Because it really is personal…

Mine is a fairy tale life. Take your pick of fairy tales. It could be Cinderella, or Hansel and Gretel, or some obscure story where the girl-figure winds up hiding in a cabin full of short men yet retains her virtue. It’s all an then some.

There’s a handsome Prince. Tall and meaty, with a beard and a twinkle in his eye. He could look like a young, virile, pre-leg sores King Henry 8, only without the penchant for marital upheavals. I have this photo of him *swoon* wearing a suit of leather brigandine armor and looking all sweaty from smacking lesser mortals around *swoon* my word he looks hot in that picture….*whew*

My Prince is a fool for me. Straight up particolored fool, bells and all. If I want something, anything, all I have to do is sigh and say “oh that’s nice.” It’s a burden, let me tell you. Last time it happened I wound up with Little Martha, my baby blue VW Beetle convertible. Yes indeed. He was getting the oil changed in his car, so I picked him up and we drove around a bit. I saw LM in a dealership and said “let’s test drive that, I’ve wondered about those new beetles” So we did, then we went home and he made an excuse and disappeared. An hour later he returned with an uncontrollable smirk on his face. Then the doorbell rang and he pretended to be busy and so I answered it and it was the guy from the dealership, handing me keys and telling me have a nice day. Dang!

So I have to be careful lest he do something really foolish like *ahem* get me one of those 2 carat asscher cut diamond rings, or maybe a Golden Retriever I could name Priscilla.

Like I said, it’s a burden. I don’t want to take advantage of his good nature, and I really do try in my own hamhanded way to reciprocate. He’s gonna get the reciprocation of a lifetime come Christmas, let me tell you that. no details. Just watch for fireworks in the Southeast.

When I was younger, school and all was a chore. Not academically, I was one of those obnoxious people who never did homework and still made good grades. Socially it was arduous. I lack certain skills, such as the ability to be nice and the ability to read facial cues. I can’t tell if someone is bored or interested…I just can’t. Don’t know why. I’m also appallingly blunt. If someone looked awful in an outfit I’d tell them they looked awful. I didn’t know you weren’t supposed to do that, because that’s what my parents did. I know that now. If someone looks awful, I look for something about them that is ok- earrings or something, and compliment that. It took me YEARS to figure out how to do that, and no telling how many people i pissed off.

I did discover that I had a talent for making friends with male types. Men generally don’t care if you think their shirt is yucky. They want to know you think they have mad hunting skills or that you’re impressed with the size of their triceps. And if you lather on a bit of flattery then they’ll do just about anything you ask them to, from jumpstarting your car to carrying you all the way to Montgomery so you can go to the mall there. I like men, they’re uncomplicated in a very nice sort of way. I also like making grand sweeping statements like that because I know certain people will get riled. *haw* you know who you are.

Sweet Daddio, the Man in My Life Whom I Love and Adore, is not so simple. On the surface he’s all Southern White Boy Who Cuts The Grass For The Little Old Lady Across the Street…you know, Mayberry and stuff. He’s also much respected and admired by the people who work for him, because he’s willing to get grubby and work *with* them, and so they have alot of loyalty toward him. There aren’t many VP’s who will crawl into an ammonia range to clear out a break.

He did all the good stuff you read about in parenting magazines- diapers and night feedings and all. When #4 was born, I found myself falling into a charming post-partum psychosis, very exciting when you have 4 kids in the house. My psychiatrist said “you must sleep all night. no exceptions. you go to hospital if you don’t” Well, that would have been inconvenient, to say the least, so SD slept with #4 in the guest room for nearly 3 months, handling all the night duty, while I laid in our big bed trying hard not to fly to pluto. He’s always been like that, willing to shoulder more than his fair share of the burden. I try very, very hard not to take advantage of it. I am also rather smug, that he’s mine and not someone elses, a someone he dated for 7 years yet married me *ha*

I didn’t intend for this post to be all singing the praises of SD, but it turned out that way because it’s been on my mind. He’s been working alot recently, averaging 70 hours a week, and he’s tired. It won’t last forever, but the end is still around the bend and kind of hard to see. I don’t like it when he works that much for the very selfish reason that he’s frequently the only grownup I talk to in a day. I like spending time with him, he’s my very favorite person and I want him around. He doesn’t get vacation time, not like a week here or two weeks there. He gets off Thanksgiving day, and has to work the Friday and Saturday following. he gets off Christmas Day, that’s it. None of this pansy European Holiday time where you get like 3 months off. Nope, a day here, a day there. Sometimes a Sunday, if he gets the paperwork done. Granted, he’s paid well, but still, a body needs time to rest.

So, come Christmas, I’ll make it worth while for him.

Today is one of those days filled with blissful domesticity and good-mommyness. I am, indeed, the poster child for the Radical Feminist movement. “Don’t Be This!” and there’s a picture of me wearing an apron and holding the hose to my vintage Kirby vauum cleaner, with my hair anchored loosely to the back of my head with a shish-k-bob skewer.
I need a haircut. But I can’t get one right now because the person who cuts my hair is UNBELIEVABLY expensive tho she is worth is because she never fails to make my head look close to fabulous. First of next month, maybe then. Until then, I resort to rubber bands and skewers.

I vacuumed the floor, used the hose thing to get all the cobwebs and crud, and I even scrubbed clean our huge and ridiculously complicated stair rail. It’s wrought iron, curvy and filled with these late ’60′s curly swoopy things that catch dust and get all grotty.

I ate lunch with #4. Today was the Eat With Your Kid Thanksgiving Meal, where you get a scoop of this and a huge helping of turnip greens (blech!) and this teeeeeny little cube of really excellent red velvet cake. I’ll give Georgia this: there school lunches are tasty. In Alabama, the lunches were made at a central kitchen and distributed to the schools, where they were served cold and rubbery and all tasting like boiled cabbage. Here, you get thes fat, tender yeast rolls and commodities butter. The turkey was real, cooked turkey sliced off the bird and served. #4 assured me it’s always like that. The chicken is real, the pizza is made in house…mmm. They served this incredible cornbread dressing with gravy that had bits of boiled eggs in it, and a leetle scoop of cranberry sauce. It was Good.

We sat across from Latravien. He was in #4′s class last year and I really like him. He’s smart, funny, and posesses a powerful imagination, which gets him into trouble sometimes, but he’s a sweet kid and I like him.

A family has moved in across the street. They have 4 kids, 2 re near #4′s age. He wants me to go across the street to meet the parents. Meeting people scares me. I don’t know why, it’s not like anyone has ever pulled a gun on me or anything, it just makes me nervous.

I’m going to try my hand at Deep Thinking soon. Dabble my toes in the water, so to speak. I am fascinated by minds that can go on for pages in a coherent way, and I wonder at where the flight of ideas come from. I tend to be kind of…solidly on the ground, I think. My mind doesn’t swoop and soar so much as plod along, thinking one thought at a time. Some days I don’t get any more complex than figuring out the best way to roast the chicken. Other days I could probably be fairly convincing arguing about why I’m pro-life, or why war is sometimes a necessary thing.

Today, however, is not one of those days. This is a chicken day, with apron and vacuum cleaner, hair held up by handy skewer.