Get Organized

There is this movie called Grand Canyon. You might call it an old movie, but I don’t really think of it as an old movie. I think of it as a regular movie. But at this point it’s over 20 years old.

There’s a scene in this movie that popped into my mind the other day. This happens to me a lot. I’ll be out, living my life, and every other event reminds me of a scene, or a dialogue, or a quote, from some book or movie or TV episode.

Mary McDonnell is sitting on her bed, her legs crossed. In front of her is her daily planner, one of those spiral bound htings, scribbled with pen marks. Also in front of her is one of those huge wall calanders with post-it notes all over it. She has a pen in her hand and is moving things around, reconciling all of these events. And her son, a teenaged Jeremy Sisto (I told you this was old) looks at her and says “Mom, you’ve really got to get organized.”

I am trying to get organized. I give myself all kinds of props for moving away from my paper planner and for using my computer calendar. Yes, I know it’s not perfect, but I finally got everything to synch right, and now I have my phone and my ipad and my computer telling me the same things all the time, so I am confident.

But the other day I asked Steve if he wanted me to come back home and pick him up before going to Nick’s End-Of-Year classroom celebration, and Steve looked at me like “What are you talking about?” 

Apparently, even though I filled out the form, volunteered to bring apple juice, and made a poster of all the different things we love about Nick, I neglected to mention the even to the child’s father.

That same morning I ran to the Town Hall to register Steve’s car, which was  a little late, and to register the dog, which I thought I had done in March, but apparently hadn't. It was so late we had to pay a $21 fine and they told us the next step would involve law enforcement. Only the dog’s rabies shot was overdue - as of May, and I had somehow overlooked that. It might have something to do with the fact that I am there every three weeks for special diabetic cat food, or maybe because they are always sending me cards telling me the pets need a check-up when I know for a fact they had a check up two weeks ago. And also at this point I’m paying more in pet fees than we are for Childcare.

Regardless, I messed it up.

I spend half my life plugging things into my calendar, and the other half doing things my calendar tells me to do.  And yet I’m still all over the place.

After some thought, perhaps I'm less like the lady with her many planners and more like Jonathan Winters in The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming.

"We've just got to get organized!"