errands | Gladsome Lights

It’s always an ordeal going to the Department of Motor Vehicles in my county. If you don’t make an appointment, you might wait in line four hours to get your business done. I had an appointment but still had to wait quite a while before they started running me through the mill by means of one device and machine and screen after another.

At least there were (not too robotic) humans directing me when to put my thumb down on the black box and how to “relax your elbow” when doing it; and telling me where to sit and where to stand and where to look for the rows of letters for the vision test. I came away eventually with my newly renewed driver’s license, but feeling quite “too old for this,” and with more errands remaining.

So on the way to the next one, a stop at the Big Box store, I listened to a reading of the Psalter through the Bluetooth in my car. The verses gave words to my lament, and directed them in the right direction, so that by the time I was pumping gas into my Subaru, I was peaceful, having been especially struck by the line, “All my bones shall say, “Lord, O Lord, Who is like unto Thee?” He is with us in our afflictions!

I don’t think I mentioned here yet that my dear daughter-in-law “Joy” is coming from Colorado with the four grandchildren this week, while my son is out of the country for a spell. At the store I found plenty of eggs to buy and have on hand for them, which was a blessing, as recently I’ve more than once found the shelves empty of eggs.

I went home with enough time to put all the groceries away, eat dinner, and then run my last errand, to the tax-preparer’s office, which was actually the least stressful part of the day. For a few years my taxes have been done by the same Nice Lady, and she and I have become friends; she really does like to see pictures of my garden, and we talk about our travel experiences and families. And now that pesky job is done.

The best thing that happened today, though, was the one unexpected event, of needing to clean out my big bedroom closet because of finding ants trailing through this morning. I haven’t put all the shoes and stuff back, but it was satisfying to do a thorough job of that, which, if it hadn’t been for a few ants, I would have continued putting off. Since I had to be driving all over for much of the day, it worked out well that I needed to do a homemaker-y thing right off the bat, because that is what all my bones love the most.

This morning as I was adding water to the fountain, a Monarch fluttered by, the first one I’ve seen this year. The next moment, I saw another butterfly across the garden, the one I see more often, and I thought I could find its name on my blog, but I can’t. It’s yellow and black. Two butterflies in two seconds!

I went to the community center to drop off my ballot, to the library to return a book, and to Costco to return an item that I’d bought impulsively only Sunday. As soon as I began unloading my car that evening, I knew it was a mistake, and did not even bring it into the house. It was a set of serving bowls that charmed me just long enough to necessitate today’s trip back to the store. Harder mistakes have happened.

My last stop was the thrift store, where a whole box of stuff including toys was rejected, because there was an all-metal (and clean, I tell you!) Nyger bird feeder stuck on top. The attendant reminded me of some rude Chinese restaurant waiters I have known, in the way he angrily judged my offerings as being contaminated by “poop.” I admit I went away from there briefly miffed.

How could I not be happy, when I had accomplished my outing before noon, and cleared my garage of another small load of stuff? My success gave me energy to keep sorting and organizing for a few hours. I threw away lots of pictures taken 60-80 years ago that are of people I never knew, or are so bad as to be insulting to the people I did know.

I took a nap, and then it was time to make dinner. While I was eating and watching the birds at the feeder outside, I read poetry. And it was the poetry that made me want to document that it was a morning with two butterflies.