Days Off

How do I love my time off? Let me count the ways. 

First, I love the smell of coffee in the morning. I do get to enjoy that scent everyday, but when I am off work I have the leisure to nasalcate (new word, it means to sniff with the purpose of enjoying the odor) it slowly while it wafts it way through the indoor air of 333 West Monroe Ave. With no pressure to get ready for work, I am able to savor the scent and seize the moment while I think about seizing the day or not seizing the day if I decide to lounge my time away.

Not only do I get to smell it longer, but I also get to drink the whole pot of liquid bean, which is something I try to do no matter what day of the week or year it is. Coffee is good for the human body and since God created the bean, to not partake of such a healthy pleasure is to not cherish the gift (split infinitives intended).

How do I love thee, days off? I love to lounge with Luvie and Jeff and sometimes Baby Kitty. Luvie seeks time with me just like I seek time with him. And after the wife leaves, Jeff becomes my shadow. But baby Kitty, he is normally too busy starting some kind of trouble. He's a teenager and you know how teenage boys are. They find, seek, create, glory in mischief, baby Kitty more than most. I'll give you one example. We have a bathroom that Penny, for some reason, wants the cats to stay out of. The door has an unfortunate gap at the bottom not nearly large enough for Luvie to squeeze his fat butt under, but Baby Kitty is skinny enough to slide under. And like most teenage boys, he does not like being told "no." So my darling wife bought a foam noodle that she rams under the gap between the floor and the bottom of the door. Baby Kitty has become energetic and ingenious at removing the noodle, sliding under the door into the forbidden bathroom, and moving items inside supposedly to show he has indeed been there. It drives my wife crazy.

Third, I can gorge myself on social media, some of which is my own creation. Besides trolling around on FaceBook, I spend a lot of time now on YouTube where I not only check out other people's videos, but I post and watch mine own. If you haven't seen my channel, search EndangeredSwimmer, subscribe, and be somebody.

Fourth, I get to write right here about nothing, make no point at all, and post it on my blog for anyone in the world to read. And people do read, some. That is what I am doing at this very moment. I had no clue what I was going to type, and no point whatsoever to make, yet I am managing once more to engage that part of my brain that produces words on paper or the internet. That's important, in my world, producing words on paper. For one, it improves thinking and writing. For another, it is something I can point my students to and say, "See, I write myself, and I write often." Oddly, occasionally my own writings make their way into my teaching. For instance, I never seem to get textbooks, though everyone else does. This has been a problem for years. I learned long ago that if I were to teach, I had to be able to do so without the benefit of books. I can pull it off. I have to. My writings give me a large body of texts as examples, subjects of analysis, and points of discussion.  

Finally, it feels good to be able to nap like Jeff and Luvie do all the time. It's easy to see why they are always happy; they are always rested. Eventually, however, naps lose their appeal for a day or two and then it is back to running, or lifting or working on the gym in the backyard. Well, it's time to get up. Even on days off, I have stuff to do.