Lollygagging

Usually when I call Carlene, she's picking up twigs (she filled three wheelbarrows yesterday) or raking leaves or doing her taxes or making squash and onions--while talking to friends who show up to talk.  Or she's just gotten back from her three-mile walk with Judy, her friend and the mayor of Lawrenceville.  Or she's caulking around the base of her toilets. Or she just got back from Cracker Barrel with Margaret and Marlene, or a baby or bridal shower.

But today, she said she was lollygagging--which is Georgia-speak for doing nothing.  She was reading a book of letters written during World War II.  The Georgia forecast is predicting ice storms.

Last week she gave a program at church for young married women--wherein she asked them to tell their love stories and she told her own, of a fifty-seven year marriage.  One of the things she showed them was a note he had left on the table, as he often did, this one signed Lloyd.com.  When she was checking e-mails, he used to sit in a chair beside her and watch, but he never used the computer himself.  "I'm afraid if I mash one of those buttons, I'll break it," he said.

She told me that a window man came to her house to inquire as to whether or not she'd like her windows weatherized.  She declined.  "But somewhere down the road...." he  started.

"I'm already pretty far down the road," she said, "I'll be 89 this summer, and I can tell you I'm not going to need my windows done down the road...."

I believe that she'll be one centenarian who decides one spring day to have her windows winterized!  Her road is bound to be a long one, with all her walking and eating well and friendships.

We talked about how we often measure our days by how much we get done, how liberating it is sometimes to do nothing.  I told her I was thinking of painting my walls, but that I'm enjoying reading so much I can't summon the energy to paint.  "Well, the paint's not dry from the last time  yet," she said. So I came home and lollygagged, reading an excellent book: My Life in Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead.

Then the carpet man brought my newly cleaned carpet back--the one that was a gift from my friend.   He put it in front of the sofa and it looks like brand new.

"You look so happy," the rug man said.  "You must exercise every day."

I hedged.  "I'm going to yoga tonight," I said.

"That's why you are so happy," he said. "You go to yoga and then come teach me."

I think he was flirting--though I'm not entirely sure.  It's been long enough since I've been flirted with that I'm not sure I can read the signs, but I'm going to play like he was.  But mostly, I'm going to lollygag.