There’s a stranger in my house. She’s the same height as me, roughly the same hair color, and she seems to have a good report with the Hunter and the Gatherer, but her head seems thick, her responses are delayed, and aromatic smells seem to be of little interest to her. The most peculiar feature is her singular red eye. You don’t notice it at first; probably because of the glasses and squinting in bright sunlight.

She made cinnamon rolls, like mine, she helped sweep the fallen leaves, like I do, and she even ignored the same phone calls that I do. The problem is, she’s foggy headed, makes crude noises when she attempts breathing from her nose, and has this ocd hand washing thing. She’s obviously trying to push though and be a team player when she would clearly be more comfortable on a sofa with a cup of hot tea and a trashy novel.

Instead of giving into her basest desires, she convinced herself she wasn’t sick or rundown, and insisted on going downtown to watch the crew races. Apparently she had been looking forward to it for weeks, sculling shells, synchronized movement, coded blades.

Today, she has done little save unloading the dishwasher, and a couple of loads of laundry. She isn’t a bad guest, but she isn’t much on conversation and she has spent much of the day sleeping. I’m ready for her to move on, she cramping my style, reducing my productivity and she snores. Loud.

I’m at age in which some women develop a twitchy obsession fueled by the echo of ticking clock in their brains. I can’t hear it. Maybe it’s beyond the spectrum of my hearing frequency, or maybe the white noise of life’s minor complications prevents me from recognizing the sound. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with that. Hearing or not hearing the sound.

My persona prevents me from attempting tasks, important tasks, I will completely and utterly suck at. Sure, I participate in book club, and inevitably miss a laundry list of pertinent points contingent to the plot because I get my head wrapped around some non-essential and typically ghost like element. Yet, I still participate, because I know I will learn from my failure at book club, I’m rather accustom to making an ass out of myself, but most importantly, my inability to grasp the existential crisis occurring on the pages will not impair the emotional development of another or cease them from expanding the skills necessary to interact in polite society. Raising a child, on the other hand, has too much contingent upon being reasonably competent.

I learned to be a low maintenance child. My Dad traveled on business, and Mother worked long hours. I was never neglected, but I did spend many hours around adults, and become emotionally self-sufficient as a result. It worked out well at the time. My parents needed me to be low maintenance, because it was time in which they needed to take care of themselves. I’m not bitter.

Anymore.

As I’ve gotten older I have better understood, if not empathized the changes people go through and the notion that for adults to make better families they need things reserved for themselves that on the surface might appear to be selfish but really provide a level of personal functionality and consequently making them better people, thus trickling down into family life making the experience more bearable for all involved.

Economy of emotion coupled with my inability to share my self, lead made me worry I couldn’t (or wouldn’t) give a little person my undivided attention when it was needed, or that I would feel so drained from giving them so much of my self, there wouldn’t be any me left over for me. A partial commitment isn’t good enough. It’s a selfish attitude, but it’s also an honest acknowledgment of self.

When I see them, babies with their pudgy limbs, and flailing hands, and gassy smiles, I see parental pride, hidden potential, and the incomplete features of a being that will profess both love and hate to the parents for years to come, but I also see frailty that leaks all sorts of disgusting things from it’s orifices. While a relatively low percentage of babies have actually been broken by someone as oafish as me, I cannot tolerate pressure of new parents glaring at me while a try to adequately support the neck, and properly mirror their joy at seeing this living breathing extension of their union with endless potential and a nose like its grandfather. I’m happy for them. For their health, for the joys, and the new experiences to come. I just don’t want to hold it until they’ve torn the tag off and learned the with all that frailty is a remarkable durability. Cartilage is king.

The closest I come to hearing the clock, is visiting animal shelter, or when lady with the blue merle Australian shepherds passes with her dogs. It’s not the same, but it is closely linked to the desire to nurture, stimulate, and foster companionship. There is much to be said for the returned affection, the ease of communication, the relief of not navigating the complexity of adolescent relationships, or maintaining a level of zen calmness necessary in teaching a teenager to drive safely, but mostly for not scarring someone for life.

Summer is slipping away, and with it, the false optimism that accompanies sunny days, fresh squeezed lemonade, and picnics at the water’s edge. I remember when summer was MY season. It served as a laid back reprieve from all the adolescent insecurities that go along with trying and failing to fit in with your peers. The need for a rescue season hasn’t diminished upon becoming an adult, but the notion of a seasonal reprieve from reality no longer exists. There is nothing seasonal about it.

It’s reduced to a moment here and there.

It isn’t important it occur at once, but it requires patience seeking out Easter eggs during the drudgery of everyday ordinary. Most of life seems to be quite ordinary and tedious, and that is if you are the fortunate ones. Perhaps beneath our largest organ, all of us are destined to be advertising executives presenting our lives to others in a more interesting light than things actually occur. Are we selling to others, or are we selling to ourselves? I suspect a little of both.

*******

Last of the fireflies

I briefly considered catching a few of these over the summer to keep in a jar in my bedroom for a few days, until a experienced a votive candle moment and remembered the last time I acted on a similar brainfart.

I caught a few dragon flies, to dry for drawing references. I know, not exactly insect friendly. I sealed them in a plastic peanut butter bar waiting for, uh nature to take its course. I put the jar on the fireplace mantel with the intent of checking it for signs of life later. Dragonflies don’t go quietly. They have fits of violent movement that attract the attention of sedate housecats.

The cat knocked the jar from the mantel, and chased around the house like a hamster in a ball. But the dragonflies didn’t fair well, not very durable dragonflies in a jar. No drawing specimens for me, but the cat, he might have shed a pound or two.

Did you get the memo? You know the one yesterday? Oh, maybe not. I’m sorry I didn’t mean to overlook you, of course you are important to me. Please accept my sincerest apologies, oh the memo? Well yesterday was national hand-your-contractor-his-ass-on-a-spit-day. I’m sorry you didn’t know. It would more fun to celebrate together. You know after I finished grinding my teeth and pacing up and down the driveway. Well, no matter, we can celebrate together the next time it rolls around.

********

After last summer’s drought, I told myself I wouldn’t complain about the rain, and I’m not, but wow, the frequent showers this month have made it difficult to complete work. Green things are thriving without any assistance from me, which is the best way. My assistance leaves much to be desired where green things are concerned.

*******

Do you ever wonder after a lavish wedding if the bride and groom look back when they are courting the seven year inch and say, “Wow I wish I would have a simpler reception instead of a sit down dinner for a hundred fifty so that I could have invested that portion of my wedding budget into a portfolio to pay for marital counseling later.”

******
So, my better half reads one or two books a week. His job seems to allow more free time than my (ahem) job. Go figure. Anywho. At one point five paperbacks a week there are lots of books in the house. Our reading taste don’t intersect often, but I will read from his library occasionally, because it seems ridiculous with soo many books lying around. Case in point: I’m reading Stephen King’s Lisey’s Story. At least trying. I’ve gotten bogged down. The protagonist has just been tortured with a can opener. I’m not terribly squeamish about content, but this scene, described minimally in the book has left my inner imagination spinning out of control.

What is so perplexing is I read this years ago and never gave it much thought. I guess the difference is I have spent the past few weeks getting to know King’s protagonist, where as in the other book the victims were largely devoid of soul.

*****
Onward. There is a low chance of rain and a paint roller calling my name.

Everything has a beginning: love, hate, disaster, joy, inconvenience even madness. Beginnings serve as landmarks reminding us of the precise moment when everything turned to crap. Frequently the catalyst which sets things in motion seems inconsequential at the time. Yet there is still a burning desire to trace the exact moment things went amiss, as if knowing could effectively turn back the hands of time.

And so it began with a sliver of peeling paint on the deck rail, and a phone call. Two separate impetuses leading in opposite directions. The phone call I prefer not to consider, but the peeling paint provided a way to keep my hands busy on the phone. Phone calls require an enormous amount of pacing on my part, not that each calls is worthy of such abstract busyness, but I find it almost impossible to stand still while listening on the phone. Perhaps it is the embedded notion of feeling the constant need to multi-task or maybe just a non-threatening version of attention deficit disorder. Either way, I stood at the rail lifting paint with my fingernail until a turned a small imperfection into a gaping problem as I exfoliated the deck rail of sheets of paint exposing the raw wood.

I created the problem so it seemed only logical I correct it. I set about the business of scraping and sanding with the intent of priming and repainting. It would be my side project. A maintenance project undeserving of adult supervision, because damn it, I can paint, sand, and clean up after myself.

All was fine until the Better Half (BH) intervened and offered to help. I offered a paint scraper and resumed working. After ten minutes or so, he suggested replacing the deck flooring (a.k.a. my current assignment is too tedious and there is no credit to be gleaned from simple maintenance, I want a more glamourous, or perhaps supervisory position). I never solicited his help in this. I took responsibility for defacing my own property. I agreed and told him to do the prep and planning if he could finish in a week or less. It’s a small deck and the flooring has water damage, even if it isn’t dangerous or rotting. I continued scraping and sanding as he ran the numbers. He wants to replace the rail as well, but I refuse. The rail is usable, not worthy of a landfill, and I have already spent hours on sanding and scraping.

The next morning, we rented a truck and purchased supplies. This took four hours. Next, BH started some mild mannered demolition pulling up deck boards, as I continued sanding and scraping. During demo, BH discovers we have water damage to the siding, and feels we need professional help. I concur.

Again, he offers to help scrape paint, while we wait for the professionals. This time, he works maybe twenty minutes, before deciding this is still too tedious and thankless, and suggests we take the railing apart for better scraping. Fine, I say, label the parts so we can put it back together after painting. Once again labeling is too tedious, but I refuse to budge on this. Shit always happens, and we usually finish projects like this weeks behind schedule. He relents but walks away before demo is complete leaving me to pry out rusty nails, and continue scraping.

He lines up a repair guy, and I spend 8 hours painting primer on the rail parts. Gotta love those four sided spindles. Two guys show up for repairs and BH spends most of the day supervising and talking with them. I’m a little put out by this. Not the talking or the chest puffing, but the fact they seem to think as the token female my job drop whatever I’m doing to listen. If they don’t want to work fine, but preventing me from getting work done is a deal breaker. This is BH’s domain. I walk away to paint the deck rails. Throughout the day, I complete 4 loads of laundry, cook breakfast, straighten up, clean paintbrushes, rip a few boards, clean the pond filter, and cook dinner. The BH, well he supervises, and he watches me paint.

That night at midnight, a thunderstorm moves and dumps almost an inch of rain. Nothing is protected except for a few pieces of siding. I wake up to the sound of thunder, and walk through the house muttering golfing words. There is an eave, but the siding is removed, exposing the house innards to moisture. The next morning all is okay, but there is more damage exposed that must be repaired. Groan. The men work until the lunch, when the rain returns.

Today the rain continues, the work is incomplete, and it is too rainy for me to finish painting the rail. I guess I’ll read a book instead. At least there is no structural damage, and the water damage will be repaired and the siding replaced, though I will have to paint the siding as well once repairs are complete. Thankfully this isn’t one of those second mortgage repair jobs, it simply an inconvenient one, but aren’t they all. Who knew lifting the corner of some loose paint could stimulate the economy so effectively?