|
My Profile
Gift from Hil Part 2 - 2014-12-30
|
11:32 a.m. - 2012-03-10
Things On My Mind: Stink bugs. Hate 'em. And why my bedroom is stink bug central I'll never know, but it's squicking me out. Last night I found THREE of the damn things trundling along on the covers while I was trying to have a quiet relaxing read in bed. BLECH! Having to tattle to the boss about Thursday's cleaners. Nowhere near as good a job as the first crew did AND one of them broke my ceramic rooster mail holder and then propped the broken pieces up against the breadbox to hide that it was broken and didn't say anything about it. They were also careless about where they put things and it took me over two hours to put everything back in their right places. I understand that things have to be moved when cleaning house but those two didn't even try to put things back where they found them. So I called their boss, the owner, and she and I had a nice chat. I'm not Ms Pickypants, but hiding broken things? Leaving everything on the bathroom counter in a tottering heap? I found Mick's shaving cream in the backyard, for Pete's sake! (It had fallen out of the open window where the girl had stacked some things on the sill.) The cleaning service boss was quite apologetic and offered compensation. I wasn't needing to be paid for a dumb ceramic rooster, it's the principle of the thing. Also as the owner she should know when her workers aren't doing a great job. Something she agreed with completely and thanked me for giving her the head's up. We arranged for the original team to come back in April, (once a month is plenty often enough- this isn't the White House after all) and she thanked me for giving her service another chance. Sure, why not? The original ladies had done a terrific job, the rates are reasonable, and Mick luurrves the idea that his Precious isn't having to do the heavy scut work cleaning with her own sweet little hands. I swear! It gives Mick a rush when he can spoil me. Who am I to object? The biopsy on the lump on my arm came back benign. Which I was assuming it would. Tomorrow it's Mick's turn at the dermatologist for skin cancer screening. The docs are Orthodox Jews so keep Sunday office hours instead of Saturday ones. Fine by us. Mick is anxious to have a couple ugly nasties taken off his body and face. There's this one blob of ick next to his eye that bothers him especially. He's even fairer than I am and the sun damage on his carcass is extensive. I stopped tanning as a teenager, but Mick continued to bake his bod well into his 30s. It's a bodybuilder thing. When he was competing he was always trying to be tanned enough to look good for the judges. The problem was Mick doesn't tan. He charbroils. Then peels. Red. Purple. Freckled. Blistered. Sure. But brown? Never happened. He tried it all too. Reflectors, tan accelorators, baby oil, tanning booths, even fake tan that made him look like superhero carrot. "Look! Up in the sky! It's Captain Carotene!" And now he's paying for his foolish quest to be brown big time. He's covered in yucky spots and lumps. He's also got that Tip O'Neill boiled red face thing going on. Another result from his tanning days and one he totally hates. Though even without the crazy tanning he'd have probably ended up with his choleric countenance anyhow, like the wacky eyebrows and crop of ear hair the permanently red face is an Irish thing. Speaking of Irish things we're having the folks over for the traditional St Patrick's Day boiled dinner next Saturday. We invited SIL too, but like with my birthday and every other special occasion I've invited her to she had better things to do. I told Mick I'm not inviting her over anymore, it just pisses me off. This year he totally guilted me into going to her house for Thanksgiving and Little Christmas ("But it's family, Baby!") and not two weeks later she blows off my birthday party. This was before the snowstorm, btw, she claimed she had a tennis tournament to play in. WTF? Tennis in January? Yeah right. She doesn't even try to make plausible excuses. Sheesh. Man, I am so finished with extended family and their bullshit. This, however, does not let Wolf off the hook for providing me with grandchildren. At the appropriate age, of course. Something we talked about last night during dinner. Mick claims he would be thrilled to never have grandkids, but this is mostly his fear over me getting stuck raising some badly timed high school backseat conceived baby of Wolf's. But I started busting Mick's chops and twitting him that should Wolf eventually provide us with a granddaughter that Mick will be a goner. A goofball doting doofus of a granddad. I know this, and so does Mick. Look at how much he grooves on spoiling me. A wee baby granddaughter? She'll be lucky if she learns to walk before kindergarten, Mick'll be carrying her everywhere. He'll take a carpentry class and learn woodworking just so he can build her a dollhouse. He'll buy a horse farm just so his darling can have a pony. Though frankly I'm rather looking forward to spoiling my grandkids too, boys or girls. I know I'll never be allowed anywhere near Alex's kids if he has any, so Wolf's progeny are my only shot. The mom gig I got was a rough one. It's required iron discipline and a whole lot of hard work and no little heartbreak and grief. I want to have some fun, dammit! Though looking at the ex and his family it's obvious the Asperger's Syndrome is inherited and it's likely any kids of Wolf's will be Aspies too, and that puts a different spin on my happy daydreams of being Treats and Treasures Grandma. But I can hope, can't I? No harm in thinking about whisking my grandkids off to amusement parks and the beach. About providing them with microscopes and art lessons. I think about teaching them to cook and how to hunt for bargains. Of course I'll be their best customer for wrapping paper and cookies and scented candles and all the rest of their school and scouts fundraising crap. I won't say my kids were a gyp, but it's for certain there haven't been many Kool-Aid Mom moments. Besides, moms and dads are supposed to be the teachers and the hard asses, grandparents are for fun. Not my intent to undermine their parenting, but I can certainly be allowed to supplement it with goodies and adventures, yes? That's my hope anyhow. Mick's too if he's honest about it. It grieves him a little that Wolf wasn't his own from the very beginning, so to be there from the get-go with our grandchildren is a Very Good Thing. Sure, I know this is all speculation and wishful thinking, Wolf might never have kids at all. Many of my friends haven't. Something Amy brought up yesterday. It's absolutely not required that people spawn to have whole lives. In fact my childless friends do a lot more cool stuff than the breeders do. Go places, do things, build exciting careers, use their disposable time and income to participate in sports. They geocache and rock climb. I have a friend from high school who got a PhD in biochemistry and goes from research lab to research lab working special projects to support her surfing habit. No way Esther would be riding the heavies in Fiji if she had kids. I'd be content if Wolf ends up as one of the childless goers and doers. Truly. It's his life after all.
|
