Scenes From Daily Life III

The other day I was in one of my melancholy moods (this is an elegant, Victorian way of saying "bitch fests"), so I decided to work out my feelings by haranguing Robbie about a variety topics...including vasectomies, adoption, and the many physical feats performed during childbirth.

By the end of the night, he was sprawled out in bed next to me and I was running through an internal dialogue about the unfairness of being surrounded by three burping, farting boys and no daughters. In an attempt to goad him into yet another venting conversation, I suddenly blurted out, "The thing is, I don't even LIKE men!"

There was a long silence - and then his groggy, muffled voice:

"Is this the beginning of one of those awkward 'coming-out' conversations?"



I laughed so hard I couldn't speak for several minutes. Recognizing this rare opportunity for what it was, he rolled over and fell asleep.

The Father of Invention

A couple of weeks ago I was telling my friend that I wish Robbie and I could switch places because he would love to be a stay at home dad (he thinks anyway) and I don't mind working. Unfortunately, even once I become an ordained minister, I'll never match his engineering salary.

She suggested that we should try to cash in on one of Robbie's many "million-dollar" ideas and then we could do whatever we wanted. I mentioned this to Robbie on the drive home, so we started brainstorming ideas. This naturally led to a conversation about the infomercials that peddle their products by warning about the extreme dangers of pulling an arm muscle by trying to lift a pot of hard-boiled eggs off the stove (The EggGenie - with BONUS Baconwave!) or wrenching your neck while wrapping your hair with a regular towel (The TurbieTwist).

Suddenly, it dawned on me what the world needed next.

"Women are always complaining about cankles, you should figure out something to fix those!"





Robbie shrugged, "That's easy. Just give them oversized shoes."



Pure genius....and he's all mine.

Scenes from Daily Life II

Robbie: Is that a rutabaga in our backyard?

Cassi:(sheepishly) uh.....yes.

Robbie:How did it get there?

Cassi: uh.....I sort of rolled it out the dog door a few weeks ago.


Robbie pauses for a moment to take this in.


Robbie: Why?

Cassi: Well, that extra one you bought a while back ended up going bad and I felt guilty for wasting it. Since we don't have a compost pile yet, I thought I would roll it out into the snow and it would eventually decompose.

Robbie: Do you know how long it will take a rutabaga that big to decompose, especially in the snow?

Cassi: No.

Robbie: A long time.

Cassi: Well, Janet said she throws her food waste straight into her yard during the winter.

Robbie: But at least Janet has a private backyard - not a backyard with a chainlink fence and only a few feet away from the neighbor's door!


Cassi: Point taken.


This conversation occurred a few weeks ago and every time I think about it now, it makes me giggle. Mainly because it contains the word rutabaga, which is inherently funny. I did eventually remove the offending rutabaga from the yard when the snow melted (along with a huge amount of dog poop of various bright colors and textures, depending on what object Kenya had eaten that day. Our poor, poor neighbors.)

Sure rolling a large vegetable out a dog door seems silly, but in my defense 1) Pregnancy and breastfeeding remove brain cells 2) I'm sleep deprived and 3) Just yesterday I read an article in Sierra Club magazine about a guy who made a compost bin, but it got infested by rats - so he tried vermicomposting (worms) and it got infested with fruit flies. As a last resort, he started packaging food waste in newspapers and putting them in the freezer without telling his wife.

So Robbie...it could be worse.

Scenes from Daily Life

Emerson handed me his bottle of water (the child is very well hydrated at all times) and indicated that he wanted more - even though it was half full. I knew he wanted me to add some juice for flavor, so I said, "Emerson, say 'juice.'" He gave out a guttural sound that resembled a German sneezing. I had to at least applaud his effort.

Robbie heard all this and started laughing.

"Emerson, your in-apptitude is so cute."

I burst into uncontrollable fits of laughter.

"Do you mean ineptitude? Gee, I wonder where he gets his difficulty with words from?"

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Before Fionn was born, I purchased as many new pj's as possible since I knew I'd be spending a lot of time in them after he was born. The other day I was wearing one pair that I scored at the Salvation Army. (They look like this except powder blue)

Robbie had seen them several times before, but with my mom as a captive audience, this time he announced that Blanche Devereux had called - she wanted her pajamas back.

My mom snorted her coffee and told me I should buy some fur-covered heels to complete the ensemble.

I'm not sure what concerns me more - that my husband doesn't appreciate my sense of style, or that he knows so much about the Golden Girls.

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Every Saturday I've been taking an intensive class at a local seminary entitled "Reformation History and Thought." I'm not a Christian Unitarian Universalist, but since my denomination is historically Christian, we have several history requirements that I need to fulfill. Needless to say, learning about 16th century theologians for 8 hours on a Saturday is enough to make anyone want to stab themselves in the head with a mechanical pencil (I've come close on a few occasions) Luckily my professor is a very enigmatic German woman who knows a lot of odd stories about Martin Luther and who makes humorous analogies every once in a while that help me stay awake.

For example, the other day she announced that "children are the perfect examples of the fact that we are born with original sin." For a split second I was horrified at this comparison...then I thought about my little caveman of a toddler throwing tantrums and I saw her point.

She also made an analogy that compared good people without sin to Jonathan or Granny Smith apples while people with sin are "crap-apples."

Her inapptitude is so cute.