Much To-Do

Every so often I sit down with a piece of paper and try to list all of the things on my to-do list, because otherwise they fall out of the back of my head and leave splotchy stains on the carpet. You have to fix those suckers down somehow.

This is invariably a depressing task.

Or it might be a confidence builder, since there is no way that the whole list will ever get accomplished in one lifetime and thus I am owed extra innings here on Earth.  Either way.

I try to organize this list by job. The online classes get one chunk of the paper. The face-to-face class gets another. The performing arts gig gets a third. Miscellaneous Home-Campus-related items that don't fit under any of the above categories go next. The course I'm theoretically designing (again) gets its own space, forlornly white since at this point I have no idea what I'm going to put in there and am starting to doubt that I ever will.

And then there is a whole section labeled "Other." Because at some point all the classifications schemes in the world are simply insufficient to encompass the grand mess that is life in progress.

Right now the Other category has such gems as:

1. Fix violin.

I was trying to tune Tabitha's violin the other day and discovered why it is that I should not be trying to tune Tabitha's violin. It has a little wooden sliver called a bridge that is intricately carved to provide maximum structural weakness and over which all of the strings must pass on their way to being played. So when you break it, you are pretty much sunk. And apparently these are not standardized, so you can't just go to your local Music-O-Rama and get yourself a bridge, either. You have to special order the one that fits YOUR violin.

Wanna buy a bridge?

2. Call for Valentine's Party

I believe that this refers to Tabitha's class, as I am the room parent for that group and it is my job to scrounge up the sweets for their various celebrations. I certainly hope so, because otherwise there will be some disappointed partygoers somewhere else.

3. Email friends.

Yes, I still email people, because I am HOPELESSLY OLD-FASHIONED, that's why. I write these emails in ink, longhand, with a quill pen, before typing them into the computer. I do this by lantern light. This is why it takes me up to three months to respond to people. I am not sure what to make of a world where email is considered old-fashioned.

4. Call sheriff.

Wisconsin has some fairly strict laws about how old/tall/heavy you have to be to sit in the front seat of the car, at least as a child, and I want to see if Tabitha is okay for that, and avoid getting a ticket if she is not. I find it odd to think that some of my relatives who lived well into their 90s probably never would have qualified under those laws and would have had to sit in the back seat their entire lives, shouting suggestions at whoever was driving, particularly on bridges.

Yes, there's a family story behind that.

5. "Do Apple things as emailed."

I have no idea what this means, and I keep transferring it from to-do list to to-do list in the hope that the light will come on at some point and I can get it done and cross it off.

6. Order checks.

Because I live in the midwest, where cash is a sign of weakness, and we go through a lot of checks.

There's more, but even though going to sleep is not technically on the list, the fact that it is now after midnight on a school night suggests that perhaps I should consider it as such anyway.