My Day

Shall I tell you about my day? It started last night. After we got home from work, we had dinner, courtesy of Taco Bell. They changed the chicken soft tacos. Did you notice? They don’t sell them anymore. Instead they give you a chicken “ranchero”, I think the kid at the microphone called it. It now has a dash of salsa in it. I was immediately suspicious. Later I decided it was an improvement.

Before I left for the tacos, I started the wash. At about 8:00 p.m. I felt good enough to hoist myself out of my chair and do some of my Saturday chores, like cleaning the bathrooms. One time I was sitting with a group of women (occupational hazard in higher education). They were talking about the inequities of the distribution of household work. Men, they seemed to feel, got off easy. Women cooked, cleaned, and washed. Men—well, in their estimation, men didn’t seem to do much. I spoke in defense of my gender, maintaining that in my house, I did the laundry and much of the cleaning. One of the women jumped on my words, saying, “Ah ha! But who does the bathrooms?” This seemed to be the defining element of the difference between put-upon women and freeloading men. I responded by saying, “I do.” She slumped back, not quite appeased, but shut down for the moment.

Thus, my Saturday morning was clear. I could sit and watch “The Sopranos” episode that I had videotaped earlier in the week. The characters don’t seem quite so ominous at eight o’clock in the morning. I stopped the tape when Kathy reminded me that it was time to take Kodiak up the block to his vet appointment. Two hundred and fifty-five dollars later, we brought our heartworm-free, rabies protected, blood tested ten year old canine companion home. We bought dog toothpaste and later a people toothbrush at the vet’s urging, in order to work on Kodiak’s teeth. He won’t have minty fresh breath though. It will be more like chicken fresh, since we have the poultry flavored stuff.

We did our grocery shopping. Kathy went up and down the aisles while I waited at each endcap. My knee was giving me trouble. Kathy’s knee is no better. She just complains less than I do.

By the time we had finished that, it had just about stopped raining so I went to Lowe’s for some top soil and pansies. I threw in some new rubber gardening gloves while I was at it. The dirt was partly intended to help in planting the new rose bushes I ordered from Springhill. They showed up the other day and I was anxious to get them in the ground. The pansies are Kathy’s favorites—though I like them too.

I read the directions that came with the roses and proceeded to ignore follow them religiously. I had never done anything with the rose bushes that had been in this bed before. Never watered them, sometimes remembered to feed them, and still they grew. So, I hope these do as well, despite my careless planting methods.

Kodiak and I went for our after dinner constitutional and after our mile round trip to the post office, we both collapsed for a quiet evening at home. Which is now. Twenty-four hours from when I said my day had started. Better post this, so you believe the 24-hour part.