November
Posted on November 13, 2007
Filed Under marriage, kids, parenting, suburban joys, homeownership, holiday fun |
It is so November around here. The mice have begun to find startlingly brilliant ways in to the cupboard, where they tear into bags of dried split peas and coconut and leave mouse size droppings in the dried fruit. No matter how harshly I chastise the cats, they only lift their dowsing heads and then fall back to drooling, stretched long and lazy on the back of the sofa. They are good for nothing beyond creating cat hair tumbles that collect beneath the piano and under the beds. It is apparent that I will have to withhold the seafood savory kibble for a few days in order to encourage rodent patrol.
It is so November around here as we finish the third in a series of weekends devoted exclusively to leaf mitigation. I keep hoping that one morning I will wake to find that the autumn fairies have descended to restore final order to the yard and gardens. But each dawn I find just another day’s accumulation of brittle, drifting death. My arms are sore and burning from raking and dragging great tarps of leaves into the woods.Sunday evening, after hours of toil, we stopped to admire the lawn, green and glowing in the shrinking light of dusk. We retreated indoors to nurse our aching limbs. To put tired feet up before the fire and roast marshmallows on the metal ends of coat hangers we had stretched and straightened for that purpose. On Monday morning, the vivid chartreuse expanse of grass was lost again beneath another layer of brown autumn.
It is so November around here as my throat is swollen and sore. To swallow is such pure agony that I must skip the red wine of evening that, while struggling with a head cold, is like drinking pure fire. I try for sleep, my head pushed high on the plump of two pillows in order to avoid the unpleasant sensation of suffocating in my own mucus.
It is so November around here as the head lice epidemic returns to school, inspiring something like panic and the sterilization of all brushes. Mandatory head checks are in effect. All playmates must be certified nit-free before entering the house.
It is so November around here as there are faint whiffs of holiday stress in the air and family quarreling has begun in earnest. The credit card balance at which we’ve been so diligently chipping away suddenly jumps up and begins to make its steady climb to post-Christmas 2006 totals. My Better Half and I bicker and complain, resenting each other every trip to the convenience store, every pair of socks and pack of gum, as we know that we will spend 2008 digging out from beneath the purchases of Holiday ‘07. It is like this, the rise and fall of Madmarriage debt, year after year after year.
And my mother and father make their plans to come back from Florida for the end of December festivities, a return which is unprecedented. They have always preferred to stay a thousand miles away and now I know why, as I suggest they either host Christmas eve or Christmas day at their condo here, some meal, some event that can become theirs and not mine. They dodge my efforts and demurely decline, citing a litany of excuses that include the size of their living room and their plans to avoid holiday decorating, “It just would be too squished, too unfestive at our place,” they say. Instead they suggest that I leave people off the invitation list, they mention that cousin Will and his wife Erica really don’t need to be asked and, come to think of it, “We’ve never liked that Don character anyway,” they say. They passively try to help by reducing the size of the one family gathering we have all year. And I bite my tongue but only after letting rip a few nasty comments about the fact they are retired not dead followed up by some deep, unfettered sighs.
It is so November around here as our attention and efforts turn to indoor projects long neglected. We steam and remove long strips of ancient wall paper in the dining room. Paint cans are hauled up from the basement and large swaths of gold and beige are applied to naked walls while we consider the merits of Dorset Gold versus Westminster Cream. Curt the plasterer is called in to rebuild the crumbling horsehair we find beneath the sheets of one hundred year old damask paper. The fresh, new wall is sanded and prepared for final color. Concord Ivory is selected and purchased, tumbled and mixed and ready for application as soon as this head cold clears and the leaves are finally down and there is nothing left to do but inhale paint fumes and listen to NPR and drink tea.
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