What About Mom

We took Dick to the airport this morning, and since I had a wee breakdown on Saturday, in which I calmly pointed out that he had not washed a single dish nor picked up a single black sock since my surgery, we stopped on the way to the airport so Dick could vacuum out the minivan, thus capping a marathon of pre-business-trip, guilt-induced deep cleaning. I’m sure he’ll find plenty of time between sessions to prepare his own presentation.

I hope that it is not codependent of me to say that I already miss him. I already miss his body next to mine in bed — close enough to touch, but far enough away in our king-sized bed for touching to be a matter of choice rather than necessity. I also miss that he will not be able to stay up until 2am before an important trip to fix my blog in Internet Explorer when it was perfectly fine in Firefox.

So this morning, well-rested, I drove, and ate my fourteenth McDonald’s breakfast in one month (is having a regular family order for the drive-thru an indication of nutritional abuse?). Dick could not find the airport if he were in a plane and it was lit up like a marching band. I said, “Don’t go,” in my cute little-girl voice and Dick just smiled.

He said, “Remember we can’t talk on the phone this time like we did last year.” Last year we were surprised by a huge bill for roaming charges even though national roaming, like long distance, is included on our Verizon plan. Apparently Vancouver is part of Canada, which is not actually part of the United States, but I think that’s just the phone company’s way of extorting more money. Along with not rolling over minutes and charging millions of dollars for calls originating at 8:59pm even though 99% of the call takes place after 9pm. Even if it’s 9pm in Vancouver, which is on Pacific Standard Time because Vancouver IS still along the Pacific Ocean, even if it turns out to not be part of the US of A.

Dick wondered if I remembered what our long conversations were about last year. Of course: he got lost driving from Vancouver to Seattle, because, as everyone knows, one has to cross an international border to do that. The only possible route is Highway 1, also known as Highway 99 in Canada (because in the metric system you number things from East to West), but it’s still really confusing because the signs are in Canadian English, so they say things like Turn Right, eh?

Dick remembered a different long conversation from last year. About my blog and something that wasn’t working right. Which hardly ever happens. I mean, computers always do exactly and only exactly what you tell them to do, right? And even if they did do something weird, what are the chances of my needing technical support right when Dick is supposed to go OUT OF THE COUNTRY? If he could just stay in the United States, I’m sure I wouldn’t need any help. And maybe Verizon would stop trying to convince us that Canada is not the 51st State.

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More MMSM

Tara wrote about her memories of BYU and what classes she would have taken if she had realized that what she would be spending her life doing isn’t exactly exhaustively covered in your basic liberal arts education. I remember when I first realized this — when we settled back in the US and I started to “stay-at-home” in earnest. Why did I think cooking/sewing/gardening/fix-it’ing were lamentably “vocational”?

Marianne at Writer-Mommy wrote about the bittersweet memories of her kids’ toddlerhood. Check out the picture of Mommy plus little girl plus baby. Is it just me or does the mommy look about 16 in that picture? Wish I looked that good AT 16! I love reading something where I think: I have felt that exact same thing, but this is expresses just so, so right. (Although, being still in the toddlerhood, I’m just assuming that one day I’ll miss it!). 

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