Skip to main content

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!)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Old Acquaintances Be Forgot?

In the Scottish dialect of the old New Year's Eve song Auld Lang Syne, the composer posits the question: Should old acquaintances be forgot? The short answer to this is "Sometimes." One example will suffice. A "friend" of mine emailed me the other day and although she is not a writer, her words spoke plenty. Her first rebuke was that I don't answer her calls, and this is a claim I cannot deny. But the accusation was caustic, mean-spirited--it was as if I had neglected to visit her in the hospital, that's how grievous my omission was. She insinuated so much by those few harsh words. Why did she call? Purportedly to inform me of her physical status and that of her dog Murph. Being the obedient child I still am, I did call her afterwards, and we spoke. Mostly S spoke of her new illness--osteoarthritis of the spine--and her dog's possible diagnosis of valley fever. I listened and listened and listened until I just couldn't take it any more. The
2 comments
Read more

Dogs and Cats: Tales that Strike Terror in the Hearts of Owners

I just returned from the #veterinarian with Maddie, my eight-year-old #schnauzer with valley fever. She's on a half dose of her meds, and we're seeing if this has any positive or negative influence on the course of the #disease. Valley fever is a plague in the Southwest, especially Arizona, and it's one of the crazier #fungal diseases out there. For instance, Maddie never showed any #discernible symptoms but when I chanced to test her for the disease, she showed a high titre. So either the test was really wrong-----about three times in a row--or else Maddie's immune system is so good that it's #clobbering the disease but not ridding the body of it. This is a long way of stating the obvious. Although dogs like Maddie as well as cats, miniature horses and even  bunnies are regularly being used as #therapy animals at nursing homes, hospitals, schools, and all kinds of venues, they also are capable of traumatizing people or just plain breaking their heart. Wai
2 comments
Read more

Are You Successful? Take this Test and Find Out

I grew up never believing I was as good or as #successful as the next guy, and it's a common problem or so my shrinks seem to think (some of these good doctors have earned six-figure salaries on just this one patient complaint alone).  But after all these years of #consigning myself to the role of second-class citizen, I've figured out that success is just one of those meaningless words--like #beautiful or wonderful--that can be tweaked any way you want it. In other words, success is what you make of it.  Take our #President for example. Here's a man who practically reeks of success by anyone's definition. He's built hotels, put together company #buyouts/mergers, fathered children, married, and earned the title of Most Important Person in the Land (perhaps the Globe). On the other hand, we could, if we wanted, tweak the word success into its opposite: failure. Trump has been divorced several times, declared #bankruptcy, been sued by countless litiga
1 comment
Read more