NCE* Update

I was up at 8:30am today. You would not believe how many people are out and about at this ungodly hour! The streets are already filled with cars and trucks. Runners and walkers on the sidewalks, sweating and listening to their i-pods.

It was a revelation. Since I have joined the ranks of the NCE, (*Not Currently Employed) I have been in the habit of sleeping until at least 9:00, sipping coffee and reading the papers on the porch before getting myself together for a mid-day stroll. Okay. I'm kidding. Just trying to rub-it-in to you poor SOBs have to get up and drag your ass to work everyday at some hellhole. :-)

In all honesty, I hardly ever get to sleep late. I do try to stay out of the way during my wife's daily multi-hour long preparations to make herself presentable for her co-workers. I usually get out of bed when she calls up to say that she is leaving for work.

She seems to think that if the coffee maker is left unattended, it will burst into flames. So, if I am not up and about, she unplugs the Mr. Coffee as she departs for the day. (Probably, she is happy to be in the relative safety of her car and out of the hazardous environment of our domicile.)

So I get up and make awake noises; otherwise, by the time I go down stairs to the kitchen I am greeted with 2 hungry cats and tepid coffee. In the cats' opinion, my wife doesn't feed them enough to get them through the next 12 hours of napping, so they hang around yowling for more food. She doesn't over feed them for a good reason. Someone, we are not sure which one, has been gobbling up breakfast, and then barfing it up on the rug. I am sternly informed that whoever feeds the cats is responsible for puke-patrol. I feed them anyway; I'd rather deal with the puke than the yowling while I'm trying to read the news.

So I get up and feed the cats (again), wash 2 Aleves down with hot coffee and read the papers. If it's cool enough I go out on the screen porch. Sometimes I go for an early morning walk. I know what you are thinking: why not just sleep until 9 and reheat the coffee in the microwave? Maybe I am too fussy, but I don't think coffee tastes as good when it has been reheated. But it certainly is a viable option.

People often ask me "What have you been up to lately?" as if I should be doing something exciting with my free time, or at least accomplishing something worthwhile. Most of my NCE friends are constantly working on projects, improving their properties and working on to-do lists.

Most of us have CE (working) wives, who draw up the to-do lists and check on the progress of said lists each night - usually while sipping their evening cocktail, waiting to be served dinner.
"So did you call the A/C guy today?"
"Yeah, I left a message."
"You left a message last week."
"Yeah, this is a new guy. I think they are pretty busy with this heat wave."
"Well how about the Fence guy?"
"Ah, I forgot."
"Plumber?"
"Left message..."
"How about the bedroom shades?"
"Yes, I went to Home Depot, they are out of shades."
"Home depot is 'out of shades'?" she asks in that mocking tone they all use.
"How the blazes can Home Depot be out of shades?"
"The guy who orders shades died the other day. He was crushed in an accident."

The real answer is, of course, that Home Depot has decided to change their provider for shades. Levellor is out and Bali is in. Two weeks wait before the new stock is in. Besides, I try to remind her that it is dangerous to shop there. But the CE wives are not interested in flimsy excuses.

I have been describing the last six months as a "Sabbatical" to justify the life of someone who is not expected to be anywhere other than meeting friends for lunch or beers. It is true that I have increased my time reading and working on outdoors projects, but I am disappointed that I have not been possessed of an urge to WRITE more. It was always my dream to be freed from the earthly bounds of a workaday job so I could bestow upon the world the jeweled gift of creative storytelling.

All I needed was a few months to recharge my batteries and then my Muse would visit, perhaps even take up residence. Oh, the short stories, the published articles, pithy observations, clever dialogue, witty repartee, the novels, the plays, the TV interviews, the fame, the new friends, the house on the Vineyard, the boat - no, the Yacht!

But, alas, my muse seems also to be on sabbatical. And, how could one with such majestic expectations be expected to spend even a fraction of the precious remaining days of his brief candle doing mundane tasks - like painting the bedroom, or getting the plumber to fix a leak in the toilet - just because he seems to the uninformed observer to have nothing better to do?

So, here I am. Much of my To-Do list remains affixed (uncrossed-off) by a magnet to the refrigerator, where I can clearly see it as a reproach each time I reach for a frosty Sierra Nevada.