People at home

I would say people are crawling out of the woodwork this weekend, but I don’t like the expression. Especially given the fascination Otis the cat has with a particular corner of the kitchen, under the cabinetry. I’m hopeful nothing is crawling out there, or at least that Otis has the situation under control.

In a remarkable and rare confluence of humans, all four offspring have been (more or less) in residence for the long Thanksgiving weekend. This will revert to normal tomorrow when Rachel and Olivia return, respectively, to teaching and scholarship, and Gabe is likewise shipped by Amtrak to North Carolina after we grab a dinner bite at Union Station in D.C.

More remarkably, all woke up in time for a casual brunch we had this morning with their much younger Clement cousins. Becca hauled the ol’ Lego bin out of the basement, as is the custom, and the little Clem cousins adhered to their tradition of wanting to take our JarJar Binks Lego dude and several Lego pizzas home with them. Mindful of the fact that these same children have enough Legos at their home to sink the Titanic, I demurred. We will hunt down JarJar Binks and pizzas on Amazon for Christmas tokens, but retain what’s left of our supply for future Legomaniacs. While Olivia suspects that JarJar Binks might be shanghaied in someone’s pocket someday, we haven’t taken to pat-downs at the front door yet.

Now, Jeff has been nestled all snug in his bed, and I’m eating spaghetti. The girls, you see, have all decamped with gentlemen friends. If I were Mrs. Bennet, this would probably please me very much. Luckily there’s no entail here, so I get to keep the house, regardless. Don’t worry, ownership of this house does not convey any special title of upper-crustiness, unless it’s something like Earl of Esoteric HVAC Systems. No rich people will marry me for that title, I’m fairly certain.

I lost my albatross

I guess a person can only live under a cloud of bereavement for so long. Not speaking for others of course, but I would never choose such a cloud. Still, I had one which started forming about when ’03 segued to ’04 and the person I loved began to morph from partner to guy-in-need-of-care.

You can’t help it is the thing. When you’ve spent 20 years in life-meld with an other who buttressed, buffered and ballasted you it’s not going to feel good when those features of his personality fade into oblivion. So, while I always got-r-done, it is also true that I continuously carried a small but potent albatross of grief in my left jacket pocket.

What happened is, sometime this year, as Summer turned to Fall, (can’t pin it to a day,) the albatross disappeared from my pocket. I’m not worried about the albatross. I think he will reappear in a slightly different guise somewhere down the road when PCA proves that it is, in fact, terminal. But for now I’m not going looking for him. Somehow, finally, a self of me emerged (or re-emerged,) and it’s one that is happy enough unpartnered.

Another interesting feature that was revealed as the skin of bereavement sloughed off is that I don’t mind being a caregiver as main occupation. Not because I think it’s cool or anything...it’s decidedly not-cool, but heck, I don’t care. Life can be fun. You just have to gear your activities appropriately.

There’s movie called Death Becomes Her in which the character played by Bruce Willis finally throws off the burden of being doormat to a domineering spouse and declares that “life begins at 50.” Luckily I have no nasty people to dispense with, but I’m pretty sure my 50s are looking like a nice change from my 40s.

and today...

...it's William J. O'Neil, (founder of Investors' Business Daily and author of many of Jeff's favorite books,) who keeps "sending us this stuff. (what's the angle?)"

Do these books need to disappear? I don't know. So far, distraction works.
Jeff: "Why does he keep sending this stuff?"
Me: (shrug.) "I know, let's walk the dog."

some things can't be accounted for.

Jeff picks up his favorite book, Accounting for Dummies, and asks me: “Why do they keep sending this to us?”

”Your book?” I ask to clarify. “I think we bought it at Barnes & Noble a few years ago. Nobody sent it to us.”

”Yeah,” he says, gesturing with the book in question for emphasis, “but it seems like they send it every day. Why is that?”

I’m not sure why Accounting for Dummies has remained, for quite a few years, a book that Jeff is most likely to pick up, but it has. A few years ago, probably about six years ago, Jeff decided he would take courses in the accounting track at Anne Arundel Community College. He got a few sessions into course 101 (whatever it was called,) before deciding that he’d “fallen behind” and would re-enroll next semester. Falling behind, translated into my viewpoint, meant that he’d lost his car in the vast parking lot options at AACC at least twice (requiring my rescue,) and he’d rarely arrived for class on time (as one had to locate the classroom each and every session.) He “studied” by looking at his class materials and inscribing a phrase, such as “Assets = Liability + Capital” twenty or so times, at assorted oblique angles, on a piece of notebook paper, but little else. We were clearly beyond the point of no return.

Nevertheless, he has retained the notion that he’d like to study accounting, and—to that end—stares diligently at the table of contents in Accounting for Dummies, almost daily. So whatever it is he’s asking me about this morning represents a new kink in the hose.

”They keep sending us this,” he insists, patting his book. “I don’t get it.”

I realize that trying to make sense of the “reality” from which he’s speaking is going to be a fruitless endeavor. “Do you like this book?” I ask.

”Do you move this around?” he asks, a little more on a page that corresponds to one I recognize. “Sometimes it’s here, sometimes it’s over there...”

I say “I think you just read it a lot, and sometimes carry it around without even noticing. Everyone does that.” His face still shows utter perplexity, but he’s willing to buy that story, for now.

Later he wonders, aloud, whether he’d be any good at stock market investing. I show him his books on that very subject. “Oh yeah, those,” he says.