Lazy Day

It's mid-afternoon and here I sit, still in my bathrobe. Here's a list of what I've accomplished so far today:

1. Um...
2. Er...
3. Ahem...

Okay, so it's a lazy day. And it's raining. I went back to bed for an hour at eight-thirty, having risen at six. The dogs have slept all day, scattered around the house in their favorite places. Two are curled up now, one on his back, sprawled out with his belly exposed, the fourth on his side, paws flapping and tale thumping against the floor while dreams take him on some grand canine adventure. 

I've had breakfast (Ritz crackers) and lunch (more Ritz crackers and a Diet Dr. Pepper). I read for a while after waking for the second time, first from a novel on my Kindle, then right here at the computer, checking must-read blogs and news websites.

I told someone the other day that I don't especially enjoy reading biographies, but today I remembered that I do like autobiographies and memoirs--a lot of them, anyway--so I started making a random list of some really good ones: Angela's Ashes, The Glass Castle, The Water Is Wide...

A perplexing question has just occurred to me: If I want to begin a sentence with the word "iTunes," do I capitalize the "i" or leave it lowercase? Either way looks wrong. Anyway, I've had music playing for hours, and I love the iTunes shuffle feature that surprises me by playing classical music after bluegrass or an old favorite hymn after Kid Rock. At this very moment I'm listening to an Irish tune, "Raglan Road," by Van Morrison.

I decided I'd try to work in a blog post because it bugs me when I go from one "Saturday Song Selection" to another one with nothing in between. How lame is that? The best thing about writing on the computer is the world of reference materials available at my fingertips. The answers to anything I'm curious about are just a few keystrokes away. (For example, I've just now learned that, yes, even at the beginning of a sentence, the Apple website spells "iTunes" with a lowercase "i." That's good enough for me.)

Kim is dog-sitting for friends this week. It's funny how different a day feels when no one is expected home at any certain time, and no one is expecting me to be anyplace else. It's a fact that I always have plenty of time to be self-indulgent now that I'm retired, but I don't usually do it with the same wild abandon I feel on days like today, when I'm alone and the hours on the clock are nothing but numbers. It's fun at first. Later on, until I get used to it again, it gets lonely.

The sound of toenails scratching frantically on wood a moment ago alerted me that Lucy is awake now and thought I was in my bedroom with the door closed. She apparently needed me--immediately! Her actions reminded me that there is some accountability in my life, that I'm responsible for feeding these fine, four-legged creatures at a predictable time, that even if dogs don't wear wristwatches, they clearly know when suppertime is approaching, that no matter how reckless and uninhibited I want to be with my own unscheduled hours, I need to rein myself in for their sake. And so I do. As quickly as that. I will not let them down.