RFP - 8/25/09

Mornin, Mornin... I'm not talking to Paul and haven't since Sunday night... It is my way of dealing with him and his issues - maybe it is not the right way, but when you have two people so dynamically different in dealing with issues, it is the only way I can do it...

He's been a grouch since last week, flying off the handle without advance warning or reason (for the most part)... My nature is to deal with him, ignoring it for the most part... And then he 'fills up the patience slot' with enough and that's it... PERIOD... If I'm in a weak spot myself, I can take no more and let him know in loud terms I've had enough!... I probably ignore 8 or 9 out of every 10 of these incidences, but when they do eventually happen, it's always hell around here!

The sad part about all of this is even after 12 years, Paul still does not recognize when he gets like this, nor the harm it does to me when he strikes out at the closest person around him (usually me)... He professes to dislike hollering strongly, but fails to use the same rules for his own self!

I got a tetanus shot on August 4th and for the first week, I felt no ill effects from it - nothing like they told me about at my doctor's office... About week two, I started getting more extreme pain levels (particularly in my hips and back, then it moved onto my knee joints)... Not two weeks into having the shot, I could barely walk... Each step was like getting socked in the back of my brain at the base of my neck!

Eventually I gave in and called my doctor who has been seeing me for 12 years now... The next day after the tetanus shot he was hospitalized and isn't expected to be back to his practice until at least the end of November... I don't have another doctor to see or know, so I'm stuck trying to deal with this now...

But life goes on around here - there is no one else to pick up my slack when I go down, so I kept pushing through it... Last week (I think it was Wednesday), I could no longer put off a few errands that I had to get done, so I fed the dogs early in the morning, gathered my list and off I went... By 2:30PM, each and EVERY step was painful - like a number 8 or 9 on a scale of 10 - and I called it quits for the day...

I sat in my truck underneath the breezeway and cried... I'm not normally a crybaby about pain, but just the thought of trying to get all those groceries into the house by myself was simply overwhelming... After a 15-minute period of feeling sorry for myself and debating about how soft the ice cream had now become, I thought about the small collapsible dolly we have and that I could probably get most of the cold stuff into the house with that...

I sorted out the groceries and managed to get all into the house, leaving the non perishable items in my truck for someone else to bring in... Then step, by painful step, it took me almost an hour to get the dogs out, the doggie door put back in, everything put away inside the house I'd purchased that day, get the dog dishes picked up and finish putting the kitchen back of some kind of order...

Paul came into the house shortly thereafter - he is always a man of fixed habits - reached up to the cigarette box to get a pack for his briefcase before he set it up for the night... OMG... Dependable and reliable Linda had not magically refilled the cigarette box!!!... I committed a crime and his body language plus the look skyward to the ceiling along with the grimace and comment that I hadn't gone to the cigarette store??? was like stepping on my last nerve!

Open a dictionary and look up "jerk" and you'll see my husband's face that day!

I consider it a major accomplishment to have gone and done all those errands, plus feeding the dogs, getting their meds, the house picked up, the normal chores done... Shame on me for not making 8 stops instead of 7 that day~~!!!.. And in no short terms, I told him so when he got back... Not politely either!

It's that old 80/20 principle, ya know? 20% of the people do 80% of the work, and 80% of the people get irritated when the remaining 20% of the work isn't done like they expect it to be!... Things just 'magically' get refilled around here... No one notices them when this house operates as status quo - only when it doesn't...

I don't like whiners and complainers and absolutely do my best to not be one, but that day? If any day? I certainly was entitled to be grouchy and should have been tended to by my family members instead of getting that rude behavior... I can put both of my family's pain levels together and mine will still exceed their combined total! (and to my own detriment as well)...

Fast forward to Sunday afternoon (after a MISERABLE adoption day on Saturday with my body's aches and pains)... Paul snaps that he NEVER gets a day off and is tired... Ya know that nerve he stepped on Wednesday?... He tore the scab right off of it all over again!... GRRRRRRRRRRRR...

He doesn't get a day off from life?... Well, no one gets a day off from life...

You buy a house?... You have things that need to be tended to, repaired, maintained, fixed, whatever - if you don't want to do this, you don't buy a house and continue to rent so someone else has the responsibilities...

You get married?... You have a relationship that needs to be nurtured, respected, tended to, etc. - or stay single and don't have the responsibilities.. You have children?... You have to fed, clothe, cuddle, love, interact, etc. or just don't have kids (or pets, same difference)...

This is life and when you get 'time off', you've stepped into your coffin... Then you have an infinite number of days off... I wish I'd gotten a day off somewhere in my life and still been able to live the rest of it... I've always been a wife, mother, friend, employee, partner or something that required me to show up for life each and every day of life!... There has ALWAYS been something that needs doing or tending to, fed, cleaned up or whatever!

Heck, I still have a kitchen cabinet that needs installation from when I redid the entire kitchen in the summer of 2008~!!!... If I could install it by myself, it would have already been done!...

And remember when Desiree plowed my truck into the brick flower bed three years ago???... It's still in disrepair and I don't know how to do brickwork... If I did, it would have been fixed already and whenever I use my truck, it wouldn't annoy me like it does...

Every year, twice a year, I 'balance the tightrope' and cut the vines back alongside of the pool, walking along the edge of the brick... How wide is a brick? 4"?... And it is 50' long as you bend over, cut and drag the vines to the other end... I haven't fallen into the pool yet, but then again, I'm not dead yet either, so I'm sure I will before it is all said and done...

Get a day off?.... PLEAZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

As Always,
The Lady