Malaise Days

Having spent a large portion of this hot, humid, drought of a summer alone, I’m ready for better weather as a backdrop to my lack of enthusiasm. One would think that having a lot of time on one’s hands would inspire one to do all sorts of projects around the house. One would think. But when there’s no one around but me and the old dogs (not my feet, real old dogs) my I’ll-do-it-tomorrow syndrome saps my energy and productivity. My whole approach to life is “Ehh” or as in the Bette Midler mini-film “Why botha?”

Husband traveling most of the time; son away at school; me working whenever I can but never really having enough work to have fun money—that’s my life. Oh, I know it could be worse; that’s why I’m just at Ehh. Once when I was in this Phase of Malaise I actually stopped mid-sentence when talking to sister, Jennifer. “Aren’t you going to finish what you were saying?” she asked.

“I’ve got nothin’,” I replied.

David did come home for a few days. We shopped for a gift for his girlfriend and went to I-Hop. He peered past me in the booth and asked, “Is there some law that at some point of old age women are required to get those little tight bubble hairdos?” he asked.

“Apparently so. When I get to that point just shoot me,” I said.

“No problem,” he assured? me.

I also got in my Jeep and rode slowly through a nearby cemetery in search of an incessantly barking dog that I never found. It got me away from the house for a while. “Just promise you won’t get out of the car,” David said as I left, never looking up from his book. Now David is back at school, but he did tell me that a huge, six-point buck tore out of the woods and ran right past him on the sidewalk in broad daylight near the urban Athens, Georgia, campus. Reminds me of when I was in school. Good times. Good times.

One day I spent about forty-five minutes trying to extricate a bug from an adhesive lint roller without maiming it. Every time I worked one leg loose, the nut case put down another foot. It was quite frustrating for me and probably for the bug. I did manage to extricate it sans one leg (his, not mine) and it flew away, most likely at a disadvantage. I thought about the other bugs calling him gimpy, but how bad would it be to spend the one-hour lifespan you've got stuck to a lint roller?

I’ve been reading true crime books with names like “Kiss me, Kill me” but I hide them at night so as not to give an intruder any ideas, because he would probably just take the second part of the title literally. I started to view ordinary household objects like scissors and potato peelers as “weapons of convenience” as termed in the books, so decided to stop reading that genre for awhile. I admit, however, that I did consider putting a candlestick, a pipe, a knife, a rope, and a gun next to the bed along with a Professor Plum card and a sign that said, “Pick just one and make it snappy!”

Last night I watched several episodes of “Intervention” while drinking several glasses of wine. Then on a Sunday morning at 7:30 I got a recorded political message from the Fred Thompson for president campaign. You just lost any hope for a vote from me, you inconsiderate %#@$! It’s as good a way to make political decisions as any at this point.

I can't believe it, but that damn dog is barking again.

So should I watch a movie? Ehh.
Should I fold some laundry? Naah.
Read the paper, clean the bathrooms, vacuum, dust, clean out my closet? No, nein, and nada.

Should I write a blog with any interest or redeeming value whatsoever? Apparently not.

Personal Shopper

Big sister (and I say that quite loosely) Lynn, a.k.a. “Hell on Wheels” is in for a big challenge. The shortster is undergoing a foot operation tomorrow and is being forced off her feet for a solid week before she can even transition to crutches for the duration of the next month. This would be difficult for anyone, but for someone like Lynn . . . well, let’s just say it ain’t going to be pretty. She can’t even delegate the job of pouring dog food into a bowl to someone else. She actually once accused me of attempting to control her life when I tried to do the same while visiting. Hell, the dogs were hungry and they didn’t give a damn if she hadn’t wiped the counter clean for the umpteenth time. Even though Lynn has a housekeeper who goes so far as to sanitize the walls once a week, Lynn can never stop cleaning. I also must say that she’s a very smart cookie, and literally runs the highly successful family business, along with everything else.

I took my Mom to meet Lynn halfway for a sojourn to her beautiful mountain home. Mom is staying with her for the first post-op week and I’ve gotta say that Mom looked more than a bit “trepidatious.” Love her, but Lynn is not what one would call “laid back” even in her finest moments. “May the force be with her,” sister Jennifer said, referring to Mom's predicament. After a much delayed lunch, (we were to meet at 1:30 and Lynn showed up at the rendezvous two hours later), mixed with criticism for my every move, including being weird for not liking raw tomatoes and exceedingly strange for laughing at one of my own jokes (somebody has to), they departed.

A visit to the tranquil Georgia mountains at Lynn’s house can be entertaining, but never soothing. Hey, if you want rest and relaxation go scuba diving naked with angry sharks! Lynn spends a lot of time yelling up the stairs at the boys, out the door at the boys, everywhere at the dogs, usually at me, in the car at the boys, and then some more at the boys. Threats are bountiful; consequences nil—the only reason that I continue to live and the main reason she must continue to yell even more loudly and frequently at my nephews in her large and cavernously echoing home. When there are threatening moments of calm, the boys fill such potentially relieving nanoseconds with their own yelling.

So I wish them all the best. Lynn had to rent a pair of child-size crutches. (Tee-hee.) So sue me, I think that’s funny.

I returned to my quiet home, still alone except for the dogs for company, and thought about how I love Lynn, my lifetime tormentor, and how I hope and pray that all goes well. Then I got on the Internet and ordered the perfect gift to arrive at her home just as she clears her anesthesia-induced fog—a bull horn! It’s the gift that will keep on giving. I’m sure of it!

Sometimes It's Okay to be Corny!

How is it possible that I have now lived with a person who is my complete opposite for longer than I was alive as a single person?! And don’t get me wrong, I’m not being critical. Jack and I ask ourselves this question on a regular basis. What do we have in common? He is a morning person, full of vim and vigor and get up and go, who accomplishes more than ten men in a day within an hour. I am a night person, roaming about the house throughout the wee hours, reading, sometimes writing, peering out the windows, lurking outside and looking at toads and lizards (sometimes talking to them), while ruminating on the meaning of life.

Jack greets me cheerily in the morning as I amble out (disappointed, yet somehow grateful that I’m still here) with his agonizing question, “What are your plans for today?” In my mind, I’m planning to survive, but only if I mainline some caffeine first.

On one of our first major arguments, we both left the house in our cars and veered off in opposite directions at the end of the street while shooting the finger at one another. I don't know what we were thinking, because we both had to sheepishly return to the same house. As corny as it may seem, we were too responsible and dedicated to each other to do anything else.

How many times have we argued, wanted to throw things, actually thrown things, and wanted to simultaneously strangle each other during these almost three decades? How many arguments or, worse yet, silences have we foolishly prolonged over conflicting opinions on raising a child or the perceived insensitivity of one over another? (Actually, usually those sensitivity arguments were mine, because he just doesn’t talk about those things, unless forced. How insensitive is that?!!)

On the other hand, how many times have we laughed uncontrollably at something that finally hit us both as ridiculous, or said the exact same thing at the same time, or brought home identical groceries? How much joy have we experienced from a son that somehow manages to understand that we’re strange, yet brings his friends over to display us without embarrassment (well, maybe some embarrassment) and tells us he loves us even in front of his macho amigos and girlfriends?

Incredibly, Jack has put up with my annoying ability to sing a song phrase, Tourette’s style, which fits any occasion, and let me tell you, I remember all the verses to ditties like “A Good Breakfast Starts My Day.” I, on the other hand, have learned to translate his alien-speak to Earth language. For example, when he tells me that he put the hat in the microwave, I intuitively know that he put the mayonnaise in the refrigerator. Jack once reprimanded my son, “Young man, get in here and put your kitchen in the chicken!”

“What, exactly does he want me do?” my son asked.

“He wants you to put your dishes in the dishwasher,” I whispered, and we both laughed, but David complied.

My husband is often in another world of high-tech thinking; the house is littered with bits of paper, doodled with reminders and numbers; the dryer and washing machine filled with drill bits and odd little tubes, our garage (never again to house a car) is filled with God only knows what. It drives me crazy, but I can live with it, obviously. Just before he left on another long business trip recently he frantically informed me that he had torn the house apart looking for a charger for another of his technical doo-higgy whatevers. "Did you look under your recliner?" I asked.

"Here it is! How did you know?" he asked.

After this long, I know.

His is a beautiful mind and underneath all of the sternness, a beautiful soul. On the rare occasion of getting one Martini into him, he’s hilarious. And believe me; I know that I am no piece of cake. After all, I must unfortunately, live inside my own head—for me, that makes 27 years with a great guy like Jack seem a cake walk. I can’t imagine what it must be like for someone on the outside who can’t envision my convoluted reasoning to stick with it over the years.

For the first twenty years, we never spent so much as a night apart. Then for the last seven we have spent many weeks apart due to his changed travel schedule and economic necessity. Once again, on this anniversary, he is all the way across the country. Maybe certain people are meant to get together even if they have to cut the jigsaw parts to fit, or like Jack hide the last pieces of the jigsaw puzzle in his pockets so that he can put in the final pieces. What a control freak!

Somehow we managed to raise a wonderful son who has profited from our odd quirks rather than suffered from them. Thank God. It could easily have gone the other way. Now we have to figure out how to live together again, just me and Jack, and two old dogs that think I’m THEIR wife.

In any case, we all have lessons to learn in this life and I sincerely believe that’s how and why we find each other.

I’m very, very glad that we did.

Happy 27th, Jack-a-roon!

Who's on First? and Labor Day Pains

I lived through the birthday party I threw for my nephew, but barely. It was the holiday weekend, but I sure couldn’t tell it. From the continual charges of being “weird” for doing such things as taking too many small bites from one square of watermelon--What the heck!—to being told by my brother-in-law that I have too much “shit” in my refrigerator (half of which was there for his son’s birthday) the event eventually wore me down. I love my family, but after such a visit, I understand my nature to be a lone wolf.

Jack, poor guy, spent half the day blowing up the five dozen happy face beach balls and other assorted dirigibles with his air compressor. I called to tell everyone to come over in about ten minutes when he started calling the balls “Sons of bitches!” which meant he was probably almost finished with the lot. “At least he’s in a party mood,” said sister Jennifer.

“As close as it gets,” I replied.

There was the cake, the splashing, the arguments between brothers and nephews, the sun, the bugs, the icing everywhere, the pizza everywhere else, the ripping open of the presents, yada, yada, yada. It all ended with a dinner at a local Italian restaurant where everyone tried to figure out the bill after vast wine consumption. (Poor waitress, but at least we all tip well.)

For some reason, I have so many pairs of men’s swim trunks in my home you’d think I was running a brothel, but with the teenagers and the nephews, who knows where they come from? I acquired some new suits this weekend that no one would claim, but let’s not discuss the Bermuda Clothes Triangle that is our family. My sister once actually found one of my bras in the pocket of her winter coat. What happened there?!

Anyway, both of my sisters had originally told me that they were bringing an additional guest: Lynn’s friend, Renee, and Jennifer’s, Michele. Lynn and family arrived sans Renee, and Lynn told me she wasn’t coming. Jack then called out to us from the other side of the pool, “Stephanie isn’t coming!”

“Who?” I asked.

“Stephanie isn’t coming,” he repeated.

Me (to Lynn): “I don’t know a Stephanie.”

Lynn (calling to Jack): “Do you mean Renee?”

Jack: “Yeah, your friend Renee.”

Lynn (snidely) to me: Yeah, after all Renee sounds so much like Stephanie.

Hours later, everyone is here, but Jennifer had told me previously that Michele was coming by after attending a wedding. Finally, I figure we are going to have to start the birthday festivities.

“So when is Michele going to get here?” I ask Jennifer.

“Didn’t Jack tell you that she isn’t coming?” Jennifer asks. “I called him and told him to tell you!”

Jack saunters by. “Why didn’t you tell Gail that Michele wasn’t coming?” she asks him.

“I did! Remember, I said ‘Stephanie isn’t coming,’” he says to me.

“I keep telling you to not let him answer the phone!” Jennifer admonishes.

“I do my best,” I answer.