The Day is What the Day Is

May 7, 2022 — Pat Bertram

I’ve finally become acclimated to the clock change we had to make because of daylight savings time, and the disorientation I felt because of the change has abated. Unfortunately, I’m dealing with disorientation again, though this time it’s confusion not about hours but about days.

My work schedule was abruptly changed this week after almost two years on basically the same schedule. Now, I work one day that I always did, one day that I sometimes did, and sometimes one day that I never did. (Did that confuse you? Now you know how I feel!) In addition to all that, my “weekend” was changed to the middle of the week.

I’m not complaining. It’s actually a good schedule for me, with more free days than working days, so I’m sure it will be easy to get used to the new routine. But until then, I am rather lost in time, never quite sure what day it is or what I am supposed to be doing on that day.

Even though I had to work today, I still managed to water my grass. Tomorrow, I will water the bushes and trees. So that’s good. It’s easy to know where I stand when it comes to my yard — if I watered the grass yesterday, then I don’t need to do it today Same with the bushes. (If that sounds like a lot of watering for this time of year, we’re going through a hot spell — 97 degrees Fahrenheit today — so I am on a summer watering schedule.)

Unfortunately, the rest of my life isn’t as easy to figure out. If I worked yesterday, does that mean I have today off? If I have today off, does that mean I work tomorrow? Eek.

Luckily, I have calendars, both paper and electronic, to help keep me oriented. Mostly, though, I only need to keep track of what calendar day it is so I know whether to go to work, whether the library is open, whether . . . You get the idea. In the long run — or the short run — it doesn’t matter if today feels like Saturday or Sunday or Monday. The day is what the day is. And today is the day the first larkspur decided to bloom!

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Posted in culture, gardening, life. Tags: , , , , , . 4 Comments »

A Special Treat

May 3, 2022 — Pat Bertram

I had a special treat today.

A friend and I went to a nearby town with more amenities than our town to do some shopping — nothing exciting, just groceries, slip-on shoes for quick trips outside, and a long-handled weed picker for each of us, as well as a new hose for me.

As nice as it was to stock up, to get a new tool, and to spend time with a friend, that wasn’t the “special treat” mentioned above. The treat? You’ll laugh, after all this buildup, at the mundane aspect of the treat. For the first time since this friend and I started going to “the big city,” as we call that town, I didn’t have to hurry up to put the groceries away and, exhausted, get ready for work. Instead, I got to leisurely stow the items I’d purchased, leisurely fix a meal, and leisurely read while eating. Or perhaps I mean leisurely eat while reading. Either way, the emphasis is on leisure.

Now that is a treat!

My work schedule was changed rather abruptly and quite unexpectedly — unexpected to me anyway. I’m sure the change was in the works for at least a couple of weeks. In fact, others in the community learned about the new schedule before I did, and they clued me in before my bosses told me, which was sort of unsettling because I’d taken the “clue” as simply a case of smalltown gossip.

But however I found out, and whatever my initial reactions, the truth is, my new schedule worked to my advantage today. My friend and I have had difficulty finding time to go shopping together since we worked different days, and different hours on those days, so we’ve been having to go in the morning on a day I had to work. Today was the first day we went on an excursion where neither of us had plans for the afternoon.

So nice! And yes, a special treat.

Come to think of it, the new schedule is also a special treat. Fewer hours, of course, but even better, fewer days. I like having more days off than I work, which hasn’t been the case the past months, and I’d been getting burned out. And if not burned out, then at least a bit charred.

It’s funny how when a person is used to working a certain day, and that day suddenly becomes a free day, it feels even freer, even like a . . . you guessed it! Like a special treat.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Posted in life. Tags: , , , , . 2 Comments »