Day 1483: Procrastivity

Procrastivity: when you procrastinate on important (or even essential) tasks by doing other things that are obviously useful but not as important or urgent.

I had a whole list of things to do in the house this week. The curtains are a particularly pressing (and annoying) concern, because they’ve come off their hooks in a few spots and we’re heading into super-long daylight hours; so obviously I repotted and separated all the houseplants instead.

Some of their pots contained 90% roots and only 10% soil. The three baby spider plants I had in glass bottles finally had substantial root systems and needed to be potted. And really, there were way too many baby spider plants hanging off the oldest and biggest one. Clearly, the repotting needed to be done.

Why then, I ask, do I feel vaguely guilty? Something needed doing, I did it, I cleaned up completely. Sounds like a good thing. I did it for the wrong reason, though—that reason being that I can’t stand the thought of working on those damnable curtains yet again.

(As an aside: I’ve blogged about the curtains so many times that they probably deserve their own category.)

It was nice, though: I worked on the front porch and E joined me, rhapsodizing about how good it feels to have your hands in the soil. And there’s something very healing and calming about taking care of plants (not that I do it regularly, but when I do, it’s relaxing.) Also, a side effect of this project is that the giant bag of potting soil that was on the table in the Makery is no longer taking up that space (so I decluttered!)

It’s already 8:30 p.m. so I won’t start the curtains tonight. It’s probably better to get a fresh start in the morning, right? I’ll eat a good breakfast, drive K to school, take E to her playdate, and then I’ll get right to work. I mean it this time.

Meanwhile, in Spain… (from the keyboard of Mr. December)

First, about the photo Sara shared of our shabbat table (Gatorade and all): The (electric) candles in the mugs were supposed to represent practicing Judaism in secret, but I was too secretive, and also didn’t have jugs to make it clearer (reference to some apocryphal stories about Conversos lighting their candles in jugs to keep them secret). I guess Sara wasn’t expecting some kind of Spanish Inquisition joke. This is reasonable, since

no one expects a Spanish Inquisition joke!

Today we did a walking tour of the rooftops of the great Cathedral of Seville. It is really a magnificent building, with many levels of roofs and an outstanding view at the top.

First, here is Christopher Columbus being carried by four kings, taken by R. He is buried in that cathedral, but we didn’t get a chance to see his body.

Here are a couple more pictures from the rooftops:

The tour guide described how great Ferdinand III was to everyone. Expectedly, he didn’t mention any kind of inquisition, but I did confirm his tomb (Ferdinand III, not the guide) does have Hebrew on it and that he worked with the Jewish population.

R was very tired, so we got some expensive juice and wandered back to our room to feast on some fruit and turkey. We kinda rested through the other things on the group’s itinerary, and then didn’t really feel like going to a birthday party (bowling plus arcade). Despite sleeping well the first night in Spain, I couldn’t sleep last night, so most likely I’m still working off the jetlag. 

We then walked the historic Jewish neighbourhood with happens to be 60 metres from our house.

Here is the old synagogue, which is now a church:

(Ed. note: That’s a pretty succinct lesson in the history of Spanish Jewry, isn’t it?)

No tours, but you can do confession:

There’s a little bit of Hebrew. It says “Sepharad (Hebrew for Spain), Caminos de Sefarad. Red De Juderias De España” (Path of Sepharad, Network of Jewish Quarters of Spain):

Finally we bought a can of corn and a can of olives, and ate at a Japanese restaurant. A bit more gelato, and we’re off to bed! Lots of quality time with R, including some details about what is going on in her life. So far so good on the trip!