The weather was lovely, the sun was out, and I didn’t have anything unusual on my schedule. So I did all kinds of things that involved not doing things.

• Starving the cat. Louie is on a diet. This is a full time occupation for both him and me. Even now, an hour after I fed him, half an hour after I played with him, he is hovering and looking gloomy. Periodically I tell him, “No, Louie.” Also, “No food for you, Louie.” A few minutes ago, I got out his mouse-toy-on-a-stick so that he could catch, chase, and hump it. Now he is washing himself on the recliner, having used up all his oomph, and soon he will go back to staring at me soulfully and occasionally gently biting my shirt.
• Not reading a book. I abandoned a mystery whose setting was Regency England. I didn’t care about anyone in the story, and couldn’t keep track of who was who. Jane Austen it was not. Made it to page 200. Back to the library it goes.
• Throwing out perfectly good furniture. With my little IKEA hand saw, I sawed in half the top of an industrial table (which I had already taken apart some time before) and put it out in the trash. Un-sawn, it was too heavy for me to drag upstairs and would be inconvenient for the sanitation workers. My husband brought the damn thing home when it was tossed out at one place he worked, and I couldn’t keep him from bringing it with him when we moved to the city, because it was perfectly good. The trash collectors took it away, like God descending from heaven and taking away all my sorrows. Except for the cross-brace, which they left behind by accident and which I will have to put out again next week.
• Getting ready to throw some more furniture out. I dragged a couple of IKEA Kallax shelf units from the back of the basement to the front of the basement, and redistributed their contents. I will put one of them out next week with a “free” sign on it, and if no one takes it (they usually do) I will put it on the curb for the sanitation workers. My goal is eventually to have nothing in my basement except for the cat litter pan.
• Refraining from finishing a puzzle. I put together only the border of a jigsaw puzzle my adult kid brought over last night. I will have to leave it there for a week, unfinished, because my kid will want to put the rest of it together. They will lock onto it when they come in the house and will do nothing but finish the jigsaw puzzle the whole time they are visiting. It’s entertaining watching them.
• Not buying crafts. I took the bus to Center City and walked the perimeter of Rittenhouse Square, where there is a crafts show. I did not want anything I saw, except for some exquisite turned vases made of spalted wood, but the cheapest vase was $400. I had a nice chat with the man who made them. He admired my nose ring, and I admired his. I left.
• Not buying food. After the craft show, I ate the packed lunch I had brought with me, seated in a little pocket park near 17th Street, where there is a fountain and tiny metal tables. It was a virtuous lunch, two hard boiled eggs, some carrots, a banana, and a seltzer. I felt like a goddess. I took the bus home and took a nap.

I can’t keep this up for long; at this rate I will have nothing at all in my house except a partly-completed jigsaw puzzle, and my cat will evaporate, but sometimes it’s just lovely to put all my effort into non-acquisition.

I’m taking the evening off from my abstention, though, because I plan to watch a baseball game on my computer, unless the Phillies suck as bad as they did last night, whereupon I will turn it off, which will not be any kind of sacrifice, believe me.