I DO Appreciate Him

While my biggest peeve in our marriage may have been my perception that Big Daddy didn’t always defend me as he should or validate my hurt and anger with some action on his part, he seems convinced that I don’t fully appreciate him.  I can honestly say that this is not reality.  I know he’s one of the good guys and I really do appreciate all the things he does for me and our family.  I do what I can to show him that I care, but alas, I’m not the demonstrative touchy-feely person that I think he needs.   (I’m thinking he may not be truly satisfied unless I greet him at the door in saran wrap every night, like some loser with no life.  Umm, not gonna happen).

Although I appreciate hubby all the time, my need and appreciation has been even greater lately.  He is not only my partner in life, father of my children, and bff — he is the killer of BUGS.  And for some reason, bugs have decided to start bugging us!

As much as I like to pretend I’m a hard-ass, itty-bitty bugs freak me out.  It’s pathetic.  I still scream like a little girl when I see a swarm of bugs.  Although a lot of people hate spiders, those critters don’t bother me.  They’re single solitary creatures and I can handle them.  But great big social clusters of ants or gnats send me up a wall.  I’ve been brought to tears upon spying a giant teeming mass of squirming piss ants on a sidewalk outside.  Even a tiny fraction of that amount of insects in my home will send me into a panic.

Last week, it was the attack of Mothra and her clan.  I’ve learned it is not wise to buy and store grain products in bulk.  No matter how clean you keep your cupboards, too much rice or noodles is an invitation for an insect party.  So I keep things lean and mean in the pasta department.  However, there’s not much you can do when a freaking bag of rice that you just purchased harbors a little flying moth, which somehow multiplies into seven or eight despicable little rice-dwelling moths that fly around in your cupboard.  When we figured out where these things were coming from, I summoned all the courage I could and threw away the bag of rice with the visible moth inside.  Big Daddy said I’d have to clean the entire cabinet to get rid of all of the bugs.  I knew he’d done more than his share of the housework that day but I begged him to PLEEEEASE don’t make me deal with those bugs.  I had tears in my eyes.  I am eternally grateful that he finished cleaning out the cupboard that night.

Last night, Oldest Son spied an ant in the kitchen.  About the same time, Big Daddy saw one crawling across the family room carpet.  These rooms are not connected.  Big Daddy told me to keep an eye out for more of these creatures.  Now, these ants are not the tiny piss ants that found their way in last year due to my leaving sticky fruit juice on the counter.  And they don’t look like the giant destructive carpenter ant variety.  They’re kind of medium-sized reddish things, and so far we’ve just been spotting one at a time.  There are no crumbs or sticky substances attracting them.  We don’t know what the hell they want!

I’m keeping an ant chart so we can figure out where they’re coming in at.  So far, I’ve spotted two more by the family room fireplace, one more on the kitchen floor, and one wayward little freak all the way upstairs in my master bathroom.  It makes no sense.  I’m getting scared!

It’s time for Big Daddy to put on his bug-huntin’ gear.  He’ll have my undying gratitude.  But I’m still not buying any saran wrap.

Wiring

As I unloaded the dishwasher for what seemed to be the hundredth time this week, I was cursing J’s college landlords under my breath.  He was supposed to be moved into his cozy little college apartment last week, the one they assured us would be completely constructed and ready to move in before the first week of school.  Instead, the poor kid has had to commute the 30 some miles every day, while I have had the pleasure of cleaning up the aftermath of his non-stop cooking and eating, and running the dishwasher every single day so we have glasses for him to mix up his various protein drinks and muscle-building concoctions.

According to some old-school gents on Dr. Phil yesterday, they just aren’t wired to do housework (implying that we women are!).  Their fragile little egos were damaged because instead of being out in the big wide world earning a paycheck, the recession has relegated them to the world of dirty dishes and laundry, while their wife brings home the bacon.  I’m not saying that losing one’s job wouldn’t be a blow to the ego, but these guys were mostly upset that now their wives were earning more money than they were (gasp!), and worse yet, they had to take care of the housework while she was out working!  One of them insisted that no way would he do that, and I wasn’t sure if he meant his wife would not work outside the home, meaning they would all go down in a sinking ship with no income at all, or if he expected her to not only go to work but then to take care of all the “menial” household duties that were so beneath his macho existence.

I did feel sorry for one newly retired man, however.  His wife seemed a bit anal and hostile over the idea that he was home while she was still working and going to school.  While I agree that if one spouse is working full-time and the other one is not, the bulk of the household duties should fall upon the one who is home most often to do them.  She nagged him about not doing more than he was doing, and criticized the way he cleaned house.  She bitched about the dust bunnies on the floor and bugged him about vacuuming the couch.  If I was married to her, I’d be in a heap of trouble!  In my world, as long as there is a decent meal ready sometime in the evening, clean clothes to wear and a pressed shirt for work, we’re doing okay.  When both of us are working full-time, we split up the household chores.  I launder and iron, hubby cooks and shops.  The household chores need to be done, and it’s all equally beneath both of us.  However, we suck it up and do it.

I find it hard to believe that in this day and age, there are still men out there that have never changed their child’s diaper or that expect their wife to do all the housework with no help from them because it’s “women’s work”.  I’m no more wired to clean a toilet than anybody else, and  it’s pretty obvious that these guys that think they’re too “manly” to scrub a floor are just too lazy and looking for an excuse.

Twenty-Nine Years Ago Today

We met at a party on the night I was determined to ignore the male of the species.  I had found out a guy I had a major crush on had decided to go another less complicated route.  He asked me to dance.  I hate to dance.  But I had enough beer in me and was tired of acting like a hard ass, so I figured what the hell.

We were young and immature.  He used to nonchalantly ride his bicycle around the building where I had my Econ class, at about the time when class let out.  He would stop by my dorm in the evenings after working out at the gym.  My parents liked him.  My dad thought he looked like Mark Spitz, the Olympic swimmer.

Fast forward quite a few years.  He still works out and rides his bike.  Our kids tell me I’m immature.  Still.  They’re usually laughing when they say it.

Me and Big Daddy.  What a long strange trip it’s been…

Family Loyalty

One of the very few things Big Daddy and I fight about has to do with family loyalty.  We both are very loyal to each other and to our children; our little family is the center of the world — for both of us.  But how we show that loyalty, and how we react to someone perceived to be slighting or attacking our family — that’s a whole different story.

It may have to do with our very different upbringing.  His father was very authoritarian and Big Daddy learned it was best to just obey and not make waves.  Meanwhile, I sometimes felt like the exasperated parent to my somewhat child-like folks.  If they pissed me off, I let them know it.  If you’re being a douche, it’s really hard for me to zip my lips, no matter who you are.

When someone messes with my little brood, I get irate.  If they slight them, I get hurt.  I’ll lash out, speak out, or get even.  When Big Daddy has a particularly bad day at work and comes home to vent and tell me about some asshole trying to make his job tougher or screwing him over, I get angry.  I get indignant, my eyes tear up, and I bitch about how much I hate the pricks screwing him over.  How dare they mess with my husband!  And then…hubby gets mad at me for getting mad!  What does he expect?  He just wants to vent these things and expects me to be able to listen and not get upset.  Well, obviously, I’m just not that mature folks.

On the other hand, when I feel our kids or I have gotten short shrift from someone, I want him to be indignant along with me.  I want him to snort and rage and tell somebody off.  I want him to stick up for us!   He gets mad for sure.  He’s been hurt and disappointed, too.  But it’s always a quiet mad.  I can almost see him choking it down and swallowing it, while I just want to spew it right back at the jerks.  It’s especially bad when it’s his side of the family; he’ll act all calm and unruffled like they haven’t hurt his feelings.  He’ll pretend like nothing wrong has happened.   He’ll let me vent and rage alone, and he doesn’t always have my back.  This hurts me way more than the original slight.  This is betrayal from someone I care about.

Bigger Damage Control

I hesitate to write this post for many reasons.  I want to entertain, inform, and express myself through this little blog of mine.  Sometimes I need to comment on the idiotic things going on in the larger world around me.  I try not to get too personal.

If you’ve read my blog for a while, you may have caught some comments that hinted that my mom gets on my nerves.  I feel bad about that, but that’s the way it is.  I love her but I can’t relate to her.  What’s worse, I know that what she does, and what she’s done, is not intentional.  It’s just the way she is.  So of course I feel even worse, because I know some people have terribly abusive parents.  And some people have no parents.  And I feel like I have no right to feel annoyed.

The big storm we had the other night caused a lot of damage in these parts.  Many local homes and businesses were flooded by the nearly 4 inches of rain that fell.  I found out late the following day that my mom’s basement had flooded, ruining her dryer, hot water heater, and all her Christmas decorations.  This is how she broke the news to me:

“Your brother and sister-in-law just left.  I don’t know what I would have done without them.  They’re angels.”  I asked what happened.  She told me how water had started seeping into her basement up to the second or third step.  She told me how the fire company had ended up at her house and how her hot water tank was damaged.  “I just don’t know what I would have done without[L] and [S],” she mentioned again.  “Who would I have called?  What would I have done without them?” she mentioned about three more times, just in case I hadn’t heard her the times before.  Ummm, of course, she could have called us.  She knows she could have called us.  We’ve never refused to help her.  We’ve shoveled her walks in the winter. We’ve changed our Friday night plans when she insisted her pine tree branches had to be cut down that night. But we’re not psychic.

My jaw tightened, like it often does when I talk to her.  But I wasn’t going to play into this little game.  “Just who would I have called if they weren’t around,” she said, yet again, and I said, perhaps a bit icily, “Gee, I can’t imagine.  Good thing you got a hold of them.  How did they find out about the flood?”  She informed me that she had called them because they had some of their stuff stored down there.  No one ever called us to ask for help or tell us there was a problem.  And I can’t stress enough that we’re always willing to help.  In fact, my husband is a saint like that.

She does stuff like this all the time.  When my late uncle was very sick and his daughter-in-law took care of him, we all heard over and over how she didn’t know what would happen to her if she ever became sick.  Who would take care of her?  She had nobody to depend on to do all that stuff for her.  It was a slap in the face to me and my sister-in-law, who had in fact, done everything possible for her several years ago when she had major heart surgery.  We visited her every day in the hospital and stayed with her when she came home.  Even though we each had three boys in school, we spent a lot of time with her at home just to keep her company.  We did her laundry, talked to her doctors, made sure she took the many pills she had to take at the various times of the day.  We got her groceries and cooked her meals.  We checked on her wounds and tried to make her comfortable.  My sister also did what she could after work and taking care of her two young daughters.

My brother called me the following day.  We need to coordinate our schedules to take care of things mom needs done around the house.  I talk to mom several times a week on the phone, but they visit her more so he has a better idea of what needs to be done.  I ask him how he can put up with her constant negativity.  He said she’s done the same thing to him many times when my husband has done some heavy work for her, commenting about how she doesn’t know what she’d do if she didn’t have Big Daddy to depend on.

This isn’t the effects of aging.  If anything, mom’s mellowed out.  We were never good enough, popular enough or quite what she wanted.  I don’t know how many times I was compared with some random acquaintance and asked why I couldn’t be more like her.  So, yeah, I don’t visit so much.  We’re like day and night.  We have nothing in common.  And when the conversation turns negative, it’s easier to say, “Gotta go.”  And then hang up the phone.

Just What Would They Do Without Me?

Big Daddy likes to pretend that I think that I know everything and that I think I’m always right.  Got that?  I know I’m not always right, just a huge percentage of the time.  It’s bad enough that he scoffs at my incredible reasoning and discerning skills, but then, do you know what he does?  He expects me to KNOW EVERYTHING!! The same thing goes for the younger members of my family.  They mock me, roll their eyes when I try to tell them something, but then they expect me to know exactly where everything in the house is located, when they’ll need a particular item of clothing washed, and every other detail of their lives (except, or course, for the interesting stuff, like the juicy details of their latest date, etc.).

Case in point:  I keep track of all our expenditures in my Quicken program.  It makes things really easy at tax time and if we’re ever so inclined to want to know, we can tell exactly where our money is being spent if there’s ever a problem.  If I get a receipt, it’s in Quicken.  If we need to locate that receipt, I can find when we purchased an item so I know which year’s shoebox to find it.  But…if I don’t get the receipt, it’s not in Quicken.  It’s probably in one of Big Daddy’s umpteen piles of crap–on the fridge, in the garage, somewhere “safe,” in his car, etc.

Last week he was looking for the receipt to some bath faucets we bought that had a lifetime guarantee.  We needed to order a replacement part.  I checked the Quicken program to find when we bought it.  I found kitchen sink faucets, other bath faucets, but nothing for that particular faucet.  If I would have ever had that receipt in my hands, it would have been recorded, I kept insisting, although I could feel the doubt just emanating from hubby.  Luckily, he was able to get a duplicate receipt and detailed paperwork  printed at the store where we had purchased the item.

The ordered item comes, and it’s not the right part.  Big Daddy needs the copy of the receipt to check what we should have gotten.  Of course, even though I never held this new receipt in my hands, he insists that I must have taken it and put it somewhere.  Because I think I mentioned that when he was through with it, I’d like to have it so I could record it.  But I never got it.  If I did, I insisted, it would be with all the other paperwork on my desk right now.  Which it isn’t.

This is just the latest example.  If anyone in this house can’t find something, they automatically expect me to know what they did with it.  Like I actually go around putting things away?! Ha!  And then they actually blame me for the item mysteriously disappearing, like I have nothing better to do.

Youngest Son always needs me to find something for him when I’ve just settled into the most comfortable spot.  A lot of times I’ll tell him where the item should be, and then he insists that it’s not.  So I’ll get off my comfy seat, wondering why the item is not where it should be, and there it is.  Exactly where I told him to look.  He’ll insist he looked there, several times.  I guess only Mommy’s magic eyes can see certain things.

Being that they expect me to be a mind-reading all-knowing goddess, you’d think they’d at least try to treat me like one!

Creeping Toward My Side of the Story

“When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose” – Bob Dylan

Unlike what my hubby might think at times, this is not directed at him or our marriage.  It is, however, directed toward several of my in-laws.

I’m sometimes hot-heated.  I’m often opinionated.  But I’m not, and never have been mean.  I try to give people the benefit of the doubt.  If someone really annoys me and I don’t have to spend time with them, I’ll avoid them like the plague.  It’s just self-preservation.  I hate that knotted-up feeling you get from stressful situations.  I don’t start fights.  I hate fights.  But I’ll stand up for myself and my kids to my last breath.

Last week, after a grueling last week of tax-season work, I’m puttering around on the computer.  And I see this typically emo, self-centered status blurb on one of the sister-in-law Facebook profiles.  Nobody knows the trouble she’s seen, nobody knows the sorrow…Yadda. Yadda.(not her exact words).   And God help me, out of nowhere (so I thought), I made a rude comment.  It was an uncharacteristically uncalled for action.  For some reason, I went beyond the usual private eye-roll and gag me reaction, and we ended up having a lovely pre-teen like cat-fight via e-mail.

It’s complicated with hubby and his family.  We were raised in completely different environments.  Hubby’s father was a domineering autocrat.  Wife and kids submitted to his every rule or else.  In my home, there was no boss.  My dad suffered from depression and slept a lot.  When we were engaged, rather than spend a summer apart before we were reunited at college, I took up hubby’s dad’s suggestion that I spend the summer with them, working in New Jersey.  It was a mistake.

Toward the end of the summer, when they got tired of feeding me and saw I wasn’t subject to control, it turned ugly.  I was told about my every nasty offense to mankind, such as sitting and reading while I watched television with them.  How I dared not march up the aisle every Sunday for Communion like they did (I’m hard on myself and sometimes thought I might want to go to Confession rather than be a hypocrite).  Big Daddy’s REALLY big intimidating daddy actually threatened to hit me, and I threatened to call the police.  I (gasp) dared to talk back.

This may have been the beginning of my position as family villain.  It hurt me at the time that hubby left me standing there alone to defend myself, but I kind of understood his position.  He was still somewhat dependent on the man.  There were years of intimidation in his history.  He was every bit as offended as me, but he was between a rock and a hard place.

What I haven’t been able to get over, and I’m surprised at this myself, is the years of slights we’ve received from a few of his siblings.  And it’s not because I’ve been mortally wounded by any of them.  I don’t have the relationship with them that you need to have to be hurt by them.  I’ve been disgusted, and disappointed, but mostly by hubby’s inaction.  He’s been every bit as disgusted and even more disappointed because supposedly he had some kind of relationship with them at one time.  And he lets them slide.  Over and over.

I may sometimes overreact.  But he does not react at all.  Except to me.  He pounds home that villain label on me, the label I feel nowhere else but hanging on the outside fringe of that clan.  It’s the one and only wedge I see between the two of us.

A Trip Down Memory Lane

Yesterday started off on a rocky note.  But I think I made an amazing discovery about myself and my marriage.  If I get the courage and feel that it will do more good than harm, I may share it.  But this post is about the rest of the day, and our visit back to our alma mater, the college where I met Big Daddy.

Youngest Son was participating in a big track meet at the university that we graduated from.  We were excited to finally get to see him in a college meet.  I was thrilled to revisit the campus where I spent four interesting and formative years.  Best of all, it was a gorgeous spring day, one of the few we’ve had around here.  I wanted to sit in the stands and cheer until I was hoarse, like we did at his high school meets.  I was dying to bask in the sun with my capris rolled up to my knees and get some color on my Casper-the-ghost legs.

We got to meet my son’s coach, who took absolutely no credit in the team’s successes.  He said that it was “all them,” referring to the kids. And I agree that the kids worked very hard.  But I saw the way that he encouraged every member of the team, from strongest to weakest.  He made the kids want to work hard for him.  That’s what a good coach does.

We spent a very long, but totally wonderful day, on the bleachers.  After the meet, I wanted to take a walk through campus, not only to see the changes and remember the past, but to stretch my poor legs.  The three-story walk-up dorms we lived in have been totally torn down, and replaced with state-of-the art buildings with huge curb appeal.  The buildings that were the envied “new dorms” thirty years ago looked old and shabby now.  One of these now old dorms had dozons of sattellite dishes on the roof, I guess to bring some of today’s necessities to the students livng there.  When we walked past and saw the fans in the windows, we wondered if the kids living here got a discount.  I’m sure these aren’t the dorms they show prospective students touring campus.  Freshman dorms are usually the nicest and newest, to entice them to invest four years there.

Hubby suggested we go to the little Italian restaurant we used to treat ourselves to back in the day.  He was pretty sure it was still there because he’d seen an ad somewhere not too long ago.  OMG, not only was it still there, it was exactly the same! I’m pretty sure we never ordered the prime rib on our college budgets, but when I tasted my side of spaghetti, I could have been 20 years old again, enjoying a pasta meal with my fiance.

No matter how young I feel on the inside, however, the body’s aging a little bit quicker.  Later that night, the Clarks were playing at Youngest Son’s campus.  It was free for students and family members, and I had asked Youngest Son to get us some tickets.  I LOVE the Clarks.  I really wanted to see them.  But a day in the sun and walking up hills had taken its toll.  All I wanted to do was go home and lay on the couch.  And that’s exactly what I did.

Would He Lie?

This morning getting ready for work, I was standing in front of the full-length mirror in the bathroom, inspecting things to see if I could get away without wearing the fat-squeezing, breath-sucking body shaper. 

“Do I look lumpy or enormous in these pants?” I asked Big Daddy, who happened to be sitting on the toilet.

Without missing a beat, or come to think of it, even looking up, he said, “Nope.”

Then I thought about what I just asked him.  Would I want him to tell me that I looked fat and lumpy even if I did?  He doesn’t always do and say the right things–he’s a  guy for God’s sake–but he’s not stupid.

I went back to my dresser, pulled out the body shaper and put it on.  Better safe than sorry.

Just Enjoy The Perks, Ladies

Believe it or not, at one time this mellow mama may have been considered an almost militant feminist.  A lot of you may not even remember Ms. Magazine, but I was a subscriber when it advocated equal rights for all women, and not just lesbians.  I read it before it became mostly ads, like most magazines.

If someone  said or did something blatantly sexist, I would tell them off.  Women that would actually choose to stay home and be happy taking care of their families seemed pathetic to me.  Hey, I didn’t even wear a bra.  (Of course, I really didn’t need to).

As I got older, I’ve gotten wiser in some ways.  If someone is offensively sexist, I just avoid them.  You really can’t change someone like that, and I really don’t care to try anymore.  They probably don’t have the gray matter to comprehend that no one is intrinsically better than someone else based merely on their race, gender, etc.  I still cringe at those wedding ceremonies where the poor clueless bride promises to “obey” and “submit” to her man, but then I transport my mind to a tropical island while thanking my lucky stars that I  know enough to realize that no one has the right or power to control or dominate my life, and the only thing I plan to obey is my conscience.  I’ve also learned firsthand that it is a pleasure being able to take care of one’s family.  Well, sometimes it’s a pain in the ass.  But it’s definitely not pathetic at all.

While the United States, in theory, advocates equal rights for all, we know this is not exactly the way things are in actuality.  Women still earn about a quarter less an hour for the same job.  A woman has run for the highest office in the land, but still lost out to a less qualified man.  But fighting for our rights doesn’t mean giving up the perks.  Actually, we will do better fighting this war as women, not as wanna-be men.

Earlier feminists thought the way to win respect in a man’s world was to give up their femininity.  They tried to act and dress more like men.  They were throwing away their best assets.  They tried to do it all, and wore themselves out.  Even though they still earned less than the men, they insisted on paying their own way.

I, instead, choose to accept the good with the bad.  I appreciate when my husband opens the door for me or holds my coat.  He knows I can do this myself.  It’s just a nice gesture of appreciation.  If I was single, I wouldn’t fight my date if he wanted to pay the check.  And if we women choose to work outside the home part-time or not at all, there is less negative stigma attached to this than there is for the men in our lives.

Sometimes Big Daddy suggests that I go back to work full-time so that maybe he can stay home.  Yeah, right.  Now that staying home is actually fun and I can do the things I want to do, instead of changing poopy diapers and arranging carpools, I’m going to give that up?  I’d really like to help him out.  But I’m going to keep enjoying one of the perks we women have and continue to work my part-time job.