (insurance bills, not sure what else)
• 3rd drawer: annual stuff (taxes)
• 4th drawer: empty file folders
  

I never understood this system, and I used to argue with him about it: "Why is this in "semi-annual" when it comes every month?" It made sense to him, but it didn't to me -- but I moved into his house when we got married, so I had to accept his file system. 

However, when we moved back to Boulder from Ridgecrest, he got depressed about not having a job and he stopped filing things. For years nothing got filed, until I started trying to put things back together. My feeling is that he gave up on the files, so it's my turn to organize them. So I am doing that. Even though it makes me a little uncomfortable. After 20 years, this still doesn't feel like my house and the files don't feel like my files.

Part of the job of working on the files is getting rid of things and this also makes me slightly uncomfortable. Rocket Boy used to save everything. He put things in folders with neat labels and put the folders in hanging folders with more neat labels, even though whatever it is shouldn't have been saved in the first place. I'm going through the files and "thinning" them. For example, in his "caving" folder he had perhaps a dozen brochures from various companies, describing what they had for sale (e.g., helmets with lights). In 1987. I know, it's historic, but really, come on. If the companies even still exist, they're not selling the same things in 2023 that they were in 1987, and anyway, Rocket Boy hasn't gone caving since I met him, in 2000, so I doubt if he's going to start up again any time soon.

I considered getting rid of the "caving" folder altogether, but settled for getting rid of the old brochures. And the multiple extra copies of maps to caves that he's never going to visit again. The file is now half its previous width.

Importantly, I am not going to tell him I'm doing this. I also plan to play dumb if he happens to look in the folder and ask what happened to all the brochures. I can just see that happening, ten years from now when he's retired and the twins are off on their own. At the age of nearly 80 he'll decide to get into caving again and ask me what happened to all his brochures. Hopefully by then I'll have dementia and be unable to answer.

Also this week, I worked on the yard. I didn't do it every day -- maybe three days? One day I weeded the side yard and one day I hacked away at a juniper in the back yard. And maybe one day I picked up branches. Our big compost bin was completely full by Friday morning. The problem is that compost is only picked up every two weeks (including this past Friday). Once the bin is full (which it already is again, due to the work I did Friday afternoon), I will have to resort to putting stuff in leaf bags. I have some leaf bags, so I can do that, but for some reason that makes me nervous. I will have to get over that.

Our yard is in such bad shape that I find it very hard to work on. It's just so depressing and overwhelming. But I keep telling myself, baby steps. Just like FlyLady inside the house. Keep on hacking at those overgrown bushes, and someday there won't be as many of them. 

***

So, here comes May, the pink month. I don't have any special plans for the month other than to work along on these four continuing projects (FlyLady, writing, files, and yardwork). Tomorrow I have to go pick up the equipment for my sleep study, which I will do that night and then return the equipment on Tuesday. Wednesday evening, Teen B has a concert for which he says he is not prepared, but I'm sure it'll be fine. I think that's everything, except for whatever pops up.

I'm ready to attack the next bookcase -- I'll post about that tomorrow, probably, or maybe Tuesday. I'm going to read some library books first and then I'll get started on the next round of unread, unloved books from the shelves. I need to read the book group book (On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong). I'm postponing the next president until June.

Rocket Boy wants me to start planning our next trip -- he wants to go to Yellowstone this summer, along with everyone else in the country, I think. I just finished paying off my credit card for our last trip, and I have one more property tax bill to pay, so maybe after that's all done, I'll think about our next adventure.