SO NOW WE'RE WRITING LISTS

My mom can't come to the blog right now.  She's at the kitchen table (with a big fat Panera bagel, I might add) writing lists.

Apparently, the old lady has decided that if she writes enough stuff down on $1 bin notepads from the Michael's things will eventually get done around here.  This, of course, is because my Aunt Chrissy employs the use of lists and always seems to be productive and well organized.

Alas, it is not so with my stupid mo-ther.

The first list that she wrote was for the grocery shopping excursion that will take place once Aunt Chrissy gets home from work and then calls to tell Mo-ther to put her shoes on and get moving so that they can get home a decent hour.  Normally, they go to the grocery on Thursday nights, but Aunt Chrissy has requested a change to Fridays to help accommodate the inevitable migraine that will ensue after watching my mo-ther (always unsuccessfully) try  to find kumquats.  Or exotic handmade noodles.  Or some other stupid thing she saw on the Food Network that is surely only available in cities more cosmopolitan than this little cow patch we call home.

I caught sight of other lists like "Things to Do Today", "Things To Do This Weekend", "Things To Do This Fall", and finally, "Things to Do This Winter", but I'm not at all optimistic that anything at all will be accomplished, since I see that the first thing on each and every list is "Clean the House".  We're not exactly eligible for a reality show intervention just yet, but let's just say that I've taken to wearing my garden clogs inside the house to avoid the collision of dust bunnies that happens when a breeze causes them to scurry across the hardwood.  Also, if the old lady doesn't start putting the freshly laundered clothes away instead of fishing the next pair of sweatpants out of the basket from atop the dryer, I'm going to stop using lavender soap and switch to the generic stuff. (For her clothes only, of course.  I do still have MY standards.)

The most disconcerting thing I've noticed on these lists is "Revamp the Studio and Re-Think Stitching". This means that we're in for several months of hair-pulling, sweaty-faced bawling and bitching about the lack of stitching that's gone on around here since the Great Bronchitis Epidemic of 2012 that has rendered my stupid mo-ther even more catatonic than usual.  I'm not sure if it's the meds or the fact that she can't seem to go more than nine seconds without hacking up a lung, but I haven't seen a threaded needle anywhere near the Happy Chair in over a month.  Pity, really, since she does have so many lovely things started, and one can only imagine how much better the Big White Walls of Nothingness would look with a little framed decor'.

I suppose that this list writing frenzy is inevitable, since I overheard Mo-ther telling Aunt Chrissy that she's coming up on the 10th anniversary of living here in her little house, and these types of milestones always start her thinking about how she might improve things so that she's finally living in a feature article in Martha Stewart Living.  I hate to tell her this, but life with Spinster is more like something you'd see in the Psychiatric Quarterly, but I'll let her tire herself out a bit before breaking the sad news that perfection isn't a word that should be in her little dictionary.

As for my own lists, they are short and sweet.  As you know, I am prone to bouts of eye-rolling condescension when it comes to participating in banal trivialities like list writing, so I try to keep things on a more sophisticated level.  Today will find me researching 18th century dressing gowns as worn by the French aristocracy, and this weekend I plan to review several new indie films from the 2012 New York Film Festival.  If time permits, I might make a lovely little cassoulet to enjoy with a good Pinot, but we'll have to see how this impacts my nap schedule.

I do hope that your lists are considerably more promising and that the weekend is full of fun things for you.  I'll be back soon to report on Mo-ther's successes and (most assuredly more likely) failures.  Until then, I remain your loyal and devoted friend.

With much love from your pal,
Stewey