When I'm alone in the house, I'm less tidy than when I'm not alone. Partly it's courtesy for my housemate, partly it's that the presence of the housemate keeps my sluggishness and my entropy in check.
Usually when I come home, Blake is not my first stop. Usually when I arrive, I go into the bedroom to drop bag and shoes, into the bathroom to pee, and only then into RDC's study to kiss him and take Blake and then change my clothes and make his supper and get the mail and so forth. When RDC is away, Blake is my first stop for two reasons: he's right there, by the living room window where I rolled his cage in the morning, and he's been alone all day.
Yesterday, I did go outside after I got home but only to bring out the trash and gather raspberries: only out the back, using the spare key that lives convenient to that door. This morning, I looked for my keys. Usually I lose them by throwing them on my bag instead of clipping them to it, so they get lost in a pocket sometimes. Not so. I tried to retrace yesterday's path: did I drop them on Blake's cage stand' My bag lay near the coffee table: did I drop them there to mar its finish' Did I put them on the mantel, there to be lost among baby shower and wedding invitations and anniversary cards' The most likely place was the dining table, or from there to have fallen onto a dining chair. No. The bathroom counter' The nightstand by my bed' My skirt pocket' The kitchen counter'
They have to be somewhere in the house: I got into it last night. But today I'm using the spare car key and the spare house key, and if I lose those I'm screwed. I clipped them into their zippered pocket as soon as I exited the car this morning.
Said CoolBoss when I got to work: 'But you drove' Today's Bike-to-Work day!' And so it is, but today at lunch, since I didn't do it yesterday evening, I am going out to get gravel to fill the last of the ditch. Also, since RDC is away, I have been a lazy toadstool, see letting house drift into entropy, and driven. Monday I brought him to the airport, true. Yesterday I wanted to get home early enough to spend some time with Blake before my swim, but it was 55 and I didn't swim.
CoolBoss also asked if losing keys was a pattern for us--just a few weeks ago I zoomed out on my bike at 2:00 in the afternoon because RDC had locked himself out of the car in front of Whole Foods, to rescue him as he had rescued me from bad or at least less than ideal weather. No, that was the first time he ever in his life locked himself out of the car--the keys were on the passenger seat where he dropped them before messing with his phone headset or getting the shopping bags out of the backseat. ('You two belong in Boulder,' she opined. 'Canvas shopping bags, Whole Foods, biking to work.') I used to lock myself out of Fugly early on, but since she was an '80 Omni with pull-up locks, as long as I could find a wire coathanger I was okay.
I don't, or I haven't yet, locked myself out of my house. I do often lose my keys, but only inside the house. If I lose these spares I'm screwed. SPM has a housekey and I should maybe keep one at work, but the Cassidy key I'm using is the 'valet' key--it works the ignition but not the glovebox. It lives in the house for just such occasions, since I lose my keys more often than we mistrust what valets we use.