Brian returns home for the week and bedlam prevails. There are holy jeans, shoes worn to the toe, and socks where the heels are moving toward the arch. When does the destruction fairy slip into our world and go wild with ruination abandon? The laundry suddenly piles up, dishes remain in the sink and bath towels disappear into a black hole.
I look about as my carefully organized life crumbles into conversations about the big dipper and how many spoons we can hold up to the sky until we can't see it, the underbelly of an earth worm or is there one..., how many times around can the dog chase her tail and how many minutes can a piece of driftwood float with a rock balanced on it.
In the middle of the day I get a call from Brian at school. He is in the nurses office. His leg is still bothering him from his skating fall last Thursday. Funny how he ran around just fine on it this morning... I go to the school to retrieve him, but wonder what he is not liking about school these days. He is limping, but after an hour's wait in the Dr.'s office she can only surmise that it is a bruise. I do note his new shoes from November laying across the floor of the examination room, look like a dragon chewed them up and spit them out. Maybe it is just time for a new pair of shoes...and jeans...
There goes the new outfit I was thinking about for myself...
I get him home, fix dinner, help him with math homework, which I ask you, "Why in the hell is a quadrilateral line parallel to anything and why do we care?" Is Brian becoming an Architect, or an Engineer? At 10? Good lord. Why couldn't he want to be a famous writer? Nope, he just happens to love Math.
And as he is asking me for help, I am trying to imagine two adults in bed and exactly how our positions would work to create a quadrilateral and who would be taller. HEY! Don't knock it - whatever way I can get my head wrapped around his math problem and help him solve it. As I am straining blood capillaries in my brain, Brian says "Oh never mind - I know this one". Oh thanks son ... now my head hurts.
I cast my eye about the place and there is stuff everywhere and I cannot figure out how this happens so quickly, but if I stop and ponder it, this is exactly how it happens:
...I am in the kitchen washing dishes and Brian calls "Mom"...I reply with "Just a minute" but a minute won't work so I stop what I am doing to go to his room for him to show me he can spin a top...ok...then he says he's hungry...I go back and fix him a snack with the dishes half done...but before I can finish putting the snack stuff away, Brian's friend comes in through the back door...letting in the cat who is now hungry...and to no surprise, so is the friend...I make another snack and tell Brian to feed the cat, which makes the dog want something...Brian feeds both pets with dry food where their bowls look like dry food towers...and leaves the bagged food next to the pet feeding area...I, of course don't see this because I am making a snack...which I give to Brian's friend...as my mother is knocking on my front door...(of course she is because my house can't ever be clean when she pops by)...she brings gifts from Hawaii... which Brian opens with great glee...but... as with grandparents they buy stuff that comes in millions of pieces that I will be stepping on in the middle of the night...I am sure it is revenge for the times I made her worry...the boys take their shoes and socks off in the living room and spread Brian's new gifts across the floor to admire...my gift, a wooden bowl gets set on the counter because I think I need to wash it before putting it on a shelf to collect dust from non-use...I notice the coffee table has pencil shavings from the homework Brian started, along with glass water rings and rubber bands...the ice pack is on the floor next to the table along with 4 pencils, three crayons, a dog toy, a napkin and more rubber bands...what is it with boys and rubber bands..?...of course my mother takes the seat right in the middle of his mess and now I can't focus on her Hawaii stories ...I am only hoping she isn't sitting on something Brian has left behind...she finally leaves and I realize I need something from the grocery store... I race madly to Safeway and return home to fix dinner...begin dishes, only to have Brian interrupt me for more homework help of which I need my own tutor for...then comes the coercion to get him to shower...then I need to do a load of laundry because he has no socks ...or clean jammies...we compromise with sweat clothes...and at some point I fall onto my bed with a book that I end up falling asleep to...only to wake up this morning and wonder what happened to the place...
and don't even get me going on the morning ritual...
I laughed when I was listening to my morning radio show, Bob and Sheri and a woman called in to say that all she wanted for Valentines Day was to come home to a clean house that she didn't clean. No toys on the floor, no shoes and socks tossed everywhere, no dishes in the sink - a perfectly clean home. She also wanted to be able to enjoy it this way for two days. The idea of it turned her on...hell it turned me on.
It is amazing how we go from wanting flowers and jewelry for romance to just a home that looks like a fresh hotel room when we enter it.
Until next time-
C
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