The Creative Junkie: a funny parenting blog by Andrea Chamberlain

Harry Mason, if my ears had lips, they’d kiss you long and hard

by Creative Junkie on July 3, 2009

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Remember my orgasmic Harry Mason spiral earrings?

I went to the Harry Mason shop at Pier 39 while we were in San Francisco last week celebrating our tenth wedding anniversary, because if you can’t have the big “O” on your tenth wedding anniversary, why bother?

I smiled at the man who greeted us at the door and asked “Hi, are you Harry?” and he smiled back and replied “No, I’m smooth” and that was how I met Dave instead of Harry since Harry didn’t come in the shop until after we left because God just likes to screw with me and while I was pretty bummed that I didn’t get to meet THE Harry Mason himself and get his autograph and take his picture and act like a stalker, I soon discovered that my ears were in very capable hands.

Hi Dave! ((waving furiously))

Hi Harry! ((continuing to wave furiously))

I hemmed and hawed my way down all the display cases and whenever Dave would call out “lend me your ear” I’d lend him my ear and he’d decorate it with all sorts of sparkly things and cry OH MY GOD, THAT LOOKS GORGEOUS or OH MY GOD, GET THAT OFF YOUR EAR RIGHT THIS INSTANT and this happened about a dozen or so times until it finally happened.

The moment I had been waiting for.

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One big, awesome, breathless, whopper of an “O.”

Harry Mason, even though they didn’t get to meet you in person, my ears continue to thank you for making their earth move.

{ 14 comments }

Nate is willing to share me with others! Who knew?

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Next time, I’ll bring the entire tool department from Home Depot with me

by Creative Junkie on July 1, 2009

As it turned out, I wasn’t able to smuggle the Golden Gate Bridge into my carry on and take it back to New York with me.

Therefore, I was not detained by Homeland Security and thusly, did not experience my first ever strip search.

It wasn’t for lack of trying.

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But they bolted that sucker down hard and after a couple of minutes trying to unscrew various things here and there with my eyebrow tweezers, I gave up and started to cry but no one paid any attention to me so I stopped.

I’m all about conserving energy.

golden_gate_bridge

I love the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s one of the reasons I love the city by the bay so much.

Well, that, and the fact that I was, and still am, a huge Journey fan and to this day, their song Lights can make me stop whatever I’m doing at the moment and relive my torrid love affair with Steve Perry for three long minutes.

I also adore San Francisco’s funky houses and mammoth hills and delicious food and eclectic shopping and low humidity.

But nothing beats the Golden Gate Bridge.

I can just stand there and stare at it for hours.

Kind of like I do with the baskets of laundry decorating my living room floor.

But the bridge is prettier.

And less stress-inducing.

I hate laundry.

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I love how the bridge plays peek-a-book with the fog.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all look this beautiful while in a fog?

I find myself in a fog quite a bit since I hit my forties but the best I’ve managed to look is confused.

And occasionally unconscious.

Did you know that the bridge is painted orange vermilion, also called international orange?

I told Nate, my ultra-conservative husband who was born with THE WORLD SHOULD BE PAINTED BEIGE tattooed on his bottom, that I want to paint a room in our house this color.

He pretended to have a coughing fit and hacked up a lung just for effect.

He can be such a drama queen at times.

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This is an example of one of the bridge’s cables.

It’s HUGE and made my thighs feel skinny.

Thank you, cable.

*smooches*

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I love how the Golden Gate Bridge is delicate and graceful and dignified and powerful all at the same time.

Just like me!

Except for the delicate and graceful part.

And the powerful part, depending on how bloated I am.

I am dignified, however.

Provided my bra fits me correctly and I’ve avoided dairy products.

Otherwise, all bets are off.

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I’ve visited this bridge three times in the last two decades.

The first time was twenty years ago, with myself.

The second time was ten years ago, with myself and my husband.

The third time was last week, with myself, my husband and my children.

If this continues, I’ll see it again in ten years time, with myself, my husband, my children and my grandchildren.

OH MY GOD.

Zoe and Helena, JUST YOU NEVER MIND. I MEAN IT.

Quick, somebody send me two nuclear armed chastity belts.

Thank you.

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I love how Helena likes to take pictures where things are coming out of Daddy’s head.

You can tell she’s descended from my mother.

Because according to my mother, if you are not going to chop off someone’s head entirely, then at least have something growing out of it.

My mother could have taught Annie Leibovitz a thing or two.

By the way, my camera is acting wonky. Every time it’s aimed at me, it causes me to gain forty pounds.

Weird.

I hope that’s covered under warranty.

golden_gate_bridge_2

My girls were happy in this picture.

And then seven seconds later, a biker came racing up behind Helena and ran right into her, spinning her around and almost causing her to face-plant right at Zoe’s feet.

Wouldn’t it have been nice if the biker had apologized?

Or stopped?

That’s what I thought.

Stupid biker. May her ass grow a mind of its own, together with hemorrhoids the size of soccer balls by yesterday.

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This bridge is so majestic.

So beautiful.

I wish I could have taken it home with me.

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It would have looked perfect in our back yard.

{ 23 comments }

Nate is willing to share me with others! Who knew?

Why couldn’t Barbie have just given Ken a lap dance and walked away like a good girl?

by Creative Junkie on June 29, 2009

Thanks to a play date ten years ago at which Barbie and Ken got nekkid and busy, I was put into a situation where I had no choice but to tell then five year old Zoe about the facts of life.

And while I wish I was talking about the seventies sitcom and that Zoe and I curled up on the couch and ate popcorn and gabbed on and on about the Eastland School for Girls with Mrs. Garrett and Jo and Blair and Natalie and Tootie and how Mommy just knew there was something special about George Burnett (well helloooooooooooo, Mr. Clooney! I love you! Call me!) … I’m not. I’m talking about sitting at the kitchen table and talking about all things birds and bees. Add in the kit and kaboodle and it was the whole shebang.

Kaboodle? Shebang?

Who’s in charge of inventing words? I’d like to put in a request for shuwumple.

Shuwumple. My shuwumple broke and I need a new one.

It’s open to interpretation.

Anyway, ten years ago, five year old Zoe had her five year old playmate Maddie over. I didn’t like Maddie. I found her to have reached an inordinate level of oddness and weirdness in her short life, constantly bragging about her doctor mother and her stay-at-home father and her devil spawn younger brother who insisted on head butting me in my knees every time he saw me.

They were a strange family who lived up the street from us. But we were new in the area and Zoe was happy to have made a friend so I bit my tongue until it bled.

The girls were busy giggling and laughing and running around up in Zoe’s room for several minutes until they weren’t. And as any mom will tell you, NOTHING good comes out of complete and utter silence behind a closed door with two six year olds on the other side.

So I knocked on the door and immediately entered Zoe’s bedroom without giving them a chance to scatter and hide the evidence. And sure enough, there was Maddie, busy contorting a naked Ken and Barbie into the missionary position. And there was Zoe, with her face all crinkled up like it was that one time she watched me change my friend’s baby’s diaper, five seconds before she screamed EWWWWWWWWWW and ran out of the room.

I took this as a positive sign.

They both looked up at me and Maddie turned scarlet red and looked away. Zoe looked right at me and shouted IS LUNCH READY NOW?

I wasn’t quite sure how to respond. Sure, but make Ken promise Barbie it will be better next time? No, get in the car - I need to drive it around the world at the speed of light so I can turn back time and save us both a boatload of therapy twenty years from now?

I decided not to make a big deal about it. I simply told them that Intro to Fornication 101 was over and to come down to the kitchen for some mac’n cheese. Afterwards, I sent them outside to play but not before taking the eyes out from in back of my head and cementing one onto each of their foreheads.

Later, after Maddie had gone, I sat down Zoe in the kitchen and asked her what Barbie and Ken were doing. And I held my breath and hoped she would tell me they were playing naked Twister and then we’d laugh and I’d tell her that it was against the law to play naked games before you were forty and then we’d have a cookie and I’d tell her to go clean her room and she’d cry YOU’RE SUCH A MEANIE and all would be right with the world.

And then she told me they were having sex.

And I silently cursed my empty pantry and fridge which forced a trip to Wegmans which resulted in bumping into Maddie and her mom which precipitated the play date.

Stupid human digestive systems and their incessant need to eat. For God’s sake, who’s bright idea was it to invent them anyway?

So I asked Zoe if she knew what sex was? And I held my breath and hoped she’d tell me something simple, like sex is what daddy hopes for when he cleans the bathroom. Then we’d laugh and I’d give her a kiss and a cookie and tell her to go clean her room and she’d cry YOU’RE SUCH A MEANIE and all would be right with the world.

And then she told me that Maddie said boys have sperm and girls have eggs and boys put their wee wees into girl’s vaginas and the eggs grow into babies.

And I silently cursed Maddie’s doctor mother and her incessant need to procreate and then discuss it with her offspring. And what’s up with using “wee wee” if you’re going to use vagina? Men get a euphemism and woman get stuck with reality?

What else is new?

And then I told Zoe that I really enjoyed our talk and if we stopped talking right that instant, we could jump on a flight to Disney World and see the Little Mermaid and wouldn’t that just be so much more fun than talking about boring old wee wees and vaginas?

And then she asked me why girls don’t just lay their eggs like chickens?

So instead of playing dress up and building forts out of blankets and making Ooblek with my five year old daughter like all the rest of humanity who were lucky enough not to live down the road from trolls, I wound up having a sex talk with her instead.

I tried to keep it as age appropriate as possible, avoiding the nitty gritty details and emphasizing the concept that sex was an expression of love between a mommy and a daddy and essentially a means to an end, like if you wanted a baby or if you wanted the living room re-painted by the weekend.

When we were done, Zoe was thoroughly grossed out by all the mushy gushy talk about love and asked if we could be done so that she could play with her Betty Spaghetti upstairs.

And I said yes and silently vowed that the next place Maddie and Zoe would play would be that patch of grass over my dead body and then I held my breath and hoped that the entire conversation had either gone over her head or rerouted through one ear and out the other much like the 62 conversations we had the day before about cleaning her room.

And then she raced up the stairs yelling NATE! NATE! CAN YOU HAVE SEX WITH MOMMY RIGHT NOW AND TURN HER EGG INTO A BABY SISTER?

{ 29 comments }

Nate is willing to share me with others! Who knew?

Sunday regurgitation: Home is where the heart is. Or the laundry. Whichever

by Creative Junkie on June 28, 2009

For those of you wondering why Sunday is throwing up, fear not. Sunday Regurgitation occurs every Sunday, when I link a prior post of mine, because I am trapped under something heavy and am unable to write anything original or riveting. Hopefully someone will notice I’m missing, remove whatever is suffocating me and I’ll be back to normal by tomorrow. But just in case you never hear from me again … think of me fondly.

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If all has gone according to plan, we are currently on a plane right now, flying home after spending almost a week in San Francisco. Hopefully we’ve had an awesome time, we’re all still talking to each other, I was able to smuggle the Golden Gate Bridge into my carry on, my camera worked and I did not gain 53 pounds.

If all has not gone according to plan, I’ve gained 54 pounds, the kids are yelling each other to death, my camera is AWOL and my lovely bridge triggered the metal detector at airport security, causing us to miss our flight because Homeland Security doesn’t understand my penchant for souvenirs and thusly have a few hundred questions for me. I just hope the strip search is everything it’s talked up to be. I’ll let you know.

I don’t have any story relating to this Sunday regurgitation post like I usually do because I’ve been busy getting my name on the no-fly list so that I can finally say to Nate I CANNOT POSSIBLY FLY and he’ll have no choice but to believe me because for once, I have a reason other than being allergic to restricted leg room and the sharing of armrests with complete strangers.

So for today, I brought up my blog archives, closed my eyes, turned myself around ten times and the first post I was able to read without throwing up was the winner.

And the winner was … Peach Blossom Mist, which is totally appropriate considering the mountains of dirty laundry we’re bringing home with us.

Happy Sunday!

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Peach Blossom Mist

I had planned 736 things to do today and not one of them is going to get done because I’ve already given up and it’s only 8:00 a.m.

Here is my washing machine. And as much as I would like to just toss these things into my dryer with a Bounce sheet and be done with it, I can’t. They’ve been sitting in my washing machine for approximately three days now and while you can’t tell from the safety of your home, in my home the sour stench emanating from my washer is about to make my eyes bleed. So I’m going to have to rewash them in blazing hot water with bleach and/or vinegar at least twice before they make it to the dryer. Can you tell this is a well trodden path for me? I am physically incapable of remembering to switch loads upon hearing the buzzer, in much the same way Nate is physically incapable of telling me he’s got something planned until five seconds before it happens. It’s just not in our DNA. And if I had an inkling of pride, I would have photoshopped that dirt ring right out of this photo but my pride jumped ship about twenty-five pounds ago so there you have it.

And once I do rewash that load, these are waiting for me.

Just looking at them sucks my will to live.

Maybe I’d feel happier about my predicament if I actually enjoyed being in my laundry room. Maybe deep down I subconsciously try to avoid my laundry room as much as possible because when it comes right down to it, I just don’t like it in there. When we bought this house, I was overjoyed that I was finally going to have a first floor laundry room. I had big plans for that room, plans that included gleaming white shelves, lace curtains, satellite radio and lots of wicker hand baskets. But those dreams took the express line straight to hell in one of those baskets because the key word here is “had.” As in, past tense. As in, I was delusional.

Notice the color of the walls? They’re a pale lilac, if you can’t tell. I hate them. Hate them with a deep, raging passion I usually reserve for bullies and those occasions when TiVo stops recording one minute before Lost actually ends.

I wanted a soft, pale peach for my laundry room. It was called Peach Blossom Mist and it gave me warm fuzzies and I loved it and it loved me. When I suggested it to Nate, he had to take what some refer to as “a moment” when he became very quiet and still for several minutes. When he came to, he calmly told me that Peach Blossom Mist did not match the flooring he had just spent all day installing. When I responded with something along the line of “who cares?” Nate had the closest thing to a seizure without actually having a seizure and from that, I got the general impression that LAUNDRY ROOM WALLS MUST MATCH LAUNDRY ROOM FLOORS, OR ELSE NOTHING WILL MAKE SENSE AND IS IT TOO MUCH TO ASK FOR SOMETHING, ANYTHING, TO MAKE SENSE IN THIS GOD FORSAKEN WORLD WE LIVE IN?

I’ve learned to pick and choose my battles and thus far, I’ve managed to keep my sanity at a level hovering just above nervous breakdown so I didn’t push it. I told myself that it was just a laundry room after all and nobody other than myself was going to spend any quality time in there so was it really that big of an issue that a good cry and Dove chocolate couldn’t cure? So I caved, otherwise known in the world of marital bliss as “compromised.” Before I knew it, Light Lilac or Pale Purple or whatever the hell you want to call it adorned my walls and my laundry room was declared “done.” It’s now 13,927 loads of laundry later and despite some heavy duty Dove gorging, I’m just not feeling the love.

Every time I am in that room, trying to maneuver among the swarm of dirty underwear and wet towels, I am immediately struck by the fact that I can’t even see the 2 foot by 4 foot section of flooring that shattered my dreams because of the amount of stuff, otherwise known as crap, covering it and I get an annoying little tick in my left eye. And it occurs to me amidst flurries of lint flying about my head and up my nose that if I could have foreseen the sheer number of hours I was going to spend in this very room prying apart sticky, sweaty, smelly socks from one another ad nauseam, I would have fought a whole lot harder for Peach Blossom Mist. And a hazmat suit.

I think we need to revisit this room, Nate. I think you know me well enough to realize I’m not above holding your comfy Fruit of the Looms hostage and the way I figure, you are the last person on the face of this planet to consider going commando so I think I’ve got some pretty good leverage.

I get my Peach Blossom Mist, Frank and Beans get to stay ensconced in the 100% cotton comfort to which they’ve grown accustomed and all is right with the world.

And then maybe we can discuss a possible do-over of my office? Nate?

{ 12 comments }

Nate is willing to share me with others! Who knew?

It’s not easy being eight

by Creative Junkie on June 26, 2009

Being eight is hard.

Between the play dates and the softball games and the gymnastics and the sleepovers and the swimming, it’s a little overwhelming. Add in a birthday party every other week and overnights at Granny’s and it’s simply exhausting.

It’s even harder being eight with a fifteen year old sister.

That’s really hard.

Your sister gets to sit in the front seat with your mom while you’re relegated to the back seat where no one hears you call out “What did you say? I can’t hear you. What are you talking about? ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT ME?”

Your sister gets to wear cool makeup like purple eyeshadow and green eyeliner and blue mascara and you’re only allowed to dab on a little of that sparkly invisible lip gloss that came with the Bratz doll you got three years ago, the one your mom gave away because she didn’t want you playing with anything resembling a Hootchie Mama.

Your sister gets to wear fancy bras with underwire in them and then worry about setting off the metal detector alarm in airport security. Your undershirts don’t set off anything.

Your sister gets a cell phone because she goes all sorts places alone and the only two places you’re allowed to go alone is the bathroom and never.

Your sister gets to shave her legs and you can’t even grow decent hair on yours, no matter how much you water them.

You have to go to bed by 9:00 on school nights because your mom says you need a lot of sleep so you won’t be grumpy but your sister gets to go to bed whenever she wants since she can’t help being grumpy because she was born that way.

Your sister gets to watch PG-13 movies with her friends and you’re not allowed to watch anything worse than a PG because a PG-13 probably has bad words in it, which doesn’t even make sense since you know all the words by heart anyway because Mom’s an adult and has earned the right to use whatever words she wants, whenever she wants.

Your sister gets to turn Mom all sorts of colors and make her twitch and slap herself and practically throw up by yelling I GET MY LICENSE IN 365 DAYS and the only thing she does when you yell I GET MY LICENSE IN 8 YEARS is tell you that you obviously have plenty of time to clean your room so get a move on.

Your sister gets to monopolize the computer all the time because she has homework and mom thinks that’s way more important than buying a color coordinating toilet for your Webkinz bathroom.

Your sister gets to have a real, live boyfriend but you’re not allowed to like any boys until you’re in high school because that’s when Mom says boys stop being smelly and chock full of gross.

Your sister gets to wear contacts and pretty sunglasses. You have to wear regular glasses and the only sunglasses you can wear are the big, plastic, floppy ones you got from the eye doctor a couple of months ago and you can’t even wear those because your toy box ate them.

Your sister gets to have her very own piece of punctuation and whenever you ask Daddy when you can get a period too, he always tells you to ask Mom and then when you ask Mom, she always tells you that you don’t want one, which is crazy because if you didn’t want one, you wouldn’t ask for one.

Your sister gets to have two birthday parties while you’re stuck with only one because your mom still loves your dad and stays married to him even though she says he cheats on her with his crackberry.

Being eight is hard.

Let’s hope nine is a whole lot easier.

{ 18 comments }

Nate is willing to share me with others! Who knew?

I did and I’d “I DO” all over again

by Creative Junkie on June 24, 2009

Tomorrow is Nate’s and my tenth anniversary and while I’ve always wanted to reinvent something, like a washing machine that doesn’t eat only the left socks or a child that doesn’t need to be told 83 times to do something, the actual wheel has never been an option.

That’s just too much work.

Therefore, rather than blathering on and on and on ad nauseum about how awesome Nate is because honestly, he probably gets tired of hearing it one day out of the year, I thought I’d just re-post what I wrote a year ago.

It’s 365 days later and surprisingly enough, I’d still jump off that cliff with this man, despite knowing full well that his hand I’m not holding onto is gripping on for dear life to the TV remote.

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Anniversary of a Second Chance

Nine years ago today, Nate and I closed our eyes, held hands, said a prayer, took a deep breath and jumped off that rocky cliff known as Mt. Do Over into the uncertainty that is holy matrimony the second time around. No rip cords, no bungee lines, no instructors, no parachutes … just a free fall.

We were a little gun shy about the actual act of marriage but with each of us having a divorce under our belts and the innate sense of knowing what we could have done differently, we approached the concept of marriage with renewed optimism and hope. Kind of like contracting a horrid case of botulism at your favorite restaurant, puking your guts out for a couple of years, going back to the restaurant because the booths are comfy, the lighting is soft, the bathrooms are clean and you figure the odds that Chef E-Coli still works there are low and even if he does, you’ll order the steak instead of the fish.

We had a very simple ceremony in a very simple chapel. I wore a simple white dress, Zoe was our flower girl, my dad walked me down the aisle, my mom stood up for me and Nate’s dad stood up for him. We invited close family and friends. We had an elegant meal at a nice restaurant, the best wedding cake I’ve ever tasted, lots of hugs and congratulations and an early night. It was a wonderfully simple event. No band, no dancing, no garters, no waiting in a receiving line to shake hands with people you don’t know and will never see again, no surprising drunk wedding guests hooking up in the coat room, no DJ playing Celebration over and over until you smack him upside his head with his microphone, and no feeling like a fugitive on Dateline because a photographer insists on hovering his mammoth camera within inches of your face. Actually, maybe it would have been better if our photographer had been a little more assertive and a little less, I don’t know, stupid? Maybe then she would have actually remembered that we had all of eight tables of guests, not just seven and then maybe I’d have a photo of my closest friends celebrating our wedding. But no, she was stupid. However, all was not lost as she did manage to get the money shot of Nate’s grandmother getting ready to lift her dress and moon someone.

My second wedding was markedly different than my first wedding back in 1991 when it took over a year to decide on a guest list and flowers and food and wow, I just had a vivid flashback to the six rounds I went with my mother over buffet vs. sit-down. Ah, the memories … where’s a tissue when you need one? I actually won that particular battle with my mother but by that point, I was too exhausted and resentful to celebrate my victory and settled for a “so there” mumbled under my breath when she wasn’t looking. I agonized while trying to configure a seating chart that ensured those who hated each other had a safe zone of at least three tables between them. I had more bridesmaids than I could shake a stick at, not that I shook any kind of stick whatsoever at them because that would have been rude but I’ve always liked that phrase, even though I really don’t understand what the whole stick shaking thing is about. My wedding dress was drop dead gorgeous and I still have it somewhere, professionally cleaned and preserved in a box that is undoubtedly crushed beneath a thousand pounds of crap in our slightly damp basement.

So no, my second wedding was not even in the same realm as my first wedding, except for my new strapless bra. Even though I stomped, ripped, burned and otherwise obliterated that piece of sadism I called Helga from my first wedding eight years prior, I swear the new bra was a reincarnation and the fact that it twisted, turned, rolled and shimmied up, down and all around my torso, constricting my breathing and collapsing my right lung just like Helga did in 1991 just confirms my suspicions.

I planned a wedding in 1991 and we planned a marriage in 1999 and that makes all the difference in the world. Want to know how we do it? Here’s a peek:

COMPROMISE:

WHAT WORKS FOR US: The first one to actually name a restaurant wins.

WHAT DOESN’T: Where do you want to eat? I don’t know, where do you want to eat? I don’t know. What are you in the mood for? I don’t know, what do you feel like? I don’t know. Well, this is great. Why is it up to me? Why don’t you decide? Why don’t you? Fine, we just won’t go. Fine. Fine. Fine.

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DINNER:

WHAT WORKS: Keeping frozen pizzas on hand for Nate’s dinner on those nights when I don’t cook because one or both of the girls has to be somewhere at dinnertime.

WHAT DOESN’T: Why aren’t you eating the plate I made for you? What do you mean, you don’t eat leftovers? They’re not leftovers, they’re only an hour old. They actually have to be served at another meal before they can be considered leftovers. Didn’t you learn that in school? Just heat it up in the microwave. Oh wait, I know. You don’t like it. That’s it, right? You just don’t want to tell me. It’s ok, just tell me! I won’t be mad. If you don’t tell me, I’ll make it again and we’ll have to suffer through this entire conversation one more time so just tell me.

WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN YOU DON’T LIKE IT? SINCE WHEN?

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DIVISION OF LABOR:

WHAT WORKS: Me having absolute authority over the laundry, control freak that I am.

WHAT DOESN’T: Nate deciding to wash one shirt and taking all the delicates from the washer and shoving them in the dryer on high for 57 minutes, resulting in my beautiful green angora sweater now making its debut on Helena’s American Girl doll.

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OUR COMFORT ZONES:

WHAT WORKS: Knowing and accepting each other’s strengths and weaknesses. For instance, I stay inside as much as possible because my body is allergic to nature and I will never be one with the elements no matter how many times I’m forced to watch Survivorman. Likewise, Nate is outdoors as much as possible because his body is allergic to dust.

WHAT DOESN’T: Oh my God, it’s hot out here. Don’t you think it’s hot? You don’t? Is it just me? No, it’s hot. I can’t do this. I think my hair is blistering. I just … ugh, what is that? Wait … wait … oh my God, is that sweat? Yes, that is sweat. Nate, I am actually sweating. Actual beads of perspiration are running down my face and back and chest. Could this be any more gross? Oh my God, is that a bug? IS THERE A BUG ON MY FACE? I’m going inside before I die.

WHAT ALSO DOESN’T: Oh my God, it’s freaking cold out here. What the hell degrees is it? My nose is frozen. Nate, is my nose still there? I can’t feel it. Feel my fingers … can you feel them? I can’t feel them. Am I walking OK? Because I can’t feel my feet. What does frostbite feel like? Is this frostbite? I can’t breathe. Where’s my tongue? I think my tongue is frozen. Nathe? Ith my tongue thtill there? Nathe? Hep me, Nathe. I wanth go inthide Nathe. I’m gointh inthide. Nathe?

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COMMUNICATION:

WHAT WORKS: Accepting Nate-isms, as in “affirmative” for yes, “negative” for no and “action item” for something that needs to be done immediately as in RIGHT THIS INSTANT.

WHAT DOESNT: Avoiding conversation until I’m spoken to like a normal human being because that could take awhile and we need to discuss whatever it is that needs discussing before I lose my teeth, shrink, turn into a human Shar Pei and die of organ failure.

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CONFLICT RESOLUTION:

WHAT WORKS: Slowing down and waving to the asshole in the car immediately behind you to pass you rather than having him hump your bumper for the next 18 miles.

WHAT DOESN’T: Slamming on your brakes to see if the asshole behind you actually rams into you because sacrificing the car and your family is totally OK if you are in the right in the eyes of the law and that annoying little green Geico gecko and it’s more important to be right than alive.

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HABITS:

WHAT WORKS: Putting up with quirks such as Nate cutting his spaghetti with a steak knife in one direction, turning his plate and cutting in the opposite direction, done with such ferocious intensity that if I shut my eyes, I can practically see a rabid badger clawing its way through our kitchen table, because part of being married means accepting your spouse’s idiosyncrasies.

WHAT DOESN’T: STOP IT, STOP IT, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD , STOP IT BEFORE I GOUGE MY EYES OUT WITH A FORK.

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COMMUNICATION:

WHAT WORKS: Nate repeating the following phrases for approximately one hour: What’s wrong, Andy? Talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.

WHAT DOESN’T: Nate repeating those phrases for approximately one hour. I know this sounds like it should work according to the above, but it’s all in the timing. Sometimes it works and I break down and cry and tell him what’s wrong and he fixes it and sometimes it doesn’t work because I don’t want him to fix it, I just want him to be aware of it, to acknowledge its existence, to just listen to me and agree with me that is just sucks but for the love of Pete, NOT FIX IT. It’s basically a crap shoot and I feel for Nate, I really do, because it’s his crap shoot and the odds change on a daily basis, depending on the position of the sun and whether or not everyone has enough clean underwear to last through tomorrow.

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HOLIDAY STRESS:

WHAT WORKS: Getting an artificial Christmas tree.

WHAT DOESN’T: Watching in horror and shielding the kids’ eyes as Nate takes a hacksaw to the once beautiful Blue Spruce that adorned our dining room because he’d rather hack it to pieces than drag its carcass across the new carpet, through two doorways, out to the end of the driveway where he will be forced to stare at it for days on end because the garbage men didn’t have enough room in their truck to pick it up that week and in the meantime, he is wading through a sea of needles that he can feel but can’t see and this is enough to drive him insane for the next six months or until he vacuums 273 times, whichever comes first.

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TAKING DIRECTION:

WHAT WORKS: A GPS system.

WHAT DOESN’T: Asking Nate to slow down so that you can actually decipher the map without getting car sick, all the while yelling at the top of your lungs that it’s not your fault that they make the Grand Canyon look so small on these stupid maps and maybe if he had just asked for directions from that homeless man with the broken shopping cart and no teeth five miles back, we wouldn’t be in this predicament known as LOST UP SHIT’S CREEK WITHOUT A PADDLE so don’t even talk to me anymore or so help me God, I will get out of this car and walk my ass back to Las Vegas alone even if it kills me.

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Happy anniversary, Nate! You still make me catch my breath and wonder at my luck in finding a love with you that I didn’t think was possible. I truly believe you are my soul mate and if you ever read this blog, know that I love you more now that I did when we jumped off that cliff nine years ago and I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat.