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Loooooong Weekends

Are long weekends like the past Thanksgiving Day one all they're cracked up to be? Retailers like them because they help jump start Christmas shopping. Everyone flocks to malls and discount stores or logs in online and spends, spends, spends. After all, there's nothing else to do but fight with your family, eat leftovers, or go to the movies (if you can afford it, they're so expensive nowadays).

So economically speaking the long weekend is a boon to marketers and sellers of anything. But what about the physical and emotional effects of a long weekend? Unless you're self employed and can work from home, you cannot even stay busy and calm your anxious mind with work projects. No, no, we're trained from birth that work is bad and recreation is to be sought after. The idea is to make enough money so you can order others to go out there and work their asses off.

I'm not good on long weekends. I hate cleaning so I can't depend on that to keep me busy, and there's just so much bathing and grooming of dogs you can do before you stress them out and worry that they're going to get sick from all the hands-on activity. And anyone who reads my blog knows I hate shopping. Yeah, I know. I'm not supposed to admit to it because that makes me abnormal, but I do so hate it. I hate trying on clothes, I hate the crowds, I hate carrying packages, always afraid I'm going to leave one behind. I hate making all those decisions that go into selecting a warm comfy sweater for Uncle Alex. I just don't enjoy any aspect of shopping.

So what's left for me to do? I could bake cupcakes or cookies, but then I'd eat them and get fat. Probably also court a coronary or stroke. I could binge on Netflix but that seems so disgustingly indulgent (unless I was sick with a life-threatening flu) that I just can't bring myself to plop in front of the TV and waste the whole day. So that leaves talking on the phone and posting to Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. I just read a few postings on Valley Fever and it's got me so angry and guilty that I'm going to have to abandon that path for a while. I could call my BFF in South Carolina but she never picks up. I wonder if it's just me or everyone gets that reward.

Which is why I'm blogging to you......and brainstorming other fun things to do besides the above options. Number one: This is your opportunity to google all those high school friends you haven't had time to hook up with on Facebook. You also can look at the blog/website that features animals and humor. They have the world's funniest photos of animals interacting with other animals or people. You also can google New Yorker cartoons and other cartoons. That'll distract you from doing what I tend to do: reflect on mistakes, negative events and loss. Those kind of activities can make a long weekend of  rest and relaxation into a tortured affair of anxiety and depression.

I also could get out the old crossword book and try my luck. Sometimes, though, this is self defeating as I can be so critical (You should have figured out that clue faster--what's wrong with you? Is dementia visiting you a decade earlier?)

Two loooong weekends are coming up, I guess--Christmas and New Years. I need to plan what to do then to keep my busy overcritical mind busy. Anybody got some other ideas? Just email jarenofsky@cox.net. I'm open for any idea (Is my computer demonic--it just burped up an ad on a nursing home noted for memory care? My computer is becoming HAL of 2001 Space Odyssey! I'm scared, really!)

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