No, it was yesterday, the 14th. My copy disappeared twice and I gave up, intending to finish it in the morning and catch the date. But I had a deadline I had to meet today (the 15th) so I have to fill in my puttering and then catch up to Zoom….?

Well….

putter verb: occupy oneself in a desultory but pleasant way: I'm quite happy just to potter about by myself here. • [ with adverbial of direction ] move or go in a casual, unhurried way: I might potter into Nice for the day.

noun: an act or period of occupying oneself in a desultory but pleasant way: an afternoon's potter through the rooms and possessions of the rich.

ORIGIN mid 16th cent. (in the sense ‘poke repeatedly’): frequentative of dialect pote‘to push, kick, or poke’ of unknown origin.

It took some poking for me to agree with a definition. I’m sure you know what I mean when I say I puttered. It’s a necessary activity in any household. There’s so much to do that you can’t define that simply reduces to puttering. Some examples:

*picking dead leaves off a plant —or from the floor

* emptying the compost pot, putting in a new bag, and (as soon as possible) taking the bag to the compost bins in the garage (in my apartment building)

*replacing batteries (finding the right size)

I’ll think of more soon but you can see that these activities involve poking (aka puttering). It’s like putting in a new roll of toilet paper. Someone has to do it.theOfficial

It makes me think of a Rule or maybe it’s an Explanation (from Paul Dickson’s books, The Official Rules and The Official Explanations