In Search of a Hobby

The other day, my husband came home with a sad smile and announced, “I have no hobbies.” He’d been at a meeting making arrangements for him to mentor a prisoner. When the officials wanted to match my husband up with a prisoner, they asked him, “What are your hobbies?” And he couldn’t come up with a single hobby.

I said, “Of course, you have a hobby. You paint amazing watercolors.” He raised an eyebrow and said, “That’s not the kind of hobby they’re looking for.”

So, Calvin is a man in pursuit of a hobby. He picked up a novel for the first time in years. I found him a cool, fast-paced detective thriller. I think he got about half-way through before abandoning it. He doesn’t visualize (how can a gifted artist not transform words into pictures in his head?) so some of the chase/fisticuffs scenes got a little confusing.

Now he’s trying baseball. And since we don’t have cable, he bought an MLB membership—you get to stream baseball games. So, he said to me, “Don’t you want to watch a spring training game with me?”

Me: No.

Cal: Don’t you like baseball?

Me: Honey, I sat through ten gazillion Little League games. I’m baseballed out for the rest of my life.

Cal: Oh. I thought we could watch these together.

So we sat together and I watched some pitcher who’s making $155 dollars (oops, $155 million) to pitch for the Yankees, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I could convince Cal to take up gardening as a hobby—I’ve got scads of weeds that need pulling.