The best-laid plans..

Friday night I went to bed with a plan for Saturday.  A busy weekend was scheduled and I, for one, like to have plans even though I realize that plans, like organizational charts, and neatly organized drawers, are really just the backdrop.  Planning can give you a background of consistency, can provide a structure when structure is needed, and can provide a level of security in an insecure world, but balance is also needed.  Adhering too strictly to a schedule can cause one to miss out on too much of what is valuable in life, while at the same time, not enough structure and planning can turn the best of intentions into chaos and stress.

Saturday I woke up and my plans went out the window, through no one's fault but my own.  The day turned out well anyway.  The plan had been:

• Start with an early morning walk (pre-dawn, beginning around 6:30 AM)
• Take items to be donated to Community Chest pickup (car had been pre-loaded)
• Farmer's market
• Meet son-in-law and grandson at Chess in the Park
• Grocery shopping
• Make Yogurt and Soup for the coming week
• Watch Baylor Game
• Wash and iron Chancel Fair Linen

Here's what actually happened.

• At 6:25 the heaven's opened and a brief downpour began.
• At 6:40 the rain was over.  I opened the door into humidity so heavy it felt like walking into a steam bath.  My glasses fogged over and I retreated indoors.  I fully planned to wait a few minutes and begin again.
• I started the first batch of yogurt.
• I decided that it was time to catalog and shelve the stack of books that was starting to fall over by my desk and I embarked on that project.  This required shifting books on the bookshelves, which of course required dusting as I went.
• At 9:45 I realized I needed to head out for the community chest pickup.
• Drop-off completed, I headed toward downtown and the Market Square farmer's market.
• Randomly decided to take Kingston Pike downtown from Northshore instead of getting on interstate.
• Realized, as I approached downtown, that I had forgotten about the game and I was surrounded by a sea of pedestrians dressed in various permutations of bright orange.  Traffic was slow but peaceful and calm. Rather than feeling stressed, I felt myself grow calm and mellow, having no choice but to go with the flow.
• Wondered why I hadn't heard from my family and realized I had left my phone at home.
• Decided not to get out of traffic, head north, away from game to retrieve phone, and then have to head back south, toward game-traffic again.  I also realized that as much as traffic on downtown streets was slow, back-up on the interstate was probably worse.
• Decided to be thankful for absentmindedness and not fret.
• Walked around downtown for a couple of hours, putting in my 3 miles while wandering around the farmer's market and surounding neighborhoods, making several trips to scope out Chess in the Park, and generally having a good time, but not running into my family, despite the fact that the crowds had already dissipated in the direction of the game.
• Went to the Food Coop.
• Decided not to do the grocery-store part of grocery shopping, and went home.
• Watched most of the Tennessee game while continuing to dust and reshelve books in the living room.
• Washed and ironed the large chancel fair linen.
• Stopped everything and sat down to read Finn Family Moomentroll before returning book to shelf.
• Declined an invitation to join son-in-law and grandson for Ethiopian, as I can't eat the standard wheat-teff injera, and the restaurant needs a few days notice to make the more traditional pure teff injera that I can eat.
• Decided not to make soup.
• Decided that jalapeno poppers and beer would be an appropriate game-night dinner.
• Discovered that I didn't have the right bacon, having declined to go to the grocery-store, so I made the poppers with awkwardly wrapped thick-cut Benton's bacon.  Also discovered that the bag of jalapenos from my CSA basket contained ony a couple of jalapenos, one serrano (which I set aside) a couple of baby poblanos and one unidentified chile which had a promising shape.  I made do.
• Watched the Baylor game and knitted.
• Discovered that baby poblano poppers are very very good, and that Benton's is worth the trouble, neither of which is surprising, really.
• Called it a day.