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tied up
June 04, 2013, 7:51 P.M.
Since Spouse is staying up at P&E's, house/dog-sitting for a week*, I had hoped for a quiet weekend--but didn't really get one. From the time I got up on Saturday morning, I worked like a dog: doing some deep-cleaning around the house, keeping my bathroom spotless (:D), and doing load after load of clothes and towels and bedding and rugs. It isn't that I don't get enjoyment and satisfaction from that--it's just not restful. It's never-ending, as well--I could spend a lifetime incessantly following the dog and the husband around, cleaning up the crud they leave in their wake. (Spouse came down on Saturday morning to do the yard work and run some errands. And be a slob.)
And it got worse when I decided to trim B's nails on Sunday morning; he jerked, I over-trimmed, and we had a bloodbath. He managed to track it all the way through the living room and dining room before I corralled him, and it took me an hour to get the bleeding stopped. And another hour to clean the bloodstains out of the rug. Thank goodness I had a large bottle of hydrogen peroxide in the house.
And I didn't get much "me" time out of my weekend (mostly) alone. No pampering, unless you count some very hurried basic hygiene and a desperately needed armpit shave. No decent meals--I ate quick and easy crap that required minimal cleanup. I didn't even get to squeeze in any naps. Every single time I closed my eyes for a moment? The phone rang, or the doorbell rang. Spouse can interrupt, interfere, and annoy every bit as much via text as he can in person. (there's some other calls/texts/FB messages I'll get into later, as well)
Plus�I had to contend with the pool company, who are nice, and do good work, but are just lousy at letting you know if and when they are going to show up. They were supposed to call on Saturday to let me know if they would be showing up on Sunday, and if so, what time. No call.
No call on Sunday morning, either. Or Sunday afternoon. No calls at all...just two guys showing up at my door at 3:15 on Sunday afternoon, to do the job. Which they worked on for three hours, right at dinner time, but could not complete until I had half-filled the pool with water--so they would be back Monday evening to finish installing the inlet and the skimmer assembly.
HALF-filled, mind you. Leaving me to stay up half the night, keeping watch on the water levels so as to get the precise amount of water in there, so the weight would do what they needed to do without the level being too high for them to actually do it. I gave up at 11 and shut off the tap; then restarted it when I got home yesterday. And since they didn't come back till after 6:00pm, I was able to get the water up to the right level.
As I mentioned, in addition to my husband continually contacting me over the weekend, I also had to deal with communications from my niece, sister-in-law, and parents, concerning mom's current condition. Which is bad, and not likely to get better, according to her latest oncologist. Without getting too much into it, she's having to make a decision about whether she wants to spend the time she has left trying to fight the cancer, or trying to have a little quality of life. While this is not a surprise to me, it is still a most unwelcome thing to hear, and it saddens me deeply. I know this sounds cold and formal, but I really just cannot unload about it in detail at the moment--it's too much.
We are planning a get-together in July where my folks and middle brother and his family come up to Wisconsin and we hang with my mom & dad's best friends from when they lived up here. Definitely a bucket list thing, so we will be cool about it, even though spending time with my Iowa relatives is hard for me, and even harder for Spouse. He's trying really hard, so I don't like to come down on him, but his attitude toward my family doesn't make anything easier for me. (Of course, this plan necessitated a series of planning discussions through facebook messages with my SIL. Yay.)
So after the last several days of hard work and stressing out over big things and little things--I feel utterly used up. Tonight is going to have to be about putting myself first. This post is a start, but I need to pamper myself, get some real solitude to soothe my frayed edges, eat a real meal, and go to bed early. And watch last Sunday's episode of Mad Men. I don�t wish him ill, but I really hope Spouse�s job keeps him too occupied for text chatting tonight.
*which he swore he would never do again after the Thanksgiving dinner debacle�but when P offered to do the bathroom painting in exchange, and do it BEFORE Spouse dog-sat, he decided he could let bygones be bygones
Reading: "Much Ado About Peter" (1909) by Jean Webster. Just started this, and know nothing about it going in, except that it is by Webster. It seems to be quite a bit different from what I'm used to from her. It's about a groom employed in the stables of a large estate, and that's about all I've gleaned so far.
Just finished: "The Professor's Mystery" (1911), by Wells Hastings and Brian Hooker
What a lot of nonsense and gibberish--compelling--nonsense and gibberish, but pretty infuriating as well. An youngish English professor decides, on a whim, to abandon his plans to spend his summer doing research in Europe. Instead, he attaches himself to an attractive young woman of his (slight) acquaintance, and ends up embroiled in the mysterious secrets and machinations of her family. Enter the nonsense. I think I sprained an eyeball with all the rolling, and personally, I found the hero to be overbearing, rude, insensitive, and rather stupid. I wanted to like the young lady, but she worked my nerves too, with inconsistent messages and inexplicable loyalties. Her dad and brother-in-law were real jerks, too. And the unfavorable stereotyping of Irish and Italian immigrants was hard to take, as well.
Listening: Marcy Playground, Sleater-Kinney, Cage the Elephant, Cake, The Replacements
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