That Woman

I do not very often speak of the state of my marriage because I know I am the girl who is easy to hate. I have a husband who does everything. And by everything, I really mean everything. He irons. He cooks. He cleans the bathroom. He can change a battery, a tire or the oil. He got up every night to change diapers, and he always puts the seat down. Always.

He is in no way perfect, but he is perfect for me. I usually joke that I am married to a woman because of his housekeeping abilities, but in all seriousness I am one lucky bitch.

The past three weeks have been very tough for me. I very rarely get sick. However, I inhaled something, somewhere, that has taken up residence in my body and will just not leave. Initially, I had a brutal cough. Now, I am just a mess. Crackly ears. Stuffed nose. Bloodshot eyes. Racking cough. With the hours my husband has been forced to work lately, getting my ass to a doctor has just not been a priority. In the years since I have had children, this has been my truth. I have two options:

1) I can drag my three and four-year old to the doctor's office and have other people cough on them for two hours until my name is called. While we wait their little fingers touching nasty magazines harboring every pestilence known to man. Then, I am called back but sit another forty-five minutes in a tiny room and attempt to keep my children out of the cabinets.

2) Stay home and hope I eventually get better.

Over the past five years, I have always chosen Option 2. Until Tuesday.

I had not really reflected over how bad I was feeling. Just another day of daily grind. Until I took my temperature. It was not a high fever, but I do not fever very often. And the family with whom we'd just spent a significant amount of time had come down with H1N1.

I called my husband and said I needed to go to the doctor and get this shit sorted out. I wasn't convinced I had the flu, but enough was enough.

And here is one area in which my husband and I are not a good match. He is laid back. Very laid back. I am not good at asking for help. If I get to the point of asking for help, I need it. Really need it. I could tell that my news was not going over very well. I think it was more his brain kicked into gear starting to figure out the logistics of leaving the office, but I told him if it was a problem I would find someone to come watch the kids instead.

Shockingly, he called me from the train telling me he was on his way home.

I went to the clinic. I have never had a medical professional try and push drugs on me like this lady did. She actually looked at me and said Please let me give you drugs. Turns out I have bronchitis and a sinus infection. Awesome.

The nurse practitioner was nice, but incredulous when I told her I'd been like this for three weeks. She asked me where my husband was in all this and why had he let me get this sick. I rambled on about work hours and school schedules, and while she kept her face neutral I could see she wasn't buying one bit of it. Suddenly, I was one of those women. One of those women I just can't stand. The ones who marry good-for-nothing asshole men who are more interested in a cold beer and a football game than taking care of their family members.

That night, I had a talk with Hubbie. I asked him straight out the same questions I'd been asked. He didn't really have an answer. Between my not complaining, his late hours and subsequent exhaustion things just kind of got out of hand.

My feelings on the whole situation are very mixed. For the first time in the sixteen years that we have been together, I was embarrassed. I have never, ever been ashamed of his behaviour or embarrassed by his actions. Until I listened to my stuttering lame excuses as to my deplorable health condition. None of this was intentional on his part, but it is obvious that I slipped through the cracks. I needed to be taken care of, and being too sick to realize it, he should have stepped in.

We are going to work on communicating a little more. He on paying better attention. Me on expressing myself (or coughing more loudly in his ear). We'll work on it. I do not ever want to be that woman again.

The Toaster Challenge

Making breakfast this morning created the perfect opportunity to delve into the current state of my marriage.

We have a crappy toaster that we bought for less than ten dollars because all of our guests complained we didn't have one. Of course, now that we bought one, we rarely have guests. I mention this because the pieces of bread, once done, remain wedged down in the bowels of the toaster. Extraction require a light touch.

This morning while fixing breakfast Hubbie took a butter knife, a steel butter knife, and fished for the piece of bread. The toaster? Still plugged in.

I shrieked at him to stop, and his nonplussed answer was that it wasn't turned on. My answer? I'm not going to lose you over a god-damned toaster!!

And that about sums it up. The lesson learned here being that I was not concerned about his safety for his sake. I was concerned about it for mine. Life is so short and so fragile. I am not going to lose my husband over something so stupid as sticking a knife in a toaster. I need him. And I will save him from himself when his urge to perform stupid man tricks outweighs his common sense.

Would the toaster have zapped him? Maybe yes and maybe no. I don't want to find out.

Yoda Knew His Shit

I was ready to write a scathing, hateful vent regarding Hubbie's behaviour tonight. The anger is still there, and it may come out again relatively soon. For tonight, however, it has been tempered.

Hubbie came home from work, and the longer he walked around the more I seethed and smoldered until I felt I would explode. So I took LittleMan, strapped him to my back in a meitai babycarrier that my good friend The Babywearer loaned me (thanks, babe!), and took him out into the neighborhood to walk off a little steam.

As I walked down the sidewalk, it occurred to me that we looked quite a bit like Luke Skywalker and Yoda. Me sweating my ass off, LittleMan whooping it up on my back. If I had given him a rattan cane I am sure he would have gladly wacked me in encouragement.

My angry strides lessened as we pointed out fireflies and waved at neighbors walking their dogs. By the time we reached our house, my body was shaking from exhaustion, and there was no room for anger. Just a sweet-smelling evening breeze, a happy two year old, and twinkling in the bushes around us. I have to admit that Yoda really knew his shit. It's hard to stay mad with a 30+ pound creature on your back.

Don't Fuck With A Swede

Being acutely aware of warnings not to blog job specifics has shut off an entire subject I am just raring to bite into. Like our rental house from hell, one day I hope to look back at this time of job hell and laugh. Right now, it's just not funny.

Last night, however, I learned that Hubbie has a bit more 'tude than he lets on. Most people consider Hubbie to laid back. I vacillate between introvert/extrovert to the confusion of most around me. Hubbie, on the other hand, is the steady level-headed lagom Swede.

When talking about his day over a late dinner last night, he gave few details. When your work environment is stressful and in the toilet, there really isn't all that much to say. Until I actually listened to what he said. Something about CoworkerX helping out with PaperworkABC. I cut in:

Wait a minute...I thought EvilBossBitch said you weren't allowed to train anyone? That it was your responsibility to do PaperworkABC regardless of whether or not it is part of your job description.

He paused. Shrugged his shoulders and started to explain at which point I cut him off again:

You totally went behind EvilBossBitchs' back, said to hell with it and did it anyway! You did exactly the kind of thing that I would do!

Hubbie grinned.

I gave him a huge hug and a high five. Just because a Swede looks lagom, don't push it because they'll fuck you in the drive-thru.

Shoes Make the Blogger

Just to prove not everything in land of NATUI is gloom and doom, I thought I would share my latest acquisition.

Nothing makes a girl feel better than new pair of shoes. I found these beauties at my local thrift shop.





Love doesn't even begin to describe the emotions I feel for these shoes.

The best part? Hubbie was livid. Absolutely mad with disbelief.

In a former life, Hubbie was a professional golfer. Not for very long, and not very successfully, but golf is near and dear to him. When I picked the shoes up at the store, I was hoping they were bowling shoes. Turns out, they were barely worn ladies golf shoes. With the soft spikes still attached.

I brought these beauties home for the obscene price of $2.50. They retail for nearly $200. I had the satisfaction of listening to Hubbie rant about women who ask for sport equipment, have their husbands spends hundreds on new gear only to wear it once and store it in a basement (or send it to a thrift shop).

Now, I know he is totally channeling his childhood issues stemming from similar behavior from his mother and sister. All I know is that I got a sweet pair of shoes. And the icing on the cake? I don't even have to sacrifice the cool factor for comfort. They are absolutely the most comfortable pair of shoes I currently own. Go figure.

The Good Father Caveat

I have often bitched and moaned about the sorry men my friends have married. Hell, it is part of my header. While pointing out the shortcomings of other people often makes for better blogging, I feel I must give due credit to the exemplary fathering* I witnessed this weekend.

There were several fathers who came to the party we threw this weekend. These dads helped their daughters decorate princess crowns. They hung out in the playroom, helping the kids up and down the slide. One of the dads even wore a crown around the house to the delight of his daughters.

When it came time for the cutting of the cake, I engaged one of the dads in the unwrapping of the dessert plates. I realized I needed an extra pair of hands. This guy went to the kitchen, grabbed the ice cream scoop and stood by my side dispensing ice cream to the girls with a smile.

It was so refreshing to see a group of dads act like fathers. There was none of this not my job attitude I see with so many of the husbands of women I have met. The ones whose wives do all the diaper duty, day or night. That do all the feeding. All the bathing. The day-time, fun-time dads who leave all the night time parenting to the mother under a million thinly-veiled excuses.

In honor of these three guys who so impressed me this weekend, I officially induct them into my secret society:


This secret society is for fathers who are fathers not only in name, but in action. As my bastardized Latin so succinctly puts it Father In Sincerity. A father from the heart.

These are the dads who keep the kids occupied so you can take a shower in peace. Who sleepily roll out of bed to change a diaper even though you offer to do it yourself. Who read stories to their children and makes silly voices for the characters. Who hug their sons when they cry and kiss their tears with no suggestion of a recriminating tone. Who feed the kids dinner for you because if you see one more piece of macaroni sail off of the chair onto the floor you are going to lose your shit.

These are the actions of a father. Of a man who wants to partake in the lives of their children, not sit back and watch childhood slip away. To the three men who obviously enjoyed their daughters so much this weekend, welcome to Pater Ex Animo. I look forward to telling more of your stories.

*No, not that kind of fathering.

Stubborn is a Chick Named Vi

One thing I loved about getting to know my Gramma as an adult was seeing the adult side of her. Not sweet little gramma I saw on the outside, but the chick inside.

That spunky girl that she still sees when she looks in the mirror.

My gramma used to smoke. A lot. In fact, she was still a smoker when she told me this story.

I knew my grampa did not like the fact that she smoked. It never bothered me. It was a part of her. He hated it.

Apparently, as the story goes, my Gramma was off to go drinking and dancing with her sisters. Back in the day.

And back in the day, she hid her cigarettes in her box of tampons because she new her husband would never look there.

As she got ready, she snuck them into her coat pocket and was all ready to head out. But she ran back to the bathroom for a last minute pee break before getting on the bus.

She came out of the bathroom to find her entire pack of cigarettes crumbled into tiny little bits in a path from the bathroom door to the front door.

Without looking at my Grampa, not even missing a beat she calmly grabbed her coat and walked out the door.

She left that path of mutilated tobacco leaves and paper sit on the carpet for a week.

She never cleaned it up.

Finally, one day, it disappeared. They never talked about it. And do not believe my Grampa never tried that stunt again.

Goddamn my Gramma is an awesome lady.

Supplementing the Family Income

No, this post is not a Stay-At-Home-Mom-Turns-Hooker confession. While that may have made for better blog fodder, I haven't gone down that path yet.

Instead, this is my trumpeting of my scores from FreeCycle and CraigsList over the past few weeks.

Other bloggers have shared their varied experiences with these sites. I am fully aware that there are some crazies out there. Hell, I am probably one of them. Happily, I am usually oblivious to that fact.

In any event, the past few weeks have brought me some very lucrative deals, indeed. Check this out.

Hubbie is getting yardwork done? Hell yeah. Because I got the lawnmower off of FreeCycle. That's right, bitch. And the extra stroller for the kids so they would stop fighting over the one Santa brought this past Christmas.


And not that a stroller can't stand-in as a lawnmower, but why not get a kid-sized one for free?



See that pint-sized lounge chair? Uh-huh. Two of them. Off of FreeCycle. The slave labor was free, too.



Hubbie was bitching that he wanted the gates off of the kitchen doors. The problem was that LittleMan kept taking things off of the bakers rack we were using. I found the solution. CraigsList. $5.



Not a good picture, but an 8 foot slide for the backyard. There are no supports to it, but that is a quick and easy fix. As a matter of fact, the munchkins are loving using as a bridge right now.


LittleBird needed a big girl swing for the backyard that she could get off and on herself. CraigsList. $10.



See LittleMan loving his new picnic table? FreeCycle, baby.



LittleMan loves his FC pirate treasure. It came with two magician hats and wands that the kids adore.



And tonight? The Play Cottage. Yep. Someone is moving overseas and gave it away in the free section of CL. I got there and she gave me the kiddie porch swing, too.






Of course, this does not include the dresser I got for LittleBird, the bicycle Hubbie rides to work every morning or the slightly shady and probably semi-illegal business transaction we made to knock money off of our rent every month, a side-result of which was this.


Yep. A case and a half of Smirnoff.

In closing, I think I have been pretty fucking creative in scoring things to make life a little more bearable for my family.

Now that I have gotten the bragging out of my system to my blogger friends, pardon me while I hammer the message home:

Hubbie. Show a little more gratitude. This stuff does not just fall into our laps. I know you do not enjoy driving all over town to pick this stuff up, but it is a hell of a lot cheaper than buying a new lawnmower. Quit being so fucking pessimistic and show a little god dammed appreciation. Thank you.

Stepping down from my soapbox now.

MIL Monday: The Sandwich Nazi

I have to say that my FIL is a saint. He cooks, cleans, does more than his fair of the chores. When he visits, once he gets in the swing of things he can always be counted on to pitch in.

When he and MIL visited shortly after LittleBird was born, he made the afternoon snack for himself and MIL every afternoon. Kind of like having afternoon tea, FIL would make coffee for MIL and fix sandwiches for the two of them.

One unforgettable afternoon, I was sitting on the sofa with LittleBird after having nursed her. FIL made sandwiches in the kitchen for the two of them. We were running low on sandwich meat, we had a little bit of ham and a little bit of either turkey or salami, I can't remember which.

MIL was sitting on the couch and FIL brough her the prerequisite cup of coffee. He went back to the kitchen, brought her sandwich on a plate, and laid it on the table in front of her.

She looked at it. She looked at him. And sneered I said I wanted the ham.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

I couldn't believe my ears.

I couldn't look at her. Thank god I had LittleBird snuggled on my chest because I needed something else to focus on.

FIL? He picked up her plate. He went back to the kitchen. He brought her the sandwich he had made for himself, and ate the one that he had made for her.

The upshot of this whole scenario? I couldn't wait for Hubbie to get home to tell him. When I relayed the story, I told him how happy I was. Because if this is how his mom treats his dad, then this was how Hubbie was raised to expect a wife to treat him. And that I could now expect him to fix me snacks and I could yell critiques at him from the sofa.

He told me to go fuck myself.

This was nearly four years ago. He and I still re-enact "THE SANDWICH" scenario. Sometimes he pulls it, sometimes I do. Either way we get a great laugh out of it.

When Diapering Goes Horribly Wrong

As most of you know, I took the kids to their grandparents for three weeks. There are usually several things a family does in order to prepare for a vacation. For us, that includes taking care of the diapers before we leave.

By taking care of the diapers, that means washing, drying and folding them. Love my cloth diapers! WooHoo!

Until today.

We got back last week. After a week of adding to my diaper pail, I realized that Hubbie (in a very uncharacteristic move) did not wash the dipes in the pail while I was gone. This afternoon, I went to do a load and found out I have MUSHROOMS growing out of my diapers. Not mold. Not mildew. But honest-to-god gigantic mushrooms growing out of the ones on the bottom.

How the fuck could this happen? I mean really? We have one bathroom. We are in and out fifty times a day. There was no smell. None.

I didn't even notice anything was awry until as I was shaking the diapers into the pail something black fell into the washer.

Then another.

What the hell was on my diapers?

I set the pail on the ground and looked inside. And I just could not fathom what I saw. I just stared.

I saw this really long...thing. Next to more black...stuff. The first thing that came to my mind was could it possibly be a baby snake that got in, died and was now decomposing?

Then I noticed the fuzz. Over everything.

I dumped the remainder into the tub to try and rinse it off.

And that is when the smell kicked it.

For the love of all that is good and pure in this world, I may never be able to eat mushrooms on a pizza again. Ever.

I have a strong stomach and a pretty damned good gag reflex, but I just could not handle this. I bagged it up like a half-eaten squirrel (you know--have the plastic bag inside out, grab the offending object and pull the bag around it) and threw it on the front stoop to steam and fester until Hubbie got home.

Then I called him on the phone and shredded him a new one.

If I could have reached through the phone with my fist and my foot he'd have a black eye and a bloody ass.

The result?

1. I have entertained a whole slew of woman on a popular diapering board in an effort to learn whether or not my dipes could be salvaged (um, no). It seems I may have made diapering history today. A dubious honor, to be sure.

2. I lost a good bit of my diaper stash, and I am at a loss as to what I should do.

3. The remainder of the diapers are currently in an OxyCle*n power wash. We will see how many survivors I have tomorrow.

4. Hubbie did his duty and sorted through the offending material to help take stock of the situation.

Suiting up


Drum roll, please



Counting our losses

Hell yeah I made him pose with the Penis Shroom


And last but not least, it just goes to show that nothing normal ever happens to my family. Ever. I couldn't make this shit up if I tried.

The Fork In the Road

It would be nice to just have a simple day without having to decide anything critical.

I am spent. I am exhausted. We've had some very beautiful moments here in the NATUI household the past few days, but they have been hard earned.

It is tiresome having to decide that today is going to be a good day. Every. Single. Day.

State of mind is state of being. I get it. My kids don't know that we are living paycheck to paycheck. As far as they are concerned they have a great backyard to play in. They get cool sandwiches to eat for dinner. They get to see other kids at the playground. Except for mom telling them Share! and Quit hitting your brother/sister life is FUN FUN FUN.

I know the life I create for them is the one they will remember. Not the one we actually have.

Not that the one we have is bad. It is just under a lot of construction right now.

I leave you with sappy, non-NATUIesque photos I took over the weekend. They are some of my favs because they make me happy. They make my heart hurt. Fucking hell, I love my family. They make me want to be a better person and get my shit together. They terrify me because I am I afraid I will fail them. I cannot. bear. the. thought.

Isn't motherhood grand?

The Case of the Missing Pantyliners

Overheard in the NATUI bathroom last night...

NATUI is brushing her teeth.

I don't know if you have tracked down my box of pantyliners, but if you come across them let me know because I am going to need them.

Hubbie: They are in the drawer behind you. But there are only a few left and I need them.

NATUI blinks.

You need them?

Hubbie: I have a presentation to give on Thursday, and you know how much I sweat when I am nervous. So, I need them.

NATUI pauses. Blinks again.

What the hell are you going to do? Put them in your armpits?

Hubbie: Yeah. I did that the last time I had a presentation.

NATUI stares.

Then splutters some variant of What the fuck? Have you done this before?

Hubbie continues: I stick them to the inside of my shirt (makes peeling motion and pats his underarm). They work great!

NATUI finds herself speechless and squinting her eyes from trying to comprehend the words coming out of her husband's mouth.

Wha...Whe...When...Whaaaaat?

Hubbie: Yeah, I saw it on Deal or No Deal. Remember when we watched that episode and that guy did the same thing? It was a great idea!

NATUI controls her breathing.

You mean to tell me you saw this on fucking Deal or No Deal, thought it looked like a good idea, and now you take my PANTYLINERS and stick them in your armpits when you have a presentation at work?

Ladies, if you find that you are running low on your menstrual supplies, it is not some mythical pixie coming in and hiding things from you. It is probably your husbands.

Still Droolworthy

Sex in a new house or apartment used to be fun. The whole christen each room thing. Then we had kids, and life got in the way.

My side of the conversation last night went along the lines of:

I know you want to have sex, so can we just hurry up and be done with it?

Yeah, but I know you want to, so let's just do this so we can go to sleep.

We lock ourselves into the guest room.

Do I have to take all my clothes off, or can I keep my shirt on because it's fucking cold in here.

God damn it. Alright. Hurry up.

Don't even think about any tit action. Lay on top of me to get me warm. Hurry up.

Hubbie quickly reaches the big finale. I tell him I wanna see a little enthusiasm. Hubbie throws his head back to be a snarky little bastard and make some witty remark.

As he did so, a gigantic splash of drool flew out of his mouth and hit me on my nose, mouth and chin. How's that for romance?

As we were in absolute hysterics over the whole thing, trying to be quiet so as not to wake the kids I told him, At least I am still droolworthy.

His response? I'll bet this is going to make it on the blog tomorrow.

The Pathetic Moment Award Goes To...

You would think after posting such a sweet video of my daughter that I'd had a good day.

Nope.

That 30 or so seconds of sunshine was the only bright moment of a horrendous day.

Late last night, after keeping my shit together for the kids, I broke down and cried. I sobbed in the dark, telling Hubbie how lonely and sad I was feeling.

When he did not answer, I knew. He had fallen asleep.

Fucking fallen asleep.

I cannot think of the last time I have had such a pathetic moment. To have someone fall asleep on you when you are telling them how lonely are would be laughable if it weren't so painful.

I know he has been under a lot of stress lately, but it made me feel like crap. It did not make me look forward to today.

Random Kitchen Banter

Not long ago I was cooking dinner, and I was very thirsty. Hubbie offered to get me something to drink. I said apple juice would be fine.

He grabbed a glass off of the countertop and said, "Oh, this was my glass do you mind using it?"

I looked at him, and the only thing I could think of as a response was to roll my eyes and say, "Dude. I suck your dick. Why would I have a problem drinking out of your glass?"

When a Roach Just Isn't A Roach

Chris' post over at CDV got the ol' memories flowing today. His topic? The lovely Palmetto Bug.

Those of you who have not lived in the South would argue that a roach is a roach. No ma'am. Indeed the Palmetto Bug is SuperHero of RoachWorld. He is the Emperor of that which is the Insect Dark Side.

See, they are big. Like the size of your thumb big. And they fly. Fast.

Let me share a few of my favorite memories for your blogging pleasure.

The College Years
The first time I stepped on one in my dorm, this thing's exoskeleton held my weight, as in balancing on one foot weight, for a good three-count before it finally gave up the ghost. I swear I felt as if I had stepped on a mouse.

Or the time boyfriend-now-Hubbie sprayed roach-genocide-foam all over one in his apartment and the thing ran all around the living room like a giant white tennis ball. Under the couch back up again, blindly zig-zagging across the room until he pounded it to death into the carpet with globs of foam flying everywhere all the while the both of us screaming and hopping up and down. I believe the cover of his textbook was ultimately ruined.

Apartment Living
Or the time I could heard a scraping click-click noise. I triangulated until I determined it was coming from my bedroom window. The Palmetto bug was (thankfully) on the outside of the mini-blinds, using each individual piece as a ladder to climb it. I could see its little feet as it climbed "rung by rung".

Or the time I opened the medicine cabinet to get my contact lenses and one fucking jumped out at me like some kind of sadistic monster-in-the-box. I learned to pound on the mirror and listen for a few minutes before I opened the medicine cabinet in the mornings.

Our Condo
My favorite is the catch-and-release program we had going on at the condo we owned in ATL. These things make such a mess when you kill them that they will ruin your carpet or your paint job. So sweet, laid-back Hubbie would chase the thing down with a plastic cup, slide a CD-case underneath it, pick it up and throw it out the door. One of the proudest moments of my life came when our nice but preachy neighbor came to visit while I was preggo with LittleBird. We saw one, he caught it. He looked at me. I looked at him. We looked at my neighbor. He started shaking the giant bug in the cup and lunged at her. Her shrieks of Holy Sweet Jesus Save Me! as only an African-American Evangelical Christian can as he chased her around the living room nearly had me pissing myself.

The lessons I learned?

• It doesn't matter how clean you keep your house. If you live south of the gnat line (that would be Macon to you non-Southern folks) you just have to accept them as a part of life.
• My cats are lazy fuckers smarter than you think and give these things a wide berth.
• Most people have a story of waking up with one on their face, as Chris so eloquently blogs.
• Hubbie may try and charm you, but he is married to me and that means he has a wicked sense of humour when the mood suits him. God I love that man.
  

Playdate. Mandate. Everywhere a Date Date.

For two Mondays in a row I have had a playdate. With my friend's husband.

Climb out of the gutter you rapscallions. Not THAT kind of playdate. Though he is a good-looking guy. My girlfriend works M-F days, and her husband has Mondays off. So he came down to my parent's house today with his daughter so she and LittleBird could play together.

The kids had a blast, but that is not the point. The point is that I had a playdate with my friend's husband. She was cool with it. I was cool with it. Our respective hubbies were fine with it.

There are thousands of women out there gasping in horror at the very idea.

It's improper! It's indecent! You can't trust a woman to have regular social interactions with your husband!

I do not frequent mothering sites like I used to, but these are the fairly typical threads one would find. Can your husband be friends with a woman? Oh no! I won't let my husband have any female friends. Blah blah blah.

For fuckssake people. What is the point of being married if you don't trust your partner? Does that mean your spouse can't work with people of the opposite sex? There is temptation everywhere. Get over it.

All I know is that I would love for my husband to have a playdate with my kids and any one of my friends. The whole point is to socialize as a family. Hubbie comes with me to all birthday parties, school functions (when work allows) and all holiday parties. He is just as much a parent as I am. He has every right to be there. He has every right to participate. I feel this includes playdates. If someone wants to get the kids together, but I am not available why in the hell wouldn't he be welcome?

This is why I think most moms are assholes. I find it insulting as hell that there are these stupid moms out there who find a mom/husband playdate inappropriate. Thankfully, Hubbie agrees with me and does not question why I do not have more mom friends. Who needs the aggravation?

Curry Saved the Marriage

Last night we left to see the house. Hubbie and I, sweetly chatting on the train together catching up on the past week that we have missed.

About 3/4 of the way to our destination I got a very ugly feeling in the pit of my stomach. I turned my head, looked at him.

You did bring the key with you to get into the house.

It was a statement, not a question. The widening of the eyes and the sudden droop of the shoulders gave me my answer. Holy fucking shit.

He left the keys at the hotel.

The people on the train around us all stopped what they were doing and stared at us. It was like a shockwave rippled through the car. Then they looked out the windows or at their newspapers to avoid laughing.

One woman made eye contact with me, and I told her This is where the divorce starts. Right here.

I was mostly kidding.

She also looked out the window to try and hide her smirk. I don't know if she felt worse for me or for Hubbie, but I know that she went home and said Oh my GOD! Let me tell you about this couple on the train!!

I was proud of myself. I didn't cry. I didn't throw a fit. I didn't pound his air-headed little ass into the carpet. I wanted to do all three.

The saving grace of the evening was getting picked up by Hubbie's colleague who, instead of taking us directly to Major Orange Home Improvement Store, took us home and had his mother-in-law feed us the most phenomenal homemade Indian dishes I have ever tasted. Don't ask me to name them because I can't remember everything she put out for us, but they were delicious.

I told her dinner made up for Hubbie forgetting the key. She was pleased. Hubbie was relieved.

So, let's try this again.

The Truth Is In the Cliche

This story easily could have come from a man's perspective, but considering women are inherently superior it only serves to highlight the obvious.

Hubbie was in charge of packing up the house. By that I mean supervising the movers who came to pack our shit up and load it in the truck.

He called me after the dirty work was done to tell me that everything went well except for the fact that he could not remove our shower curtain. The plastic rings were bizarrely fused shut and no amount of pulling, pushing or swearing would unstick them. He told me he would have the landlord (Read: Giant BRUTE of a man) help him the next day.

The next day came and went. Hubbie went to DC. I eventually learned that even Big Brute of a Landlord could not pull those plastic rings apart. Neither one of them had tools on them, so my favorite finally-we-have-a-shower-
curtain-that-looks-adult-and-not-like-a-college-dorm got left behind.

My next statement was: The shower rod was a tension rod. Why didn't you just unscrew it and slide the damned thing off?

Silence.

I truly think the world paused for a second.

At least Hubbie laughed before he thanked me for ruining his day at his new job by making him feel even more stupid than he was already feeling.

You are very welcome, my dear.

Dealing With A Man Crisis

**Note to Reader(s): I have in the past referred to my husband as Hubbie, but CMGD's linked post below made me appreciate her use of Mr. NATUI. I rather like that, but I do have to say out of respect for Hubbie's homeland I ought to use the correct form of the title. From here on out he will be referred to as Herr NATUI.

Herr Natui is having a man crisis. He arrived in the DC area late Saturday evening. He was scheduled to meet with our landlord-to-be Sunday at noon. We were hopeful that she had not run off with our cash, and I could not with any certainty say the house would be ours to rent until the keys were in his grubby little hands.

He calls me on Sunday in a voice filled with tightly controlled panic. The house? Is small. Very small. Like, she didn't quite represent the square footage as correctly as she might have small.

Over the course of the afternoon the story evolved.

The largest of the three bedrooms is 12 x 9. Take that in folks. Pace that out in your living room and see how big that really is. That is the largest.

The furnace is in the kitchen. The washing machine is in the hall closet. The dryer is on the other side of the house.

Walking through the backyard, I hear him suddenly exclaim Is this a WELL? Turns out there was a piece of carpet over some kind of well-type hole in the ground. The landlady will be checking this out for us. I refuse to have a Jessica-down-the-pipe incident with my kids. At that point he had to call me back before he stroked out on the phone.

The bathroom is a 1950s bright turquoise with black trim tile. We cannot update the vanity or sink because the hot/cold faucet handles are in the wall above the sink.

At this point in the conversation, I busted out laughing. I just couldn't help myself.

I keep telling him, it's only for a year. We can totally make it work. It will be a fun adventure. That the house has character. He is slowing coming to think a little more positively about it, but then again I have not yet seen the place.

To do a little damage control, I had my girlfriend's husband call Herr Natui to get a guys perspective on things. My man did feel better after speaking with him. Even though FriendsHusband said the exact same things I had, there is something about hearing it come from someone who isn't your spouse. Shitty, but true. I guess we chicks do it all the time when we bitch to our girlfriends. I guess I can't expect him to be any different.

So goodbye to the High Sierras with our snowy adventures and hello NoVa with 12 crazy months of minimal-renovations-to make-it-livable adventures.

Does anybody know a good plumber?