mise en place

Piles of work. You know how you feel when you are trundling to the gym for the eleventy-millionth time? At some point, shouldn’t some number of trips hold you for the rest of your life? 

“Hey guys, I just found out that once you hit the gym 1,000 times then your body will stay as it is from any point after that. Do 1,500 if you want, but you’ll never be in less shape than you were at visit 1,000.”

There was some work being done to the exterior of Winterthur this spring. All about the outside of the house were piles and piles of unassembled scaffolding ready to be, well, assembled. Remembering that I have zero skills when it comes to toolery or building, I was a bit in awe of the amount of pipe/structure, connections, and other stuff needed to build scaffolding around a four-story mansion. I should have taken a picture – would have made the story better, right? Anyhow, thinking about a job like repainting an abbey seems like trouble enough. Having to assemble and unassemble all the damn scaffolding makes it three times the work.

Every spring we begin to see the endless creation and de-creation of festival needs across DC. The Cherry Blossom Festival is the first that requires the standing of all the temporary fencing along busy, Mall-adjacent roads; keeps the tourists from darting across Ohio Ave. while I’m drinking my coffee and chauffeuring my better half to work. The fences will come down and a week later they’ll go back up. The temporary tents and stands go up; they come down. They will go up again. Just the areas that I see require at least six or seven different ups and downs over the summer, and this is some major construction. It may be the worst job I can think of, “Todd, go put up the massive tent in the open space near the Bureau of Engraving.” So, I take my truck, gather that huge tent and get it up and ready. “Todd, go take down the same tent and put it back in storage.” Good news, it’s down and stored. One week later, “Todd, go put up the massive tent in the open space near the Bureau of Engraving.” Are you fucking kidding me? I just took it down!” Over and over and over. “Hey, fence-erector guy, can I swap with you? I hate that tent.” I wonder what chores they have over the winter?

Of course, X pointed out that cooking dinner is the same process. You think to yourself,, “I’ll make some chili tomorrow night, easy peasy.” Well, aside from shopping (if needed), cutting, prepping, cooking, setting the table, serving, clearing, washing dishes, and wiping down the kitchen.  I guess this is why the answer I get from H. is “about 20 minutes” when I ask him how much time does he think making dinner takes. Not that he should really know, but it seems to reflect on about everything in life.

I can only think that getting in bed at night doesn’t require more than just getting in bed.

This all means nothing. Unfortunately, you’ll now just aggravate yourself adding up the steps required to do what you think is just one item on your checklist.

You’re welcome.