Stereotypes Hanging By the Chimney with Care

So here I am, a Christmas stereotype.  Which pisses me off, so that's good.


My kids will be home for Christmas, all two of them plus one fiance, so shouldn't I be thrilled?


My daughter tells me that her present to me (always something hand-made) is that she's not going to try to see her friends while she's here.


Thanks.


My gift to you is I raised you, I fed you, I clothed you, I taxied you to violin lessons, I brought you up with the values that make you want to be around the very best family, i.e. your fiance's, during the holidays.


If you're going to be a stereotype, might as well run with it.


My son's annoying friend, who was very politically correct last year in making sure she didn't invite herself and her minions without my approval, and well between the two holidays, this year has decided to hell with it, and invited my kid to her place, three hours away, on New Year's Day.  But he will be home in time for his dentist's appointment on the 4th.


I am hoping his Christmas present to me will be to tell her he can't make it, his mother is hassling him about being home for New Year's Day.


Fact is, my children don't find me any more interesting than I found my parents, even though I'm a lot more interesting than they were.  They do enjoy the food.


Family, family, family.  My daughter lectured me about how important it is for her that we are all able to get along, in other words, me and her father.  So she can see us for a few days a year without us fighting.


I'm learning to feel less like I give a damn that they may not even like me.  If I had felt this way a couple of weeks ago, I could have saved myself the trouble of bringing in my little Charlie Brown tree, which I then had to decorate, which I will then have to undecorate.


For that matter, I may just reject her present to me by telling her by all means make plans with her friends; a week (six days, not that I'm counting) is a long time to spend with your mother.


It would be nice to be able to do the guilt thing without that annoying psychologist perched on my shoulder whispering, "You know that's not going to make them want to spend any more time with you."  Or, "you think they'll enjoy your company even more if they force themselves to hang out with you?"


No, and no, and do I really want to be spending that much time with them?  Or am I bound to the keeping the family together thing so I won't be alone thing?

Staff Day Indignities

Yesterday was "Staff Day", a day looked upon with varying degrees of dread by most of the staff.  The ones that organize staff day appear to be the only ones that really look forward to it, but do it under the assumption that we are all going to be thrilled with having the day "off", and we are going to enjoy and learn from all the various tortures they have devised for us.  For months, several staff members work to make staff day memorable, leaving the rest of the staff to wonder what on earth they do the rest of the year.


When I asked my branch manager a couple of weeks prior to the event what was in store, he listed the segments where we would be talked at, and then added that there would be a "staff activity".  Because it is inappropriate where I work to express displeasure, I probably said something to the effect that I tended not to enjoy those events rather than exclaim, "Man, that sucks."


He responded by saying that most people who don't want to do those group activities end up saying afterward that they really enjoyed it.  I was about to explain to him the concept of "cognitive dissonance" wherein if you are forced to do something you hate and are told you will love it, just by doing it your brain either explodes or comes away thinking, "That was fun."  But an annoying patron came up to us wanting to check her books out or something, so I never got to educate him on that point.


The event involved was called, I swear, the "Corn Hole Tournament" and I only wish it was as dirty as it sounds.  Apparently, they weren't able to construct the whole game for so many participants, so it ended up being a bean-bag toss where you threw the bean-bags through these overly well-constructed wooden contraptions.  The winner got to take a wooden contraption home.  The winner's team got a day off with pay.


Pretty much this is as insulting as it gets, unless you were to omit the space between corn and hole.  You take a really, really simple activity, so that even us older folk can do it (a lot of us are older folk), and you put a day off with pay at the other end of it.  You don't give us an opt out option, and you tell us how much fun we're going to have.


In full disclosure, I am the only person I know who was there and hated the idea of this event.  Not the event, it probably would have been fun to play with your kids at Thanksgiving, but the idea of the event.  When I found out what the game entailed, I pointed to my shoulder and said I wouldn't be able to do it.  So it was me and a few people with wrist supports watching people that ranged from pretty athletic to those who had to put their canes down to throw the bean bag.


It was so idiotic that it probably wouldn't have hurt my shoulder, especially since with my athletic ability I would certainly not have made it to Round 2.  But at the point where I was wrestling with possible guilt and feeling left out, I decided that I had the right not to have to throw the damn bean-bag, or even like the idea of throwing the damn bean-bag.


In the elevator after the event, with two other women whose knees can't do stairs, I heard, "You know I really didn't want to do that, but it was fun!"

A Matter of Etiquette

It was a couple of years ago, in a public restroom on some interstate, when I was puzzled because I was hearing a one-way conversation in the next stall, and it was not a mother talking to her infant, it was an adult conversation.  Of course, you know the answer to that riddle:  it was someone on her cell phone.  I marveled that someone could be doing something quite so personal while having a "normal" conversation, like that could be considered normal under the circumstances.


So now I would like to admit that even I have actually committed that indiscretion.  I have never done it in public, although I believe talking on the phone to another person is public enough.  I have, in the privacy of my own home, waited as long as I possibly could, and because I have a walk-around phone (no, not a cell phone, not just yet), instead of politely saying, "Let me call you back", I have -- discretely -- used the facilities.  I HAVE NOT FLUSHED.


So today, when talking to my son, yes, you know who you are, I heard the toilet flush, I was as shocked as I had been at the moment I heard my first cell-phone stall conversation.


So I would like to say that I believe it is inappropriate to share a toilet moment with the person to whom you are having a telephone conversation.  Unlike someone standing there in the restroom, they are unsuspecting victims.  So allow them to continue to be just that, and if you need to take a whiz, wait till you hang up to flush.

Not About the Name

It really isn't, about the name, I mean.  My delightful daughter always manages to find a way to take me by surprise, and especially, it seems, when I am feeling just a tad more secure about our relationship.

By secure, I mean, I think she likes me.  I don't believe for one minute that my daughter loves me.  I have this impression that she has a mindset of what she should feel, so if you ask her, she will say that she loves me.  But to read her description of our relationship on her recent blog (which is, after all, what this rant is about), she is "connected" to me by the fact that I raised her single-handedly, and, oh, she lived inside me for nine months.

My daughter has somewhere in there a flair for life, and an ability to dance with words far greater than mine.  Yet her cold analysis of tradition, and why she wants to take her future husband's name made me sad.  Because I heard denial, and defensiveness, and rationalization, all that stuff that continues to rear its ugly head in our relationship at the most unexpected moments.

I believe this happens whenever we get just a tad too close.  The offensive situation this time was my visit for her engagement party, when we shared a kitchen pre-party as well as one side of a beer pong table at the after-party.  For me, wrestling with living the rest of my life without my family, it was a nice weekend; I was happy enough to have been there, but I have learned not to gush too much about my children.  They have taught me in no uncertain terms where they end and I begin, and that is far, far from each other.

She had already told me, face-to-face, that she planned on taking Nick's name.  Big deal.  I took my first husband's name, too, and then I grew up.  I didn't say that to her.  But I certainly believe that that is her decision.  As well as that she plans on raising her kids, of all things, Catholic.  Been there, done that too.  Not the raising part, but the being raised part.  Not worth the papal pomp.

But she did manage to hit me from behind when she wisecracked her intention to "nuke-and-pave" the rest of her name, meaning, my last name, which I non-traditionally passed to her.  I guess she anticipated this would put me over the edge, just as she thought the other two firebombs would do it.

This is the thing.  My daughter keeps missing the fact that she is grown up now.  When she was in high school I reserved the right to tell her what to do.  I taught her all I could.  And now she's on her own.

Which she keeps needing to prove to herself.

What makes me sad is not the name; those things matter far more to her family-in-law than to me.  What makes me sad is that she is denying her self for her new family's values and calling it independence.

I am now 60, she is a mere 23.  At her age I was waging war with all the values my parents held.  I had been married and divorced and struggling to find meaning in myself and my life, alone.  That has held me in good stead, even as I wrestle with the meaning part and the alone part nearly 40 years later.

I see my daughter, who has a free spirit inside her, holding on tightly to a traditional family, that does, in fact, have rules for their son to live by.  And he does.  And so will she.

It's not about the name.  The name just draws lines in the sand, if you let it.   

Black Cats and Snakes

I have begun to do my Halloween reading, and the night before had just begun a pretty creepy novel by Graham Masterton.  I was getting ready for work, showered and drying off when, from across my bedroom, I heard a loud and prolonged rattle.  Molly, my newly adopted cat, appeared from another part of the room, and took off out of the bedroom.  The rattle sounded again.


You know how, during horror movies, when a character just knows the monster is in the house, and proceeds to look for it, while we all yell, "Don't do it, asshole!"?  Well, there I was, blind without glasses and barely sighted these days with them, semi-wrapped in bath towel, looking in the direction of the loud rattle, and wondering how I am going to get to my clothes, because I have to get dressed.


Of course, I didn't think there was a monster in the house. However, the only logical thing I could imagine was that a snake had gotten into the house.  A big snake.


Meanwhile, another long rattle.  So of course I took a step towards it.


Molly watched from the other side of the room.  Then she backed off, and, in the opposite direction came the rattle.  And I barely saw a length of string, originating in my sewing basket, and tangled no doubt in the long, bushy tail of my new housemate. Which rattled against the sewing basket whenever Molly moved.


All I can say is, I'm really glad I hadn't seen this segment of The Rachel Maddow Show before this happened:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Fast forward past John Boehner; he's way too scary even to contemplate.  And check out the snakes.


And there you have some Halloween greetings from Molly, my black cat, and me

Flying By the Seat of Our Pants

Let me sum up my recent trip to Champaign, Illinois, from Charleston, South Carolina:  I believe I traveled further than Flat Stanley without seeing anywhere near as much, and I also suspect that my luggage traveled even further than I.

The third leg of my flight to Champaign was delayed while we changed planes due to suspected brake problems.  That took 20 minutes.  Waiting for some official to sign off on the log book so we could take off took another hour and ten minutes.

That, I was to learn, was nothing.  Here are a few of the highlights from the return trip:

-- A change of the second leg of the flight from LaGuardia to Miami, due to NYC weather delays which would prevent me from making my New York to Charleston connection.  When I asked about alternatives, the 12:20 to Miami was suggested, boarding passes printed, luggage rerouted, at which time I was told, "Oh, that flight has been delayed.  It's in the hangar being held due to mechanical problems."

-- A change to a later Miami flight (2:00 p.m.) which was then held up on the ground for one-half hour due to problems with the audio-visual system – that's right, the television sets that American Airlines forces us passengers to watch (with or without sound) during the two hour flight.  And of course, this critical item had to be checked off by some bureaucrat before we could fly.  Causing me to get to the gate in Miami two minutes after scheduled take-off of my Charleston connection.

-- At which time I was put on a flight to Dallas/Ft. Worth, taking off two hours later, and leaving Dallas/Ft. Worth at 8:15 the next morning.  Without my luggage, I was to learn later.

-- Sitting next to an extremely wired young man, who was jumping around and singing – sans iPod – in a very large and crowded, sardine-style, flight from Miami to Dallas/Ft. Worth.  Which was, of course, delayed.  This was due to the federal marshal being called in to eject a passenger.  His crime was refusing to turn off his cell phone when told.  As he and his wife deboarded, he cheerfully yelled, "I guess we're just toooo drunk to fly tonight!"

-- And of course, inevitably, the lost luggage.  Could be in Miami, could be in … Charlotte???  The people at the 1-800-lost-luggage number had no idea why, two days later the bag had still not been returned to Charleston.  Could be because it was a small airplane and they had to get all the passengers' luggage on first.  No, they can't call Dallas/Ft. Worth to inquire about it because the people on the ground at Dallas/Ft. Worth are very busy.  And "we are just the liaison between the passenger and the airline".  Please, PLEASE get those folks at American a dictionary.

By the way, I noted at one point during one leg of the many legs of my flights that I had inadvertently left my cell phone on, leading me to wonder if I just may have come close to being responsible for the crashing of a plane.  One wonders.

Mommy Cat

Last fall I fostered kittens, two at a time, until they weighed in at whatever weight they need to be to get spayed/neutered, and then put up for adoption, or they drove me crazy,

whichever came first.

This year we appear to have licked the stray cat problem here in Charleston County; there just haven't been baby kitties available to foster.

I called from time to time, and was told at one point that all they had available was a mom/litter combo.  This initially freaked me out -- how could I possibly know how to take care of a mom and her babes?  And then -- duh -- I realized that there would be far less for me to do than with a pair of kitties, because mom would be doing all the work.


So now I have a mom and three babes.  The babes told me to call them Yakko, Wacko and Dot, and mom has always just been Mom or Mommy.  She is amazing.  When the babes were a week and a half old, she was all over them, but in the calmest way you could imagine.


For example, after a day or two living in the bottom half of fairly spacious carrier, they began to wander.  As one of them got a little too close to the edge of the carrier and the beginning of the real world, Mom, without hardly moving a muscle, put her paw right over that little thing, stopping her with a little hug.


Mom enjoys her food, too; not the dry food, but the canned food. The only time she ever shows real animation is around mealtime. Confident the kitties could live without her for the couple of minutes it took to scarf down a meal, she would just gently push them out of the way and make for the dinner bowl.  But she didn't let it bother her if they were hungry, too.This was the only time the kitties didn't come first.  Even so, it didn't matter what she was up to, if they came up to her and started searching for a nipple, she'd plop right over on her side and let them have at her.
   

Multitasking

Now that they are a couple of weeks older, I have seen them walk right over her to get to their meal.  Including walking over her head.  She's as calm as ever; I'm sure whatever they do, she is just sighing and thinking, proudly, "kids".


Most amazing, is that they are now interested in her food bowl, and it's perfectly all right with her.  She'll let them nudge their way in at mealtimes, and even walk away for awhile, till they're done tasting.


Now that they are more independent, she jumps up on a shelf to sleep, not too far, just far enough that she can watch them learn to be independent and still keep an eye on them, in case they need her.

Just like any good mom would do.

Things Fall Apart

A couple of months ago, during Wimbledon, my television satellite went out after a storm, of course on a Saturday.  Direct TV was nice enough to offer to send a repair person out at no charge the very next business day, but I had to decline, because I had to work that day, and there was no getting out of it.  So I waited till Thursday and it was quickly repaired.  Little did I know that a couple of weeks later, the black cloud would return with a vengeance.

In the past, say, month, these things have broken:

The spin cycle of my washing machine --  This was the start of the avalanche, and turns out not to have been as bad as I thought – it actually does stop when it is supposed to, just not when I lift the lid.  Like the satellite – and the crocus -- I think this was just a harbinger of things to come.

The pool pump – This was my own fault; I should never have gone on vacation and left it.  After 6 weeks with 2 days of rain separating it, and apparently no rain the ten days I was away, the water level was hazardously low, and the pump badly needed backwashing.  It was raining when I got home, however, so I agonized over whether to turn the pump off in order to backwash, as I have a super swift electrical system that prevents the pump from starting when it's wet.  This is like the overkill at the airport, you know, the body searches that prevent terrorist attacks.  Anyway, to my surprise it started back up, pool got backwashed, started up again.

But the next day, after the bad weather had passed, the power in the area flickered a few times, as it tends to do on nice days, and the pump exhaled its final breath.  As happens after drought followed by torrential rains, the ants came out to party in the wiring, and I'm not sure if that was the cause of the failure, or if the failure (the whine whenever I tried to turn it on) called in the ants.  The cost: over $400 ($100 of which was for labor that took about 10 minutes.)  In my world, this was over one week's income.

Pool water – Since my return, I have dumped at least $200 worth of chemicals in the pool, and while my blood pressure and I are thankful to still be able to swim, the amount of chlorine that seems to vanish daily is giving me agita.

My lawn mower --  An hour into my interminable lawn, the wheels stopped spinning (could this be a theme???).  In the spring the wheels stopped spinning, shortly before the father and son visit, and it turned out to be a stick stuck in the works.  So I made the bold move of attempting to have a look.  Removing all the parts of the yard that got stuck in the wheel area didn't help, looking through the lawn mower book from the library was as successful as my attempts to learn Italian, and the You-Tube clip of how simple it was to take the thing apart and repair it was just plain scary.

When the son made a return visit, he took a look and commented snootily, "I'm not a lawn mower expert you know."  Yeah, but I thought a Harvard physics undergrad might show a tad more interest in how things work.

Result was a new lawn mower, the cheapest one on the lot, cost a week's pay.

Wheelbarrow – Damned thing lost both nuts and bolts that hold the bar in place that I assume keeps the whole thing from falling apart.  While these items just fell right off the wheelbarrow, my attempts to unscrew same type of item from my old, busted up wheelbarrow have been unsuccessful, as the rust appears to have welded it together pretty good.

As if it were not bad enough that things were breaking down all around me through no fault of my own, I suddenly had a rash of breaking glasses and dishware that could have been the result of my preoccupation with all the other damned things that had broken.

Car – I can't ever have a rash of things breaking down without the car demanding some attention.  This time, and for the second time in the car's history, the fan continues to run when I turn off the engine.  And my so-far excellent mechanic either doesn't know what's wrong or just isn't inclined to fix it.  I don't know which, because the sister-in-law who sits behind the front desk won't allow customers to talk to him.  Last she told me was that "all kinds of crazy things happen to cars in this heat".  Except the following morning I moved the car from the front of the house to the side of the house, and it did the same thing.  Since I don't want to get on the bad side of sister-in-law, as she appears to be an unmovable object in the relationship I have with my mechanic, I don't have a clue as to what to do about this.

Ants – What would a grueling hot, humid, miserable summer be without an ant infestation?   Not just the outdoor pump destroying ants, but an indoor ant event.  Three separate occurrences, and I'm not going to say there aren't more where that came from, but I've been ant-free for three days now.

And finally, and I say finally only because not enough time has passed to determine otherwise…

The nice folk who have in the past allowed me to use their wireless have gone and left me without internet.  There is no way I can afford the exorbitant cost of internet connectivity, so until another kind soul moves into the area with a wireless connection and the willingness to share, I will just have to do without.  Luckily, the library has free wireless, so on days when I venture out from this godforsaken wilderness, I will lug my laptop to the library and attempt to catch up.

And hopefully, there will be no further mishaps to report on for awhile.

What Could Be Worse?

Actually, quite a lot of things could be worse.  My shoulder is injured but it's not a terminal illness.  My kids don't like me, but they aren't, either one of them, in prison.  I only owe $40,000 on my house, and that's just about what I have left in my life savings.


My son is home for a couple of weeks; we had minimal but pleasant conversation in the car, and he didn't start sniping at me until the third or fourth time I asked him to take a look at the lawnmower.  A few minutes ago, my Harvard physics major snarled that he's sorry but he's not a lawnmower expert.  And I should stop yelling at him.


But he does want me to tell him what it means that I have car trouble, in re: getting him to the bus station, in the nether parts of the county, so he can visit his friends.  Well, son, I am not a car expert, so I'll have to get back to you on that.  Meanwhile, let's just leave it that I am responsible for ruining your social life.


My mother wished it on me, you know.  When I was a teenager, she said someday I would have kids that treated me the way I was treating her.  A wish I would never make towards my own children.


The face wants to smile, so I keep reminding myself of how much worse it could be.  But the face won't smile because I can't really convince myself, as things break around me and my savings are gouged monthly, that my life is actually good.


And let me end by apologizing for my misery.

And So It Goes...

When I moved to the boonies looking for peace and space, the former which by the way has eluded me and the latter which has to be mowed every five damned days, my children were small.  I guess I thought they'd be with me forever.  But now they are both gone.  My son turned twenty a few days ago, and each time I see him it is for shorter periods.


When we first moved, we had a next-door neighbor that I met once.  I can't remember whether she was 70 or 80, but months after we moved in, she had a stroke and her daughter put her in a nursing home, I believe.  Then she died.


I think of her sometimes, and now that I've turned sixty, and my son has definitely gone, I see myself going that same route.  No family, except for when I can no longer live on my own, at which time they swoop in and send me to a nursing home and sell my house to pay for it.


So, I wonder, why am I working so hard to lose weight and maintain my health, what am I living for?  Why worry about paying off the mortgage?  What am I living for anyway?


So I want to have a drink or five, which I know won't do the trick, and engage in a little binge eating, which will make me feel like shit tomorrow.


So I just try to take one step at a time.  Just like my neighbor did, just as so many of us do to cope with being alone, as we grow old.

Dueling Parents -- Part II...

...of many parts, as The Wedding is two years away, preceded one month by The Harvard Graduation.


This part is called The Engagement Party.  It began innocently enough, with me initially (pre-engagement) suggesting a trip to the distant land of Urbana, which sounds like a trip to a 50's episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show.  Then the promised engagement happened, and my daughter began to plan an engagement party, and coordinated it with my visit so I could meet her friends.  Not that I'm insecure, but I was more tickled by the proof that she wanted me there than that she was having an engagement party.


Of course, her dad, who visits his family in Chicago in July and August, would be safely settled back in Virginia in September, so I was looking forward to a weekend with the girl with only the minimal social anxieties of whether her best friends would like me or only tolerate me on her account.


Next came word that Dad had offered $100 to help pay for liquor costs, even though he wouldn't be there.  She appreciated the sentiment as much as the money.


Then I received an email from her saying that her dad was considering delaying his trip home by a month so that he could be at The Engagement Party.


Not for nothing, but I had just been through two weeks of this man during my son's brief visit home where the only sound in the house seemed to be Dad expounding on any and all subjects:  physics, history, politics, music, sounding very much like Charlie Brown's teacher and having very much the same somnolent effect on me.  There was only one temper tantrum, in public where they have the most impact, and very brief, because I walked away from it.


To be brutally honest albeit melodramatic, the visit broke my heart.  I have such short times with my kids now that they're grown, and to have to share the whole visit with a man who, especially when in parent mode, tends to suck all the air right out of the room, is emotionally exhausting.


So the thought of sharing this rare visit with my daughter with the other parent caused my brain to implode, and I immediately emailed the man and told him, nicely, that if he went, I would change my visit to later in the month, and then emailed my daughter to let her know and to assure her that this would be far better than having to host The Battle of the Parents on the weekend of her engagement party.  Afterwards, I realized that I had just lost the Qualifying Round, given that my husband cannot be manipulated, as he has absolutely no ability to feel guilt.


Additionally, I, who have enough guilt for both of us, was worried that now my daughter would be angry at me, the innocent victim.  So I emailed her again, and told her that I was just trying to do the right thing, and not ruin her party, and maybe we should talk.


Which we did, a day later, giving her time to organize her thoughts, talk to her dad, and deal with me in the kind of grown-up manner that left me awed.


Basically, she sees The Engagement Party as a dry run for The Wedding, as far as how the relatives will behave.  Further, she is trying to establish some ground rules for Future Family Gatherings, and For Children.


Being engaged has temporarily it appears brought out the Pollyanna in my daughter.  Living my life under the cynical Boy Scout motto Be Prepared, I described some more down-to-earth expectations .  I explained that the secret to her dad and me getting along is lots of distance, and very few mutual get togethers with our children.  We don't share well with others, and we especially don't share our children well.  I believe I am the better behaved, if only because I am able to shut up long enough to listen to my children, while his idea of a good time is allowing his children and anyone else fortunate enough to be around to listen to him.


And he gets away with it every time because it is unconscious.  Therefore, and especially apparent after 73 years, the behavior is unalterable.  We have been in every conceivable convolution of therapy during our marriage, and the pattern remains the same, except that I have learned to walk away from the tantrums and not hold a grudge.  The expounding still leaves me drained and withdrawn, and no means I have used to attempt to deal with it works.  I am either ignored or I piss off my children, I leave the room and feel sad, or I interrupt and believe everyone hates me for interrupting.


So as I talked to my incredibly mature daughter about this tangle, I believe she understood that we are never going to be able to do the parent thing together for longer than short bursts; same for the grandparent thing.  Give me some time without the man and I'll be okay around him, but don't throw us into the same room with you guys for the same amount of time, because I will feel defeated and jealous from his first words all the way through to his last, throughout which he will only stop long enough to go outside to take a few puffs off his cigar.


She was great.  She sympathized, empathized and even told me that I could let her know if he was having that effect on me during the party and she would help.  I told her thanks, but that really wasn't her job.  She even expressed the desire to throw us into a room together and instruct us to work it out.  I told her that if that could work it would have worked a long time ago.  And actually, in fact, in a room alone together we get along pretty well.


It's really the Dueling Parents thing.  And the only way to fix it is to let it happen as little as possible.


Sorry, darlin', I love you very much, but two single parents involved in your life is always going to be far better than a pair of parents.  I promise you I will always try to behave, but I learned a long time ago that I have no control over the man who claims he still has no idea how he affects me, and that after all these years, and all the distance, he still is able to push my buttons, and it very nearly always is around you guys.


To share your optimism for a moment, though, I want to add that we will be fine at the Engagement Party, and the Wedding.  And I would like to thank you for being the grown-up in the room.

On Weddings

Not that I wasn’t happy for my daughter when she announced her engagement, and I surely didn’t react with the moron-like “Well, that’s too damned bad” of her father, but I basically think of weddings as a great party followed by family health insurance.

On giving this more thought, I realized that I have pretty much specialized in the non-traditional marriage.

My first marriage was a weekend at the Cape pretend ceremony, which both sets of parents bought because the alternatives were too outrageous to consider, while we cohabited and waited to turn legal age. When that happened a few months later, we hustled off to New Hampshire with a couple of friends and made it official. We likewise separated less than a year later, only divorcing when my father-in-law could no longer stand the thought of being my father-in-law and proceeded with the proceedings, what seems like years later. There were no kids to fight over, and he got the cat and one of my 3-piece set of luggage, which latter he refused to give back.

I changed my name back to my birth name unofficially a few years later. The only paperwork on it is the communications with the Attorney General’s office in Rhode Island agreeing that, yes, as long as I had been consistently using my original name and wasn’t planning on using it to swindle anyone, I could assume it as my legal name without any legal proceedings.

My second marriage has been pretty much as ass-backwards as the first. In the midst of Long Island and my Ph.D., I persuaded my future husband to become my husband sooner than later, and we could move in together after I got my Ph.D. I think I told him I would move back to Maryland when the dust had settled, but as with doctoral programs, dust takes forever to settle, and it made more sense to start my career on Long Island. Eventually, being the silver-tongued doctoral candidate that I was, I convinced him to give up his secure job and come up to live with me, where I would make tons of money and he could live comfortably forever.

After managed care decimated my career and burned me out, and income dwindled, I decided to take my two wonderful children and leave my despicable husband. We three moved to South Carolina, which falsely promised a slower, happier way of life. It’s 11 years later, and we remain happily married, due in great part to the fact that we see each other twice a year, for three-week visits, and don’t complicate things with sex. Referring to him as my husband just confuses people, so I sometimes refer to him as “my kids’ father”, but that is an incomplete description. He is my best friend, and when I have a problem and I need some perspective, he’s the one to call. We came to a reasonable child support arrangement that will be ending in two years, and, as the visits by my youngest become shorter and less frequent, I wonder how much I will be seeing him in years to come, which makes me sad.

We actually get along better before the kids arrive, or after they leave, and we are no longer playing dueling parents I like my second marriage just fine. As for my first, it was necessary and relatively painless, as was the first wedding ceremony.

The second wedding ceremony was the best party I ever had. And we still have family health insurance.