I will get back to gardening and blogging soon. In the meantime, you can see that I have been busy here in Vegas with my crazy friend Angela.
We haven’t gotten arrested or drunk. Nor have we lost a lot of money. Beyond that, I believe that’s as much as I’ll say. After all, you know what they say, “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!”
I will be happy to be home tomorrow to my family, little dogs, flowers and vegetables. I am desperate to cook and eat something healthy and to bask in the quiet of the country life.
Robin
I long for the simple life.
I greet the morning slowly and in quiet. I take my first deep breaths as I stretch into a forward bend and into a downward dog. The day unfolds before me as a calm and pleasant series of purposeful and fulfilling tasks. I move through my day at an unhurried pace, taking time to breathe deeply and to enjoy the nature around me. The people I encounter are pleasant and positive. I have a simple and organized environment to accomplish my life’s work. I am unfettered by an overabundance of possessions that need to be cared for and guarded. I pursue interesting and meaningful hobbies.
“Gee whiz. Where the heck did this come from?” I can hear you saying.
Despite the fact that it’s a long holiday weekend, I’ve been working at my desk the whole dang time to make up for the fact that I have spent most of the past month traveling.
This much I know is true: There is absolutely nothing simple about traveling for a whole month.
Here’s just a sampling of what happens when you aren’t at home to take care of your complicated life:
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The weeds that have been lurking for just the right opportunity, leap at the chance to seize control of the garden kingdom.
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Little dogs become just a wee bit high strung and barky from lack of continuity and routine.
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Items in kitchen cabinets no longer reside in their original resting places. None of them.
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Refrigerators devolve into a disorganized and occasionally rotting, fetid unrecognizable lump.
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Garden blogs languish from lack of attention.
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Desks are heaped with mail—most of it junk, but some of which requires immediate attention. If you could just find it.
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Lists of un-done errands extend to more than one page of notepaper and require a staff to accomplish.
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Work piles up so that (obviously) you have to work over a holiday weekend to try and dig out of the hole.
Oh, I recently had quite a lot of time to think about the simple life before being slapped in the face with all the above. Sitting on a plane from California to Maryland with only a book I didn’t even like and a seat mate that I liked even less meant I spent a lot of time with my eyes closed, mulling over my sorry situation.
That’s how I pinged pack to the whole simple life concept.
(See how all this just flows nicely together here?)
Now, just to be crystal clear, I’m not talking about Simple Life as in that insipid magazine (which I refuse to link to). I’ll admit that I have picked this particular magazine up from time to time. I have occasionally even PAID for it, after which I felt like I had been fleeced for my four bucks or so.
Really, I don’t need a magazine to tell me which is simply the BEST deodorant or to compare the BEST winter gloves. Deodorant and warm gloves will not make my life more simple or peaceful. The editors of this magazine seem to think that their readers are simple minded. They must be yukking it up in the halls of their fancy editorial offices at how they can MAKE MONEY with a magazine that is high on graphics and low on content. They must really find it funny that they get to tell women how to make the very best omelets ever and which toothpaste to buy.
Wowee. I seem to have a pretty good rant going here. Sorry about that.
So, you ask, if Simple Living (the aforementioned insipid magazine) isn’t really about simple and you’ve had all this quality time in planes, trains and automobiles to contemplate, ruminate and cogitate on the weighty subject of simplicity, just what the heck have you concluded?
I’ll start by telling you what I think it’s NOT. Simple living is NOT about deprivation or frugality. In my mind, at least, it’s not about squeezing every penny until it screams by rinsing and re-using plastic bags or sewing bias tape to the legs of your kids’ jeans to extend the length because the poor kid sprouted over the summer. Simple living is not about only taking vacations that offer the benefit of a friends’ couch or a relative’s basement guest room. Simple living is not about only shopping at those wretched, big box warehouses that require you buy in bulk for a small army and stock up until Doomsday. Simple living is not about unplugging or disconnecting. No Idaho log cabins for this gal.
More rant going, I guess.
So if that’s what simple living is not, then what does Robin consider Simple Living?
I’ll tell you. Thanks very much for asking.
Here are Robin’s 9 Tenets for the Simple Life.
1. The simple life is having time for the things that matter and that you find enjoyable. It means taking the time for celebrations, not just of birthdays and weddings, but of the first flower in spring or a new drivers license.
2. The simple life is having what you need—when you need it. That also means having enough money to give to causes that you support or to nieces living in poverty. It means planning enough in advance so that you don’t have to complicate your life with last minute rushes to the store for something forgotten.
3. The simple life is not being a slave to an overabundance of possessions that require care and maintenance. I believe that it was Charles Rennie Macintosh who said that you should strive to have only things that were useful or beautiful or both surrounding you. It means loving what you have, not necessarily having what you love.
4. The simple life means your possessions and your time are organized. What is the old adage? “Everything has a place. Every thing in its place.” Organization—or time and things—reduces the need for frenzy and rush.
5. The simple life is being able to say “no” to a job or responsibility. It means sticking to the “no assholes” rule—or at least making sure your adequately compensated for the aggravation.
6. The simple life is maximizing your health and fitness so that you’re able to meet each day with energy and joy.
7. The simple life is feeling at peace with the people in your life. It means minimizing time with negative people or “friends” who display little care about you and more care about what you can do for them.
8. The simple life is having a support system for help when you need it. It also means that the people you share your life with do their part to take care of themselves.
9. The simple life is having the freedom to explore and travel—even if it’s only in your mind, online or at the local library. It’s the time you have to engage in the hobbies and interests that the harried masses don’t have. It’s that part of simple living that makes you a really interesting person.
There really should be 10 Tenets, don’t you think? I wonder what I am missing? What are the overarching rules that contribute to simplicity in your life?
(Please don’t send me hate mail because I don’t like that silly magazine.)
–Robin (Peaceful Bumblebee)
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Robin
The whole day started off alright. The sun was shining. The hunting was good. The little dogs were the usual annoyance, but under control nevertheless.
Miss P had just come in to cleanse her palate with a little bit of Deli Cat and was headed back outside for a sun bath.
But then…
Suddenly she realized that she wasn’t being allowed to go back outside. She sat by the door waiting for me to read her mind. Then she stepped up the campaign with some meowing. She knew something was wrong. Miss P is used to having a voice-actuated human and suddenly I was not responding to commands.
It was starting to look bad. She decided it was best to head to the basement for little siesta until things blew over.
That’s when the trouble really started–when she saw me heading for the cat carrier.
“Oh, crap,” I could see her thinking.
Only…the door kept falling off when I picked it up.
Okay, that’s bad. I didn’t want to carry a crazed cat in the car for 30 minutes to the vet. I could just see her bouncing around from side to side trying to escape. Neither of us would arrive alive. So I had to resort to the prissy dog carrier with the Velcro closure. Oh, that was a good idea. Did you know that cats can easily escape from carriers with Velcro closures?
At least I had Ben to drive for me. So he drove while I rode shotgun and kept poking Miss P’s paws back into the carrier whenever they would snake out from the little cracks around the warped Velcro closure. It took constant vigilance to make sure she didn’t make a break for it and cause an accident.
And I never really thought much before about the full range of meows in her repertoire. There’s the standard “meow.” Then there’s the more emphatic “MEOW.” There’s the very sad and somewhat desperate “Whooooeow.” Then there’s the angry “EEEOOOOWWW!” We had the full concert.
As much as she did not want to go into the carrier, when we got to the vet she didn’t want to come OUT of the carrier. Suddenly that carrier looked like a pretty fine place to be.
We pried her out and the veterinarian did a nice, thorough annual wellness exam. Happily, Miss P didn’t seem to mind much the three shots.
Then Evil Bumblebee showed up and asked the doc if he could knock Miss P out, give her a bath and brush her hair.
See, Miss P has lived with us for 8 years. She is not at all prissy and I rarely see her grooming. She is a VERY DIRTY cat. We call her the Pigpen of the cat world.
During those 8 years I have given her ONE bath. You would have thought I was killing her–and she was NOT going down without a fight. Given her extreme and aggressive response I guess we were both lucky to come out of it alive. But I learned one important lesson: Don’t give the cat a bath. She doesn’t even want to be brushed.
Eight years is a long time to wander through the woods, kill things, take dirt baths and NEVER bother to attend to your own personal hygiene. Oh, she may take the occasional token swipe at her chops, but that’s the extent of this cat’s grooming. As a result, things were looking a bit grungy wherever she decided to take a rest. Her white pillow in the basement has a black spot in the middle. The guest room bed has a dirty grey spot where she camps out. I can even tell where she’s been hanging out on the outdoor furniture cushions. She leave trails of ick wherever she goes.
We’ve been pretty tolerant of her general untidiness, but it had gone too far. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
So, I hired the paid mercenary vet to do the dirty work and Miss P got her bath. At least he could knock her out, where I had to do battle without the benefit of drugs (for either of us). She had to spend the whole day at the vet hospital during which time they did bloodwork, knocked her out and then bathed her, brushed her and cleaned her ears all while she was asleep.
When she got home, she was still woozy and staggering around a bit. But today, she’s like a new kitty. She looks about three pounds lighter. She wants me to hold her all the time, which I no longer mind doing because she’s not disgusting anymore. She actually seems quite happy with herself.
But perhaps that’s just my projecting my pleasure at her finally being clean onto her. Or maybe it’s because she’s just pleased that she gets to start fresh at getting dirty all over again by wandering through the woods, killing things and taking dirt baths.
P.S.
Yes, I know Deli Cat is feline junk food. It is all that Miss P will eat. On the occasions when I have tried to give her a better, more nutritious food she spends DAYS standing at the food bowl yelling at me and generally making life miserable for everyone. I have given up since the Deli Cat is just a small part of her overall diet, which consists mostly of critters. (Eeeww.)
Robin
