We Have a Cricket in Our Cave

The other night my husband returned from spelunking in the basement and informed me that there was a hideous cricket of monstrous size hanging around down there. Given his proclivity toward telling tales that aren’t so much lies as they are pretty darn tall and his intense exaggerations, I smiled and nodded with raised and knowing eyebrows during most of his description.

“…and it has leopard spots, and it can jump really far, it’s huge!…”

“Its back legs have knees!”

“It attacked me!”

Sure. Right. A Cave Cricket with leopard spots that’s as big as a small dog; and right in our basement too. Uh-huh.

Nonetheless, I felt a little cautious as I did the laundry downstairs in its lair. Bugs of Unusual Size seem to be frequenting the underground bottom level of our home. The previous week I had slain a rather large black spider with a gallon bucket of bleach as my only weapon: turns out that a gallon of bleach is a heavy and effective tool for squashing the life out of unwelcome arachnids.

It certainly did not help me feel any better about the cricket of much largeness when a few days later my Dad started telling me about a fellow he works with whose shed is suffering from an infestation of Cave Crickets.

“They’re big and move really fast. They prefer to hide, but when they feel threatened one of their defense mechanisms is to jump at you. And supposedly they have teal blood.”

Nice. So not only did I have some freaky monster hiding out in my basement, I also felt badly about basically telling my husband that he needed to get a grip on his fantastical imagination. I’m afraid that my disbelief may come back to haunt me in the form of a Cave Cricket attacking me and sucking my face off.

*For more fun tales involving my super-silly husband click on "the husband" label below.
*To see a real live picture of the scary monster described in this story click here.

Naming the Animals

When I sit to do a craft that involves instructions I generally follow the directions, especially if it is a simple project or something I haven’t tried before. Sometimes this bothers me and makes me feel less creative than I like, but I just try to enjoy the task and forget about my silly perceived self-notions.

Some months back I was at the craft store looking for a craft project that I could do with my son. In the end I purchased a kit for making animal faces out of foam. It seemed pretty safe.

As it turned out, a three-year-old boy who has trouble sitting still and following directions can get overexcited while doing crafty things, but we still had a lot of fun and managed to make one of each of the four animals. In retrospect, crafts that involve googly-eyes may not be the best choice. I followed him around for a couple of days picking stray eyeballs up off of the floor and making sure he didn’t try to eat them or feed them to his little sister.

The other day daddy was hunting for something new and fun to do with the little man and saw the box of foam facial features sitting on the shelf collecting dust. So he got it down. Ignoring my suggestion that he use nice, safe glue dots, he instead opted for the gorilla glue that he keeps in his workbag. This made me more than a little nervous.

The two of them settled into the dining room table with their little bag o’ tricks (and the scary glue) and got down to business. My son first suggested making an elephant for his nana. His next request was a companion lion for his granddad. The elephant ended up with a bit of a leaky-eye problem and the lion has no ears, but they’re both ordinary enough looking animals.



















Then daddy hit his groove and his crazy creative streak kicked in. When his little protégé requested that they make a monkey for his Auntie Shmish, daddy said, “How about a tiger monkey?” Daddy’s carbon copy caught onto that idea pretty quickly, and before they were done they had made a liger for Auntie B and an elephonkey for Aunt EM.





























It’s special times like these that I’m reminded of how blessed I am to have a husband who possesses such a uniquely creative mind. It’s fun to watch my children learn to think outside of the box when it comes to creating. If it were my sole responsibility to nurture their imagination, they would always be putting the correct color with the correct number and all their foam animals would be of recognizable species. I’m also thankful that the nasty industrial glue did no permanent damage.

So I Married a Cave Troll

Sometimes I think my husband must have cave-troll blood in him.

When we first looked at our home I was so happy that almost all of the rooms got a good amount of sunlight during the day. The house is situated on a corner, and there are no houses across the street along the side of the house. Just a wooded slope. (The wooded slope also caused much excitement since we live on the edge of a city where one is not accustomed to seeing wooded areas or slopes of any kind). Leafy trees don’t block light like a solid structure; the light filters through them in a serene and foresty-like way.

The very first thing I do in the morning is twist the stick on the blinds so that they open and let the hazy morning sunlight filter into our living spaces. It elicits such a cozy feeling to see the soft light illuminate the furniture and reflect off of the wall hangings.

My husband, being of a suspicious nature, always fears for our privacy. Although he likes the light he would almost prefer that the blinds stay closed for the duration of the day because, well, someone across the street, or a person walking down the sidewalk, or a wackaloon who lives in Ohio, may have their binoculars out and be watching us eat our breakfast.

You may think I’m joking or exaggerating. I assure you, I am not. (Okay, maybe just a teensy weensy bit). I can understand his desire for privacy, and I share it to a healthy extent. But if I wanted to live without sunshine I would have made our home in a cave; it might be a little dank and dusty, but it would be mortgage free.

So there I am in the morning, walking from window to window pulling back the curtains and opening and adjusting the blinds to an appropriate angle depending on the disposition of the sun that particular morning. Sean waits what he believes to be a suitable length of time, and then he flits from casement to casement closing the blinds in my wake. It is my belief that he presumes I won’t notice. But I do notice; and I have to open them all over again.

I have tried to forbid him from touching the blinds unless it is the dead of night and pitch black outside; so far that hasn’t squelched his compulsion. Many a time I have encouraged him to jog outside to stand on the sidewalk and peer through the window to see if he can tell how many fingers I am holding up. For whatever reason he hasn’t been interested in trying that either. I think it would be a healthy experiment at any rate- just in case a marauding villainous type spied us eating Christmas cookies and decided he was hungry too.

I Have a Thankful Heart

I find as I go through life that there are so many things to be thankful for. Some of these things I am not even aware of. Like the person who leaves ten minutes late because of a poopy diaper emergency, thereby avoiding a terrible accident on the highway.

Take this morning for example. Having washed my husband’s work clothes, I was hanging them up in the closet when I discovered a miniature gel pen tucked inside his lapel. Only the tip was sticking out and I had missed it when putting the shirt into the washing machine.

When I spotted the pen visions of what could have been flashed through my mind, and I almost fell over for the immense dizziness they caused me. Had the pen opened in the wash it would have certainly destroyed everything in the load and necessitated plundering our bank account to replace the ruined work pants and shirts. What it could have done to the machine I really don’t know. What it would have done to my sanity, on the other hand, I am pretty well aware. I don’t think I would look good without hair.

So this day before Thanksgiving I am thankful that a tiny gel pen didn’t explode in my washing machine. On behalf of my husband let me say that he also is thankful that the miniature writing implement did not let loose all of it’s terrible inky blackness into the wash. Dirty clothes on top of or next to the hamper I have learned to overlook; I don’t think I would have as much grace for pens detonating during the spin cycle.

Big Bulging Muscles. Of Doom.

My husband arrived home from work last evening and thwomped his way into the kitchen where I was desperately trying to finish dinner with a screaming baby attached to my leg. I turned toward him and saw that the thwomping was due to the fact that he kept sticking his right leg out from his hip at strange angles while he walked.

I must say that I didn’t see immediate cause for alarm when he came into the house gamboling about like a hunchback. The man tends to err on the dramatic side as related here and here. I believe that he does this so that when a real calamity comes along he is prepared to do his part of the wailing, moaning and general running around in circles.

He told me that a mysterious ailment had overcome him sometime during the day. For no apparent reason his right calf had begun to pain him. Upon inspection it was discovered to be tender to the touch and a portion of it was bulging out, like it had contracted a serious case of mutant bodybuilderitis.

This put me in a bit of a pickle. Any sort of disorder is a very tricky thing with this man: brush it off as a little matter and he gets understandably upset, but take a look at something and say, “Oh, honey, that doesn’t look so good,” and he’s liable to faint dead away. I settled for what I thought to be middle ground, and inquired if he had dropped something heavy on it or remembered walking into any walls (which he does often at home).

As I looked at the questionable swellage I momentarily lost hold of my senses and grimaced. This was met with a swift and alarmed query as to whether there was need of a trip to the emergency room, because, after all, he remembered a story from his OSHA training class where a man suffered a small cut on the job and then his arm swelled up to size of a nuclear submarine or something. And then he died.

My husband thankfully did not have a cut. When he woke up this morning not only was he still breathing, but there remained no sign of the Schwarzenegger-style swelling. The thwomping has been replaced by his normal stride, and he’s back to walking into walls, doorways, and other inanimate objects that do not yield to oncoming traffic.

Here's a Tip for All You Bearded Fellows

My husband and I celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary in June, and I have known him two years besides. Even still he continues to do and say things that come as a surprise to me. I don’t know why I should be surprised, as I really don’t put anything past his doing.

Last summer I purchased a fingernail brush because it is much easier to scrub dirt from beneath a toddler’s fingernails with such a tool as opposed to scraping it out with my own nails. The small rectangular brush is generally kept in the downstairs bathroom because that is where the children are washed up after playing outside in the dirt.

The other day, Sean came into the living room where I was having a moment’s rest and asked me if I had seen the little brush that belonged in the bathroom. I queried him as to which little brush he was referring to, as we only have one hairbrush and it is of the normal hairbrush size.

“You know, the little white one,” he insisted.

“You mean the fingernail brush?” I asked.

“Oh, is that what it is,” he replied, “I’ve been using it to brush my beard.”

Evidently, the man thought I had gone out and bought him a special brush just for his beard (he is the only one in the house that sports one, so whom else would it be for). He tells me that the bristles are just right for beard grooming. Why I would have purchased a special beard brush, put it under the sink, and not told him, “Hey, see this little brush? It’s just for your beard!” I don’t understand.

It’s good to know that every time I kiss him I get grungy fingernail dirt ground into my chin. Yep. I suppose I’ll have to start chin cleansing after every kiss because he doesn’t seem to have any intention of giving up his claim on that brush. Maybe I should get another one and label it “for fingernails only- no beards allowed.”

Those Fatal Accidents Can Kill You

I think I should make it a goal to watch my husband more carefully when he is out cutting and hacking away at the lawn. After having conquered the yard this past weekend he informed me that there was a moment during the process when he thought his life to be over. He showed me his wounded neck and commenced with a story so funny that I gave up trying to maintain a grave expression and laughed feverishly until I thought I would lose consciousness.

While handling the weed whacker a stone or small chip of something was hurled at Sean’s neck by the spinning-line-trimmer-of-doom. One moment he was somewhat happily flaying the jungle grasses in the back yard (I say “somewhat” because he loathes this chore) and listening to his iPod, the next he felt something pierce his throat at the speed of sound and, he believed, lodge itself into his esophageal passage. Being the calm and conscientious person that he is, my husband was instantly convinced that the hour for his passing had come.

Though half demented from the excruciating pain he was able to formulate a plan of action in his mind to up the odds of his survival. Immediately dropping the trimmer he purposed to make his way toward the house in order to collapse in front of a window, thereby increasing the chance that I would look out and see him lying, gravely wounded, in the grass. (As he hadn’t actually mowed the grass yet, this probably wouldn’t have done him any good because I feel quite sure that if the baby had gotten away from me back there, with the grass as high as it was, I wouldn’t have been able to spot her upright body over the top of the grass let alone his prone form).

As he stumbled through the tangle of crab grasses and fescue and dandelion weeds, he recalled to himself the annals of fatal weed whacking accidents and found little consolation that his name would soon be added to this elite list. Because, he informed me later, people generally die from fatal weed whacker accidents. Who knew?

This is where I get a smidgen fuzzy on the details. I think Sean must have found the courage to actually feel his neck and subsequently realized that not only was there no gaping gash, but there wasn’t really even any blood, because he just turned around and finished up the yard work before coming in to regale me with tales of near-death and further excuses to forgo mowing the grass completely. I do think that the blow to the neck may have caused some temporary impairment though since he didn’t come directly to Nurse Mommy for a pat and a kiss and Band-Aid. The poor brave soul. Maybe it’s because I’m not a very good nurse; with me it’s more like a “you’re fine” and a shake of the head and a Band-Aid. Better to keep on mowing.

How the Spider Almost Killed Us- Part 2

Having been subjected to the agitated nerves of my husband for a too-long period of time, I noticed my own nerves were becoming a little frayed. I didn’t mind the company of the spider when I knew exactly where it was, but for some moments I failed to be able to locate its position and that made me a little uneasy. Now that neither of us had the intruder in our sights Sean’s agitation grew to a feverish pitch and he began flailing about in his seat while firmly gripping the steering wheel betwixt his hands. “Thrash around really fast! Thrash around hard! If it’s on you it’ll get squished! COME ON!”

As nicely as I could I informed him that I would not be giving myself whiplash on account of a bug, and that if he didn’t calm himself and focus on not killing us all I was liable to commence shouting. Although highly offended at my lack of respect for his orders, he settled down enough to regain control of the car and his senses and I went back to the task of locating our missing friend. During this time my left bum cheek began to get a tad bit numb, as I had rolled all of my weight onto it in an unconscious attempt to lean away from the spider’s last known location.

At long last the spider’s whereabouts were once again known to us. Earlier in our voyage I had determined not to smoosh the spider because I did not want it falling from its perch on the windshield into my lap or my hair while in the throes of death. But that was a good twelve minutes previous and our health and well-being did not seem to be in such jeopardy then as they were now, what with all of the reckless nighttime driving and the delicate drizzling rain that was now glossifying the roadway and rendering our trip even more treacherous.

I kept a close eye on the spider while I riffled through the glove compartment in search of a napkin to smother it with. I made sure that my aim was good and true and I smote the spider with my mighty napkin against the windowpane. My victory was short lived. I was now belted to my seat with my right arm stuck straight out in front of me and holding a folded napkin against the windshield. If I moved my arm the spider was likely to fall amongst my hairs where it would stay, impervious to washing, until its body completed the cycle of decay. This would never do.

After some deliberation I thought that my best strategy would be to slowly slide the napkin down until it hovered above the dashboard. Then I could gently pull the napkin away from the glass and the spider carcass would fall harmlessly onto the console. My body tried to slink away from my hand as the napkin squeaked its way down the glass. Down, down, down, until I could finally pull my hand away from the window. Ever so gingerly I retracted my arm back toward my body. I looked into the napkin. There was nothing there.

Great. I glanced back at the windshield and tried to tune out the screeching coming from the opposing seat. There was definitely some spider guts glistening in the moonlight up there. If the thing wasn’t dead yet it would be soon, and in its current state the spider couldn’t possibly do much harm.

The banshee in the driver’s seat was at it again, “It’s still alive! It’s still alive! I think it’s crawling on meeeeeeee!” “Listen, you,” I replied, “if its gutless body is around here somewhere it is most likely on me!” to which I received a long diatribe on the correct method for killing spiders and that inept people like me should not be allowed to kill them. Even it its death that stupid spider was a force to be feared and reckoned with.

We arrived home at long last. The car was parked, the engine turned off, and I opened my car door. As I exited the vehicle the small body of a dying spider tucked in its legs and rolled off of my lap onto the seat I had just occupied. It was on me after all. And my husband, all six-foot-two-inches of him, started shrieking again and yelping directives on how to properly dispose of the mostly-dead spider. Using the napkin of almost-death he plucked the spider from the seat, squished it firmly in his hand, and placed the napkin into his pocket.

A short time later, when Sean put his hand into his pocket, he suddenly remembered that the dead spider and its napkin style coffin were still there. He immediately began the ants-in-my-pants dance with a few shouts and screams thrown in. He jiggled his way over to the garbage can where the scary spider was finally laid to rest. I was never so glad to be rid of a spider in my life. Except for that one time a giant man-eating spider found its way into the entertainment unit. I was pretty glad to be rid of that one too.

How the Spider Almost Killed Us- Part 1

It has been hypothesized that perhaps some fatal car accidents are the result of creepy crawly insects. A person is driving along, hopefully obeying the rules of the road, hopefully not straying too far from the posted speed limit, when a spider is spotted somewhere inside the vehicle scurrying along, its eight legs carrying it closer and closer to the driver of the vehicle.

A part of me has always thought that this, although potentially a good theory, could only apply to those people who have a morbid fear of arachnids that sends them into an immediate state of mind numbing, paralyzing panic and possibly even a coma. Boy was I wrong.

My husband has an interesting relationship with all things buggy, as I shared here. He doesn’t seem to mind them when he is out of doors, but when in a confined space with insects and spiders his mind begins to plays tricks on him and he begins to have fits.

About ten seconds into our fifteen-minute drive home from church on Saturday night, Sean pointed a tremulous finger toward our windshield and demanded, “Is that inside?” I stared through the darkness and concentrated on the city bus in front of us toward which I thought he pointed and tried to make sense of the question. “Is that inside? I think it is! It’s inside!” he declared in a voice that was clearly agitated and full of fear. “Don’t you see it? Right there! Are you blind?”

I don’t appreciate being shouted at. So I fixed him with a glare that was wasted in the shadows of night, told him that I could make no sense of his gibbering, and said that when his powers of communication returned I would be more than happy to listen to his troubles. He made a noise I had never heard before, something between a yelp and a groan, and finally made me understand that we were trapped in a moving vehicle at the mercy of a roving spider.

How he saw the thing in the first place, I’ll never know. It was light brown in color with a leg span that could only have straddled a dime. Perhaps my husband is possessed of x-ray vision or something; that would explain the sly grins he sometimes gives me when I am covered head to toe in a sweat suit. At any rate, once his eyes caught sight of that spider they weren’t letting it go.

Unfortunately, following the weaving path of a spider and attempting to operate a motor vehicle at the same time is not easy. Or safe. Sean was so busy squirming from the touch of imaginary spiders and shrieking, “Do you see it? Do you see it? Where’d it go?” that the fact that the car didn’t go careening off of the side of the road is a miracle. It really is.

The eight-legged beast would occasionally wander over to my side of the windshield. When my husband received news that his adversary had traversed away from him he would sigh audibly, “Oh, okay.” As if to say that the world was a shinier, happier place now that his wife would be receiving the death-bite in his place. He can be so sweet sometimes.

I’ll put a stop to this nonsense, I thought to myself. I clutched the church bulletin in my hand and resolved to nudge the spider out of the window with it. I had maintained the hope that once close enough to the open window the spider would be whisked away on the wind, never to be seen or heard from again. Much to my chagrin, instead of being sucked out of the vehicle into oblivion, the wind blew the spider back into the car.

Hold the Water, Waiter.

My husband hates ordering water when we go out to a restaurant to eat. It is not often that we get to indulge by letting someone else cook for us, bring us our food while we lounge, and then clean up afterwards. It occurs to me that I should change all of that “us” and “we” to simply “me,” as my husband generally has a staff cook, waitress, and cleaning slave who are all known by the name of Me. At any rate, he and I, a.k.a. Me, snookered Nana into entertaining the little munchkins for the day so that we could go on a date and have a whiff of what it was like to be single again.

I suppose I must explain the use of the world “single” in this context. I don’t mean that we wanted to experience life before we got hitched; it’s just that I have this awful propensity for referring to our pre-baby days as “do you remember when we were single and we could just hop in the car and go to a movie?” Some may think that a bit odd, but before we had children we were a “single couple”, if such a thing is possible in a grammatical sort of way. I don’t much care if it is or not- that’s just how it was.

Since we unfortunately don’t have the budget to blow forty dollars on a semi-gourmet lunch, we generally find ourselves at a local Olive Garden where we can spend $15.63, including tax and tip, and actually feel full when we leave the restaurant. If a person spends that amount at most eateries they usually still have a gnawing feeling somewhere in the region of the stomach that typically alludes to hunger, as they were only served sixteen crumbs in the shape of a sandwich and two ounces of water colored to resemble soup. The reason that a person can spend $15.63 at the Olive Garden and actually feel the need to throw up afterwards is that this bill procures for the spendee the right to as much soup, salad, and bread as they would like.

My husband hates ordering water when we go out to a restaurant to eat. He says it makes him feel like a cheapskate. It seems that he would much rather pay a ridiculous amount of money, like $2.19, for a tall glass of soda. (It must be said that he tends to drink no less than half-a-dozen glasses, so he does get his money’s worth). On this occasion, however, he settled for the free glass of water so as to be able to spend a couple dollars later in the day.

To a certain extent I can understand why he would feel that the healthier selection of water makes him appear too frugal. But the actions following the act of ordering his drink and making his soup selection are what I feel contradict his outlook on cheapskatedness and otherwise cause me to laugh and shake my head until I become rather dizzy.

To put it lightly, my husband is that person who, when seen entering an all-you-can-eat buffet, elicits cries of “Oh, no! Lock the doors! Bar the windows!” from the owner of the establishment for fear of being eaten into bankruptcy. The man feels bad about drinking a free beverage, but has no qualms about consuming so much salad, multiple (large) bowls of soup, and so many breadsticks that I lost count, that by the time he is sufficiently bloated and incapacitated he has whittled the price of each helping down to mere pennies. This I don’t understand.

He managed to keep a lid of the ensuing nausea, and I didn’t vomit at the thought of so much food being ingested in the matter of one hour. I just didn’t think about it. I was separated from my babies for a full eight hours, and have not found myself in need of therapy. My husband and I only got on each other’s nerves a handful of times. I didn’t have to wipe any rear ends or tell any one to stop jumping on the couch. Nobody went swimming in the cat’s water dish. Nor did anyone have to be punished for biting, pushing, yelling, grabbing, screaming, throwing food on the floor, or dropping toys down the stairs. I wouldn’t want to be that bored every day, but it’s nice to have a date every once in a while.

The OTHER Side of the Story

Remember this post? Well, the patient has decided to speak out against Unfair Treatment Of Sick Husbands (UTOSH) and stand up for the rights of couch-ridden men everywhere.

Seaweed: Beneficial Undersea Food Source Or Malificent Pelagic Killer?

This headline demonstrates that there are two perspectives to every story, a Yin an Yang, if you will, to every event. For example, a concentration camp Commandant might think that things are going quite smoothly for the inmates, and everything is running as purposed. For the inmate, however, that probably means regular beatings, sensory deprivation and a lousy menu, but what one side reports is going to be very different than what the other reports.

Take my illness for example. My wife was not the one lying incapacitated on the sofa in a delerious visceral agony. She was not the one experiencing sensations in her bowels that would overwhelm a Roman Gladiator. What she saw was simply a grown man reduced to moaning, whining and griping, in short suffering to the uttermost, which is to the dispassionate and cold-hearted, a rather annoying thing to witness.

It's like trying to sleep at 3 a.m. only to be kept awake by a caterwauling feline in heat. Yes, the female cat is suffering, as the physiological processes accompanied with heat can be very painful. But who cares? It's 3 a.m. and the thing is making a noise like, well, like a cat in a blender. It's the same thing with me and my albeit brief bout with the exotic viral gastrointestinal attack. I was in unfathomable agony, which manifested itself in very vocal and immobilizing ways, and my wife, desensitized from years of caring for children, saw only an adult behaving in a childlike manner, and beheld yet another body to take care of. It's sad, really, because I have now fully recovered from my sickness of body, but it may take a long time indeed for my wife to recover from her sickness of soul.

Shopaholics Anonymous

Having started a new job last week as an Audio/Visual Technician Apprentice, my husband found himself in need of a selection of tools and a tool bag to put them in. This thrilled him for two reasons: he likes tools and he likes to spend money. I’m not really sure why he enjoys the power of the purchase. Sure, when I spend money I get an adrenalin rush too, but mine is a result of the “how are we going to pay the bill this month?” shakes.

My husband comes home from a long tiring day on the job, walks in the door with a tired expression on his face that so resembles the look of a man sleeping on his feet, fumbles through dinner and then goes out to the hardware store in search of these much needed tools. When he returns home from his triumphant trip he is like a new man! Energetic, happy, satisfied. The transformation is really quite astounding.

Of course he doesn’t find shopping me with at all exciting. I think I hem and haw too much about how much everything costs, how nothing fits me, and do I really need this? I suppose my husband doesn’t find it too exhilarating to chase the toddler around and under clothing racks or keep him entertained while mommy compares the value and quality of garbage cans or cleaning products.

Both of us recently signed up for Facebook accounts. There are all of these neat applications that allow a person to send their friends gifts like Hatching Eggs and pots of flowers, coffee and different types of sushi. None of this stuff is real- it’s just images on the computer screen- but it makes a person feel as though they are interacting with another human being.

Something about this experience provides for that need in my husband to shop. He will spend an hour perusing his options and sending everyone he knows Narwhal eggs or snow globes with raspberries in them. I find his conduct a little bizarre, but it makes him cheerful so I guess it’s okay. And it’s much easier on the pocketbook.

The King of Drama Takes Ill

Now that my husband is safely out of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I feel that it is safe to share of my journey by his side. It is commonly known that the average man reverts back to infancy when he feels a case of the sniffles coming on. He becomes unable to complete simple tasks, like taking himself to the bathroom or pouring himself a glass of juice.

My husband is the kind of man that if given warning of the impending disease, he would probably bust out the craft supplies and make a sign to drape across his prone form that proclaimed “The End is Near” instead of just laying on the couch all day whining and bemoaning the approaching doom. Every time the kids get sick I find myself begging God to let the illness pass by my husband.

This time Daddy got sick first and there was no warning. The poor soul awoke to his alarm clock and declared that he had not slept for two seconds together the entire night and that he felt positively horrible. This being only his third day on a new job he decided that there was nothing for it but to drag his weary body from the comfort of his covers and get ready for work. With very great effort he managed to dress himself and be out of the door within the minute his ride called to say he was parked out front.

Less than three hours later his ride was back out front to drop off my stomach virus stricken husband. Coming through the door, he plowed his way through us to dive onto the couch and issue the decree that he was very, very sick and delirious, and that anyone who touched, climbed on, or otherwise bothered him would be sentenced to death.

Somewhere between the front door and the couch the small amount of pity that I had been able to accumulate had vanished, and the feeble man was fated to an afternoon of being cared for by a cranky nurse.

His condition quickly deteriorated from a typical stomach virus to something called a “nerve virus.” I had never encountered this type of sickness before, but I can tell you from experience that one of the symptoms that the inflicted claims to have is paralysis of the legs. There seems to be a momentary reprieve that enables the patient to arise if the doorbell rings while the nurse is upstairs with the children.

By the early afternoon the general whininess and level of complaint had increased in pitch to match the new self-diagnoses of “ameobic dysentery” in conjunction with a “very high fever” of 100.5 degrees Fahrenheit. I was surprised when only Tylenol was requested instead of a high dosage of morphine.

Shortly after this I was struck with amnesia, due to the stress of it all, and remember very little of the remaining period of illness. I can say for sure that I was not thrown up upon like I was only a few days later, nor was I required to do any nasty cleaning up. I did have to suffer, along with the rest of the household, through some unidentifiable odors however. My husband was quick to reassure me that the stench was his decomposing body tissue, and that I should for the sake of heaven take pity on him, during this, his final hour.

Some of Us Have It: Some of Us Don't

Reaching a height of just under five-feet and two-inches tall, I am what my father would call “vertically challenged”. This really isn’t a problem except when I need new pants (or I try to dance with my much-taller husband of six-foot-three). I hate shopping for pants. I can go to store after store after store and not find anything that fits. Or I do find something that fits, take one look at the price tag, and start to see little spots of light that require me to locate a chair ASAP so that I don’t fall over and hit my head on a nearby display table. I refuse to pay more for jeans than I do for my electric bill.

Then there is my husband. I don’t know if it is simply because he is a man, or if he asked God to give him a special gene that enables him to find pants on clearance wherever he goes. It really is infuriating. We generally only have to go to one store for him to be able to locate his size on a clearance rack where everything is an extra such-and-such percent off already reduced prices; even if the table has one lonely pair of jeans on it, chances are they’ll be just right.

I suppose I really shouldn’t complain for two reasons: one, it doesn’t require a ten-hour shopping marathon to get what we came for; and two, it sure is nice to pay ten bucks for a pair of sixty-dollar Dockers. This last week he purchased one pair of jeans and two pairs of Dockers for a grand total of $26.39. The point still stands, however, that by the time I find blue jeans for myself I am practically delirious from lack of hydration and my mental facilities are on the fritz from mission-failure-itis. As of right now, all of my pants need a belt to stay up, and some of them have holes in them and torn pockets. Nevertheless, I am going to keep wearing them until they are only strips of fabric hanging from my waist and it comes down to buying new pants or being arrested for indecent exposure. Nothing but the threat of jail could coax me into the torture that is pants shopping.

"Please Don't Do Anything Foolish"

My husband is off to spend the weekend in the woods, hiking and camping with a group of his friends. The forecast: hot and wet. It will be a time to grunt, slap backs, and hack down mighty oaks for firewood with a pocketknife. There will be lots of smacking at insects as they buzz in and out of the ear canal and tickle the back of the neck. Sunscreen will not be worn and the men will come home moaning for aloe and Solarcaine. When they do get back they’ll be stinking to high heaven because during their time of seclusion they will not change underwear or shower; that way, if anyone gets separated from the group they will be easy to locate using only the olfactory senses. Water will be boiled over a fire to make coffee. When someone realizes that a can-opener was not on the “to-bring” list, a machete will be brought forth to open the cans of ground beef hash and baked beans. The privacy of a bathroom door has been exchanged for a wide tree trunk, and a patch of uneven ground dotted with rocks in just the right places so as to poke an annoying finger into the spine has taken the place of freshly laundered sheets and a comfortable bed. I just hope that the forecast is wrong: it will be hard to enjoy my extended sleeping quarters if the thunder is crashing madly about me, and images of lightening strikes are flashing before my eyes.

Choose Your Weapon

There are in existence many ways in which to kill a large spider or other sordid insects that find their way into the home. Some people squash them with shoes as they make an attempt to flee; others swat at them with brooms. I have been in situations where the person endeavoring to deal with live-bug-removal just runs around in circles while screaming.

When my husband encounters something that belongs outside in the comfort of the home he generally feels the need to call a family council to discuss how to deal with said intruder. This isn’t a “should I kill it or let it loose” assembly, but rather a panicked “what should I do, what should I do” type of deal.

Over the weekend he spent some of his time down in the basement cleaning up and organizing his plethora of tools and other assorted, inherited junk. Our basement cannot be accessed from outside, and there are but three small windows that let in a very minimal amount of light. Regardless of this, all sorts of bugs and spiders manage to find their way in. (During the summer months we run a dehumidifier, which cuts down on the number of bugs tremendously).

My husband hadn’t been at the task for long when he shouted up the steps to announce that there was a giant spider with him, and asked, please, how he should go about slaying the beast. Because, really, what is a mere mortal to do when faced with such a formidable foe? I told him vaguely that he should kill it, as I am quite convinced that spiders of gigantic proportions are possessed of some sort of brain and it would probably find its way up the stairs, under the basement door, and into the kitchen where a lot of terrified bellowing would take place and smelling salts would be required. Or the baby would find it and decide that it was much more fun to hunt and kill her own food than to be strapped into the highchair and handfed Cheerios.

After searching for a contrivance with which to kill the spider my husband picked up a hammer; with this hammer he dealt a mighty deathblow and smote the monster. I felt that such a tool should make an awful mess of a thing like a spider. He corrected my assumption by informing me that as long as a person regulates their strike accordingly, it is a fine alternative for a shoe. Of course, it’s always handy to have a Shop-Vac lying around to suck up the mess with.

Paying Homage To The Scary, Scary Needle

Some mornings I wake up and have to wrack my brain to think of something to blog about. This only happens rarely, as there is always something going on around here. However, this morning was one of those unusual mornings where I woke up and thought, “Ugh. I really need to blog today… what am I going to write about?” And then my husband decided to go for the blood work the doctor ordered last week.

My husband is not a little guy. He is six-foot-two-inches tall and he’s strong; he can grow a beard in a matter of days due to his Irish genes that are constantly shoving hair through his skin night and day. The shoes he wears are a size thirteen and could double as a canoe and save the lives of my children during a flood.

Notwithstanding his manly appearance, my poor husband despises needles. So much so that if his inner elbow is even touched by my hand he blanches and his insides begin to churn. He needs to be restrained if the need arises for splinter removal, and stubbing a toe requires bed rest in order to make a complete recovery.

Needless to say, it greatly surprised me to see him up and preparing to go to the lab this morning without my pestering him about it for weeks and weeks. I tried not to think about what was happening the whole time he was gone because I just couldn’t see how it would help; instead I tried to focus on controlling the spurt of giggles that was sure to issue forth from my mouth on seeing him stumble through the door in the manner of a person who has had a near-death experience.

Sure enough, on his arrival home he turned the key in the door and lurched into the living room looking like there wasn’t blood enough left in his whole body to set a little color to his cheeks. So much for trying to be kind: my nostrils flared and my lips pursed with the effort it took to maintain a straight face. He tap-danced into the dining room with his squirmy legs going a mile a minute in his distress.

“How did it go?” I ask.

“It was horrible! They took two HUGE vials of blood and then a small one! They were like this big,” he insists while measuring an imaginary four-inch tube, “I should have taken a glass of juice with me or something.”

“They usually have…” I begin, but he cuts me off.

“…And then my shoe fell off because I was squirming in my seat so much. I was trying to think about the kids, but then I couldn’t concentrate because my shoe was on the floor. You should have gone with me!” he whines while high stepping around the dining room unable to keep still. “I don’t know how I’m going to be able to work today- I’m not going to be able to use my arm… I should have asked for a sling… or a note for work. It hurt so much! I must have sensitive veins or something.”

That last part about did it for me. “You DO NOT have sensitive veins! What does that even mean? Do you know how often I have to go and get stuck?! And I always bruise!” I screeched (because I’m apparently incapable of acting like an adult one-hundred-percent of the time myself).

He stopped pacing long enough to think about how silly his last statement sounded and he even managed a chuckle. I patted him on the back and told him how proud I was that he went to the lab all by himself without being threatened on pain of death. That helped, but I think he was really hoping for a lollipop and for me to swab his forehead with a cool cloth while murmuring what a “poor baby” he was.

“You know,” he muttered, “I think I told her to think how silly it would be if I was a sky-diving instructor and yet couldn’t sit still for a needle.” His thought processes are just weird that way. I guess that’s part of the reason I love him so much.

Oh, The Burning!

While frying eggs yesterday morning, my husband decided he would be able to flip them a little easier if he braced a finger against the side of the skillet. He quickly realized that the blue gas flame not only heats the cooking surface of the pan, but the sides as well. It turns out that I really should have refrained from teasing him because a few hours later found me suffering from a burn wound myself.

In the act of removing my ceramic stone from the oven, atop which some lovely toasted bread sat, my left palm brushed against the wire rack which is supposed to make the stone safer and easier to remove from the oven. One wouldn’t think that gently brushing against blazing, sizzling metal could produce a glaring inch-long white sear. I had hoped that if I ran my open palm under cold water for a while any blisters would be deterred from forming.

Having a wound that renders one’s hand practically useless is very detrimental to a mother. Trying to change the diaper of a wriggling baby one-handed is a bit of a trick. In the eight hour span between when the accident occurred and bedtime I had to keep ice on the burn constantly, or the fiery pain would actually make my eyes water. Even after I fell asleep the pain woke me intermittently during the night. It caused me once again to consider the practice of cauterizing wounds. I believe if it were my choice I would prefer taking a bullet and being put out to pasture instead of biting a bullet and smelling my flesh cook.

Regardless, I did have to give my husband a lesson on “how the stove works” again. After hearing the tick-tick-tick followed by the whoooosh of the burner igniting no less than three times in six seconds, I hastened to his side with a cry of, “you’re going to kill us all!” just in time to watch him position the dial at a setting that doesn’t even exist.

He claims that it was the urgent sincerity in my voice coupled with the actual words that caused him to cackle uncontrollably, and he was hasty to reassure me that he was in no way endeavoring to fill up the entire house with gas fumes. I believe the root his inability to learn how the dials operate after repeated lessons, is that his man’s brain has a hard time grasping that the dial works in a counter-clockwise manner, as he seems to be intent on making it work in the more logical clockwise way.

If, at any time, I go for a week or more without posting a new blog please be advised that it might be due to the fact that I am lying on the kitchen floor choking on poisonous fumes. If such an event should occur I would ask that the proper authorities be notified and that take-out would be ordered for the duration of my recovery since my husband would henceforth be banned from playing with the stove.

Who Brought This?

Everyone, excepting the baby, learned something new about food this Easter Sunday. Not for lack of trying on the baby’s part, for she will try to eat anything presented to her; however, there is only so much food that is palatable for a nine month old.

For my part, I learned that peanut butter cookies dunked until soggy in coffee are a new dangerous favorite for me. Dangerous because although I have self-control in many areas when it comes to food, this does not seem to be one of them. It is quite possible that I would continue to submerge the crunchy cookies until I either went mad from the amount of caffeine I was ingesting or I threw up from the amount of sugar I was introducing into my system. This was the first time I have made this type of cookie since being married six years ago: they were a favorite of my Dad’s and I used to make them when I lived at home with my parents, but I tend to shy away from hard cookies as I prefer soft, chewy ones. It was sometime yesterday evening in the midst of my sugar-induced euphoria that I declared the peanut butter cookie, accompanied by a hot cup of coffee, to be my new favorite. I shall have to be careful and only bake them for very special occasions so as to avoid blatant displays of self-indulgence and gluttony.

My little boy got his first chocolate car. He loves cars and trucks and his Nana couldn’t resist buying him a chocolate racecar. Of course he attempted to drive it and seemed a bit confused when he was told it was for eating, but he soon got over it and happily gnawed off the front bumper.

And then came my husband’s food related learning experience. The poor man has been teased about his garbage disposal approach to eating for many years now. He takes it in stride because he knows it to be largely founded in truth and I believe that he takes some pride in this title. (Only one of our male friends can wolf down a plate of food faster than my husband, and my husband speaks of him with a kind of reverence and admiration). My husband not only has the ability to eat absolutely humungous portions of food, he also finds a wide range of food to be palatable and does not balk from trying new delicacies. Yesterday was no exception. While the rest of the family was recuperating from dessert in Nana’s living room- where I’m sure I was still dunking cookies- my husband wandered into the kitchen in search of more coffee and something to munch on. A short time earlier Nana had placed her cat’s food on the counter next to the percolator so that the baby wouldn’t get into it. As my husband made his way toward the countertop the kitchen was cloaked in a quiet, dusky darkness. I suppose there really is no need for me to say anything further except that my husband not only chewed and swallowed one modest handful, but two, and was on his way back to the living room to see if anyone could tell him what he was eating before the cogs in his brain started to turn and he blurted, “I just ate cat food!” to himself and everyone present as he crossed the threshold of the room.

The customary jokes followed, and my husband expressed his delight at the sheen his coat of fur was sure to get; I was told not to be surprised if I found him curled up on the windowsill licking himself, and he was warned about tracking litter around the house after trips to the cat box. After much laughter and silliness the family eventually succumbed to the return of post-dinner lethargy. All in all, my husband, food connoisseur that he is, declared the whole fiasco to be a success of sorts as he imparted his wisdom that cat food actually doesn’t taste too badly.

I Should Ask For a Raise

My husband has joined the ranks of the infected-ear people in our household. So far (knock on wood) I am the solitary holdout. Before I continue I would like to say that I know he is in awful pain because he conceded to staying home this morning instead of joining my dad on the worship team in church; he hasn’t had an opportunity to play his bass guitar in church for a while because of his work schedule and it is something that he really looks forward to.

Instead, he got up this morning and immediately went to our local urgent care center. The doctor that tended to him prescribed three medications, one of which is an eardrop. My husband was in too much pain to calm down enough to administer the drops himself, so I sat him down and poised myself over his writhing body with the eardrops in hand.

It is one thing to hold a toddler down and coax him to swallow his amoxicillin or attempt to keep the baby from spitting hers all over herself; it is quite another to put drops into the ear of a grown man who is over six feet tall, muscular and uncooperative. My arms are short, so I can only get so far away and still be able to drip the drops into his ear canal. I got kicked in the ankle no less than three times for my effort. He was worse than the kids.

He seems a little perkier now. When I inquired whether his ear was feeling a little bit better he immediately clutched the side of his head and moaned. I guess not. I’m quite sure that he feels entitled to a little pampering and attention since the kids get both when they are sick. A hot bowl of chicken soup, a fluffy pillow and a few “poor baby”s aught to do the trick.