torn
June 09, 2015

All of last week was an awful drag—Spouse was working himself into a fever pitch over me going to Iowa. His control-freak nature didn’t want me to go. When I made it clear that I WAS going, the CFN doubled down, and wanted to drive the whole thing. To the extent that it was feasible, I let him re-arrange my plans—he wanted me to go on Friday, but I was planning to go on Sunday—we compromised on Saturday. Which meant I had to spend Friday afternoon making new arrangements, and working my ass off to get things done so I could go. Then he starts sending me texts about who I could talk to about him, and what I could say. Well, if you do me out of my Friday afternoon nap, force me to work like a mule, and then start sending bossy, assholey texts to me…I’m going to get pretty worked up.

It all culminated in a huge quarrel when he came home from work on Friday, and he stormed out. I honestly didn’t know if he intended to come, and the scary thing was—I wasn’t sure I cared if he did or not. I even called my dad and told him all about it. He told me to dump him, LOL.

He did come back, about 9 o’clock. He apologized, I apologized, and things chilled out somewhat. He was still pretty dickish, right up to when I left. He framed it as being worried sick about me driving in stormy weather, but I notice he never tries to stop me from going to WORK when the weather is bad.

I left Saturday morning at about 9 a.m., fought the usual traffic around Rockford, suffered though many miles of construction zones, and got to Muscatine about 1:30. Stopped for lunch at the Maid-Rite (a classic Maid-Rite, their homemade potato chips, and an icy mug of their draft root beer. YUM. ) and headed on down to “home”. Everyone had gone to a softball game out of town, so I had a few hours to kick around. Creeped around town a little, picked up some flowers and drove out to the cemetery for a quiet visit with my dead relatives, and a good cry. Checked into the motel and took a little rest before meeting up with my dad, my oldest brother and his wife for dinner. When I got back to the motel, I showered and relaxed, then hit the hay. Rough night—bad bed. Ended up not really falling asleep till late, and then the exhaustion must have kicked in, because I didn’t wake up till 8:45, when housekeeping knocked on the door.

Since I was already running very late, I hurried to get ready, and drove down to the gas station for a cup of what they like to pretend is coffee before heading over to my brother’s. Got there at exactly the same time as my nephew’s wife and the new baby. We went through four packing boxes full of jewel cases and plastic shoeboxes crammed to the gills with all kinds of costume jewelry. I ended up with about half of it, all the others took maybe a shoebox apiece, including Dad, since we had discovered quite a few items during the process that he wanted to keep.

This process took hours and hours. The best part, though was watching SSIL sit there with a pile of my mother’s rings in front of her, and a shocked look on her face, crying “I always thought these were all REAL!!” Schadenfreude, BIATCH.

Anyway, by the time we were done and I’d had a chance to look at my phone, it was mid-afternoon and Spouse had already started sending me angry text messages because I hadn’t spoken to him yet that day.

I tested him back with a brief explanation of why, and let it go at that. I visited with my family for a while, and started to think about the evening ahead—and dreading it. SUCH a boring place to be, nothing to do, nowhere good to eat on a Sunday night, horrible internet, worse cable, and even my friends were busy or out-of-town. I was dreading it. And I didn’t want to hang around my brother’s neck, either—he and GSIL both had to work on Monday.

So after consulting the weather, I made a snap decision to just take off for home. Said my good-byes, texted Spouse my intention, and stopped at the motel to pick up my stuff and check out. Well, I didn’t entirely succeed at either of those—I forgot my nightgown, hanging on the bathroom door. And there was no one there to check me out. Apparently, the owner was home to supper. So I had to jot a note and leave it on the desk with my key. (Yes, an actual key. And an actual registration card I had to fill out by hand. Well, at least they had a modern card reader!)

I hadn’t eaten anything but some grapes and a few m&m candies all day, but I didn’t want to stop and get something. When I filled my car up, I grabbed a Pepsi, and that was it. On the road. Long drive, but it was better than being bored in a cheap motel room in Iowa. The weather was acting up anyway, and it was my best chance to get home without dealing with storms. It looked horrible behind me, and all the way across Illinois I could see that the rains had been there ahead of me, but I was fortunate, and only got about 6 drops of rain the whole trip.

Rolled in about 9:35, and texted my dad and GSIL that I got home safe, then fixed myself a sandwich and some chips for dinner, and let the dog out to pee, and went to bed.

The jewelry: I took almost all of her vintage rhinestones—with the exception of the tiara, and first necklace he ever bought her. The former went to my niece, and the latter he kept for himself.

And everything that I could find that I’d made her, I took. Not everything was there, but we found the smoky amethyst beaded rope and the green goddess choker, plus some other pieces. The rope and the choker are two pieces I’ve always been particularly proud of.

I took the rest of her pearls, too—Niece has her wedding pearls, but I have the rest. And I got a few other things—I rescued her Bulova Caravelle from the Goodwill pile, and grabbed her boxes of cameos and lockets.

Mostly, the rest of the stuff I brought home was for the beads. I want to do a beaded wreath for her grave made from some of her collection. (And an ample supply of beads is always a good thing!).

Got up about six yesterday, and saw Spouse off to work, then reveled in three cups of real coffee. Threw on some clothes and ran to the carwash, to vacuum the car and have the gravel road dust, bugs, and birdshit washed off. Then I stopped at the drugstore to get a battery for the Bulova (despite a clerk who tried to be helpful, I bought the wrong one and had to take it back today.)

Came home, and took advantage of the sunny morning to mow, trim, blow and spray weeds out front. Came in and dismantled a filthy box fan, cleaned it, and reassembled it. Vacuumed and cleaned up a little, then took a shower. Had some lunch, and crashed for a couple of hours before getting up and stashing the “family jewels”, as it were, in the basement out of the way for now. Made a simple dinner of steamed rice, teriyaki chicken with pineapple, and sliced fresh tomatoes. Spouse seemed to enjoy it. We are having the leftover chicken as sandwiches tonight, with a salad on the side.

“Love in a Muddle” (1920), by Christine Jope Slade. Plain and unaccomplished girl of modest means, dashing rich guy, pretend engagement, lots of misunderstandings about who loves who, and even squeezes in a crazy wife (offstage). Written diary-style. Setting is wartime (WWI) Britain. Quick, painless, and rather enjoyable.

Foo Fighters, The Decemberists, Fitz & the Tantrums