The Kind Of Wife I Want To Be

A couple of weeks ago, near Father's Day, Momma and I went out and did our thing.  By that I mean, we shopped and looked and bought and basically had a good time together.  On the way to take her home, after we got all the ingredients for a slumber party I was planning, she mentioned that she was hungry.  Which of course made me feel like a giant jerk, because I was buying ingredients for what turned out to be an amazingly light pesto lasagna.

Momma asked that I take her to Subway, which of course I did.  I figured we were getting her dinner, so I didn't think too much of it.  As I was checking where my slumber-party partner was on the road, I overheard her order dinner for my dad.  That made me check back in.  She listed everything he'd want on a sandwich.

Wow.  She knows him so well that she knows what he wants to eat.

A day or so later, I watched a Behind The Scenes of Oprah's final season, the one where she had Barack and Michelle Obama on the show.  The clip from the actual episode had to do with the (flamingly idiotic) birthers, and how the President had released his birth certificate.  He said something about how he thought it was funny, the whole situation about people thinking he wasn't American.

Michelle Obama said, "I don't."  The look of ferocious protectiveness was so very telling.

That's the kind of wife I want to be.

Fly Away Home

For the past few weeks, we've been trying to figure out the logistics for getting GPOM's cat to me.  Finally, it seemed that the cat would fly into Nashville, where I would get her at the ungodly hour of 8am.  On a Sunday.  You do know that I jealously guard my Sundays, right?  So today when GPOM called, he told me to expect a delivery tomorrow.  But then he dropped the bomb.

Hoops is flying into my town.  Oh, thank christ, into my town.  At a realistic hour.

Of course, this means that I had to buy litter and a box, food and treats.  I did the best I could, and when I texted pictures to GPOM, he replied with, "Meow".  I guess this means that she's be OK with it.

Here's the thing - up until I got that call and thought a bit, I kinda resented having to keep his cat.  But once I thought about the twelve-hour journey for a seventeen-year-old cat, my stomach started knotting up, and I thought about getting her here safely, and about how we'll get to know (and tolerate) each other.

Everything's ready, finally, including me.  So please get here safely and well, little Jupiter.  We'll take our time to fall in love.  And your boy will be here soon enough.

Lazy

I am a woman of routines.  If my keys don't go into the basket on top of the wicker planter that I use as a shoe tree, I'll never find them again.  If I don't TiVo Judge Judy at the right time, everything falls to pieces.  When I change from day to night clothes and don't set the alarm at the same time, I'll wake up late for work and the world will throw me curve balls the size of your head.

So I do laundry on Sundays.  All the loads that need to be done are done on Sundays.  Sunday is my day off, and I fight fight fight like hell to ensure that I do nothing on Sundays that would even mildly smell of anything. 

Most of my friends know this, and a few are afraid to call me on Sunday.  I'd apologize, except that I can't.  I love Sundays for the time I need to be an idiot.  (And talk to Momma.) (And do laundry.)

This weekend a very good friend came to visit, and we may or may not have drank a lot of delicious rum, combined with mint and club soda and no regret.  Sunday morning/afternoon was spent laying on my fold-out (sideways - thanks, Ikea!) couch watching Bravo.  Wondering when our heads would return, but delighting in my quippy comments (thanks for pretending I'm funny, my friend!) and thinking that maybe that last batch was the best/worst idea ever, and eating Fiber One bars.  What?

This long story is to tell you that I'm finishing up laundry tonight, I have more to do tomorrow, and I think I'm doing just fine.

I Can't Count The Days

GPOM leaves on the 30th of this month, and will probably arrive directly after the 4th of July.  His van is booked, and the next plan is to get his cat to me as quickly as possible.  They're travelling separately, you see.  I am very excited to have him here, and I want his trip to be as easy and safe and beautiful and interesting in possible.

So, shall I be honest?

I haven't lived with someone since 2004, and before that, I lived with Momma in a huge house, and before that, my college roommate who lived more with her boyfriends than me.  I have no idea how to do this, and I'm nervous and scared and afraid that my lifestyle, completely unobserved, is going to change in a way that I can't even fathom.

And I've been fathoming.

I want him here, I want him gone, I wonder how long it'll be before we resent each other and hopefully learn how to get over it.

It's getting real, people.  I'm getting equally scared and excited.  I hope you'll indulge me as I tell you all about it.

On the plus side - more "adult" interactions!  I would apologize for my PG-13(?) comment, but c'mon.

We Have A Date

GPOM leaves Seattle no later than 4pm on June 30.  Every planning part of me is dancing, because I've hated not knowing what was going to happen when.  Planning part of me now says that I should see him around the Fourth of July.

Yay!  My baby's coming home!

Crap!  So much for eating for the next month!

YAY!

Pretentious

A million years ago, before EPCOT even existed, I lived in Florida.  (Close enough to Disney that it was a daily event, but I don't want you to be jealous).  I loved Florida.  I loved the ability to ride bikes through orange groves, daily rain storms where I could read in the Florida room, and tangelos.  I even loved the accent, and adopted it immediately.

Yes, I loved the accent.

Two years later, the family, without consulting me, decided that California would be a better place to live, so off we went, with Disney even further away, no EPCOT, and my proudly-earned Southern accent intact.

The first days of school were torture, as ten-year-old me was ridiculed for the accent.  To the point where people would ask me to say certain words, just so they could laugh at me.  I was so desperate for friends then that I would do almost anything for attention and maybe a real friend.

We lived in California for six years, and that accent was gone.  Dead and gone.  And then the best news of all - We're Moving To Alabama! 

Imagine what goth, dangerous, sixteen-year-old me thought of that plan.  I couldn't find Alabama on a map back then.

So we moved, and I adjusted, and I learned new turns of phrase and new meanings for words:
Pictures "made"
Hair "rolled"
"Carry you" to the store
"Bless your heart"

But I took pride in not getting the accent, and being questioned about my lineage because of it.  Until I bought in, and I now have a mild accent.  The problem is that lately, all I've been hearing is that screeching abortion of a redneck Southern accent, and it burns my baby sensibilities.  The other problem is that I have a tendency to adopt the accent of the person closest to me.  (Imagine how my British ex-fiance loved that.  He thought I was mocking him.)

So please, please don't let me adopt this terrifying tone.  I like the little one I have/had.  I don't want it to get worse.