country mouse comes home
Posted on May 8, 2007
Filed Under marriage, parenting, snark, another dread disease |
I did it. I went. I abandoned ill children and carried my guilty self to New York for my 48 hour dose of Bright Lights, Big City. And it was wonderful and exhausting and not entirely worth the drama of my return, but I’m glad I got away, if only briefly. And it’s true what they say about NYC; it’s the city that never sleeps and how could it with road crews working with jack hammers in the streets all night and sirens blaring and someone in the apartment upstairs either sharpening huge pencils with an industrial strength contraption OR chopping up their spouse into tiny pieces with a rotary saw at 3 a.m.? There’s also the issue of space and makeshift guest arrangements that include blow up mattresses that simulate sleep on a raft but without the gentle roll of waves and only a hard floor and that noisy neighbor as accompaniments.
Settling into an evening with high school friends proved comfortably familiar. Truthfully, nothing has changed much at all in fifteen years even though there are now spouses and children and careers that should somehow make it all different. It was easy and cozy, like slipping back into an old and favorite sweatshirt. And never mind that the restaurant at which we had a reservation for 17 had double booked our table and we all had to cab it across town to find a place that could accommodate such a large number on such short notice or that drinks at the Bowery Hotel cost $15 a pop even though they’re stingy with the alcohol.
I like to think we could go another 15 years without a re acquaintance and it would be as simple and effortless to pick up where we left off on Saturday night. I will make a quiet comment that I think the bartender forgot the Kettle One in my Kettle One and tonic and my dear friend Jess, who I’ve know since I was thirteen, will, again, just as he did at 2 a.m. on Saturday night, grab my glass and pour half of his own drink directly into mine and say, “I’ve learned to order everything straight-up, no mixers. Let me fix that up for you.” And I will think, now that’s friendship.
As I drove the Mass Pike towards home yesterday evening I began to run hopeful scenarios in my head. I played out the return in myriad versions: dinner prepared in a tidy house, the great mound of mulch having been spread into neatly raked gardens beds, grass seed sprouting, having been watered in all weekend, squealing relief from mom-sick children, a thankful Better Half who had shrugged off his usual weekend slacker role and really stepped into my shoes to make my vacation all the better for having returned to order and accomplishment.
But, while driving alone, head full of mucus and about two hours of sleep under my belt, I really was just setting myself up for a huge let down. Somewhere between New Haven and Hartford I had to stop for a caffeine infusion, something to keep the thoughts of my joyful homecoming from lulling me to sleep. Now shouldn’t there be some law that the highway sign advertising the Dunkin Donuts at the Wallingford exit must disclose that the restaurant is actually ten minutes out of the way and in the middle of absolutely nowhere? AND shouldn’t Dunkin Donuts be required to post an addendum to their highway signage disclosing the fact that the Coolata machine is broken? No Coolata. Only yesterday’s ice coffee and a chocolate donut hole to tide me over until I returned to the true disappointment…an empty house with the wastebaskets overflowing, the floors covered in pet hair and dried mud and a weekends worth of cracker crumbs and cornflakes. The mulch remained in a huge heap beside the garage. The screens were stacked on the front stoop having made it up from the basement and no further. There was no new hose or working sprinkler or sprouting grass seed and the cats swirled at my feet crying for food and a clean litter box and fresh water.
The children and My Better Half returned from the hardware store where they had finally bought that new hose and sprinkle set, some ten minutes before my return, to find me mopping and vacuuming, weeping, blowing my nose and FUMING. The resulting colossal argument goes down on record as the single most contentious feud of our ten years of marriage. And I didn’t sleep again last night, not because of raft like accommodations or the sounds of dismemberment from upstairs apartment, but because disappointment and resentment are profoundly energizing. No matter how few hours of sleep one has had in the past two nights, or how vicious and debilitating the cold one has caught from her children, there’s just no way one can relax into a rage. And so I’m very tired, feeling evil and serpent-like today.
Oh, and did I mention that this morning when I crawled from bed stiff with the anger that has settled in my joints and made my way down to the mudroom to let the dog out, she bolted from the back door in pursuit of a small duck that had lost its way, injured and confused and roosting on my lawn. The duck tried to fly to safety and instead crashed into the garden shed and hobbled off to die in the bushes beside the driveway. So I have a dead duck, a deadbeat husband and 100 yards of mulch to deal with. Good times.
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9 Responses to “country mouse comes home”
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I can so relate. Not to the children bits, but the husband bits. I’m pretty sure it’s not deliberate, just careless and selfish. I can also relate to how it made you feel, burning up with anger and resentment and frustration.
Of course knowing that doesn’t make you feel any better about it but at least you know you’re not alone!
Oh, baby.
First the funny:
sharpening huge pencils with an industrial strength contraption
You make me laugh.
Second: I had the EXACT same return from MY trip to NYC a couple of weeks ago. The house was a total disaster. And I too was bitterly disappointed. But honestly? I don’t think my husband was consciously trying to punish me. I think he truly DOES NOT CARE how the house looks. And he cannot get in my head to see that I might care.
And yeah, that’s so damn frustrating. On the other hand, the kids were happy, and fed, and maybe that’s good enough.
Or maybe not.
(And BTW, within minutes, nay seconds, of walking in my own door from my trip, I was sweeping the kitchen floor.)
Hmm, speaking on behalf of husbands … well, actually there is no excuse but if there were it would be this. Without women, we’d still be sitting in caves regaling one another with those hilarious stories about the last mammoth hunt when fat Charlie was eaten and died with such a funny look on his face. Men get lots of credit for historical advances, but I suspect that civilization was something imposed on us by our wives and mothers, without whom we’d likely think farting a form of music. Once women learn to clone without us as sperm donors, I imagine that we men will slowly die out, eventually written off as one of nature’s more egregious mistakes.
The balloon punctured, the fantasy flattened–I’m mad on your behalf….
I’m working on the cloning without male contribution. This will be a good thing for civilization but, in defense of the male, I do know a lot of really romantic, helpful, adoring husbands who just happened to be someone else’s catch.
at least you have sexy cool jeans.
(that’s like a half-mulched yard in my book)
Oh sister, I’m with you. Remember, the husbands don’t do it “wrong”, they just do it “differently”…that’s the mantra I repeat to myself anyway when I come home to chaos.
My condolences on the duck. We had a wild bunny sleep on our front lawn last night. Nobody got hurt, thank goodness!
My son will make a great husband one day. Always attentive, that one. I take no credit whatsoever, except for the jeans.
Maybe we should clone him?
Now THIS is the reason I like blogs. This sounded so familiar, I think I could have written it myself. Nothing gets me fuming like coming home and finding NOTHING done. It so reminds me of a scene in my house two Christmases ago, but I can’t relate what happened because then I’ll get all steaming mad again, and we’ll have another meltdown around here.
Stupid slobby men.