That sounds like a great idea

I’m going to have to be more specific in my titles, because I can’t tell from a quick preview whether I wrote about this already or not.

I think my husband’s mother must have been critical. I only got to meet her a few times before she passed away, but her nickname from others was “the Queen.”  I said ‘meet’ on purpose. She had dementia by the time I came into the picture and only remembered people that she knew before the dementia appeared.  So we kept getting introduced. Sometimes she liked me and that he was in a relationship, sometimes she pretended I wasn’t in the room.

He said when he was a kid her immediate response to any request from him was always NO.  You started at NO and worked backward from there to get what you want. She once told him that when he was little, she always thought he was out to get her.  He told me this story before we had kids, and I thought WOW, that’s dramatic.  And now that I’ve had kids, yeah, I can kind of see how the sentiment might arise.

I think his mom was critical, because for a long while when we were first married, he was SUPER sensitive to my response to anything that he said or asked.  *Exaggerated examples to follow, but really the truth was not far off.*

Him: I think we should paint this wall blue.

Me: Oh, is that the blue we looked at the other day?

Him: YOU NEVER AGREE WITH ANYTHING I WANT TO DO! I’M TRYING TO MAKE A GOOD DECISION AND WE CAN’T EVER AGREE ON ANYTHING!!!!

Him:  I’m thinking about making spaghetti for dinner tonight.

Me: Remember you showed me that chicken that is about to go bad and you wanted to cook that pretty soon.

Him:  YOU NEVER LIKE ANYTHING I COOK; I TRY SO HARD TO COOK THINGS YOU LIKE!!!!

Get it?

It was baffling to me, so illogical.  So I tried logic first (hahahahahaha) – no need to get upset, I’m just reminding you what YOU said etc.  Then I got mad right back. Um, not successful. Then I tried reassurances and affirmations during the hissy fit, he couldn’t hear it.  Then I came upon a trick that worked – through trial and error, exhaustion, despair – you know, all the best creativity boosters!

“That sounds like a great idea.”

I started to say this phrase after everything he said or asked.  It calmed down whatever was in his brain that was already waiting for me to be critical of his idea.  After awhile, I could say the phrase, count to 5, and then say whatever suggestion, alternative, reminder, idea and even an actual critique that I did have.  And he didn’t fly off the handle.

Him:  I think I’m going to cook spaghetti for dinner tonight.

Me:  That sounds like a great idea.  (5-4-3-2-1)  Oh hey, remember you said this morning you wanted to cook that chicken that was about to expire?

Him: Oh, right, I forgot, let’s do spaghetti tomorrow.

Him:  I think we should paint this wall blue.

Me:  That sounds like a great idea.  (5-4-3-2-1)  You know, I like the green color we looked at too, can we look at those again?

Him:  Sure.

I did this exact thing many times a day for many months, and I was waiting for him to get mad at me for trying to placate him or being insincere.  I never said it sarcastically, oh yeah, that’s a great idea, but I did say it plainly without enthusiasm or emphasis.  But he never did. He never noticed, and when I tell him about it, he doesn’t remember.

I’m not writing this to make him look bad or crazy, just a tip for you and for me to help each other’s brains calm down.  Or at least be aware that was is logical for you is not necessarily logical for me.  We all have our things.

 

Minutiae Magnitude

When we tell people we’re renovating our home, some ask if my marriage is strong, some make the sign of the cross in my general direction and one person cursed and spat on the sidewalk.

What I was not prepared for was the magnitude of minute little details that don’t go right.  Not the major disasters, the little things.  All of these issues require a few conversations, a few phone calls and at least one, but usually more than one, trip to a house of ill repute.  Or a hardware store.

This is what was presented to me over the space of a few hours one afternoon last week.

1. The organizational system I bought won’t slide in my enclosed alcove.
2. The matching shelf for the bathroom was too long for intended space.
3. The hot water pipe for bathroom sink didn’t reach spigot.
4. The PVC pipe under the bathroom sink drain was too short.
5. The medicine cabinet blocks half the bathroom lights.
6. The kitchen bar didn’t come with screws.
7. The screws that came with the heavy wine rack were too flimsy.
8. The new toilet sits 2 inches too far away from the hole in the ground.

And this was just on my plate for the day.  Jim was dealing with the leak in the roof, the rotting wood, the door that shouldn’t have been painted and on and on and on and on and on.

So before you make your This Old House dreams comes true, ask yourself this first.  Is your marriage strong enough to get a love letter like this?

I keep pressing the Hide button in the top right corner, but they keep finding me.

The Gem

First post from the Neighborhood Story Project Write-A-Thon is about Jim, my husband of 5 years, best friend for 8.  I’ve been meaning to write this for awhile, but the good things about people just aren’t nearly as fun to write as the irritating things!

This is not the most logical place to start, but it’s where my mind went that morning, sooo.  One of the best things Jim ever said to me was that he thought I was well endowed.  Seriously.  I called Sharla that night, and told her that I was definitely marrying Jim.  She said I thought you were already marrying him.  I told her what he said, and she completely understood.  When all your life you are referred to and joked about as flat-chested, and the man you love says otherwise (without mentioning the other xx pounds that came with ’em), well, that’s the one you marry.

He also told me that I was the first person he ever thought about having kids with; unfortunately, we had only been dating about 4 months at the time and I kind of laid into him.  You know, my whole decades-long-in-the-making speech about why I was not birthin no babies.  We were at the Red Shoe Pub in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia and as I went on and on about biology and overpopulation and the subjugation of women, he just stopped eating.  For Jim, that’s a big deal.

He knew early on, I guess I did too.  I remember telling Kelli before she moved out of town that I thought I would be dating him for a long time, and this was before the Red Shoe incident.

Here are just a few of my favorite things about Jim:

1.  He knows how to make me laugh in stressful situations.  We watched Peter Sellers in “The Party” on the airplane to Russia and for the rest of that trip, Jim just kept saying “Birdie num num” during any lengthy pause.  It’s a regular part of our family vocabulary now.

2.  I no longer make midnight runs to the convenience store to get Fluffy McNasty brand dog food because I’ve run out again.  Jim just brings home bags of food for Bucky, who annoys him endlessly, when it’s time. (same goes for paper goods, milk, diapers, cleaning products and headlamps.)

3.  He will dance whenever and wherever I ask (or the boys ask).  Not all that well.  But whenever.  And wherever.

4.  One of my favorite things to watch is Jim tying a canoe onto the top of a car.  I don’t know why, maybe because I had a bad canoe/wind/car experience on my own.  But there is something about the way he does it that is so assuring.  And hot.

5.  He has a total comfort with who is is most of the time.  It was what attracted me to him the most.  He once commented about some of the things that I was tweaking (glasses,  dressy shirts etc.)  He said you must have seen a lot of potential in me.  I corrected that immediately and told him that these things were merely cosmetic.  Women in their 40s don’t do potential.  He already had everything I was looking for.

So, I will post the Jimgems (“on ebay”) from time to time, because they’re funny and because most people think Jim is a quiet, unassuming, gentle soul.  I’m here to set the record straight.  Jim is an incredibly smart, funny, obsessive, hard-working,  and humble soul.  As Betsy says – Jim rocks!  (he’s also a geologist, get it!)

Now for a little cute and humble pie.

Rachel, You were…. right from rachel nicolosi on Vimeo.

Six degrees of salad dressing

Jim and I worked out together just once.  We were desperate for some activity, after fluctuating from comatose to mute despair watching the hurricane Katrina coverage .  We went to the small gym in the corner stall of the strip mall of my hometown.   It was where I used to stand as a teenager by the dumpster waiting for the Greyhound bus to take me away to New Orleans.

As I gazed at him working way harder than me on the stationary bicycle, I had an epiphany that has stayed with me through dating and married life with my Gem.

I realized the exact degree of complication to simplicity that separates us.  Complisimplicity is what causes the majority of our disagreeable conversations (?), huffy morning silences, and a whole host of who the hell is this person thoughts.

6 to 1.

Jim needs 6 things for every 1 thing that I need.

The Workout 6:

1-head band, 2-knee brace, 3-water, 4-walkman, 5-croakies for glasses, 6-shoe insoles.

My workout requirement:  water.

That day, (and we all get extra leeway during that hellish period in 2005)  if he couldn’t find each and every item, he was damn well not going, which he told me a dozen times as he sifted through the rubble of our things that were piled in Mom and Dad’s playroom.  We lived there for 2 months after disastrously built levees flooded our city following Katrina.  We couldn’t find anything and were usually on edge.  So, to workout to workout we go….. once.

I began to apply the 6:1 to everything that drove me crazy.  It helped.  Followed by a little OCD torture.

The Salad 6.  Oh, how I have come to suffer the salad.  If it is missing an ingredient; out comes the accusative tense (they really have this in Russian), the stop and stare, the about to get up and add to the salad until he sees my face.

1-butter lettuce only, 2-shredded cheese, 3-nuts, 4-dried fruit, 5- my homemade salad dressing, 6-specific plastic container.

Speaking of Plastic containers

Plastic containers plus kitty

The Plastic Container 6

1 – Leftovers, but only at home and never in the microwave. Also the hallowed salad container

2 – Microwave leftovers, only at home (bottom)

3 – Store dried goods only (brown sugar here)

4 – Take leftovers to work (microwaving allowed)

5 – Holds water in the freezer so it operates more efficiently. (currently 6 in freezer)

6 – Only cup he likes to drink morning milk out of – I know I know; it doesn’t fit, but I have to make 6, so it works for me and my little justification world.

7 – Cute kitty Rio waiting to tip the cup over.

I survive with easy little tortures (yes Abram, we torture our men to stay sane).  After exclaiming about a delicious dinner and how great it would be to take to work for lunch tomorrow, I’ll casually reach for the wrong container category just to get a reaction out of him.  What can I say, I’m twisted and evil.

Guilt alert: 6 Great things Jim did lately

1.  Asked if he could get a potty reward since he used the same spoon twice during breakfast, instead of dirtying up 2 clean ones.

2.  Set me up for diapers ready to go to the preschool, to the car, and in the “changing table”.  I will never have to run to the grocery store at midnight for emergency supply.

3.   Trimmed the lower limbs on the trees in our back yard so I can run around without bashing my head and scratching my eyes while playing soccer monster.

4.  He dances with me in the laundry room and dances with my son in the kitchen.

5.  Refills my PJs coffee card without comment

6.  He hasn’t asked me to make the salad for dinner in a very very long time, and not just because we have kids now.

 

Six to one.  I can live with that!

They Call me Cuatro

Okay, I just call myself that, but it sounded better as a title. Cuatro (as in number 4) is the moniker I used to use whenever Jim’s 3 other priorities were ruining my very existence. Or just annoying the hell out of me.

Before we had kids, here was Jim’s priority list, according to me.

1.   His mother
2.   Our 2 cats
3.   His projects
4.   Me

He denies this, of course, but sometimes when I couldn’t get his attention by saying his name at increasing decibels, I would just meow once, and he would immediately get up to see what the kitty needed.

Time has passed as has Jim’s mother and we now have two kids.  We’re both so busy, that Cuatro doesn’t come up as a complaint as much. If I had to make the list again, the kids have replaced his mother, all else is the same.

I’m revisiting it today because of this picture.

This is our dining room, and I am stretched out on the ugly black sofa that lives there, while Rio the kitty is perched on the chair about 2 feet away from me.  Jim comes in from the left, walks in between me and the kitty.  Stops to pet and talk to the kitty.  Does not even see me, walks into the kitchen and starts calling my name.  When he peeks back into the dining room, I’m just shaking my head, mumbling Cuatro under my breath.