Lillördag, Part 2: A Review

Project 365, Day 42

If you’ve been reading the past few weeks, then you know my brain and some posts have egg timers on them. Right now, I have a lot of eggs cookin’ but no timers have gone off yet. Perhaps it’s the result of Lillördag. So instead of forcing myself to write some garbage I won’t be proud of, I’m just going to keep it simple and tell you about my very first Lillördag today!

Click here if you have no idea what I’m talking about. Go ahead…I’ll wait. And if you were here yesterday, congratulations, you have earned the fast track pass to the rest of this post.

Okay, everyone all caught up? Great! Right around quitting time at work, I tapped out a “see ya tomorrow, I’m off to partake in some Lillördag” message on Slack to my team, gave a quick explanation…worked another 20 minutes by accident (hey, it’s my first Lillördag, we all have to start somewhere), and happily pranced on over to Charles’ “office” (the guest bedroom) and declared the start of Lillördag. (By my count, that’s the fifth…now sixth time I’ve written Lillördag in this paste. Thank Lillördag for copy and paste, huh?). “I’m gonna go lay in bed for a bit, come join me soon,” I said to him, engrossed in his screen. I tried to mentally transport myself to little Saturday mood. At first, it was hard. How can I pretend it’s Saturday if I know in my heart of hearts it’s Wednesday?

But a quick scroll through DoorDash to pick out some dinner and I was halfway there. Thirty or so minutes later, Charles appeared, apologizing for needing to finish up something and I happily said “How about we order from Northern Cafe?” and he happily agreed. Already off to a good start. Most weekends are spent tossing and turning through food options, not landing on anything we both agree on until we’re forced to make a knee-jerk decision before everything closes or stops accepting orders. Yay Lillördag.

Once our noodles, dumplings and fried rice order was placed, I had the absolutely ridiculous, completely irresponsible idea that would ONLY occur to me on a weekend, by the way, of placing a SECOND order (who am I?!?) for ice cream. The twinkle in Charles’ eyes when I said the phrase “Salt & Straw” could be seen from across the street, I’d imagine. In went another order. Utterly reckless.

As we waited for the ping of our food’s arrival, I had another idea…birthed from the clarity of mind that only comes on Friday or Saturday nights. “How about, every week, we take turns picking what we want to eat…BUT THEN, the other person gets to pick what we watch. No objections on either side.” Little did Charles realize that the very act of opening my mouth to expel those words sealed the deal. His opinion didn’t stand a chance. “I don’t 100% commit to this,” he said. HAHAHA.

Our food arrived, no hitches, no delayed deliveries, no missing items, no me staring at the little delivery dot on the map screaming into the phone “WHY DID YOU TURN THAT WAY?!? WHERE ARE YOU GOING??????” (this never happens), it all went according to plan. I’m starting to think Lillördag is on to something. It’s not a noun. It’s a state of mind. A state of being. I’m a changed person.

Awash in the glorious steam that escapes from my noodle container, I encourage Charles to pick whatever he wants to watch. Another thing that never happens. He picks the movie Bliss on Amazon Prime with Selma Hayek and Owen Wilson. Our eyes meet the star rating all at once…2.5, woof, not great. Oh well, it’s Lillördag. What could go wrong?

I won’t spend your time recapping the moving. It was a bit trippy. Not bad. Not good. Baood? I haven’t quite decided but it definitely brought on conversation and analysis, which is always better than diving right back into the meaningless world inside our phones. Then came ice cream cones, an episode of an old show we’re re-watching gleefully, and now here I am. The end of Lillördag. “I don’t know if this is actually good for me, or detrimental to me,” Charles said, in reference to forgetting for a moment that we were still squarely in the middle of a workweek, and work indeed had to be attended to tomorrow. “Still two more days.” Then I said “Only two more days!”

So far, I rate the introduction of Lillördag an 8/10. I enter into it with optimism and skepticism. Cautiously optimistic perhaps is a better sentiment. I could see the idea of a mentally free Wednesday being something very much to look forward to, or it can just quickly become a fat fest in the middle of the week, hung over from frozen treats and take out on Thursday. But, I’ll worry about that next time. For now…I’ll pencil in another Lillördag for next Wednesday!

See you tomorrow, friends.