13 June 08

A Sort of Typical Morning or How to Embrace Your Inner ADD

Encouraged by the positive slant given to Attention Deficit Disorder pottering by Monty Don in Giles Wilson’s recent article at BBC online, I submit my own example from this morning. Note: times are approximate. Feel free to try your own.

3:00 am. Wake up. Decide it’s way too early to get up no matter what.
3:15 am. On the other hand, it’d be great to get a sketchbook made for our upcoming short trip to the Sierra.
3:30 am. It would be a pamphlet stitch with gray Canson paper outside, slightly larger than the text pages. Stitch: royal blue waxed linen (I don’t have any linen this color, would have to get some at the bead store). Text pages could be the Sundance Felt I already have, trimmed and folded, though Arches Hot Press would be great too. Except then I’d have to buy some, trim, and fold it. What time does the Bookstore open?
3:35 am. Not for a few hours at least, you dork.
3:36 am. Charlie can tell I’m awake and jumps on my belly. I have a full bladder. Okay. I’m getting up to bind this sketchbook.
3:45 am. Now I’m really getting up.
3:46 am. I gather up pillow cases on the pillows I can reach in the dark (that aren’t under Numenius’ head, at least) to throw in the laundry. I close the door behind me and turn on the washing machine.
3:47 am. I give the cats each a scoop of food and get the kettle on; wash their water bowls and fill with water. Thank God I washed out that bottle yesterday, the water was starting to taste disgusting.
3:48 am. Open the laptop, login on my side, start the dial-up connection. (We have no broadband at home.) Check email (there isn’t much; is there a problem?). Notice a reference to an article in Guardian Women by none other than the stupendous Natalie d’Arbeloff, blogger and God-interviewer extraordinaire. Read the article, a beguiling invitation to older women to Just Say No To Bingo and start blogging. Send her a congratulatory email.
4:20 am. Brush cats, both of whom are shedding outlandishly with the heat, producing jumbo turd-like hairballs. Hear the kingbirds singing already. I should draw one today when it gets light; lots of time to draw this morning.
4:25 am. Notice a book list on the counter given to me by a friend who teaches Comp Lit here. I really should read something grownup so when the next person asks me what I’ve read lately, I can say something other than Harry Potter. (I did finish Obama’s Dreams From My Father this week, though not without incurring an overdue library fine. That does qualify, though. Recommended.)
4:30-5:00 am. Read news, check Kos, to which I’ve developed a disturbing re-addiction, given that it’s an election year, do the rounds (this and this and this and most hilariously, this ). Yes. It really is only 5:00 o’clock.
5:00 am. Sweep patio of mulberries that have blown down in the fierce winds in order to hang laundry without tracking mulberries inside. Decide to hang laundry.
5:15 am. Before I get the laundry, I’ll just check on the garden; it’s light enough to see now.
5:20 am. It’s going to be hot today. I’d better mulch. Wish I’d bought mulch the other day. Oh well. I’ll just pile manure on instead, taking care to avoid the basil and parsley.
5:20-5:40 am. Pile on said manure.
5:45 am. Go to turn on hose but instead pick up two tomato cages left outside the front door by the landlady. Let the cats out.
6:10 am. Finish staking two tomato plants to which I’ve added some of the dried vetch for mulch. Realize the 2 bush tomatoes need to be staked too. Pull out one steel frame and reposition, rearranging the triffids volunteer grapevines in the process.
6:25 am. Turn on hose. Water beans, basil shoots, all the squashes, the miraculously surviving potatoes, lettuces, radishes. Water myself copiously (there are three major, and about five minor, leaks in this hose that is “lifetime guaranteed” — if they lasted even a bloody year, I’d be ecstatic). Avoid the tomatoes, whose watering day is Sunday.
6:45 am Check the cats are still in view (they are; both on the field, on gopher patrol). On the way to turn off the water, notice my irrigation barrier needs more dirt. (They have mowed the alfalfa and will be flooding the field within a week; I want some of that water!) Get the shovel and distribute gopher-tunnellings onto my barrier. Turn off water.
6:55 am. Notice only one cat. Damn.
6:56 am. Get Charlie inside.
7:01. Still no Diego. Wake Numenius. Diego turns out to be hiding in the garden, making google eyes.
7:06 Give Numenius a bear hug for finding Diego and as a quick “I’m sorry to get you up so early,” hoping he doesn’t think it’s way TOO early. This is a forlorn hope. It is, for him, WAY too early. (If he does this exercise, and I hope he will, it will be set at night.)
7:07. Finally hang laundry, ignoring the mulberries I missed in the dark. Tracked in they will be.
7:20. Make shopping list. It includes bread, cheese, a hose (lifetime guaranteed) and some mulch. Also some canola oil which I have run out of in traps for earwigs, which do, it turns out, seem to be working, though I never find earwigs in them (the crows, magpies, or mockingbirds are helping themselves, I think).
7:25. Decide to take a shower, which I announce to Numenius.
7:25. On the other hand, I say, wasn’t I going to make a sketchbook?
7:25. Burst out laughing.
7:25. Decide to write this down before it gets swept away in the random ADD potterings of the next five minutes.

I still haven’t taken a shower, eaten breakfast, drawn a bird, or made a sketchbook, despite having been up for nearly four hours. But I do have a blog post ready for tonight, so I feel like I’m ahead.

Posted by at 06:55 PM in Gardening | Link |
  1. Hahahahaha! I may be a night wanderer but I’ve never done the laundry that early.


    marja-leena    13. June 2008, 20:23    Link
  2. I’m thunderstruck by how much you achieve (or think about achieving) before, like, dawn? I would be too ashamed to list my own ADD schedule in which I’d only be getting to bed during the hours you’re waking up bright and chirpy. Did you learn that from the, um, early birds? Many thanks for the mention.
    xxxx


    Natalie    14. June 2008, 05:53    Link
  3. Numenius must be a sound sleeper. No way could I do even a fraction of that without waking Joe.

    Glad you got a giggle out of <i>Mother’s Little Helper</i>. Finding it online felt like striking the mother lode. So to speak. If you have the fortitude, the link to the whole volume can provide many a wholesome evening’s reading. When I can stomach it, I’ll have to re-=read to confirm what I’ve been saying about the book for many years: One could come out of the whole series of “talks” believing that hugging causes pregnancy.

    Oh, the hose. Do you keep it out of the sun or covered? I find that extends the lifetime of my lifetime-guaranteed hoses by a bit. Still “lifetime” as defined by a mayfly, more or less.


    Ron Sullivan    14. June 2008, 09:54    Link
  4. :->


    dale    14. June 2008, 17:41    Link
  5. Dear all, thanks. Natalie, by all means,you’re welcome, and I’m so pleased about your Grauniad fame. Ron, no, I keep the hose in the sun — it’s the one way out in the vegetable garden. And we do get sun, there.

    I did end up making a sketchbook the following morning with materials I had lying around, and pretty much filled it over the weekend. Mostly birds, so it’s over on Bird by Bird.


    Pica    16. June 2008, 06:48    Link
  6. I can’t believe anyone gets up before 8a.m. ;D


    Teresa    18. June 2008, 12:00    Link

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