Mother's Day 2013

I always have weird feelings when it comes to Mother's Day.  It's partly because my relationship with my mother is not really that great for reasons I won't go into here.  I remember a few years ago sitting in church on Mother's Day and crying.  I felt like my mother was lost to me.  It's complicated.

Today's Mother's Day wasn't too shabby.  I mean, the kids don't seem to understand the concept of sleeping in, and right after breakfast Husband asked me to help fix some sort of pulley thing on the car. I'm pretty sure pulley thing is the technical name.  Oh, wait, Husband tells me that it's actually called a belt tensioner, not pulley thing.  He may or may not have laughed at me when he corrected my phraseology.

Side note: Shut up.  I'm not actually stupid.  In fact, I have a very high IQ.  I just know nothing about useful things, like cars.  However, if you'd like to discuss Shakespeare, psychoanalysm as it applies to literature, deconstructionism, or play a nice game of chess, hit me up.  Only I suck at chess. 

Roughly 3/4 of my "helping" involved standing by and praying that Husband didn't smash his fingers and lose use of his hands forever.  Then I'd have to do everything for him.  It would be hard, but we'd adjust.  I also tried to plot what I would do if he did smash his fingers.  Did I even remember how the jack works?  But he didn't smash his fingers.  Then he asked me to help him get the belt thingy back onto the pulleys.

"Time to get your hands dirty," he said.  I didn't move from my spot.  "Did you hear me?  I said it's time to get your hands dirty."

"Oh," I said.  "I thought you meant the general 'you' and were just announcing what you were doing."

Husband laughed.  "You, Kif!*  You get your hands dirty!"  And so I did.

We finished up and Husband went to pick up some ingredients for lunch.  He brought the grocery bag in and set it on the counter, then disappeared.  In the bottom of the bag, I found this:

Nom.  My favorite.

The day was looking up until I voiced some concern about some suspicious looking spots on the coconut I was about to crack open.  He looked at me, chuckled a bit and said those were the eyes where you poke the holes to drain the water.

And I just looked at him.

You see, I know exactly what those depressions in the shell are for.  They were not what I was talking about.  I tilted the coconut and showed him a few small, grey spots on the shell that were the cause of my trepidation.

"Did you really think I was talking about those eye things?  I know what those are.  You must think I'm some special kind of stupid if you think I was talking about the eyes.  I know what the eyes are for." (No offense to those that have never had or seen a whole coconut and don't know what those eyes are for.)

"It's just that you've led a very sheltered life," he said defensively.  "I didn't know you knew."  Well, he had me there.  We weren't allowed out much growing up.  But I don't so much call that sheltered as...well, there's no word I can find to stick here that quite means what I want.  Let's just stick with sheltered.

We had a lovely chicken dinner made from a Jacques Pepin recipe with mashed potatoes and roasted carrots from our garden.

And then, and then, something horrible happened.  You see, I've recently started to write again.  I don't mean blogging.  As the kids are getting older, I've decided to make another very serious go at being a novelist.  Before you snicker and say my writing isn't nearly polished enough, I'd like to assure you that it is.  See, to me, blogging is like talking.  It's informal.  It's how I would speak to you.  Novel writing is something completely different and I assure you that I'm capable.  Being a novelist was always the plan.  It's been the plan since high school.  Except now I am able to carve out the time needed.  But back to the terrible thing.  My laptop died.  Like, died.  So long, bye-bye, it is no more.  It's been making some wheezing sounds, then occasionally would turn itself off, then finally it no longer recognized the internet or its own power cord.  It's dead, Jim.  And it's horrible.  I don't have to fight the kids for the use of my laptop because it's, well, my laptop.  And Husband wouldn't have to come find what I was up to because I was right there, in my big chair, with my laptop.  Very visual.

The good news is that I had a feeling this was coming.  The same way I felt the washing machine was about to bite it and started researching the crap out of replacement models.  So one of the very last times I used my laptop, I backed up the partially finished novel previously mentioned.  I don't have to start over.  That'd be awful.

So, we're winding down Mother's Day with a pretty nasty headache trying to turn into a migraine that I'm managing with ibuprofen, herbal tea, and diluted peppermint oil.  After 15 years of chronic tension headaches, I've learned a few tricks.  Also, Husband and I spent some time snuggled on the couch and watched Storm Chasers.  That was awesome.  The cuddling I mean.  Storm Chasers is OK.  And then Husband made me eggs benedict just because I was cranky and had a craving.  The man loves me.



*For you non-geeks, it's a Futurama reference.
Zapp Brannigan: "Have the boy lay out my formal shorts."
Kif: "The boy, sir?"
Zapp Brannigan: "You, Kif!  You lay out my formal shorts!"
The "You, Kif!" meme is something we say a lot in my house.