“Remoted” – Day 172 (Friday)

Day one of my extra long four-day weekend kicked off with the return of summer weather. Even though “Denishawn Squad” had been on my calendar since last Friday I came perilously close to not going.

This is how it occasionally happens: there are things I want to do and enthusiastically commit to them. In the time between learning of the meetup/event/thing and the scheduled time of whatever it is, there will be imaginings of the event and the parties involved and how much fun it will be. When it’s finally time for the meetup/event/thing (and the time gap varies), the enthusiasm may have waned. Sometimes, there are excuses, avoidance, and/or cancellations, which may be genuine or may involve instances of attempted self-sabotage.

Today’s attempted self-sabotage took the form of procrastination. Moose had us up at the usual 6:00. Dance was at 9:30, so there was ample time for all the usual morning things including dressing in daytime clothes, followed by drinking coffee, reading email and Facebook, and playing Candy Crush. The exception to the daily drill would occur on or before 8:30, when it would be time to leave the house instead of logging on to the system for work.

This morning, however, involved excessive lounging around in PJs and bathrobe. At 8:00 I still wasn’t dressed and was eyeballing the clock and running the calculations. As long as I left the house by 8:30, I could be where I needed to be for 9:30, even with minor traffic delays.

There was some hustle needed to dress, fill a bottle with ice and water, put the dogs out to pee then diaper Moose and put a pee belt on Winston, reward the pups with cookies for compliance, and put a kiddie gate in the doorway to confine them to the kitchen. Tick tock.

Fluffernutter lunch!

While this was happening, the health inventory was underway – congestion (no), runny nose (no), sneezing (no), headache (yes), sore throat (no), titanium rod leg pain (yes). Mostly all good, and definitely good enough for dancing outdoors. And I was still talking myself into going. Or not. The go list included being outside, seeing dance friends, and doing the physical activity I love and which did not actually kill me last week due to neglect. The no-go list included the permanent entries of needing to mobilize and leave the comfort of the house, and mustering upbeat and positive to safely be around people.

The system that is me generally has two settings – on and off. There are no variable speeds. The more time spent working from home and practicing social distancing, the harder it is to flip the switch to the on position.

Somehow, the switch was flipped to on, and I got myself where I planned to be, and with the dragging of feet, seven minutes late. There was dancing outdoors at Saima Park under the shade of the pavilion with sunshine and blue skies and breezes, followed by stops at a gas station and a drive-thru car wash. Once back home, it was time for lunch (Fluffernutter!) and the switch toggled to the off position. Lounging. Ice cream, a nap. The evening delivered movies on Netflix and Hulu, with a side of wine.

Overall, the day had all the best elements of both settings.