Friday, March 7, 2014

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.

6 comments:

  1. If you manage it, show me how. "Ooh, look honey, yardwork!" seems awfully Tom Sawyer--and my boyfriend's read that book.

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  2. Rebekkah, I'll let you know. The most I've gotten him interested in is planting vegetables, herbs, strawberries, etc. He sees it as a money saving venture. Now I have to figure out how to present flower gardening as an economic necessity.

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  3. HA! Yardwork sounds like a delightful choice.

    How about amateur radio? Think that might float his boat?

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  4. Lol. I like how you are thinking. Since he has to choose a hobby, he may as well help you out.

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  5. How does he know that painting isn't a hobby they're looking for? I'm willing to bet there are prisoners who have an artistic bent who'd enjoy having someone to sketch with and chat. There's actually a site that helps prisoners sell their work: http://prisonart.org/. I remember seeing a Huffington Post article on the topic sometime last year also, saying that more prisons are considering adding arts programs.

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  6. Oh man, good luck to Cal with the hobby finding! I totally think painting counts though.

    (And good luck to you in your endeavor to take up gardening. May your brainwashing be successful!)

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