Do Nothing

"I am convinced that there are times in everybody's experience when there is so much to be done, that the only way to do it is to sit down and do nothing." - fanny fern

The hollywood household of Nurse Sis, Mom and moi have had issues this past winter. Basically, everything that could go wrong has. Our beautiful new house has been ruined by a leaky roof that should have been disclosed during the sale. Nurse Sis, during a nursing shortage, has not been able to find a doable job. I've been depressed and overwhelmed by my list of things to do, and had my car wrecked last month in yet another car accident that was not my fault (really!). And now Mom is experiencing paralysis on her right hand side and is having difficulty having any independence, already a huge issue in her life.

Basically, my philosophy for the winter was right there with fanny fern. I cried, I avoided, and I hung out with my friend Tivo. Not to say I did nothing; I've helped take care of Mom, taken her to appointments, written another film script, and done some of the numerous household chores. But that's just not enough to keep up with the many demands of life.

In order to get things done, we need 12 hour chore days, 5 days a week. This is such a depressing fact that I really wasn't willing to gear up for it.

Then last week a girlfriend of mine gave me a temp job on a commercial shoot for a crappy internet company you've heard of. I was suddenly back to working ten hour days, commuting an hour and a half, eating my lunch in the car and being asked to lie on my time card about having been given a nonexistant break, all before going to UCLA for three hours of screenwriting classes Monday and Tuesday. And of course, I was the low man on the totem pole working for snotty, cocky 23 year olds who literally talked like I wasn't even in the room. "Yes'm, No'm."

Whatever.

But I did have a realization, as I quit and told them to fuck themselves. I realized that if I had that much energy to give to strangers, surely I could put in at least 2 days a week like that to keep our household afloat. So I set my alarm today (that would be my 19 year old cat Calliope), got up and dressed and got Mom's chores organized in a Franklin-Covey system. Taught her how to choose her A list priority chores for the day, and today we got 3 out of 4 of them done. We also finished a half dozen B and C level chores, and moved everything else over to tomorrow's list.

It was quite a feeling of accomplishment and mastery. Of course, it was a fleeting feeling...Mom came home from an MRI appointment for her knee furious at the UCLA doctor for being happy her knee was fine but not very interested in the paralysis in the rest of her leg. Somehow my checkmarks next to chores didn't assuage her feelings of being marginalized and dismissed in another medical office.

So I trudged upstairs to look at MY Franklin Covey planner, and moved everything on today's date over to Thursday. Tomorrow is another day.

Bottom line is, the ladies need some help.

And it may be coming in the form of a young Christian handyman/actor. We've been without our pal Wesley now since before Christmas because he's been so busy being a Korean movie star, and boy have the chores piled up around the house. But he referred a friend our way, and as soon as Lukas gets back next week from his recurring role on Everwood, he will be coming over to meet and greet us.

Keep your fingers crossed.