Timing is Everything

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

Last night was a fiasco in here.

Punksin got upset because I wouldn’t let her have any ice cream after dinner. This was primarily because she didn’t eat any dinner. Two mouthfuls of rice and then she’s clamoring for ice cream cake. Given that she’d also had a McDonald’s Crappy Meal for lunch, I thought we had reached our junk quota for the day.

Lord, you would have thought I was burning her with cigarettes, the hollering that ensued. She cried and cried and cried and cried. And then she gave herself a headache. And then she cried some more about that. And as much as I explained to her that she was causing her own headache by crying, she would not stop. It went on and on and on for about an hour and a half.

Whew.

Her dad and I were pretty much done with her by the time she went to bed. We were both pooped, and both had work to do after putting them to bed. I was pretty much a waste – just did some reading and passed out. The Hacker stayed up until some ungodly hour. Our time together was nonexistent.

So today, I take a shower. No, they still don’t happen every day unless I am determined to get in the shower at 11:00 at night or something and I gotta tell you, unless I’m menstruating or exercising or really sweating, I don’t give a shit. Mild perspiration is normal.

I get dolled up in one of one of my cheap but cutesy summer dresses.

I brush out my hair – now that it’s blown out, it’s nice and long.

I put on makeup – a little blush, some eyeliner, some mascara.

I take the kids to the park in the evening to wear their little behinds out.

I come home and I take a pork loin that I have marinated the hell out of all day and stick it in the oven. I cook Cuban rice and beans, and platanos.

The Hacker calls and says he is on the way home.

Five minutes later, he calls back.

He is going out for a drink.

With some woman.

This, after announcing this morning that he is taking a yoga class-  with some woman. A different woman.

He has been working at this fucked up company since 2002 and only recently, only now, has he all of a sudden become Mr. Hot Stuff. A yoga practitioner, looking to get her teaching certification, just has to teach my husband, and now they’re having weekly sessions. Another one invites us – yes, all of us, but I don’t think that means anything – to her house for a BBQ. He takes drawing classes – with a woman. He joins a bookclub and of course the chicks in the group are always lending him their books because they’re so. fucking. thoughtful.

And yes, I am totally like WTF? After 5 years all of a sudden you’re hanging out with women? How would it look if all of a sudden I, little housewife, started palling around with all my old male cohorts? A little odd, no? I mean, don’t get me wrong, as a woman with a majority of friends that are male, I get that in an office, friendships form. But the sudden bloom of all of this office friendship is a little off to me.

Just a little.

As my grandmother says, it’s not that I don’t trust him.

It’s that I don’t trust anybody.

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Time Flies When…You’re Busy

Friday, June 13th, 2008

Wow, how did it get to be June 13th already?

It’s been crazy.

I’ve been planning our vacation.

Pudding is slithering everywhere like an anaconda and is PULLING UP ON THINGS.  It is only a matter of time before he makes like a homo sapien and walks on two feet.  And then we’re really in trouble.

The Hacker is doing the usual IT grind and also has upped his training schedule so that he can fully return to Hot Stud status, a regimen that seemed to be working nicely for about a week until he got what his Indian boss referred to as “loose motions.“  (For those of you wanting a translation, that would be diarrhea, which I think was one symptom of some kind of stomach bug, since it came complete with cold sweats and headaches and the general “I-am-dying” routine that men employ whenever something goes wrong that cannot be interpreted in some way so as to look manly.  There’s nothing manly about watery bowel movements.)

Punksin continues to spout things that are so comical that I can’t keep up.  And I am having trouble getting them all down.

Like yesterday.  Out of the total and complete blue, she says to me, as we’re puttering around in the car, “Mommy, when your grandfather died, I was so sad and I cried all day.”

Now, there are two things here.  One, where the hell did this come from?  We weren’t discussing him, or death, or sadness, or anything that I could interpret as being remotely connected.  But that’s how the brain works, I guess.

The second thing, though, is that I know that this was total horseshit.  Which I very gently reminded her of.

“Uh, honey, I don’t think you cried all day or I’m sure Daddy would have told me.”

“Oh. Yeah.  I didn’t.  I forgot.”

This happens all the time.  She “forgets” things, which to her seems to be another way of interpreting “I lie about things.” How can you fucking forget that you didn’t do something?  When you’re telling someone something, don’t you relive it in your head? And at some point, doesn’t it occur to you that gee, this shit never happened?

The Hacker and I have come to the conclusion that we are going to have our work cut out for us with this one.

Oh yes sirree.

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