January 31, 2009

Midnight Medley


I spend my days alternating between thinking I'm a nearly kick-ass goddess to thinking I'm nearly a complete and utter failure on many levels. And in the times between those two extremes I have brief moments of thinking I might either be mental or perfectly normal. Is it possible to be both? To be all of these things? Is everyone like this?

Earlier in the week I had it all going on. I was accomplishing big things, making people say "wow", making myself say "wow", making my husband say, "good God, can't you be like a regular person for a change?" I always know I'm doing particularly awesome things when I send him into a downward spiral to contemplate his own inadequacies. We have developed a really nice mix of praise and humiliation in our relationship. Not everyone can have what we enjoy.

And then on Wednesday or Thursday, about the time my kids unrolled 250 feet of dental floss and ran through most rooms of the house weaving in and out between all the table legs, I felt the decline beginning. And here I sit at midnight wanting to update my blog and feeling like I have nothing more to tell you than describe how freaking annoying it is to wind up 250 feet of dental floss while the whole time I'm thinking, "Am I supposed to throw this away because maybe now it's unsanitary?" I'm really not up on my floss etiquette, so if you come over to visit, please bring your own just in case.

Probably I'm being too hard on myself. Surely there are other things I can talk about, like how my youngest son ran away from me again and I didn't catch him for about two blocks. I just made my entre into small town local politics and the whole time I was running down the street screaming I was thinking anyone who was witnessing the event would agree that this scene would probably not be a big a confidence booster for my constituents.

Certainly I must be too hard on myself. Because I made homemade beef jerky today, except I ate a little bit of it tonight and now I'm queasy and concerned that I may have just poisoned my whole family. My mother did that once before I was born, nearly killed her family with tainted tuna salad. They were on a road trip through the desert in the 60's with, apparently, no cooler. Did they even have coolers in the 60's? This is a family event that we joke about to this day and mostly we do it to make my mom mad, but on a deeper level I think we all are afraid she might do it again. She's frugal and eats leftovers that are way too old for most people because she hates waste. Personally, I hate puking and nearly dying way more than I hate waste.

I am too hard on myself, because it's really not all failure. Sometimes the pendulum swings quickly, quietly, suddenly the other direction. Through the darkened doorway I see hubby just now stagger into the kitchen in a fog of midnight sleepiness to sample more beef jerky, mumbling how good it is. And there he goes wandering out and here I go to follow and fold him gently into bed covers, wrap him in my arms, two spoons, one love, one good ending to another day of our lives together.

[photo: (nz)dave]

8 comments:

  1. I don't know if everyone is like that but I certainly am. And as far as your jerky...it's probably ok! I laughed so hard at your moms tuna salad adventure. I think all mom's try to kill the family at some point with dinner..mine did too. That's probably one of the reasons I'm so anal about food safety lol I remember it well!

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  2. I was just telling my husband about your Blog this morning. I have never in my life watched a soap opera or reality tv. The only Blog I've ever followed is Shreve's The Daily Coyote. Never would I have thought that every day I would be reading the life of a woman in Arkansas with two young boys. Yet, here I am, every day and as usual I click away with a "hoot", laughing and grinning! And yeah...we're all like THAT! *LOL*

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  3. @Kathy, the good news is they have been eating it all day and so far nobody has gotten sick. Not so good on the pineapple, though. I was afraid to leave the dehydrator running all night so I turned it off and put the fruit in a plastic bag thinking maybe I'd go back and dry it again some more. Rob says he think it might have fermented so I didn't let the kids eat it just in case they ended up staggering drunk by accident. Woo, wouldn't that just be a call to social services waiting to happen! Maybe that fruit we'll save for Super Bowl. LOL!

    @Neen... girl, well that's just a HECKUVA compliment! How sweet and awesome! It's funny because the blog wasn't really intended to be what it's turned into being, but I guess we do what feels natural. A friend and I were talking about motherhood as we often do and she said, "All the moms around me seem like they know everything and are so patient and creative and.." blah blah, this and that and the other. And I said, "Girl, they are all lying to you. Probably they are just as messed up as we both are." So, here I am in all my messed up glory. Welcome to it. Enjoy your stay! :-) (I'm glad you're here.)

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  4. Super duper post. Why would anyone even attempt tuna salad in the desert? I guess its the same ambition that fired the Wright Brothers and Edmund Hilary.

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  5. Left you a note on my cookbook :)

    and ps Just to show what a weird day it's been...my captcha is flushola lol think maybe I better be careful in the bathroom..

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  6. I too am a big fan of your blog, your writing style, perspective, etc! I really enjoy reading your posts!

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  7. @chris: Thank you! Re: Wright and Hilary... I come from a long line of adventurers, so you're theory could be sound.

    @kathy: I think the "flushola" might have been relating to my cooking stuff over there at your blog.

    @victoria: Thanks for your kind words and for coming back to visit!

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  8. That was a wonderful last sentence.

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