Another Week: Number 125

Life feels like a chess game sometimes.

As a freelancer working from home, I don’t have the familiar nine-to-five routine of office hours, meetings, lunches, and reports that many Americans follow. At most, I have the rhythm of the school outside my window with its morning arrivals and afternoon departures.

Beyond that, I can only study the chessboard every morning to see where things stand and try to plan a series of moves. Which web projects are priorities? What’s the weather forecast, and how should I dress? Will I spend time outdoors? Are there errands to run? What will I eat? Which household chores should I tackle?

It takes some pacing and vacillating, but I usually plot out a string of dots, then set to work connecting them. Often, things fall into place like a magical Rube Goldberg machine — the perfect parking spot is open, the exact item I need is the last one on the shelf.

Occasionally, though, I feel like Saliere in Amadeus — like I’m playing chess against God. I get my moves lined up, and then I can almost see His hand slowly sliding the white knight two squares forward and one square right, into the perfect position to foil me. It can get downright comical because the more I try to circumvent, the more ridiculous the obstruction becomes. “No” apparently means “no.”

At some point — crushed — I can only shrug, register the setback, try to laugh, and hope it’s for the best.

Now and then, Siri pipes up in my AirPods: “Gmail sent a long notification. Read it?”

“Yes,” I say — and she replies, “Sorry, I don’t understand.” Siri doesn’t understand “Yes” after asking a yes or no question.

Whatever. Much of my email is spam from marketing pros in Pakistan looking to build me a website. Some of them even use the contact form on my website to send it.

We got some warmer weather this week. There are a couple of days every May that I think of as “April in Paris,” because the trees are halfway leafed out and look very impressionistic. Monday was perfection, and the roads were filled with novelty cars — dune buggies and antique convertibles.

My crabapple tree hit its full, magenta bloom on Wednesday, and all of those pink petals were wind-blasted away by Saturday. The butterfly bush I feared was dead has miraculously started to sprout leaves — as has my gnawed-on Pyracantha. I planted some Bellflowers, put down some mulch, and applied three bags of Milorganite ahead of the rain.

Thursday was a 12 News “Alert Day.” Chief meteorologist Mark Baden anchored live, uninterrupted severe weather coverage from 5:20 to 7 p.m. — no commercials, no ABC World News Tonight, no other stories. Four tornadoes touched down in Dodge County, northwest of Milwaukee, and lots of trees were blown over in nearby Wind Point.

Friday was my first shorts and slippahs day this season, and there was another evening storm with plenty of lightning.

I walked 5.95 miles this week and watched three WNBA games, plus portions of the Chicago Cubs. Meanwhile, Donald J. Trump went on a grift tour of the Middle East.

Jackie (2016)

Saturday evening, I had five movies in mind to watch with my mom. She chose Jackie, the 2016 drama currently streaming on Max that depicts Jacqueline Kennedy during the week after her husband’s assassination, planning his funeral and pondering their past and her future.

My mom loves Natalie Portman, who stars, and she loved the Kennedys — as well as the Roosevelts and Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln’s funeral serves as Jackie’s touchstone as she sidesteps grief and horror to orchestrate a nationally televised ceremony while abruptly moving her children out of the White House to make way for the new administration. An interview session with a journalist (Billy Crudup) lets her voice her point of view, although she will not let him print it. There are also private consultations with a priest (John Hurt) and moments with lifelong friend Nancy Tuckerman, played by Greta Gerwig.

I saw this movie with Amy when it was first released, but I got more out of it after losing my own spouse. My mom, who has lost a couple of husbands, seemed very moved at points. I had to replay the brief, graphic shot of JFK’s head in Jackie’s lap so she could see what was happening.