Monthly Archives: February 2014

So here’s a little something about me that you’re going to find disturbing.

Well, more disturbing than all the previous stuff.  (Ahem.)

Whenever My Captain leaves us to work a shift at the firehouse, especially an emergency shift, like today’s snowstorm has been, I tell the children to say goodbye extra sincerely because he could die!  HE COULD DIE!  (And then I sing ‘Dun, dun, DUHN!” very dramatically.)

Of course, on any given day, any one of us could die, and our goodbye could always be our last.  And my kids often tell me this.  But I argue that we just don’t want to get caught with our pants down.  We don’t want to find out he’s been killed, and not have said our final “WE LOVE YOU!” and feel like we Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda done it.  I hate the Shoulda, Coulda, Wouldas.  Some people refer to it as REMORSE.  But I prefer to say it in rhyme, because I’m very artsy fartsy, in case you have not yet noticed.  And focused.

Where was I?

Right, so My Captain describes my dramatic goodbyes as if I’m trying to kill him off.  I am most emphatically NOT trying to kill him off.  But if he DOES get killed off, I want to be able to say, “Well, at least I got to say ‘Good-bye’.”   I just like to be prepared.  It’s the Girl Scout in me.   (Though, in the interest of full disclosure, I was never really a Girl Scout.  I was a Brownie, but they never let me progress to full Girl Scout, after that whole Thin Mint Cookie Eating Incident.  But let’s leave that in the past, shall we?)

So, like it or not, we have a tradition of dramatic ‘Good-Byes’ in our house.

With Varmint, it’s a sweet hug and a squeeze and an especially endearing, “I love you.”   With me, it’s considerably more than that, but not in front of the children, AHEM.

With Sir Monty of Stinky Butt, it’s a cuddle that melts me.

Who doesn’t melt watching a manly man hold a wee widdle kittie?

No one, that’s who.

But with Critter, it’s this weird male/testosterone/violent thing.  They start with a smack down.

Then it goes into this smarty-pants eye-balling eachother thing,

which morphs into

a sly-brow.

And then it finally ends

into some kind of weird masculine pretzel hold.

But it works for them.

If My Captain doesn’t come home one morning, Critter will be able to hold his head high, not feel a single Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda, and say, “At least I got one last pretzel hold in.”

Because the love is strong in our family….in a weird, contortionist sort of way.

So tell me, what weird traditions do you guys go through every time you say good-bye to your loved ones?  Pretty much the same thing, right?

It started with the 2 feet of snow we received over the last 24 hours.  Varmint and Critter, itching to get away from the chores I kept thinking up,  willingly ran out to build a snowman.  But not just any snowman.  The MOTHER of all snowmen.  Which, technically would make it a snowwoman, but let’s not digress.

The first snowball, the base of the MOTHER OF ALL SNOWMEN, got pretty big.   It was 3′ in diameter until it accidentally rolled down the hill and landed in the middle of the driveway.  By then it was about 4′ in diameter.  And there it stayed.  It would not budge. My Captain will be so pleased when he comes home from his 48 hour shift at the firestation to find his truck’s path is blocked.

I went out, in all my Total-Knee-Replacement-Recuperation glory, desperately trying not to fall, and gave it a try, myself.  It wouldn’t move.  So I did what anyone else would do.

I said ‘Screw it’ and started looking for sticks for arms.  If My Captain didn’t want a 2-ton snow ball in the middle of his driveway, he should have stayed home.  It’s not complicated.

It had started to snow again, and it was so pretty that I tried to walk to the street.  The snow was beyond my knees.  I may not have been able to go to Physical Therapy today, but believe me, I had physical therapy in that short jaunt to the road.

The Little Cottage in the Woods was so beautiful and quiet.  I stood in the middle of the road just listening to the wind and the snow and an occasional bird.

I noticed Maxwell the Moose’s Valentine was still firmly in place. He didn’t seem to mind the cold!

I just love how he’s so dang happy.  He just sends good vibes to everyone at any time of year.

I was at such peace with the world in the moment.  I thought about how happy we all were, safe, warm, and snug in the Little Cottage in the Woods.

And then I thought of My Captain…..

….at work at the Firestation since last night.  His normal shift did not start until this morning, but he went in last night as a favor to anyone who wanted to go home early, and save them from driving in seriously dangerous road conditions.

While we’d been making snowballs the size of VW Bugs, he had been ready for snowstorm-related calls all day.  Finger amputations (Never.  Never, Never, Never, NEVER stick your hand in a snow blower to clear it out, people!), and other EMS calls would be well attended by his crew.   The storm didn’t stop them.  It can’t.  All it meant is that firefighters must shovel out parking lots to get to their patients, and other people in need.

In this shot there are at least six firefighters.  One is shoveling; one is driving; and four are responding to the EMS call (not everyone is pictured).

I thought about The Little Cottage in the Woods again, and the MOTHER OF ALL SNOWMEN in the middle of the driveway, and I thought, “You know, if we have any kind of emergency, that might be an issue.”

We are so screwed.

Like half the Midwest and Eastern Seaboard, we lost power today after the ice/snow storm.  I think the storm was called Nikka or something equally exotic sounding. Why do they DO that?  Why do they insist on the exotic names?  Are they trying to rub it in by making us think about warm Grecian Isles?

They say we are not expected to have power for many days, and for some people, this has caused heartache and hardship, but, thus far, we have weathered this storm pretty easily.

Actually, it’s been awesome.  Why?  I’ll try to sum it up:

1) Snow Day.   The kids were ecstatic.  So were we.  Their excitement is contagious.

2) Cuddle day.  Who doesn’t love to cuddle during storms?

3) No RUSH day.  No one was going anywhere.  There was nothing to do but sit tight and make the best of the hand we’d been dealt.

4) Get Creative Day.  Coffee maker isn’t working?  FIND. A. WAY.  Candles WILL boil water eventually…..  We actually had fun thinking of alternative ways to do things.

5) Romantic Dinners are expected.  No lights?  Et Voila, you have romance.

In all honesty, though, and you’ll snicker at this, we HAVE a generator, and we did use it when we got too cold, or when we needed to flush the toilet!  But the thrill of being off the grid for a while was something we all enjoyed.  Plus, My Captain is such a Boy Scout, he was in his element.  I half expected him to crap in the woods in the back yard, just to make the point that he could.

What is that old saying?  Why curse the darkness, when you could light a candle?

My kids did not learn today that losing power is a crisis.  They learned it is an adventure, to be savored.  That is how we chose to look at it, and those are the glasses with which they will see every future power outage in their lives.

Now pardon me, I have to go light a few candles in the bedroom……

Understand that My Captain ALWAYS wins.  At every game.  Against anyone who plays him.  All. The. Stinkin’. Time.  He always wins.  Critter and Varmint and I just take it for granted that in all the board and card games we play with him, he doesn’t really count, because it’s a given that he’ll win.  There is no challenge in it for any of us.  The outcome has always been irritatingly inevitable.

UNTIL….

My knee replacement.  I’ve been a lot more sedentary and had a lot more free time over the past several weeks, between the hospital and my recovery here at home.  I’m alone much of that time, with My Captain back at work at the fire station and my children in school.  And for the first few weeks I could not navigate the stairs well, and was discouraged from trying it when I was at home alone.   So the Kindle has been my constant companion.

And on the Kindle is every kind of card game you might imagine.  My favorite hands down is Rummy.  I’ve gotten so good at it that I’ve beaten the most advanced player the Kindle’s App has to offer-more times than not.

And two nights ago I invited My Captain to join me on the bed for a game of Rummy with real cards.  I wanted a real live game, with real live company!!!  He wiggled his eyebrows with a, “Do you mean Rummy, or RUMMY? Heh, heh, heh….”

I flashed him my disgusting knee and swollen, contused leg, and said, “Cool your jets, Romeo, I’m talking cards.”

We played, but I suggested instead of keeping score, we just play for winning hands, and the winner of each hand could actually win something.  He chuckled, imagining he would be sweeping the spoils as usual, and consented.

The first hand I won the prize of having him clean the cat box the next day.

The second hand I won him doing the dishes the next day.

The third and fourth hands I won five minute foot massages.

The fifth hand I won a Sonnet, to be written in my honor.

The sixth hand I won a compliment, which he gave me right there between clenched teeth, “You’re a really good Rummy player.”

On the seventh hand we were arguing about what the prize could be before we played it, and I suggested the loser could pen a Haiku in the other person’s honor.

In his proudest, manliest, most condescending tone he growled, “I. Don’t. Do. Haikus.”

I batted my eyelashes at him and said soothingly, “Maybe you’ll win this hand.”

Friends, I can’t wait to see what he comes up with.  It ought to be one DOOOZIE of a Haiku.