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My Profile
Because I can't bear to eulogize Doug - 2008-08-19
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12:41 p.m. - 2003-06-01
The Energizer Bunny just keeled over. I had good intentions to rest Friday. Just slop around in my grubbies all day and cut my spazmoid dendrons a break. Did I? Of course not. Friday morning I got broadsided by the boo-boo face. For a skinny guy Mike makes an amazing amount of noise as he clomps around the house. Thud, thud, thud up and down the stairs. He is incapable of closing a door without slamming it, even the medicine cabinet. He hasn’t broken the mirror yet, but it’s only a matter of time. So he’s crashing around the house in his clumsy elephant way and I was snapped awake by the thunder of work boots. Too aggravated to go back to sleep, I staggered out of the bedroom. Mike was barreling past just as I came out the door and he knocked me over. Landing on my butt before I’d even had a chance to pee, I started to cry. That fall really hurt! (Actually the descent wasn’t painful, but the landing was.) Helping me back to my feet Mike apologized. Knocking his beloved to the ground shook him up pretty badly. Massively guilty, he waited for me to come out of the can and gave me his patented boo-boo face. He wanted to make it up to me. Then with the gleeful air of a Fairy Godfather bestowing the best wish ever, he announced that he was treating me to a day out. I was so tired and ouchie all I wanted to do was swallow about 15 Advil, roll up like an armadillo and wait to die, but there is no getting around the boo-boo face. Mike was soooo sorry and soooo guilty. He’s pretty oblivious to most things, hence his stomping and slamming while I was trying to sleep, so when he makes the boo-boo face I have no choice but to give way. Tis a rare thing when my husband notices that he’s done a damage and wants to atone. I dragged my aching self into the shower. Got made-up and dressed. Like the kidnap victim I was, Mike summarily bundled me into the Bronco and away we went. Across the river to his latest job site, he parked the Bronco in a bit shade and left me there while he installed a water meter. I had to leave the windows down because it was so hot and for the next 90 minutes my headache and I got to enjoy a concert put on by the backhoe and bulldozer which were filling in the pipe trenches and leveling the ground. Beep beep beep. Rumble grind roar. Shouting from the crew so they can be heard over the equipment noise. And then lucky me someone started an air hammer hooked to the LOUDEST air compressor ever made. After forever and 2 days Mike trotted back to the truck and we were off to the next exciting stop. Did he take me to lunch? No. Did he take me to the nearest jewelry store and buy me a bauble? No. He took me to... Dunt, Dunt, DAH!... the plumbing supply store. Are you dead envious yet? I’ll bet YOUR husband isn’t the thoughtful romantic devil mine is. Now he wasn’t responsible for what happened next, but it’s rather indicative of the sheer joy of Life with Mike. We DID finally go to lunch and got to the local diner just after a tour bus. A tour bus of Pentecostals on their way to a retreat. I was wearing a sheer bodysuit and my snug hip huggers and looked like the Whore of Babylon next to the modestly dressed Uber-Christian women. We were seated in the same section as the tour bus people and we tried to be respectfully quiet when all of them went to their knees and asked God’s blessing over their food. Used to the snappy couplet of the Catholic table blessing, I found it difficult not to giggle while they swayed and prayed for 10 MINUTES. Call me a nut, but is THAT much beseeching necessary over a grilled cheese sandwich? The rest of the day was in kind and I gave up my dream of getting any rest. We made several more stops at happy places like the tool warehouse, the welding supply house, and another job site before rolling into the driveway at the new house. I put on the work clothes I keep there and did some weeding and planting in the flower beds while Mike and Jace strung new wiring out to the tool shed and wee garage which will be the library. A dozen geraniums and 2 dozen salvia later I was finally allowed to go home. I wore my grungies home so I could wash them and once inside the house stripped to my underclothes and headed upstairs to take a well deserved nap. No sooner had I laid down than the phone rang. A couple minutes later Mike flung open the bedroom door and announced Engineer BIL and family (including SIL’s mother and younger brother) would be here in 20 minutes. Up again. Shower again. Make-up again. Dress again. All the while yelling at the children to tidy up downstairs. We’ve been so busy that Consuela hasn’t come over in a week. Limited as our at-home time has been, the man-zoo had done a decent job of turning our family room into a disaster area. After entertaining the in-laws and the in-law’s in-laws we caravanned out to the Hobbit House and gave yet another tour of house and grounds. SIL’s mother and brother smoke like fiends and got huffy when I told them they couldn’t smoke inside the house. Too bad. The whole point behind MY quitting is so the Hobbit House stays fresh and clean smelling and isn’t all stinky from cigarette smoke. Even SIL who DETESTS smoking got a bit snitty with me for being “inhospitable” to her family. You can just lump it Sis, MY house, MY rules. Fortunately BIL got them into the car before things got too nasty. Wolf was all hyped up from the constant to-ing and fro-ing of the last week and would NOT go to sleep. It was after 10:00pm when I finally got to go to bed. So that was my “Day of Rest”. And believe it or not, yesterday was even worse. ~LA LA’s Foolish Pick of the Day: “Come, Heavy Sleep” by John Dowland
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