Christmas at Corgi Ranch is a time for relaxation, rejuvenation, and rebirth.  We have traditions, to be sure. But just as important – maybe more important – is what they call in the cruise industry “a day of leisure”.  This feels like a foreign concept perhaps these days. It certainly is uncommon for me. The idea of leisure is you just do what you feel like doing. Whatever strikes your fancy. You might see a bird in the yard and follow him around a while, wondering where he is going next and why because, well, it’s interesting. You might decide to create a website and blog for Corgi Ranch because you feel like it. You might decide to develop a skill. Or you might try to find everything you have ever received as a Christmas present and use it at least once during the holidays to remind yourself how fortunate you have been. Who knows what your mind may dream up with a whole day of leisure? These moments of inspiration that randomly appear, the ones you follow, they feel more like “me being me” than anything else. Feeling like yourself more than you usually do, that’s a really good feeling.  Try to think of yourself more as a good in itself a bit more and  a little less as a vehicle to get stuff done, and see if you don’t feel better for the exercise.

Over the holidays you may find yourself with multiple days of leisure. If you are like me and keep a calendar for commitments and appointments and plans, you might look at the calendar for tomorrow and find a gloriously blank slate. Tomorrow could be anything. When this happens to you, resist the urge to answer the question, “What do you want to do tomorrow?”  If you answer that question, you have just given up your day of leisure. You have made plans. You have traded in the day of leisure for doing what you wanted to do tomorrow. Instead, you just have to let a day of leisure reveal itself. Let it unwind. See what happens.

December 26, 2020 was a day of leisure for me. Here is what I ended up doing:

• Watching one and a half episodes of “Cheaters” from 2003. Dude pulled out a gun to make the crew stop following him with television cameras. It was crazy.
• Working in the yard. Distributing some pea gravel. Cutting out a stump. Taking a break to have a  Big Red in a glass bottle like I did as a kid. Good times.
• Putting up the hammock. I always do that when the weather is nice out, though I rarely lay in it. I didn’t today. To be honest, my relationship with leisure is still a work in progress.
• Decided against cleaning the saddles hanging in my garage, but now vaguely planning to build a sawhorse to use them as photo props. A sawhorse with a head and a tail. A bridle and show ribbons. If you are going to do something, might as well go all the way. 
• Fist bumping my electrician after he suggested I play a trick on DIane by leaving the new overhead kitchen lights dimmed when I turn them on when the whole point was to make the kitchen brighter. I said that probably wouldn’t work out well for me. He offered the fist bump. I kind of liked it. I might do that more.
• Actually playing that trick on Diane when she got home. She wasn’t fooled or miffed. I married up. In pharmaceutical terms you can say my humor is well tolerated by the patient.
• Bought a white bucket with the Texas state flag at Home Depot. I go to Home Depot a lot when I have a day of leisure. I go in the morning before Diane wakes up.  I find it relaxing. It is peaceful in there. It feels like a warehouse and I find that comforting. Diane thinks I take too long in Home Depot. When I go there with her, she usually opts to wait in the car.  If we ever had occasion to meet with a marriage counselor, I feel like Home Depot is a topic that will come up.
• Making Stovetop cornbread dressing to the turkey tomorrow. Stealing a dozen forkfuls while it was still piping hot. Using my Rice University Engineering degree to choose where to pull from so the bowl doesn’t look too empty. 
• Having pecan pie for dinner. Not *with* dinner, but *as* dinner.  I am using the Omada fitness app on my phone to track my meals. I guess the idea is it helps you make better decisions. I am comfortable with mine. All the little kids who wish they were grown-ups – they are not wrong. Being a grown-up is better.
• Cutting up some prime rib leftovers for Loki for dinner. We have so much of it left, but I am being cautious about giving him bones so I cut it off for him. He stood by me at the kitchen island hoping for a bite. Then I put it in a dog bowl with some kibble. He relocated to sit inside his crate where he gets fed. Dogs work off archetypes to figure out situations and model our behavior. If it gets put in a bowl with kibble, the next stop is usually in his crate and he wanted to be there when it arrived.  Sometimes I toy with the idea of being unpredictable to see how he adapts. I could have brought the bowl to the couch and turned on the tv to enjoy my snack. I could have put it back in the fridge with the rest of the leftovers. It would have been funny to me.  But that’s not really the relationship I have with my dog. I love that he knows me so well. He loves that I feel him prime rib on occasion.  Later in the day, he hops onto the couch and licks my face for two minutes straight. That’s not a coincidence.
• Picking up Winnie twenty hundred times and walking around the living room with her snuggled up against my chest. I tote her around like regular people do babies. I have no hard proof that it will make her more affectionate when she grows up but I am committed to being a doting puppy dad all the same. 

That is a what a day of leisure looks like at Corgi Ranch.