Today is Sunday, November 18.  There are only 37 days until Christmas.  The Valentine’s Day sales are starting and the Easter candy will be out soon.  This is the birthday of Imogene Coca, Brenda Vaccaro and Ted Sator.  On this day in 1307, William Tell shot the apple off his son’s head (I guess they did not have DYFIS back then).  In 1928, Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse debuted in New York in “Steamboat Willie.”  And, in 1936, the main span of the Golden Gate Bridge was joined.  It is Army Day in Haiti, Independence Day in Morocco and the start of National Children’s Book Week in the US.

I have spoken many times about the things that afflict us as we get older.  One of those is our ability to be side tracked.  Here is a perfect example.

One morning recently, I came down for breakfast and was reminded that I had not cleaned up the dishes from the night before.  Don’t you just hate that?  You have a good night’s sleep, you wake up refreshed and walk in to find all the dirty dishes from the night before that didn’t get done because you decided to put them off until the next day.  That kind of puts a crimp in the day for you … but I digress.

Anyway, after having breakfast, I decided that I should really get going and get the dishes cleaned up.  I took my watch off, put it on the table and got set to clean up.  Standing at the sink, I looked out the window and saw that I had left the cover off the grill.  I felt that I should go out and take care of that, because rain was forecast for later and I did not want the grill to get wet and rusted.  So I went out to cover the grill.

As I covered the grill, I noticed that the garbage cans had been blown into the yard.  I wanted to get them put back where they belonged so I wouldn’t have to look for them later in the dark and the rain.  I moved them after the grill was covered.  While I moved the cans it occurred to me that I had not treated the hot tub lately, so I figured I should take care of that.  You never know when you might need a good soak.   As I was doing that, I found some things that needed to be moved down to the basement now that summer was over.  I grabbed those things and took them downstairs to be put away.

In the basement, I wondered what time it was and realized that I did not have a watch on.  I knew it had to be somewhere upstairs so I was going to go look for it when I saw that the laundry basket was full and needed to be carried upstairs to the second floor.  I picked it up and started back upstairs.  When I stopped to close the basement door and turn out the light, I spotted my watch on the table.  I put it on and took the laundry up. 

While upstairs, it dawned on me that it was the day to clean the bathroom, so I got busy doing that.  Fortunately, it is not a big bathroom, so it did not take all day to do.  When I finished, I realized that I was getting hungry.  I looked at my watch and saw that it was after noon.  So, I went downstairs to get lunch and was reminded that I still had not cleaned up the dishes from the night before.  I figured I would hold off until I ate lunch.

After lunch, I again decided that I really should get going and get the dishes cleaned up.  Standing at the sink, I happened to glance outside and saw that I had not gotten rid of a dead plant that my wife wanted me to dispose of.  I was going to go dump the plant, but decided not to allow myself to get distracted again. 

The dead plant is still out there.  I’m pretty sure I will get to it … sometime.