Plenty of Half Done Jobs

I have plenty of half done jobs. Hundred’s of them to tell the truth. The reason I don’t concentrate on finishing them was underlined again for me tonight. I pulled out some of them, only to find that an unfinished job can explode into 3 or 4 more jobs, and at the end of the night, I see I am left with a larger number of things to do than before I started.

I did get a few things done. I have set of venetian blinds left over from renovations. I began to pull them out from under the stairs (a place I once made Doral sleep), and Mati helped me carry them to the garbage. “Black bin or blue”, he asked. And after my answer, “A pity to throw them out”. A big yes to that. A pity to throw out anything that seems it might be recycled. But after saving them for recycling for three years, I think I did right by getting them to the garbage.

I carried the last of the leaf and branch clipping from the lilac tree to the green cart. These had to be place in 4 foot or less lengths in a paper bag for the pick up tomorrow. That is because Richard and Miranda filled 3 carts on Sunday as they trimmed down trees that were plugging up my roof gutters. A person can’t really get a lot of clippings into a bag as compared to the green recycling bin. Still, I tried.

Michael's new haircutr

On the table is a game of Monopoly. Michael has been asking to play the game ever since it was pulled out of the garage in an attempt to get control over that area of the space I inhabit.

This is a wooden chest that has many games in one: Sorry, Cribbage, Chess, Checkers, Monopoly – all the pieces stored in a wooden drawer in the chest that holds all of the games. And so the half-played game of Monopoly is on my table tonight.

We will finish it tomorrow.

There is a plus to the game.

I notice that Michael is getting good with figuring out the money, and helping the girls read their cards – either from the Chance pile or from the Community Chest pile.

They like to pick the card up, but they are not readers yet.

The barber shop gave Michael both a lollipop and a can of pop --
 and a nice hot towel on his face after the cut.

 I have no idea how they got him to
 stay still for the hot facial moment.

Before I go to bed tonight, I am going to read the rest of the Monopoly rules.

I can’t remember this rule: you can only put houses and hotels on properties when you own everything that is the same colour.

Is this a rule we just used to ignore when I was young, or did I never just get properties that were all the same colour and so didn’t get to the higher level of playing Monopoly.


I don’t relish the moment when Alice or Betty or Michael have to drop out of the game because they are out of money.

But I think that moment is coming tomorrow.

I hope there won’t be too many tears.

Arta