Woulda Coulda Shoulda

Yesterday I read Liz’s post about her step-grandfather and it got me thinking about MY step-grandfather. So today you get to read about him over at Off Our Chests, if you’re so inclined. He was a character.

Unrelated, here’s an actual, unretouched conversation that happened here yesterday:
Me: Honey, I love you SO MUCH.
Otto: I… love you, too…?
Chickadee: She wants something.
Me: No! I just LOVE YOU!
Otto: I know what she wants.
Me: You do?
Otto: You want me to stop at the store and pick up sweet potatoes.
Me: See? THIS IS WHY I LOVE YOU! You’re the GREATEST!

(I always said a big part of the reason I wanted to remarry was so that my children could grow up seeing what a healthy, loving marriage looks like. Now they can see that when two people really love each other, their love magically produces veggie chili EVEN WHEN they are unexpectedly out of sweet potatoes.)

The whole situation with the fence has gotten so intolerable, we’ve run away from home.

Okay, fine, STRICTLY SPEAKING that’s not quite true. I mean, sure, we ARE on Day 25 of our one and a half day fence job, and it is absolutely true that it is not yet done, and it is also true that Fence Guy, after offering to rip down the fence and build us a new one then had the BIG GIANT BRASS ONES to come back and ask for a materials deposit, and when we pointed out that we’d already put down thousands of dollars, remember? (subtext: OH HELLS NO), he emailed Otto and said “Well then we’ll need another solution” and we sat on that for a day and then he realized that maybe, just maybe, while we were not answering him, we were talking to a lawyer (we were), he MAGICALLY came up with a way to do it without additional money (imagine!), but technically speaking, we were already planning to leave home, fence or no. It’s just that the whole fence thing makes me FEEL like setting fire to the house and driving away.

Thanks to Otto’s calming influence, I didn’t torch anything. We just drove away, instead. (more…)

I currently have this book sitting on my desk for review, and I hope the authors don’t mind me borrowing from their title. (The book is great; it gives kids on the spectrum practice with identifying emotions via facial expression. I can only assume that the correlating adult book would feature such directives as “point to socially acceptable” and “point to pretty,” instead, but I prefer this version.)

My folks headed back home, yesterday. In the middle of the afternoon I got a helpful automated phone call from their airline, letting me know that their flight had been canceled. As they were currently stranded in Philadelphia I’m not sure how useful that was, but it sounds like they eventually made their way back to the homestead. While I was sorry for their complicated, longer day, I was not sorry they didn’t take the call, as the voice on the other end was just so downright chipper in regretting to inform me that the flight had been canceled. That’s the sort of thing that can spark a good rage, you know.

I am somewhat prone to those sorts of rages. Sometimes I think I majored in righteous indignation in college. As we muddle through helping Monkey and the school deal with his meltdowns, every bewildered “He just gets so ANGRY” from someone who doesn’t quite get it is a little knife in my heart. Anger is a shielding emotion. It’s much easier to be angry than to be sad. Misery is vulnerable; outrage is invincible. I know why Monkey gets mad—being pissed at everyone still feels like being in control, while admitting that you feel lost and hopeless is a free-fall. (more…)