16 posts tagged “husband”
My sister just phoned to tell me about a "discussion" she had with her 3 and a half year old granddaughter yesterday. Miss3 was in a bad mood all morning while Grandma was babysitting her and her brother. In the end Grandma told her to go the naughty corner and SIT!
Miss3 said "I am going to tell my mother on you!"
Grandma replied "Well, I will tell your father on you!" knowing full well that father carried more weight.
Miss3 sat very quietly for some time and then gradually came back to being Grandma's best girl. At the end of the day her brother, 5 asked if Grandma was still going to tell Daddy about naughty sister. Grandma said, no as she had been a good girl all afternoon.
Miss3 declared "Well, just as well I put my mind to good, then!"
I know just how she feels. I have been a cranky Flamingo Dancer the last 24 hours and poor Mr FD has wondered about the monster he came home to last night. I wanted to tell him that it was the humidity, all the negative attitudes coming at me in the media, other people's narrow views (do not blame PM Kevin Rudd for this economic mess, please!), the fact that I deserve a job, and that I am still 5 kg heavier than I want to be...but I just let him think it was HIS fault. I needed to rain on someone's parade and he was the nearest and dearest target. That's marriage.
Maybe I can put my mind to good before he gets home from work today. Where's the vodka bottle?
If you remember back a couple of days you may remember that I wrote that Mr FD had reversed his usual habit of loosing things on his trips away and this time had left his phone at the airport before he even left? Well, he reverted back to his usual habit in the end. Sad isn't it?
He left his credit card at a pub on the Atherton Tableland (North Queensland) where he stopped for lunch. He was almost back to Cairns when he remembered and so had to turn around and go back for it. At least he remembered. I have spent a lot of time cancelling credit cards over the years. I have also tracked down mobile phones in taxis in distant cities. We wont go into the effort that went into getting him home from Holland when his passport, briefcase and laptop were stolen in Amsterdam. I had this vision that his plane would finally land in Brisbane and a door would open, and Mr FD thrown out onto the tarmac. He would be naked except for a little tag hung around his neck, saying Please Return to Australia.
Of course on the home front he cannot be trusted to switch the stove off, and is under severe instructions not to walk away from the coffee machine when he is making his coffee. We have already had one explosion and we are onto our second machine! I long ago bought an iron that switches off after 15 minutes of non movement. In the very first years of marriage he was banned from putting bottles of beer and the like in the freezer to chill quickly as I got tired of cleaning beer and glass fragments from the frozen peas.
We have lost count of the books he has donated to airlines, the bottles of after shave left in motel bathrooms and the underpants left under motel beds.
I put most of this down to the fact that men cannot multitask. Sorry, but it is true, I have living proof. They really can only master one thing at a time. They may do that one thing really well, but ask for a second task to go alongside and chaos ensures. For Mr FD the other task is speaking. He talks. He talks all day. He talks at night, even in his sleep as told previously. He talks over other people. He is perpetually in conversation, often with himself as I have tuned out long ago, but he rarely notices. So if he is speaking, he forgets to pay attention to all the other stuff - like credit cards, phones, luggage, coffee machines. And so the loss ensures.Or the explosion.
Luckily he has a great sense of direction and somehow manages to always find his way home. It probably helps that our house is in a totally different style to every other house in the street!
One thing about driving slowly in heavy traffic is that one can study the personality and behaviour styles of other drivers I their car. I have complained previously about motorbike riders passing me on the left, on the sleeve of the road [remember we drive on the left side in Australia] where there is actually no lane, just to leap ahead a few cars. This morning I had a male CAR driver do the same, and while the traffic was slow, it was moving okay, but he was in too much of a hurry and flew up along the dirt at the side of the freeway and crossed into my lane, because I dared to leave a car length between me and the car in front, AND then raced into the inside lane…yes I beeped. I beeped LOUD.
Then there was the woman who drove along the freeway “look Ma no hands” style as she piled her hair Sarah Palin style on her head and inserted pins and combs etc. Love the way people multi-task when they drive, don’t you? Real talent, not.
Daughter 2 phoned from Amsterdam this morning just before I left for work. It was so nice to hear her voice – it has been 3 weeks! I asked how she and friend were getting on, and she said that she never realized how obsessed with “bums and boobs” the girl was and that she had been naked [ top off] at least 7 or 8 times already. “She is probably downstairs naked right now!’ was her final quote. One can work with someone and never really know them…but all in all they are getting on okay. They travel to Paris next and then leave the tour and spend two weeks doing their own thing, mainly in England where they meet up with other friends as well part of the time. Daughter is sending home two parcels in the mail, that while addressed to me I am not to open…I did ask if I could at least sniff them, but she said no. OOOHHHHH temptation.
Over breakfast this morning Daughter 1 told me about the stress dream she had last night. As I have mentioned before my recurring stress dream is that there is an emergency and I need to dial 000 (our version of 911). I have to use one of the old style dial phones and I just can’t get my fingers to dial correctly – can’t find the numbers, or can’t physically dial. Stress, stress, stress. Daughter’s dream was that she was in our house and there were baskets of clean laundry everywhere that she had to sort. It didn’t matter how much she sorted, the baskets never decreased. She was frantic trying to sort laundry…. Yes she does sort the families laundry. I launder and she sorts. I didn’t think it was such a horrendous task for her until now – I am not going to offer to sort though as I HATE sorting, hence why she took up the job. I would just rotate the clothes in and out the basket if left to me!
Mr FD has bought a yak. He woke me in the middle of the night to tell me.
“I bought a yak”
“A yak?” says I.
“Yes a yak. It can live in the back yard.”
“Wont it get hot out in the backyard all the time?” asked the dazed and confused Mrs FD.
“I will throw a sheet over the clothes line for shade” answered MR FD.
“And what are you going to feed the yak?”
“Carrots and yak pellets”
“I didn’t know yaks ate carrots” said I
“This one will”
“What are you going to call your yak? Yakkity yak yak?”
“No, Yosemite”
“And are you going to have a yak pooper scooper for when you take your yak for a walk?”
“Do you seriously think that if anyone saw a grown man walking around the neighbourhood with a yak that they would worry about yak poop?”
“I am a yak and I am going to poop now, sort of thing, huh.”
“Yes”
Silence as we contemplated the image of MR FD walking his pooping yak.
“I could spin yak wool and knit yak beanies (cap) so that next time you leave your beanie behind in a motel you will have a back up. You will be able to leave yak beanies in motels all across Australia, “ said I.
No reply. I suspect, he suspected that I wasn’t buying his yak story.
“Are you going to ferment the milk, like horse milk?” I asked
“Oh yes. My yak will give super strength milk. They said that they would have it mated also just before it arrived so we will have a baby yak shortly. We will have to mate it every year to maintain the milk supply.”
“Your going to be a busy man then aren’t you?”
He didn’t reply as he pondered my meaning.
“I bought some chickens too” MR FD continued
“Chickens and a yak, you have been industrious today.”
“The chickens will keep the yak company while we are at work”
“Yes, very important to make sure your pet doesn’t get bored and lonely”
He rolled over and went to back to sleep. I was left feeling bereft that he hadn’t actually bought a yak. It had come to feels like a member of the family already.
Thirty one years of marriage does not prepare you for being trapped in a car with your partner for three weeks as you drive through 4 states. Water boarding might possibly.
After 3 weeks I will know everyone of his current jokes, one liners and what he thinks passes as an intelligent witticism.
If Mr FD and I are out, I may order the meal, or select the item, but I always make him pay on his card. That way when the credit card account arrives all purchases are against his name and he can’t pretend he has no responsibility and I am a wanton spending machine. However, his evil brain cell will work out a cunning form of revenge –
Version 1
Me: We have to pay.
Him: Pay? I thought it was free. He will smile at the poor sales girl or waiter who will smile sickly back, as their brain thinks Di-khead.
Version 2
Me: We haven’t paid yet. Got your wallet?
Him: Wallet? But it is a cashless wallet. He will smile at the poor sales girl or waiter who will smile sickly back, and after he flashes a wallet containing no money, only receipts, and then hands them a credit card, as their brain thinks Di-khead, they will look at you with an expression that says “poor woman married to that”.
If I am so silly as to point out a ‘watch out for kangaroos next 5 klms’ sign, he will sing “Kangaroochie, Kangaroochie, la de la de da (imagine maracas in the background)- EVERYTIME.
If I am so stupid as to mention “I wonder why that road sign just has a small letter E on it and what it means” he will offer theories and speculations for the next 632 klms. I will have long since stopped caring, if in fact I ever did, but he will keep going, on and on.
If we decide to bring 6 cds each to play in the car, Mr FD will snatch his cds from his company car and it will only be when we are in the next state that I will discover he has in fact selected empty cd cases. He will have only one cd – Mark Knoffler and Emmy-lou Harris, which we play for the next three hours and repeatedly after that. He will even sing along! He will then grumble over my selection. [In the delightful best bookshop in Australia, the Lorne Bookshop, we purchased a Cold Play cd, as it was middle ground.]We will take to listening to the ABC radio and even to BBC radio in an effort not to melt down in the interim.
He will identify the grass species or crop not only in every paddock, but also growing by the side of the road. Noxious introduced species will be a big talking point. He will also identify clients’ businesses as we pass through each town.
He will yell “Look!” but won’t give a clue which way to look, or what to look for, so that he then gets to say “oh you missed it”. Occasionally, he will throw out his left hand and point, except the hand will be a quarter inch from my face and all I will see will be the wrinkles on the back of his hand. Once or twice I will be tempted to bite it.
He will eat a chocolate, finish a drink or the like and then just hand me the rubbish. I too will be trapped in the car, and wonder, what the hell am I suppose to do with it? The best form of this is will be when he lifts his take away coffee cup out of the drink holder and finishes it and then hands me the empty paper cup – which I will then place back in the drink holder. Obviously show placing another one of my superior female talents....
This one we will both enjoy, not – continuous narration and commentary of the activities of all other cars on the road, both in front and behind. [If you are so worried about the car behind you, stop looking in the rear view mirror so much. It is not personal; it is driving a car from A to B!]
Then there will be outside car irritations.
In public places he will look at the passing crowds and make statements like “that guy looks just like Nigel Pollock”. As you have never met Nigel Pollock you will have no idea if he did look like Nigel... but wait, then he will go on about how Nigel did him wrong in the dim dark past, or recite Nigel’s complete employment history to explain how they met once in ’82 and then again in ’97. This will happen at least 4 times each day and be mixed with statements such as “that man looks like Uncle Ted” so that you will be forced to say, “Uncle Ted is 84 years old, 5 feet three inches tall, 4 foot wide, has only one arm, and is bald. That man is 6 feet 8 inches tall, not a day over 25, as skinny as a stick, has all his limbs as well as a full head of red hair. There is no resemblance”. Then he will act insulted that you disagree with his keen powers of observation.
And one for the homecoming: Despite my vigilance, he will leave personal items in motel rooms. Items like his phone charger, which he only just got back from the last time he lost it. Then he will complain that he has to contact the motel and ask them to send it home for him. When you get home, he will then complain loudly that he has to go to the post office to pick up all the POD parcels of HIS personal belongings....as though he had no responsibility for what happened...it will no doubt be the fault of those naughty little gremlins again, because, hey, he is perfect, remember.
I have been feeling very confused when in our bathroom this week and I have just realised why. Everything is in its place. The toothpaste has its lid on and is back in the toothbrush holder, the soap is in the soap dish, and my hair brush is with the comb. How can this be? Mr FD is away.
I was in the kitchen, below bench level with just the top of my head showing and Daughter 1 came into the room and was startled – I got foils in my hair and she isn’t used to Mum with lighter hair! Back in the 80’s I succumbed to an hour of madness and had one of those all over curly perms that everyone had at the time. I instantly regretted it, and when I went home Daughter 2 who was about 2 years old was very wary of me for the first few hours as she didn’t know her Mummy! Same thing happened when Mr FD shaved his beard off – both the girls wouldn’t let him hold them until they got use to him. He grew it back straight away and has kept it so ever since!
Usually I go to bed and fall asleep before Mr FD. It is nothing for him to bound into the room at midnight, after I have been asleep for a good 2 hours, and flick on the light and wave some piece of paper under my dozing nose. Last time it was a collection of photos of all the places we are visiting on vacation that he had compiled into a small collage and wanted to show me. Sometimes it is the credit card account. Now, I don’t always respond in the manner in which he anticipated that I would. Actually, I rarely respond in the manner in which he wishes. 1. I have been asleep. 2. I am not used to the light as I have been sleeping in the dark and so need time to adjust to the light. 3. I have only one eye, and I wear spectacles – wave a piece of paper at me and all I see is a blur. So I lift a head, pretend I can see whatever it is, let my head fall back on the pillow and say “ that’s great” to the collage, “it wasn’t me” to the credit card balance. Then he has 30 seconds to turn off the light and either go away or come to bed, before I threaten to kill him. I think I lovingly murmur something along the lines “I am going to rip your head off your shoulders and use it as a vase if you don’t shut up”. He knows I am quite capable of carrying out my threats, so most times he follows my request. Sometimes he is bored and so starts chirping away on a number of subjects, and he calls this “stirring the lizard” – I am the lizard. I am his favourite blood sport. It is an even fight, but I always win. I don’t fight fair.
Why is it that I can swing my leg waist high with ease to rest my foot on the bathroom cabinet to apply moisturiser to my legs, but if I have to bend over to pick up something off the floor I make old lady grunts as I bend?
I have not been living in my moment lately. I usually make my breakfast and then put my medication on the side of my plate. This morning I ate my toast and then walked over and threw my crusts into the bin (I don’t like crusts and can’t run the risk of curly hair as my children won’t know me! The curly perm traumatised them enough for one life time!) After I emptied my plate, I thought SHIT! Did I take my tablets? So I had to go back to the bin and search among the rubbish and see if there were any tablets lurking in the rubbish. This is when daughter was startled by my head! Just the hair – not the face. She got over that trauma long ago! She thanks God every day that she doesn’t look like me! I digress, as is my want. From my investigations I discerned that there was a high probability that I had taken the said tablets. I took it as a reminder to live in the moment and pay attention to the little things in life. The little things are important too!
Daily I have the same dilemma. How many tissues/Kleenex does one put in one’s pocket? In the old days when we all used handkerchiefs it was easy – one handkerchief in a pocket. It was reused, so that was all one required. Of course now we all use tissues. They aren’t reused. So, one is not enough if one can’t be assured of a steady supply. So do I take two? Three? One in the pocket, one in the bra? It is a fine balance. Too few and you could be left needy and embarrassed. Too many and you develop a pocket bulge and risk the possibility that people will ask “Is that 33 tissues in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?” It keeps me up at night – to two tissue or not to two tissue, that is my question.
Two more sleeps and Flamingo Town will be down one Flamingo Dancer – and safe for Snowy to enter. Vacation here we come! Tomorrow is laundry and packing. Already Son has checked the car and filled its tank in Mr FD’s absence. I have stocked the freezer with enough junk food to feed Son and Daughter 1 during our absence in return. Life is good.
Life suggestion 101: When alternating between spending half a lifetime in the bathroom, evacuating, and lying in bed suffering severe stomach spasms it is not, and never will be, a good idea to tune into the nature doco your husband is watching on Amazonian Dung beetles getting their big jollies from making big balls of Howler Monkey poo. Somehow it just doesn't have the charm one would expect. To be told that the bigger the dung ball the male dung beetle can make, the more irresistible he is to female dung beetles just doesn't seem so impressive when one has been expecting ones own intestines to appear at any time.
And surprisingly Mr FD couldn't quite understand why I wasn't showing the right degree of wonder and awe. Daughter 1 suggested that perhaps Mum might like to watch something else, and Mr FD replied "no, she will really love this!" In what lifetime? Perhaps the one where I come back as a dung beetle, which actually might be considered a step up on this life for me, by those who know me! I would have happily eaten my own young yesterday to halt my misery. I settled for almost eating MR FD every time he phoned me from the office to check on me yesterday.
Ah nice man you say, so caring. Yeah. Except I was finally deep asleep and the phone rings and I jump to answer it (automatic response, too many ailing relatives) but it isn't in its usual spot, it is in Daughter 1's bedroom so I leap out of bed, well I fall out of bed and bang my leg against the bed (yes I do have the big bruise today to proof my suffering, and why I am making others around me suffer). I pick myself up and tumble into her bedroom only to have the ringing cease as I arrive. Then my mobile starts to ring so I hurdle back into our bedroom and grab the phone - and he says "what took you so long"? Funny man!
The high point of yesterday? Son took the wheelie garbage bin and recycling bin out to the kerbside to await today's collection without me asking... I rejoice that I must have done something right, somewhere, one day as a mother. It really is the little things that come to mean so much, some days.
I had a near, near death experience this morning driving to work. A semi trailer truck loaded with a small earth mover and other construction equipment entered the round about just ahead of me and started to turn right up the hill, the same way I was going. I heard the truck make an odd noise and so I stopped my car on the roundabout. The truck shuddered and then started to slide back a little, obviously unable to gain traction in the wet. It was coming my way so I slammed the car into reverse and started to reverse as much as I could, which wasn’t far, thanks to the idiot behind me who could have moved back but didn’t. I don’t now if they were slow to react, or a #$%^$#%#* pig, but they sat there while my life looked as though it was being potentially drastically shortened.
Thanks to the good driving skills of the truck driver his vehicle missed the front of mine by a sand grain. No exaggeration or being over emotional here, it was what it was. For a second I thought my fifteen minutes of fame had arrived “READ ALL ABOUT IT! WOMAN FLATTENED BENEATH EARTH MOVER”. Shaken and stirred.
MegaBoss was required to do a financial transaction yesterday. It is a transaction that she is responsible for 3 times a year. She has done it since 2005 so should have a pretty good grip on how, what, why etc. From her emailed questions yesterday it became very obvious that she had totally lost the plot and couldn’t remember a single thing about the process. I kept very quiet. Her emails went to a wider circle showing her total lack of knowledge and as she asked more questions she looked sillier and sillier. Finally, today, for the sake of others, I quietly reminded her of the tasks she had to do and how the process worked. What goes around comes around and revenge is sweet. I may rot in hell but I have had a moment. Is it mean to hope for more?
Daughter 2 is being given an all expenses paid weekend away for two by her firm for a job well done thank you. She is taking her sister and she chose Melbourne, because her sister has never been there. They are getting air fares, theatre tickets, dinner at Neil Perry’s Rockpool restaurant, and staying at a very expensive inner city hotel. Daughter 2 is grateful but she has paid for it in toil and trouble. Daughter 1 is over the moon because she gets the goodies for being nothing more than her sister’s complaining post when she is tired and over worked. I am just happy for both of them. They go weekend after next, if firm doesn’t work Daughter 2 into the ground before then… a 13 hour day is a short day. Lucky I didn't get squashed it would have spoiled their weekend...maybe not....
Think I may be inheriting Daughter 1's cold. Even Brisbane has been cold the last couple of days, though I suspect Mr Snowy may be closer to experiencing his name at the moment in his cold city. Rain and cold doesn't usually bother me but today I have been feeling icy all day and I suspect it is part of getting ill. Bah humbug. Hope I am wrong.
Mr FD is back tomorrow - last night of bed freedom. Though if the cold weather keeps up a bed warmer might be handy! A man does have some uses! (That's a joke, gentlemen). Has anyone else noticed how it is ok for women to crack a joke about men, but men have a very fine line about the jokes they can make about women? Gender issues....I don't think we have got the balance right yet, and maybe never will. Got to keep trying though.
Goodnight.
Mr FD is on a road trip again. Well he left on a plane actually, but once the plane lands in Cairns he will be on a road trip. Back Friday.
I will enjoy the freedom of the bed to myself and his share of the water ration to have an 8 minute shower each night (I am a cheater I know) - luxury. It is the little things that do come to mean so much!
How did you manage to find a second husband? Not that I am in the market for one, but if I was I would have absolutely no idea how to go about findng a new husband. Obviously I am not going to hit the nightclub or pub scene, so how, where? Tell me, tell me.
After three phone calls from Mr FD and more of my supreme phone counselling I think he is back on the straight and narrow - at least for the rest of the day PLEASE! Double pain medication is easing my physical pain too...maybe a Nana nap will help.
Note to self - buy a new reality.
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