For Chuck
Tag Archives: couples
The Bunny
Until I got married, I never knew it was possible to love and to hate someone at the same time. I mean that much more positively than it sounds, HONEY. I don’t think this makes me a terrible person. I think it makes me a person who lives with her true love. And a person who occasionally wants to hold said true love’s head under the water until the bubbles stop. You think he feels any differently? HA! Our prenup specifically allows him up to ten minutes of homicidal fantasies a day. Fifteen if I use any tense of the word “redecorate”.
If you’ve read this blog before, you may know of the saint to whom I am married. And make no mistake, the man IS a saint. I know it’s hard to tell from my writing, but I’m a little neurotic. And high maintenance. And tend to have pizza cravings which must be satisfied RIGHT NOW. And also I steal his socks. And start most of my conversations with him with “Okay, so…” as if we were already in the middle of a conversation. Oh, and occasionally I get mad at him in my head, and we have this fight in my head, and then I take it out on him in person. I am aware that is in no way cool.
If his life with me had a soundtrack, it would be nothing but a sad trombone.
We’ve gone through some tough times in the almost seven years we’ve been married, but to paraphrase my mother, divorce is not an option. Homicide might be, but not divorce. See, we took our time. He shook me and held me for a while to see if I was heavy for my size. I looked for bruises and any sign of mold along the stem. It took a while, and the other day he did–when asked–tell me he had no idea I was THIS crazy before he married me, but he actually likes me more now. There are days he has to remind himself that’s the case, sure, but at the end of the day he’s the whiskey to my sour.
I don’t know if it was hormones or meatloaf, but last night I got a little weepy. You know how us gals do with our emotions and our feelings and our bottles of stuff sitting around everywhere and why does anyone need seven different kinds of body lotion? (The answer to that is, of course, because I’m economizing down from thirteen. Duh.) I just wanted him to be, you know, all therethere and pat my head. Around year five I realized that he could not read my mind. Armed with this knowledge last night, I decided to wake him up and force him to soothe me.
So I sort of poked him and whispered his name. Nothing. A little more shaking this time. He rattles and sputters and coughs and flails, but does not wake up. A little louder this time. CHUCK! Nope. I give up and burrow in next to him, occasionally dodging an errant elbow or full-body sleep jerk. I looked at my dresser. I couldn’t see it in the dark, but I knew what sat on top. It’s a small beige ceramic bunny. His mother brought it to me a couple of years ago. When he was about three, he went to an Easter egg hunt and the bunny was in one of those bifurcated plastic eggs. She said he was so excited to show her his prize. I keep the little bunny there for a reason. When I get upset, angry, sad, or just generally pissed off, I look at the bunny. Immediately, I get an image in my head of a little toddler Chuck, his dimpled starfish hands holding up the little dime store bunny to his mom. In my head he’s wearing those little white shoes and has a bowl cut and there’s a Peter Pan collar involved. That image usually calms me down, and it worked last night.
I started feeling better about the time he violently flipped onto his back and let out a mournful sigh. In his obviously deep sleep, he reached for my hand, and I startled myself with the realization that all I ever need to do is put out my hand.
He will tell you his nocturnal thrashing is IN NO WAY as bad as how I ALLEGEDLY fly back into bed after getting up and repeatedly beating my pillow which ALLEGEDLY bounces him around to the point he’s in danger of getting a ceiling fan haircut.
Understanding. That’s what makes a good marriage. Understanding. And liquor doesn’t hurt either.
The Theme Nite
Yes, I do the Pinterest thing. For several years I’ve been looking for some sort of online bulletin board and Pinterest pretty much works for me. I use Listhings for sticky notes. I haven’t found something that combines both services that I like. I don’t have the reaction to Pinterest that some people do which is there are all these projects they’ll never get to, their houses will never be as nice or organized as the ones they pin, and who cooks this stuff anyway? Yeah, I pin some crap, but I’ve also used most of the tips I’ve come across and made several of the recipes. The first one I made was for the homemade Reese’s Eggs. Reese’s Eggs are the far superior of the holiday-themed Reese’s shapes. Just don’t bother. The Eggs are on sale like two packs of six for $3. The homemade ones are really buckeyes. There is nothing wrong with a buckeye; but let’s be clear, it ain’t a Reese’s Egg.
Pinterest is helping me get my dinky little laundry closet more organized and useful. I use it to pin color palettes for, among other things, the blog. I don’t really use it for clothes because, let’s face it, I get dressed up like twice a year. There are only so many pictures of jeans, my favorite Target v-neck t-shirt, and flip flops I could pin. And I don’t do theme nights.
Pinterest is BIG on theme nights. And bunting. It’s big on bunting, too. So what’s a theme night? It’s where you might have Mexican food, but you don’t just have some carne asada and call it a day. No, friend. On Mexican Nite you need to make bunting in the shape of Mexican flags. And you need to make them with repurposed fabric from Christmas when you made bunting, smocked dresses for four children, a tree skirt, a fabric wreath, a fabric tree for your guest bath, and then covered the fridge with fabric and Mod Podge to make it look more festive. You take THAT fabric, sew a tablecloth, napkins, and new curtains. THEN you make those charms you put on wine glasses because, damn, y’all people must lose your wine glasses a lot. There are thousands of ideas for wine glass charms on Pinterest. These charms should be in the shape of tacos and sombreros. OBVIOUSLY. Now you also need Mexican Nite themed plates. You can get these for like three bucks at Walmart. People on Pinterest are always getting stuff for like three bucks at Walmart. You will now use ceramic paint to paint authentic Mexican scenes like a little dude in a serape leaning against a wall taking a siesta. You will then serve all your food out of terra cotta pots. Your chicken enchilada recipe, it goes without saying, will come from Pinterest. There are approximately 492,495,092 chicken enchilada recipes on Pinterest, but only three of them do not contain a cream-of-something soup. These are the super authentic ones and you probably won’t like them.
Here are some ideas I had for THEME NITE! They are yours to make and to share. I’m a giver.
Just-Off-The-Interstate Massage Parlor Nite:
You wear a t-shirt from when the Vols won the championship in 1998, cut-off mom jeans, and pink Crocs. Serve $.99 burritos, Mountain Dew Code Red, and Munchos Big Grabs from the nearest truck stop. Lay your honey out on the dining room table, light your finest Renuzit candles, and give him a sexxay massage with mango scented lotion from Big Lots while not dropping ash from your generic cigarette onto him. HAWT!
You Know What Your Problem Is? Nite:
Just hash it all out, once and for all. Throw it all on the wall and see what sticks. Serve a salad of bitter greens and the wine you’d, “be drinking every night if I’d married Larry and his MBA instead of you and your BS. And I DON’T mean the bachelor’s you don’t have!” Watch some movie known for its set design porn like Meryl Streep’s kitchen in It’s Complicated and spend most of the movie whining about the house you’ll never have. Wind down the evening with Tums and a good, shrieking cry.
It Will Never Live Up To My Expectations Nite:
Use tonight to cook something with lots of steps like Julia Child’s boeuf bourguignon and a dessert like baklava. Wait until you get home from work to start. Drink all the dinner wine before you get the boeuf seared. Festoon the bedroom with red rose petals, scented candles, and some sexxay sex dice game you ordered from drugstore.com and then cry into your pinot noir when your husband falls asleep as you’re putting on your new babydoll nightie.
No, You Decide Nite:
Spend all evening trying to get your mate to decide what to do. Give up and order pizza. Watch a PBS documentary on carpenter ants and fall asleep on the couch.
Go Out At Home Nite:
Fill your house with cigarette smoke. Resurrect your black light from college. Spill beer on yourself. Hire a couple to stay in the bathroom and make out so when you try to go, you have to wait for like an hour for them to hear your knocking. Play crap hip hop music too loud and flash your husband. Have him take your picture–don’t forget to make a duck face! Wake up hungover and vow never to go out again.
But I Thought You LIKED Tulips Nite:
Show up with all her favorites: tulips, a bottle of pinot gris, Hershy’s with almonds, and a movie starring whatever piece of man meat Jennifer Anniston is currently dating. Find out she hates tulips, wanted a chardonnay, is allergic to almonds, and it was the OTHER guy she likes to drool over. Try to make it up by making pasta, but she won’t come out of the bathroom. You give up, throw some sardines in the pasta, crack a beer, and watch something with swords.
