The stage: the boy is staying at college in Portland, so it's me, the wife, and the two girls. I feel like a hitch-hiker on the estrogen express.
1. The wife has been jonesing for another cat ( we usually carry two, and we've been down to one for a while), so I brought back a really cool kitten from the pound on Monday. Thanksgiving day it started barfing over and over, and so inevitably the wife and girls became alarmed and had to take it on an expensive journey to the vet right after dinner.
2. The internet went down at our house Thanksgiving morning, inexplicably, and in spite of pulling out and plugging in the router, resetting everything multiple times, and even shaking the thing, no luck. My suggestion that it would be healthy to do without the net at least for day was met with incredulous stares. Miraculously, the net's back today, no idea what the original problem was.
3. Without the net, the Estrogen Gang decided to watch multiple episodes of Downton Abbey on disc. The three of them collected themselves on the couch and nibbled turkey and sipped egg nog while watching English people talk. I went to bed.
4. This morning, the oldest daughter left in her car to visit some of her friends from up here, and she took most of the sweet potatoes with her. Five minutes after leaving, the phone rang, and it was her. She told me that as soon as she left, she smelled something rotten in her car, and expressed some fear that she might have run over the other cat on her way out.
I reassured her that if she had run over the cat, it wouldn't smell rotten because the corpse wouldn't have had a chance to rot yet (and to boot I could see both the cats from where I was). The most likely cause, I explained, was that she had inadvertently stepped in some dog poo on the way to the car, and that was the source of the smell. I advised to check the bottom of her shoes before going into her pal's house. She assured me she would. Glad I had the chance to help.
I raised 4 daughters. So you get no sympathy for (1) Girl talk at the dinner table (2) Girl movies on TV. It's why men build dens to retreat to. And why going to bed on your own makes perfect sense. The girls came here for dinner with their families yesterday. Today I'm doing clean-up washing the place and dishes down and so forth. The three Costco tables and 18 Costco white folding chairs that were set up in the living room (slate/stone floors) are back in the garage, ship shape and Bristol fashion.
ReplyDeleteYou need to hoard some paper books in the event that the net crashes...or get a motorcycle so you can go riding (alone)...been there, done that, bought the t-shirt with five hash marks (one for each female in the house) on the sleeve.
Excellent advice.
DeleteI've seen pictures of your man cave. It's a very evolved place. You must have instinctively known that the day would come when you'd need to retreat.
DeleteGenetic memory.
DeleteOn the flip side: My mom raised three boys with an engineer husband. DInner usually focused on hot rods and cars. Finally one night mom exclaimed "I"m sick and tired of talking about Micky Mantle rocker arm covers!!" I said, "Mom - those are Mickey Thompson rocker arm covers."
ReplyDeleteShe never had a chance.......
Mine are all grown up now, away with families of their own... one of each, and 30 Marines by other mothers...
ReplyDeleteGet chickens - the poo doesn't smell so bad (unless maybe, I'm just used to it). Our one TV is in Hubby's man cave and he keeps it so hot with the fireplace no one wants to go down there.
ReplyDelete