It didn’t fit any of my schedules.

My son Matt has not been phoning me so I don’t know his work schedule so I don’t know if he’s coming for a swim, lunch and or dinner and I so I don’t know if he’s coming for Sunday dinner which has been a given for years. He was showing up without calling but last week he didn’t with no call and no show so this week with still no word I figured he wasn’t coming and didn’t make any plans.

I got busy with my D.C work and then I had to pay attention to a Zoom meeting and he arrived .

I managed to live alone for 30 years until the last two and a half. Matt lived with me for mutual protection (Covid) , suggested by the family. I began to eat more sensibly and cook again and pay attention to nutrition for his sake. I lost 40 pounds and Matt lost 60 pounds and we both felt and looked better. And then he left. He went home to his subsidized apartment that he shares with another challenged man assigned to him by Community Living, He forgot about me. I don’t blame him but I do miss him.

I stopped taking an interest in cooking. I lost my appetite. I cooked only if I had some one to share it with. Food doesn’t taste the same. I, whose first cookbook was about leftovers, started throwing out food. I have gained about three to five pounds depending on what day it is. Matt has gained twenty-seven pounds.

(We had a frozen pizza for dinner and an ice cream bar for dessert.)

That’s what happened to yesterday.

Now I can go on to today

Not now.

I found in my papers two-pages of instructions on how to de-clutter your home with a list and a calendar of what to do each day for 30 days. I thought how prescient of me who saved and of the person who wrote this advice, titled “How to Conquer Your Clutter—Super Bundle”. But in her (their?) introduction they suggest reading the Marie Kondo Book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I’m sure you know it.. I told you about it several months ago when I reported how lovely my sock drawer is, thanks to Kondo.

The calendar is not too daunting because it reduces your efforts to one task a day, for example: Day 1, empty one junk drawer; Day 5, go through your mail pile: Day 17, purge medicine cabinet'. It gets tough, though. Day 20, empty another junk drawer; Day 27, organize toys, followed by Day 28, donate old games. I hate the last directive: Day 30, clean. This list is all-knowing. It—they—know you have more than one junk drawer.. It knows you have a mail pile. They know you would hang onto old toys, so it orders you the next day to give away old games. And yet.

I hung onto those pages.

I’m not going to give them to the archives.

They’re my secret.

Tomorrow I’ll write about something different. There’s always more.