Time Is (About To Be) On My Side

I am about to be given the gift of time. It will be approximately 5 hours every Sunday, 3 hours every Saturday and 2 hours every Friday night. Are the twins beginning some sort of extracurricular activity? No. Did I lose my job? Not yet. Am I out of charcoal for the grill? Well, almost, which reminds me…but that’s not the answer either.

The NASCAR season is just about over. Or, you could say that the checkered flag is about to wave on the NASCAR season, but that would be lame. Although I just did say it. Oops. At any rate, the last races for all three series that I watch (yes, there are actually three major series competing. You don’t get that with your little stick and ball sports) will be run this Friday night through Sunday evening. When you throw in qualifying shows, pre-race shows and post-race shows, that’s at least 15 hours a weekend I am about to get back until early February. While I should probably be excited by this dramatic annual turn of events, I am more nervous about how that time will be spent. I realize that for most people getting more time in the weekend would be a blessing. What sucks is that my left thumb and index finger are just getting into mid-season shape. Gone is the agonizing pain experienced when I use my TiVo’s remote. It has been replaced by a slight tingling sensation and I am currently navigating through commercial breaks quicker than I have in the last three racing seasons. It’s really a shame to have to call it quits when I am running like a well-oiled sports watching machine.

Knowing that I should put this newfound time to better use, I sat down last night and prepared a list of things that could (or need) to be done between next Sunday night and the 2nd weekend of February. And let me tell you folks, it’s a very long list. Did you know that they give kids homework in Kindergarten? Heck, did you realize that Lucy and Ethel are now in Kindergarten? I missed that somehow, though I have been told they started Kinder somewhere between lap 85 of the Pepsi 400 at Daytona and lap 219 of the Chicago race. I’m not quite sure how I missed that.

I also have new grass that has reached the heights of a resting hippo propped up by bricks on top of a suspension bridge (ya know, for comparative illustration). It seems that this grass needs to be mowed. The scuttlebutt around the house is that we may or may not have a fully-grown golden retriever making her home in it too. And if that wasn’t enough, I keep being told that I was hospitalized during the August Watkins Glen race weekend. This probably explains the substandard food I vaguely recall tasting while watching those races.

Obviously experiencing the shock of having so much more free time can be dangerous, especially for someone with a weak heart, so I am going to start out utilizing my new free time very slowly. The first non-race weekend happens to be Thanksgiving weekend so I can devote myself to holiday decorating and shopping. Fine, I’ll be honest: I am going to be eating lots of things containing turkey, turkey byproducts and things inspired by turkey. I call it Turkey Marathon week. You’ll know I’ve reached the end of Turkey Marathon week when I am pureeing it for use as a coffee creamer. Don’t gag chuckle, the taste grows on you after the first 5-6 cups.

It has occurred to be that I could use the extra 15 hours each weekend to begin a new hobby. Currently, the closest thing I have to a hobby is blogging and arguing with my twins that I am in fact ‘in charge.’ Obviously you can tell that I am in need of a new hobby, or a ‘real’ hobby. There are a lot of things that I am interested in. I am tempted to make small ships inside of glass bottles that you always see in tourist shops in coastal towns, but I can foresee myself being heartbroken and inconsolable after wrecking the first ship while trying to cram it into said bottle. Perhaps I could call the first miniature ship I build the ‘Edmund Fitzgerald,’ which will then help me better accept the fact that it is wrecked.

I tried golfing once but kept trying to swing the clubs like I would swing a baseball bat and it blistered every finger on both hands and I can tell you that vicious rumors can be directed at people with blisters on every finger. Being able to build things has always intrigued me. The only problem with that is I don’t follow directions very well and promised several members of my family, a few good friends and a couple of social workers that I would let other people build things after I assembled the twins’ wagon one Christmas and we had a little ‘issue’ with a stray wheel getting away during a leisurely wagon ride. There was also an issue with a play set, tricycle and that sparking episode with the motorized bikes that they received last Christmas. Let’s just say that the term ‘hot rods’ now has a new meaning. I can also now tell you that companies don’t usually place extra parts in their packages; they are usually meant to be included in the final completed piece. Huh, who knew?

Maybe I’ll play it safe and enroll myself in a culinary school. Surely, with the current writer’s strike the Food Network would be interested in a show solely about cheese. Now that folks, is time well spent…