Black Friday without the Hangover
I am
spending time off from working at my forty hour a week job. Time off has been
going well except on Tuesday when I was living ten hours in the kitchen cooking
goodies for the man of the manor. You
see, it was going to be his fifty-eight birthday on Wednesday. One should celebrate. His request was lasagna
which ended up being a day-long event of preparation, of chopping various vegetables,
mixing and finally making it into something that you can eat. Oh, then added a pie worth a standing
ovation with all the calories you could want.
Don’t get me wrong, I love being in the kitchen but enough said about my
cooking.
Today is
Friday, November 25, 2016. Plenty of
shopping going on. We heard of a friend
who was heading to Eugene early this morning to hit the sales. They left home at three AM. Why, we don’t know, and we will probably
never know since both my husband and I are not heavy shoppers. My idea of
shopping is to hit the small local shops to pick up a few things but not on
Black Friday. My man knows that he is to
search for gifts for me at the local Farmers Market or at my friend’s little
shop and a few local Artists galleries but really at my age of sixty-two, I am
not really interested in any more things.
I don’t need stuff, I have drawers over-flowing with items that were
gotten in the past years for birthdays, anniversaries and Christmases.
We have a
new member in our house. For those who
have read my past blogs or Facebook posts, you know that we have lost our two
cats and have been living in our house with just the two of us since our son is
still living in New York. Our new guest is
eighteen, a community college student who is staying with us while her parents
are in Arizona. I am mentioning this
because it involved major cleaning of my front bedroom in order to get ready
for her coming to stay in our house. So we had to move the clothes out of the
five drawer dresser in the bedroom and over half of the stuff in the
closet.
I found
things. Lots of interesting, forgotten
purchases of years ago. I had three bags
of various socks. In my defense, I knew
that the socks were there. I had had the
bags in order of the seasons, first, Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter (My
Christmas socks) which of course did not count my various socks that had been
in the dresser taking up a whole drawer. So I purged with serious intent, I sorted my
socks, placed them in bags to travel to Goodwill. I was a Goddess recreating the world until I
face the reality of my son’s room (The Void).
It is now the room that I sleep in, get dressed in and have my smaller
following of socks tucked in a one quarter of the drawer.
Black
Friday, I don’t think so. I will not,
cannot, shall not even contemplate heading out the door to join the crowds. I live in terror, not of someone grabbing my
heart’s desire from my ever-reaching fingers but the crowd itself. The mindless hunters who are willing to
elbow, push and tear things from others. So how did I spend my day away from my
office? Did I hide in my house far away
from the maddening crowd? (Thomas Hardy) Here is my postings on Facebook today
from my two little outings.
November 25, 2016 9 am
Well, I did it. I went
shopping on Black Friday. I drove down
to Nye Beach, parked by Panni Bakery, walked to the top of a street and gazed
at the ocean. It wasn’t enough so I walked down to the Nye Beach Turnaround and
stood looking out, watching birds riding the waves, bobbing up and down. For the first time, I was able to watch the
waves hit the concrete wall that offers the view with gulls at my sides. They rested on the fence posts as I held onto
the steel cable and breathe in the ocean air.
My shopping trip was successful, satisfying with no real cost at
all. What did I get? Peace of mind,
beauty and hope for the world.
November 25,
2016 1 pm
I believe
that I am getting this shopping thing on Black Friday down. I just got back from a fast pace walk of
thirty minutes. Shopping goal was to
increase heart rate and respiration. I got more. As I walked along a street that past a deep
ravine, I stopped, I listened and what I heard was water rushing below in a
creek unseen as it ran in its bed beneath the tall pines and the large sword
ferns. A crow was calling in the sky, a small bird chirped hidden in the trees
and I continued on, to watch the water run down the gutters in the street,
babbling when it was slowed by leaves caught in a drain and yet, I continued
on, up a hill, pacing faster, harder until the rain began telling me to go
home.
The sky is darkening at a rapid pace
causing the gray to deepen to gloom. I have been working on sorting my cracked
walnuts, my first bag of twenty-five pounds.
I may be done with it tonight. Katherine, our temporary sleeper in the
front bedroom has made peanut butter cookies, I have eaten two. As for further
Black Friday shopping, I am thinking of heading to the kitchen for some of the
birthday lasagna, after all, I have spent a great deal of my time on my feet
and after a great deal of complaining from them I believe that I will call it a
day, at The rest of my day has been staying at home since the weather has moved
back in with the drizzle of light rain. At least, until tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment