A truly lazy day—or was it

 

A sweet picture of Colin
even if it is our backsides.

By early afternoon I would have told you today was a truly lazy day. I was thinking about clever lines for the blog, like what I used to say my kids would put on my tombstone: either “Hurry on, now” or “Go on now, I’m busy.” But times have changed, and I have learned to putz (Yiddish for piddling and doing nothing). I once wrote an article entitled, “Learning to Putz,” but the word also denotes a part of the male anatomy in Yiddish, and the editor changed it to piddling. Nonetheless I didn’t learn the lesson until the last few years.

But today I would have told you my accomplishments for the day were:

--sleeping late and getting going slowly

--going to church remotely

--reheating last night’s polenta for lunch

--refilling the soap containers in the kitchen and the bathroom

--lingering over Facebook, reading posts I would normally ignore

           But then in the late afternoon, everything happened at once. To begin with, Colin called, took remote control of my computer, and walked me through storing my passwords in a password protection program. After my recent scare about the dark web and compromised passwords, I was delighted to finally get this done. Jamie and I had installed it but neither of us knew what to do once it was installed. As I suspected, it’s like any other computer program—once you do it, it’s straightforward. So now, bit by bit, I have to load my passwords. Besides, it was a bonus to see my child on Zoom and talk to his face rather than the phone—I dislike Facetime because I always look like an old hag, but Zoom is not quite so bad.

Another sweet picture of Colin
even if I do look like that glass of wine
wasn't my first
Note his T-shirt

Then when I settled back to scrolling through Facebook notifications, I got an email from the reviewer who will interview me Tuesday about The Most Land, The Best Cattle: The Waggoners of Texas, which launches this coming Friday. She had lots of good questions, and I jotted down some answers, hoping as we talk, I’ll expand on some. The key point to me is that the book is not so much a ranch history as the story of a family. The reviewer, Priscilla Leder, out of San Marcos, Texas said she found the story fascinating but sad. That’s kind of how I feel about it too. Way back when, I had a bit of a personal connection to the Waggoners or at least to sculptor Electra Waggoner Biggs, and that story is woven into this book.

Then Jordan came home from her weekend away and we visited and kind of caught up.

So there went my laziness. It’s going to be a busy week.