It may serve as either an understatement or an overstatement (that is, a trivialization or an exaggeration) to say I have accomplished nothing today. Frankly as I sip my triple espresso here at my desk late afternoon overlooking the golf greens across Lighthouse Lane, assessing the sapor of the day, I judge myself to have been meaningfully engrossed and preoccupied (that is, rapt and passionate). Admittedly those superlatives may not be the credentials warranting endorsement for achievement. The day began however with the allusion of sap. After a more than adequate sleep last evening (when we succumbed to fatigue around nine o’clock and went to bed) I felt obliged to remove my carcass from the lair before 7:00 am this morning. Though the initial enterprise less than stirred me, and I sat upon the edge of the bed mournfully contemplating whether to bury myself again beneath the exceedingly cumbersome duvet, I was overcome by a duty to do something, to go somewhere! Such are the entrails of the Protestant Work Ethic!
The insinuation of these lofty motives was nonetheless moderately painful. I had taken the last dose of analgesics shortly before 4:00 am and it wasn’t until noon that I could anticipate the next palliative. Under those circumstances I was obliged to lubricate my matutinal joints with stretches, extensions – generally movement – another reason to abandon the burrow. As the reality was I hadn’t anything of consequence upon my diary or agenda, I wistfully descended into whatever arose between the sliced green apple and my regular morning news and email absorption. In the process for example I revived what was a lingering debate from yesterday about how one calculates the length of one’s spectacle temples which are cable instead of the regular skull sort. The query related to an on-line purchase I made on Christmas Day. To satisfy my curiosity I discovered a web site of the manufacturer of the product. I wrote to them. And they replied. Turns out the intelligence I had been offered by the third party from whom I purchased the frames was incorrect (or at least contradictory). So then the next challenge was to communicate with the third party to enquire whether it were too late to modify my order (which I noted on their web site showed was no longer a pending transaction as it had been last evening). I telephoned Liz at the third party supplier but naturally she didn’t answer. So I wrote her an email. My anxiety persisted. So I telephoned the general 800 number and got a very helpful woman who unhesitatingly modified the order. My Account on their web site now shows the modification (“Processing”) and the prior order “Exchanged” (because the initial was “Cancelled” following the intervention of the fraud department of my bankers).
I confess I am still reeling from all that kerfuffle. The dilemma had obviously continued to provoke me from the moment I first considered it and spoke with the supplier. Assuming I can rely upon the experience of the manufacturer, all should now be well. But the whole affair was a broadside.
Not unexpectedly the sum of my remaining day was spent doing and accomplishing little more than getting the car washed, bicycling the usual 10.35 Kms, laying in the sun by the pool and gathering photos of where I had been. Hardly a copybook curriculum vitae but nonetheless oddly sustaining!