Do you consider yourself an organized person? If you answered "yes", and you live with people who are not so inclined, does it drive you nuts? If you answered "no" and you live with someone who is organized, does it drive you crazy?
I've always been pretty organized. If I have a busy day ahead of me (or a backlog of items for custom orders), I make myself a list, each line item having its own checkbox preceding it, and I proceed down through the list rather methodically. I can do this because I've pre-organized the list in the order in which items would best be tackled. I confess, my grocery shopping list is written in the order of the aisles. Does that make me Type A? I just think it's smart--ready, set, shop, get the heck out of there. Who wants to be swimming upstream, so to speak, against the tide of clueless tourists shopping for their vacation supplies at Shaw's?
Another person in our house makes lists...lots of lists. He cross-pollinates his lists so that the same item may appear in more than one place (my only guess is that this is some bizarre approach to prioritizing). He writes the day on the top of the list and crosses it off and writes a new day at the top of the list because what day these things get done was never important to begin with. He does things that were not on the list at all and ADDS them to the list, then crosses them off. His lists would never work for me, but they work just fine for him.
Then there's the Bear. He is mildly aware that lists exist. He has been trained to ask "Mom, what side of the Walmart list does such-and-such an item go on---merchandise or grocery?" He asks where on the Shaw's list to write "Cholula". He has seen his father write, rewrite, and stack up his list of lists. But is he a practitioner? No. He is a bear.
He ambles about in an attitude free of human-species forethought. Things happen in their natural order, and develop their natural odor (not believing in a 'laundry list' you can see how this might happen). He worries about his next meal when his stomach starts to growl, and then scavenges through the bounty of a full fridge, feasting on left-over salmon and fresh-picked blackberries. He eats until he is sated, then lumbers off to go to sleep, as bears are wont to do with a full belly. He has managed to exist without lists perfectly fine so far and sees no need for them. But those days may be numbered---because the Bear is about to embark on his first adventure in independent living. He has not the slightest clue what this actually means.
I asked the Bear to make a list of things he thought he would need to establish a human habitat. His list included just the basics of survival. You know, food, shelter... WRONG. The list had: air conditioner, wireless router, tv, speakers for computer, posters for walls, lamps, and a coffee maker (the Bear does not drink coffee, by the way).
The fact that he actually put pen to paper is a documentable first. However, knowing that any kind of list authored by a bear would most certainly be incomplete, I made my own very, very long and comprehensive list. With the exception of a few essential furniture pieces, it did not come as a surprise to find that there was no overlap between the two. Our concepts of what is 'mission critical' when setting up housekeeping are not the same.
So anyway, I have spent the last couple of weeks running around, gathering provisions for the new bear cage. Whether he asked for them or not, he has a broom and dustpan and a toilet brush and plunger. The kitchen and bathroom are both set up. The list of big furniture items that need to be moved by the Bear and the Strongman is ready.
My house-warming gift to the Bear is all ready to go: A pad of paper and a pen. I'm thinking that as soon as his stomach growls and he realizes that his apartment doesn't have one of those 'self-filling' refrigerators like we have here at home, he may realize the value of making lists.
This week's feature piece is the "Running Around" bracelet and earrings. A double-wrap strand of faceted Sheepskin Jasper, in great neutral tones to carry you from Summer into Fall and beyond. See a photo on the website, link below my signature.
Until next week--
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