Don't blink or you will miss out

Sunday, January 24, 2010

If I had recorded the track of life inside this old farmhouse over the last month or so and then ran outside to the barn, turned around and looked at the house and hit replay, this is what I would have seen;

The dried up old siding would heave and chuckle trying to hold itself together as it shook with amusement, and the old crooked porch that regularly pulls itself away from the main house body in the cold, would sit straight and proper as it leaned in to listen to all the fun we’d had.

The roof would raise its eyebrows once or twice and blush—and oh yes, the eaves troughs would droop just slightly for that one—maybe two—spats in the face of autonomy when Pete and I sweated too much over the small stuff.

30 days have come and gone and this neck of the woods is back to relying on ‘Skype’ video chats and emails to keep in touch with the One.

And despite what some may think about computer technology, its connectivity is priceless—even when you look like a drowned rat at 6 a.m. as your husband’s face appears on the computer screen from half way around the world and smiles at your disheveled bed head.

20 years ago, I distinctly remember a vow I made never to own or be seen on a “videophone.” Today, I can’t imagine life without the advancements of visual communication accessibility to the world beyond my back door.

It’s taken a few days to clean up the leftover livelihood of this place—wonderfully amuck with the discarded lifestyle that is my husband.

And at the risk of writing about something that blurs the lines of what is too personal to account for; when I walked back in the door after seeing him off at the airport at 8:15 a.m., the scent of his Old Spice body wash still lingered in the humid house air from his morning shower and it smelled wonderful.

Who wants to clean up the chaotic clutter of the last 30 days at that juncture?

Not me.

But now, the little heaps of dirty socks, that if left too long in the corners of the bedroom would surely become condominiums for mice families, are in the laundry basket and the dint in the couch where a man camped out for hours watching countless episodes of ‘Stargate Atlantis’ and ‘Dr. Who’ has all but disappeared.

I put off washing the dirty dishes until I’d used up all the spoons and coffee cups and then, while putting away the drinking glasses from our last dinner together I had to chuckle.

Earlier this month Pete and I had been watching “The Dr. Oz” show wherein the medical guru had pushed the concept of cupping therapy—which uses vacuum pressure on the skin to create better “chi” energy flow and release toxins.

If there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that if my husband hears about something he thinks is a rad idea, make sure you aren’t the only guinea pig in the room.

And if you are the only chump, as I was for the first-ever cupping therapy test, chant, “This too shall pass.”

Trust issues came to the forefront of our relationship as I watched him ignite my ‘Bic’ candle lighter to flame the inside of a wine goblet as big around as a small dog, and then convince me to let him place six such apparatuses on my back.

Was not my “chi” already charged? What toxins? “I’m a vegetarian for gosh sakes!” I had argued.

With as much hesitation as I could muster in the face of such a wild and crazy guy, I conceded to the cupping therapy for all of about 25 seconds, and we laughed in stitches for most of it.

The only evidence that the procedure had worked were the six, raised, three inch round, red welts the wine goblets left behind on my back for a couple of hours.

Thankfully that did not happen same day prior to the pantyhose scare. The visual combination would have cost him his sight for sure.

30 days came and went.

Alone or not, I try very hard not to be somebody who spends all her time thinking about tomorrow.

I try very hard to live for right now so that I am not cheated of it, for it truly is all I that I am sure of.

Sometimes it is a most difficult task, but right now is the best and only place there is, despite what we wish for.

May I continue to remind myself of this over the next 14 weeks or so.

Confessions of a pantyhose diva

Sunday, January 17, 2010

There ought to be a law, or at the very least a warning label on packages of ‘Tummy and Thigh Slimmer’ pantyhose.

Cautionary advice in bold red print should flag the wearer against being seen by her spouse while stuffing herself into this nylon contraption—or for that matter—being seen with them on at any time by anyone other than her own reflection staring back at her in the mirror.

In my neck of the woods, that brief encounter with oneself in the mirror—torso buckled into a two-legged form of shrink-wrap that always seems two sizes too small—is probable grounds for an adjustment reaction counseling session.

And I can’t fathom the mathematical rationale of the pantyhose scientists of the world, whom I highly suspect are male, when sizing guidelines on these diva devices are established.

No matter how much weight is lost beforehand I never choose the correct size and never once have I managed to get them on without emulating the comedic contortionist routine of Jim Carrey.

I’ve known for years that I should be in an isolation booth when putting on pantyhose, and yet I can’t seem to take my own recommendations to fruition.

On Christmas Day I thought I did.

I waited until Pete was in the shower. I opened my dresser drawer and rummaged for the unopened package of pantyhose purchased a month earlier, ripped them open to reveal a scant what looked like “ten-inch in length pair of nothing.”

I sat on the edge of the bed with the toes of my right foot drawn in and pointed like a veteran ballerina as I slid them into the end of the nylon legging.

Pete was still in the shower belting out the only line he knows from a Bryan Adams tune. “I wear my sunglasses at night, so I can, so I can, keep track of visions in my mind,” he cried out.

I rolled my eyes and repeated the process for my left foot. No sooner did I have both feet in the pantyhose, did the waistband slam shut around my calves toppling me over as if my feet were bound with duct tape.

I crashed onto the bed to avoid falling on the bedroom floor and writhed like a dying snake as I pulled and jostled with the pantyhose, cursing the scientist for his mis-measurement of ‘Size D.’

10 minutes later I was in. I lay there gasping for breath, holding it once to listen for the sound of running water.

Thank Heaven, Pete was still in the shower.

I jumped up and exited the bedroom and was just in front of the bathroom door on my way to the spare room when my worst fears were realized.

“BETH!” the one bellowed from the shower, in the typical loud and annoying fashion of someone who obviously forgot we live in a 950 sq. ft. house pervious to even the slightest whisper.

“Yes honey?” I answered in my mouse voice, as I opened the bathroom door a sliver letting out a burst of hot bath steam that flattened the curls in my hair.

“Could you put some toothpaste on my toothbrush and hand it to me?” he asked.

What the heck. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to calculate that I could slip him the pasty toothbrush passed the edge of the shower curtain without revealing my not-so-nifty thigh huggers.

But I didn’t factor in that Pete would whip open the shower curtain and look out at me standing there vacuum-sealed in my pantyhose while loading the Colgate.

It was a “deer in the headlights” moment for both of us as I turned round to face him eyes wide open and dropped his toothbrush in the toilet as he shrieked out in high octaves.

I’d like to believe he was crying out over the toothbrush floating in the toilet water, but I tend to think it was a painful reaction to the retina scarring that came from seeing me in my hosiery.

If he wishes to remain healthy he will not however—in one million light years—ever admit to this theory.

It matters, it matters not

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

All I want for Christmas just came home.

On December 21^st, I had stood outside looking up at the night sky watching for the plane to appear in the night sky; first a star-sized light and on into a bigger and brighter drone that signaled a long wait over, as love landed safely in this neck of the woods.

I thought of poet James Wright and his description of anticipation.

“Suddenly I realize that if I stepped out of my body I would break into blossom.”

Seeing Pete get off the plane was as glorious as I had dreamed and being consumed in his arms out there on the airport tarmac was like a scene from a movie.

I thought of American writer Dave Barry who said “Magnetism is one of the six fundamental forces of the Universe, with the other five being gravity, duct tape, whining, remote control, and the force that pulls dogs toward the groins of strangers.”

Magnetism is that man I hadn’t seen in 291 days.

It was all I could do to share him with my surroundings and even for a wordsmith like me, I can not describe how right all things were with the world in that moment.

And then the adjustment reaction period set in and I was reminded of what I had been like for the last nine months and 12 days.

I plan, I read the instructions, I play it safe, I like to spend time alone, and I almost always know where everything is around here.

I think first (sometimes for days) then act, focus on one thing at a time, trust my gut, and think about future implications.

I am convinced by rational arguments, prefer to finish projects, and find comfort in schedules.

And as I have said before, I suppose that's why the Universe teamed me up with Pete, who has the fearless, adventure-driven, all-over-the-place essence of 'Yukon Cornelius' from the movie classic "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."

So, when all work and no play makes Beth a dull girl, life sends her husband home to muss up her hair, make absurd spontaneous decisions that involve money, stir the pot by using my tools and then not return them to their original location, and make our neck of the woods an unpredictable land mine series of events.

Sure, we have oodles in common--the least of which include the fact that we share the same inseam measurement, enjoy tea and chocolate, and dig 'Alien' movies. We love pigging out on chips and doughnuts, though not at the same time and we are technology hounds.

However, we continue to make a remarkable and magnificent case for the law of attraction between persistent opposites.

As I write this, some three weeks into into a month-long honeymoon I look out into the hallway from my writing place at the entrails of three days’ worth of “man clothing” strewn about just inside the doorway to the bedroom. Enough pocket change to buy coffee for six of my closest friends has spilled out of Peter’s jeans by his side of the bed and is ripe for pick up by the laundry woman who recently surfaced after a hiatus of more than half a year.

The kitchen table, which until a short time ago looked like a “photo op” for ‘House and Home’ magazine, is one-quarter covered with all the small stuff that was at the bottom of Peter’s suitcase—dumped there in an effort to find

one thing when he arrived home.

Once again the cheese has a dark dry edge on it from being left uncovered in the fridge which has been repeatedly raided at three o’clock a.m. by the guy still recovering from jet lag and leaving the grocery clerk with another 10 items to add to her list.

Dirty dishes in the kitchen sink have tripled in size and nearly all my shaving cream has been used up on man whiskers that once again can be found sprinkled in the small space behind the bathroom sink taps after his razor session.

And lately when I wake up in the morning, all the blankets I have so generously enjoyed all to myself are missing off my wintery cold skeleton and have gravitated to the other side of the bed where Pete lies rolled up in them, snoring like an old snow blower from 1971.

Speaking of which, I haven’t been able to get near our new John Deere snow blower since Pete got home, as he is always outside creating labyrinths around the farmyard with it.

All manner of guitar instruction booklets, picks, microphones, cords, stands, and gargantuan amplifier systems have appeared in the middle of our tiny living room, amassed there for his late night, early morning and afternoon jamming sessions.

Plans abound in this spontaneous construction technician that I am married to, who would love to build a house addition, raise the roof and the house all at the same time and all before the end of January.

This house, my life, my heart--all are very full.

And today, even if just for this moment, everything—even the mess on his side of the bed--is right in the world.