My wife flies back from San Francisco today. My anxiety levels should return to their regular low boil in the next day or two. And who knows? I might just find myself back in a blogging mood.
The girls and I managed quite well during her week of absence -- this has been the year of travel for her, and we've figured out our routine for dealing with it -- but there was one night where everything came to a head. A local friend with older daughters came by and asked if we'd be interested in some stylin' hand-me-downs. I said sure, so a couple of bags were handed over. Some mechanical "barking" could be heard coming from one of the bags. "Oh," said my friend, "those are just some MicroPets my kids wanted to give away."
Note to self: do not wait until the bedtime hour to settle the issue of who gets which toy.
Tears were flowing, and there seemed to be no immediate way to staunch them. The younger daughter was in a white hot fury over the injustice of the paper-scissors-stone outcome; the older was feeling badly for her sister's misery; and I was having none of it, because it's all too common for the younger to pull this stunt in an effort to steer things her way.
I hope escalation is a tactic that works better for the nations of this beleaguered planet than it did for the three of us that night.
When exhaustion finally took its toll and the urchins were asleep, I retreated to the office and opened my e-mail. Let's see what we have here... It seems my wife and her co-worker are slumming it in Haight-Ashbury. Music pouring out of a theatre; they walk, and notice a back exit door is open, so they step in to see what's going on. Security stops them before they get anywhere.
"Who's playing?" they ask.
"Bob Dylan and The Kings of Leon," they're told. "Show's just about over."
"Oh," says my beautiful wife. "We'd love to see them. Any chance we could just slip in and watch from the wings?"
"Hmm," says security. "I'll have to check." He disappears. A few minutes later he's back. "Sorry," he says. "Can't do that. But go to the front door. Sometimes they just let people walk in for the end of the show."
They walk to the front. No dice.
And now I can thank Dylan's security team for keeping our marriage on an even keel, and more or less free from the weeds of envy. More or less.
3 comments:
Sounds like one of your lovely wife's faults came out to the forefront here.
Honesty
If I recall a description of her from not too long ago, you had bragged (as would we all, WP) that she bore a startling resemblance to someone else.
Now, it seems to me, if she weren;t shackled with the need to be truthful, she could have easily pawned herself as Ms. Shocked and had herself and her peeps admitted.
Heck, she may even have made it onto the stage!
That darn honesty! Always getting in the way of fun.
Now, it sounds like your youngest may be heavily into self-tutoring her way onto soem future stage. Be prepared to be tagging along.
Yes, I can attest that mini-prajer is very powerful. Much like Luke Skywalker, she has choices to make... Fortunately her elder is a big hearted sort.
Now in my childhood it was an elder sibling who possessed "a way with words" using his powers over his little brother. So the chickens come home to roost, heh heh heh! Oops, that chuckling was more sinister than I intended.
DV - if she'd just brushed up on her Texan lilt, she might have pulled it off. Mind you, had Bob given her a guitar, everyone would have looked bad.
anon - you may counsel your niece in the methods of the Sith, so long as her mother and I get to go to the movies.
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