Otto is on break this week. The louse. He hasn't actually SAID, "Nyah nyah, you're working and I'm not!" but I strongly suspect he is thinking it, occasionally. Mostly he just wanders into the office when I'm playing Scrabble on Facebook and comments on how UTTERLY SWAMPED I must be. Because he's a wiseass. And nobody likes a wiseass! Except for me. And it's not that Otto isn't terribly busy when he has time off of work. Because he is. He's doing all sorts of manly things around the house, and he thinks I'm mocking him when I'm totally not. Like when he installed the trailer hitch on his...
Otto and I had an appointment to attend this morning, and I was dragging. Badly. I'm on a new hormone regimen. I've been getting migraines again. Now, I'm pretty sure the migraines started before I switched my meds, and I know I need to be patient to see if this fixes things or not---the joy of migraines is that they often beget themselves, so once I get on the migraine train it's often a while before I can get off again---but in the meantime I'm apt to wake up with a migraine and flop around like a very grumpy beached fish while waiting for my meds to kick in and make me human again. So we...
So, um, I guess we are getting to be People Of A Certain Age. I realized this recently because: 1) A friend of mine told me her husband was getting a vasectomy, 2) The husband knew I knew, 3) I told MY husband, and 4) The next time we were all together my husband mercilessly ribbed my friend's husband about it. There was a time when such knowledge would've offended Otto's delicate sensibilities. I mean, there was probably NEVER a time when it would've offended ME, but we already know that I am largely without shame. Still, brazen offers of frozen peas and scotch delivery in mixed company...
What I told Otto---and what I thought was the truth---was that if we replaced the kitchen table, then I could tolerate everything ELSE I want to change about the kitchen, a while longer. The truth is that the kitchen is probably the only room left that's still in its original-to-the-house state. I suppose it's possible that the (ugly) wallpaper isn't original, or that the (cracking) vinyl was replaced once along the way, but the cabinets and countertops and quite possibly the stove are ooooooold. Not that there's anything wrong with old. But in my mind's eye, I see fresh paint, new cabinets,...
I did get some chocolate today. In a heart-shaped box, even. And it's very nice, and all. But I also got my kids giving my husband a card onto which they had recorded a "WE LOVE YOU OTTOOOOOOOOOOOO!!" message that prefaced a recording of "We Are Family" by Sister Sledge. And then I got to disco-dance with my family while it played. (P.S. We are family, and we are also extremely bad dancers.) Happy Valentine's Day!
So, yesterday we loaded everyone into our truck and drove up to the north Georgia mountains and procured ourselves a genuine 1950s dinette set, cracked-ice formica tabletop and all. I suspect that Otto was a good sport about the drive to go get it on account of his recent car debacle, and I'm pleased to report that all went very smoothly; there were no breakdowns or crazy people or detours, and the set was pretty much what we expected and the guy who sold it to us even knocked the price down a little. Really the only complications were a bit of mild carsickness (those mountain roads are...
One of the biggest lessons I'm learning about being married again is that men and women really are just fundamentally different about some things. Much of the time those differences are "cute" or "endearing" or at least tolerable, and occasionally those differences are just plain baffling. And I'm not just talking about what baffles me, either. I know for a fact that Otto is baffled by my shopping habits on a daily basis. He does not, for example, understand why I need so many shoes. I probably haven't done a very good job of explaining it, either ("I JUST DO!"), but that's because I've...
This winter has been pretty bleak, so far. It's the usual stuff as well as some genuinely difficult circumstances---most staunchly filed under Matters Largely UnbloggableTM---and while the bottom line is that we are all fine, I respectfully submit that T.S. Eliot got it all wrong. April is not the cruelest month, January is. Hands down. One of the things I'm discovering, finally, after coming-up-on-two-years worth of remarriage, is that blending a family is not a linear process. It's more like the Electric Slide gone haywire, with steps forward and back and then---surprise!---sideways at an...
We are staying with Otto's brother Nearly Nickless, and his lovely wife and their two boys. My nephews are 4 and 6. While my kids were here, it was like having a small herd of wildebeests roaming throughout the house, as Chickadee doted on her younger cousin and Monkey and my older nephew ran about playing Star Wars and Bakugan and various other testosterone-infused games. Ever since my kids left to go back to their dads, the nephews have had to make do without them. Which is tragic. Well, mostly it is tragic for my younger nephew, who very much enjoyed having Chickadee here to basically...
