This blogging thing is tough, sometimes. When I began my pursuit of “a blog a week” I had some fodder – my high-school-senior daughter. It was a lofty goal, for sure, but then we had a ridiculously slapstick-style family outing so my confidence soared. That was, unfortunately, followed by my father-in-law’s unexpected passing, a devastating situation, but one that kept me on task.
The topics seemed to throw themselves at me like Dan when I’m wearing running tights (don’t even try to understand it… it’s disgusting… I think he has some kind of weird fetish-type shit goin’ on).
Anyway, I’m sitting here, one day past my (self-imposed) deadline, wondering what the hell to write about…
I got nothin. So, hang on, you’re about to waste about 15 minutes reading as I drone on with nothing to offer but some idiotic drivel.
To catch you up on the unexpected loss of Dan’s dad. We had a small graveside service Wednesday. A musical colleague of Bob’s performed Taps – my God is there any song that reaches into your soul and squeezes your heart like Taps? Just a lone trumpeter, blowing sorrow through his horn…
Everybody is doing… ok. One minute it doesn’t seem real and the next, we feel like, in some odd way, we knew this was the turn our lives would take. Like, somehow, it already has a sense of normalcy about it…
We’ll figure it out with his mom, she’s intent upon staying put – and trust me… I want her to stay put.
[ba dum ting]
But, she’s over an hour away and we worry about her… She’s healthy and capable, but still… we worry. We’ll follow her lead and just be there when she needs us. She’ll be ok, of that I have no doubt.
At one point last week, she looked at me, tears stubbornly refusing to spill, and said, “I always thought I’d go first.” My gaze softened as I said, “Well… we were all hoping…”
Thank God that woman has a sense of humor. I mean that’s a pretty big matzah ball hanging out there, if she doesn’t laugh.. ya know what I mean?
I think even Dan will be ok in time… I mean, this is how it’s supposed to happen, right? Our parents are supposed to go first. It’s the natural course of life… so why, exactly, does it feel so damned awful?
We had a lot of togetherness last week. Dan was off for a few days and, due to the circumstances, we got along well. Which is to say, I was a little less of an ass because I knew he was hurting. As the week wore on however, I got back to my more natural state. Sunday we sat discussing dishwashers. We need a new one and his mom expressed an interest in replacing hers – so we started our search.
We found the make and model we preferred (Consumer Reports, baby) and Dan went through some options, “…there’s front controls – like we have now – or top controls – they go on the top of the door and are sorta hidden from sight.”
“Yes… yes, thank you for expanding…. my two college degrees and basic common sense would’ve never gotten me through that technical jargon.”
Still not sure why that man stays.
I like to be an equal opportunity asshole. Early on in the week Cal borrowed a pair of Alex’s sunglasses. She frantically asked, “Are you stretching them out? Do you feel like they are stretching?”
I said, “Come on, Alex… have you seen his head? Every time I look at him I thank God for C-sections… of course he’s stretching them out…” Then I looked at my boy and gave him a shrug of apology.
He nodded and said, “You are not wrong, mother.”
I sorta feel bad when I bust his chops but then shit like this goes down:
Alex: who invented physics?
Me: wasn’t it Sir Isaac Newton?
Alex: yeah I think you might be right…
Me: either him or Galileo
Cal: I thought it was Thomas Edison
Now… to be fair… he said he was joking. But! he only said he was joking after I looked at Alex and shook my head in disgust/disbelief. I’m not sure that I believe he was joking, but I very badly want to, so I will. An error (that has since been fixed) kept him off the distinguished honor roll list in the paper. He has, actually, maintained straight As in high school… but don’t despair – his dingbat tendencies are alive and well…
Last week my mother-in-law, sister-in-law and her husband came for the night. The kids and I spent the day making our house presentable, or less appalling, however you want to say it. Alex handled the vast majority of cleaning, with Abby coming in a close second. Cal followed me around, helping me hang pictures and such… basically he spent the day getting yelled at (the kid has to just groan when I say, “Today we’re gonna work on some projects together, buddy.”). Anyway, I texted Dan and said, “the idea here is to act like our house always looks likes this, so, DO NOT walk in and comment on how nice it looks.”
No sooner did I send that message then our guests walked in to see me frazzled, sweaty and exhausted. I gave up the ghost immediately. “I’m a mess… ignore my appearance, we’ve been busting our asses all day – this house never looks like this..”
Dan walked in a few minutes later, I looked at him and said, “Don’t even try… they know the truth.”
As for me… I plummeted this weekend, Sunday in particular. I just couldn’t get myself together. So, I napped and just sort of moped around and expected nothing of myself. The week before was spent in ‘survival mode’ and I needed a day to take care of myself.
I hate those days.
Rarely are they anything more than a guilt-producing, waste of daylight. I mean, it’s not enough that I can’t find motivation beyond brushing my teeth but then the weight of self-reproach becomes so debilitating that it feeds into a greater lack of motivation until you find yourself nearly fusing with your recliner and hating yourself for it. The mind is a bitch… amirite?
Anyway, I gave myself the ok for Sunday and promised to get myself going this morning. It worked, today was a pretty productive day and I feel pretty good about myself.
Or I did… anyway…
Until Cal asked, “Are you and dad gonna have a quarantine-date-night?”
I said, “mmmm I don’t think so, why do you ask?”
“I dunno… you showered so I thought something special was going on…”