Worry Worry Better Hurry

Why does worry loom so large in our lives these days? Maybe it's all those solemn teasers they put on before the news:  “Cat Leprosy: Will it Jump to the Human Population?" etc.. I bet in the old days people didn't worry like this. They just spent all their time searching for the food and  pounding the grain and shoeing the mules, then fell into bed the second darkness fell.  You can bet they didn’t need sleep aids OR Valium.It’s not like that for us.Me I got up the other day to find my whole body vibrating with tension. How would I ever do all I was scheduled to do in the next 48 hours? Bring a shrimp dish and a salad to the Shakespeare group AND  prepare a passage to read?  Take my elderly uncle out for a ride AND buy his food for the week?  Write the column AND the blog? Meet a friend for his birthday lunch AND finish making the present I had planned to give him? Have a painful treatment for my lower spine which looks like this road sign AND run three high school guys in to the city to tutor little kids? Put in the two hours there, then fight my way back out of the city? Take a health-restoring walk, then dash over to the high school to see the prom kids march past en route to their version of that Stairway to  Heaven evening? See Uncle Ed again and get him food again? Go to a movement class for the pretzel-back (again, see above sign.) Write twice more, try again for that walk  AND THEN HOST TWELVE  PEOPLE FOR DINNER?But…  I got lucky:  The back therapist postponed our session and the high schoolers had to see to their own studies instead of tutoring others. My birthday friend canceled my lunch and black skies and a tornado warnings canceled my walk. AND, as I came slowly to realize, while I had indeed invited these 12 people to dinner I was doing almost none of the cooking. I just had to cut up some mangoes and make a pot of chili and toss another salad because our honorary kids now living here were doing all the res. Their chunk of the menu consisted of

• Real fried chicken
• Home cooked mashed potatoes
• Rice Pilaf
• Mac and cheese
• Asparagus
• Corn on the Cob
• Fresh cut mangoes

 Leaving me to just do the chili, the salad, the biscuits, cornbread and the cookies, the latter three of which I planned to buy and then we'd be SET, as indeed we were.And the moral of this story is?

• Forsooth, do not sweat what you think you see approaching, for half the time it never comes to pass.And also..
• Live communally if you possibly can, for everything is easier when you are not alone.

chef on the right, sous-chef standing by him