Saturday Lists

Alan is a list maker.  Every Saturday morning while the rest of the house is sleeping, he gets up, reads the paper, then poises a pencil over a blank sheet of notebook paper.  Along the left column he "times the day."  8:00...9:00...10:00...  Then, he proceeds to schedule out the day.  This schedule is quite seasonal.  Today's schedule included "edge the grass."  October's list will include "blow leaves."  Each precious hour of the day is labeled with activities.  "Work out."  "Run errands."  "Eat lunch."  "Go to cleaners."  By the time I crawl out of bed with my hair wildly styled by my bunched up pillows, he's well on the way to productivity.  He is, indeed, Captain Productivity.

I, on the whole other hand, view my Saturdays and Sundays as frivolous spans of time during which I can follow my heart in whatever random direction it leads.  "Stop the car!  There's an estate sale!"  "Anyone want to go with me to Hobby Lobby to look around?"  "Where are my good scissors?  I'm going to go through my stack of magazines and cut out the good stuff!"  Most Saturday mornings I can't be expected to be up and dressed in time to pick up Alan's shirts before the cleaners bolts the doors at noon.  (See Alan's List:  9:30-9:40 - Pick up Cleaning/Drop off Shirts.  If it is to be, it is up to he!)  

On Saturdays time seems to be suspended in space.  I turn my back on piles of laundry and dirty dishes.  I much prefer lollygagging around the house with absolutely no direction.  It's the day that I can watch a Lifetime movie like "She Killed Out of Love" with a little less guilt than I would feel on a weekday.  I can wander through facebook viewing vacation pictures of long lost friends that I would have absently passed right by at someplace like Disneyworld because I didn't recognize them from Adam.  Now as a fb friend, I can become totally immersed in someone's cousin's wedding pictures.  Only when I realize that my voyeurism doesn't include the privilege of commenting on a cute picture of a flower girl sleeping on a church pew, do I realize that I have never actually met nor will I ever meet the bride and groom.  And yet, I feel like I know them.  

It's Saturday.  It's OK if I ramble.

During the time that I've spent prattling on about Mr. List and Ms. Wander, Alan has run circles around the house - inside and out - edging, washing a car, blowing the dust out of the garage, right now he's unloading the dishwasher.  It's almost 2:00.  When the little hand gets to the 2, he will head out the door for Bodyworks for his workout.  I will slink back into our bedroom, crawl into our cozy looking unmade bed, turn on the old movie channel, and drift into a deep afternoon sleep.  Not to worry.  Alan will be back at precisely 3:15.  He tells me that we're going to a movie at 4:05.