The Standoff

I think it got up to about 0 degrees yesterday.

When Spud went to sleep for his morning nap I went into the laundry room to wash a huge pile of towels that I we constantly have. Huge pile. Wet towels. I'm a towel nut apparently. The bin in the laundry for dirty towels in nearly always full or getting there.

I fill my front loader, put in the perfect (ahem) mixture of laundry soap and Oxyclean (how do I love thee Oxyclean??) Hit the magic sequence on the dashboard and I hear . . .

errrrrrr  errrrrr  errrr

Memory immediately tells me, frozen pipes.

Oh crapski!! Shiite and shinola! Why do I live here? It's freakin' cold! Damn and damnation!

Okay, I might have uttered a different set of words, but you get my drift.

I call Pup.

"The laundry room pipes are frozen!" I exclaim.

"Wha?" says my flummoxed Pup.

"Yes!" I repeat myself.

"Okay," he says. "Okay, you need to go downstairs, check the plugs, and plug in the heat tape."

My mind goes blank pretty much after, "Okay." Following complicated directions for taking care of the downstairs stuff flummoxes me! In the end, nothing I did helped and nothing was working and pipes remained frozen.

Grrr!!

Pup comes home. We discuss. He looks at me with his Pup-look. You might know a similar look. The look I myself might have when we discover the dog has poopied in the Big Room because we were gone too long. The look that says, I don't want to do what I know I have to do.

We stare at each other for a few minutes. Me with a determined look that says (and I might have even said this out loud), "I will not be schlepping dirty clothes to that horrible laundromat. Nope."

His stare says, "I won't, won't, won't crawl into that yucky place! I won't!" I swear I even saw his bottom lip poke out for a second or two.

Pup has this look because he knows he has to crawl into a crawl space under our dining room. It's kinda horrible there and I wouldn't want to do it.

He makes a few calls. Asks for a bit of advice. He runs to hell the Home Depot. Comes home with a solution. He schleps all of it downstairs where I hear about 20 minutes of, "Crapski! Shiite and shinola! Why do we live here? It's freakin' cold! Damn and damnation!"

You all know I'm lying. His language is colorful and peppered with things that would make a sailor blush (hey, why do we assume sailors swear like hell? Hmm . . . wondering . . . )

This morning, I wander into the laundry room, try the water, PLONK! It's running and the towels are washing as I write.

Oh I love that man. That pouty, don't-want-to-do-it man!

Honestly, I hate cleaning up after the dog and totally get it. Some adult tasks are horrible!

Smooches and how you stayin' warm?

Well . . . Do They?

Mark This Day - Grow

It's five o'clock in the morning.

I'm standing on our porch. Crying. Phone in hand. The ambulance has just left our driveway with Pup in it. I'm rattled and I've left my keys in the house. They are not in my hand where I need them.

I call my son-in-law. He and my daughter live seven blocks from us and I know he will have his phone on.

"B," I say, "I locked myself out. Could you come and let me in? Pup is in an ambulance with severe chest pain. Please come and let me in." I'm sobbing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I didn't know it in that moment. In that moment I didn't know it was muscle spasms in his chest. I didn't even know chest muscles could spasm so painfully. My husband is not the kind of guy to complain. He powers through everything. So in that moment, the fact that he was in so much pain, the fact that he asked me to call 911, the fact that I watched him being taken into an ambulance, was swirling around on the top of my brain.

I didn't know any of that. I packed a bag with shoes, sweatpants. I put my hair up. I dressed. I let George out because I didn't know when we'd be back. I did not think about what was happening. I collected my stuff and didn't worry about collecting my mind.

Until I left. Until I left and locked myself out. And called my son-in-law. That's when I thought about it. I cried on the porch.

It was muscle spasms. Painful, horrible, but not a heart attack. That's what I didn't want my mind to think. Heart attack. It was muscle spasms.

Pup is snoring away next to me in The Big Room. He is sleeping. He is full of oxycodone. He is full of muscle relaxers. He is snoring and in between snores he watches The Red Zone. He has muscle spasms in his chest. Hallelujah.

Mark this day. Mark this day.

Tears Dry on Their Own

He had fur just like a dandelion. 

Oh my blog! My sweet, cathartic, ridiculous blog.

I feel the need to get thoughts out, yet am hesitant to do so. Do you ever wonder if the need to keep things "close to the vest" is more than simple self-protection, but a deeper denial than we could imagine?

I've been working on self-awareness. At times I even doubt if I fully understand what that could mean. I do feel that I self-catastrophize and blame myself for things that are not my fault. I have a hard time not believing I'm to blame for all things which, perversely, is rather boastful of me. Who the hell am I to believe that I am the arbiter of all that is bad for the cryin' out loud? Hmm?   :)

Do I know why? I don't. I work on myself. I'm still in the oven baking apparently. That's okay. At least I'm changing. Ha!

My dad had a smallish stroke a week ago. I say smallish only because he has minimal residual damage. Some speech impairment and a bit of weakness on his right side. I know it does not seem smallish to him. The instant loss of independence is hard on him and I also know while the brain is healing from such a bad thing he is reeling emotionally.

My dad lives in Idaho with his 2nd wife. We, his family, live in Minnesota. He and Momma Bee had been at the Mayo Clinic for Bee's follow-up surgery for an issue she was having last summer and fall. They had driven from their Idaho home to Rochester and Bee's daughter had flown here to be with her momma during the surgery.

It went well, she was recuperating at her brother's house, Barnabee (a moniker my sweet Pup dealt to them - Barney and Bee) had decided to head for home. The early morning before they were set to leave my dad had his stroke.

Now starts the rollercoaster.

It's emotional to see my dad going through this thing.

He remarried and moved to Idaho with his wife back in 2005 a few months after my momma died.

This was a hard thing for us. For me. My mom was gone after a long illness, then my dad uprooted and moved a long distance away. We were supportive because why should my dad be alone? He would have been miserable.

The hard thing has always been that suddenly he was gone. He has new step-children he loves, a new life. I am happy for him, yet, selfishly, sad for me that he isn't here in Minnesota with us.

So my dad has lived in Idaho for nearly eight years.

Pup and I went to visit them a couple of years ago and frankly it was somewhere I'm not in a fast hurry to get back to.

They live a nice, quiet life in Bee's house with one of her sons right next door which is lovely and perfect. I'm more a city girl (obviously) and sitting in the quiet life for several days watching The History Channel was enough for me.

You all know I'm teasing here. It was great to see Barnabee and a few quiet days spent to visit with my dad was okay by me.

They live near a town that is bigger and I do think it could be fun to check that out when I get back there.

But, let's get back to the now of it as I am distracting myself. It's a gift peeps!

When my dad was released from the hospital I said they needed to come home with us until we figured out what was what.

Three visits to the emergency room, one by ambulance ride, and six days later, we now see that our little house with its one bathroom and very small den/guestroom is woefully inadequate for the care and feeding of two elderly patients.

I love my dad.

I haven’t spent much time with him in the past nine years mostly because of where they live. He has gotten older. I have gotten older. Hook this onto the fact that I am not his favorite child and hook this onto the fact that he is going through way more than I can realize in the aftermath of a stroke and trying to heal along with his wife who is recovering from a fairly major surgery.

Whew

I am bone tired. They have been with us for these six days and there is little time in the day that I’m not seeing to their needs. And that is good. I’m surprised, but not of a complaining mind.

What am I saying?

I’m nervous today. Nervous because my brother who doesn’t speak to me is coming with my sister to see Dad.

I said to Pup, “I can make myself scarce so they aren’t uncomfortable.”

“Don’t you dare,” said my sweet husband. “Don’t you dare – this is your house. They can fuck themselves.”

He loves me and I think he is going on a protective binge which makes me want to squeeze him, the sweet thing. He has watched me cry and knows that all of this is hard. I am trying to keep myself calm. I will be calm.

I need to discover and annihilate what it is that keeps me scared about this stupid situation. What am I scared of? I think I’m scared of me.

Keep the peace hooches. I am hiding in my head today until I have to reveal. Wish me luck!

Little Sweet Nothings from My Pup

My husband is hilarious to me.

On our first date he said so many inappropriate things that he had me (and I mean this literally) rolling with laughter on a pool table in the pub near my house where I would meet all of my Match.com dates.

But I had been on so many incredibly boring Match.com dates that he was a breath of fresh air. Gasping for air, fresh air. The man makes me laugh.

He is also not a romantic.

Oh, he remembers the color of my knickers from our first date, easily spotted while I was rolling around on that pool table apparently, and he made me swoon a bit on that first date by holding my hands across the table while telling me about the movies in which Meg Ryan has shown her 'fun bags.' His words.

Don't let all of that fool you. He is not a romantic.

But I laughed and laughed until tears were streaming down my face.

He makes me laugh every day.

Here are the different ways my husband woos me. Every day.

But please stop reading now if you are easily offended, a my child, eating breakfast, ever wanting to eat breakfast again, or just not "that kind of girl."

If you're a man, maybe these would work for you? No?

My Pup means all of these in the most loving way.

• How about a quick bone for the road?
• I'd love me some whisker lickins!
• Come on! A little pickle-tickle?
• Aren't you happy to know I want to stick my rod in your piston?
• You should wear looser shorts so I can put the trouser-snake right up there.
• Really! Let me put my wiener in your bun.
• Get upstairs, I want to poke you in the whiskers.
• Wanna ride the bologna pony?
• Drop trou and I'll do ya. Right here.
• Come 'er; I wanna pop you in the heinie.
• I gotta kiss the 'girls' goodbye. You know the rules.
• Time for a titty-tickle?

How can I resist? The man has a way with words.

Pupism of the Week

Do you think if Calvin's balloon-knot broke free that he would blow about the room like a deflating balloon?

What it is!

I'm so whiny right now I can barely be in the same room with me.

C'est la vie!

Life with Pup

Favre Doing the Al Bundy

Pup is finally done with 18 hour work days and is now running around Chez Emerson in his typical fashion – wrecking havoc everywhere he goes.

It’s good to have him back, but now that I’m working for the first time in our short marriage he’s a little bit spoiled and I’m having to train him in on how to clear a table, how to pick up his clothes, and how to own his free time. He’s not used to free time poor darlin’.

Here is a sprinkling of what Life with Pup is like now that he’s free.

Sweetie . . . do you suppose a rabbit really likes carrots?

Do you think Calvin likes it when I haggle him?

Did you know that it's hotter in the city than in the country?

Dollink . . . Dollink . . .

Look at my tiny butt. Don't you think my butt is tiny?

Do you think Calvin eats kleenex so he doesn't have to wipe his ass?

Do you think Calvin gets mad because I’m taller than him?

Do you think Calvin minds when I turn my back on him?

Look Sweetie, George is humping me. So I’m kicking him in his faux-nuts. He likes it!

You should blog about how clean Calvin’s little balloon-knot is. [To which I replied, “Get your own blog.”]

Let me see the chimichunga.

Feel this . . . I think there is something wrong with it. It's all hard.

Honey, show me Felix. Come on.

No matter how many spankings you get in a day, you need more.

And apparently he has missed his wiener, because it’s all about the wiener lately. Well, strike that, because isn’t it all about the wiener all the time? Do I see a show of hands?

So, Pup sits around like Al Bundy. Can’t let that thing out of his sight. Or out of his hand.

He places his wiener on the back of my desk chair, places his wiener on my neck, places it on my back.

We will be in the office, having a normal conversation. I turn to look at him. His wiener is out. He has expectant look on his face.

Walks through the house, stops to shake it at George. Stops to shake it at Calvin.

Says, “Hey, why don’t they shake their wieners at me?

His wiener looks delighted to be out and about once again I have to say.

Smooches my Pup, I missed you.

Happiness Is a Warm Gun

Pupisms

Yes, now he's sick. Not surprising, not unexpected. Poor baby!

Last night we head up to the loft early so Pup can watch a bit of TV and I can surf for decorator-porn.

He's the master-whiner in our house.

"Dollink . . ."

"Dollink . . . you better rub my butt."

"Why?"

"Just rub it."

"You're kidding right"?

"Well, you better rub something."