Being and Nothingness

Today we did nothing.

It was a day of such spectacular underachievement that I felt it had to be recorded for posterity.

We failed to return the eighteen overdue library books that are busy racking up costly fines and inciting menacing emails from the newly computerised and automated Chief Librarian (did that hurt when they did it, I wonder?).
In our defence, some of the books are in a nice cloth bag waiting by the door for a responsible person to drive them back to their orderly, quiet home.  Others, less fortunate, can be found sitting dejectedly in a pile on my desk, desolately hoping that they might still be taped back together in the places where One found them particularly gripping (or vice versa).

 We did not go to the supermarket, working our way down the carefully crafted list that we haven’t ever written – not once in the history of our entire family – and purchase nutritious foodstuffs that will then combine to make delicious yet thrifty meals.
On the bright side, though, we didn’t steal any sweeties, read any checkout magazines that are beneath our dignity to show an interest in, nor did we throw tantrums in the aisles upon being denied items we know full well we are not permitted.  So perhaps that is, on balance, a positive result?

Tomorrow is my father’s 65^th birthday. This is a momentous occasion.
If I could, I would give him a OAP bus pass although he would probably not find this quite as side-splittingly hilarious as me. He has not been on a bus, insofar as I know, for at least thirty years. He prefers to fly first class for his various meetings around the globe and phone me from airport lounges to tell me that he is very busy.   I, of course, am also very busy with extremely important meetings such as the-convening-of-the-baby-tigers-and-crocodiles-under-the-table-which-is-really-a-swamp after breakfast. It is because of sundry pressing engagements such as these over the last 365 days that we didn’t quite make it to the post office to mail this year’s present in time.  It’s currently resting patiently in the same bag as the unmolested library books. Slightly unfortunate timing, I agree, but I will attend to it when a gap in my schedule opens up.

Given my slatternly attitude to the gathering of comestibles, we did not have the ingredients, nor the will, to eat a proper lunch.

Instead I drove us to the bakery, let my children share a  $3 ‘raisin snail’ which probably has less nutritional value than the ones we have in abundance for free in the back garden, but it is not as slimy and probably tastes nicer. 
I wore a black turtleneck, drank coffee and pretended I was an existentialist.
I would have smoked a Gaulois but this is California and you are not allowed.  I think you’re not allowed to be an existentialist here either, you’re only allowed to have a nice day, but I didn’t get busted.

After “lunch” One didn’t nap, Four didn’t do anything educational, and I didn’t do anything about the previous two items.

I also didn’t do any washing up, laundry, write any emails or answer the phone.

We just hung out, played around the house and made an enormous mess.

It was fantastic.

I am busy planning another intense day of absolutely bugger all for tomorrow.

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