Category Archives: Humor

Don’t freak — The Joys of Parenthood

Humor

I love having my daughter home. Really I do. Not that I see her a lot. She sleeps late and goes out with friends until long after I’ve gone to bed. I’m either working or she’s occupied during the few hours we overlap awake and in the house together.

But the times that we do happen to be in the same room at the same time are wonderful and we’ve caught up on each other’s lives nicely.

There are some things I don’t like about her being back though. One is the slight worry I have when she’s out at night. When she’s at school we don’t know what she’s doing, and therefore don’t worry; but when she’s here we feel her absence when she’s out. Also I hear the door open when she gets home at 2 or later.

One night, soon after she came home, she called to say she’d be late getting home. I woke up sometime after 2 and eventually heard her come in. Knowing she was home safely,  I fell asleep again.

I was rudely awakened by Dean, slamming doors and loudly exclaiming how upset he was that Clare had not come home. I got up and helped look for her, telling Dean I’d heard her come home. He was angry with her for blatantly disobeying her 2:00 curfew. We called her cell phone and I called her roommate’s cell phone. I was getting ready to call the mother of one of her friends — someone she’d been out with the night before, but didn’t want to call too early. I figured she’d come home and went out again for a good reason — maybe her roommate or friend needed someone to talk to.

I really was not worried until Dean noticed she had not taken her winter coat, wallet or shoes. He also thought he could hear her cell phone when he called it. I switched from calm to frantic, sure that someone had come in the house at night and taken her away. I walked to Dean who was in the laundry room and decided to call the mother of that friend — too early or not. I looked down as I walked past the catch-all closet in the basement and saw a fragment of my bathrobe — which she’d been wearing lately. I opened the door of the closet and found Clare asleep on the floor of the closet, covered in blankets and a Snugli and wearing my bathrobe.

She opened her eyes, looked at me and said, “I slept in the closet. I left you a note.”

We found the note a little later, words scribbled at the bottom of a pencil drawing in her sketchpad next to the basement couch.

DSC_0718.JPG
Clare's napping in the closet for a change. Don't freak.

Closing Time

Humor, ,

He was first introduced to me by Suzanne, a woman in my book group. She said I’d really like him and she told me a few stories about him. I wasn’t sure though. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Suzanne’s judgment — I just wasn’t ready for him yet.

About a year after hearing about him from Suzanne, I ran into him on an airplane ride from DC to San Francisco and after that flight I couldn’t stop thinking about him, so when I returned home I looked him up and so began a new obsession.

At first I saw him several times a week, but after a while I cut that down to once a week, usually on Friday evenings. I anticipated his arrival for days, and basked in the warm memory of his visit all weekend, smiling often at something he did or said.

He was funny, but also very sad. He was smart – so very smart. Yes, he had is faults – he had a hard time accepting differences and don’t get me started on his tidiness. But he was lovable and, in his own way, kind.

About a year or so ago I noticed that the obsession had gotten out of hand: I saw him in other people.  I began to talk like him. I knew it had to end.

So, with a heavy heart I will no longer be seeing him after our next meeting – next Friday evening at 9:00 (8:00 Central). We’ll laugh. We’ll cry. We’ll remember old times. But I know it is for the best. I wouldn’t want it to grow old and boring. And I’ll always have the memories to look back on.

Goodbye Mr Monk. It was a great run and good clean fun.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Humor

Look Closer:

Stickley close-up

Notice anything missing?

That’s right — there are no seats.

Here’s what happened:

In 2004 Dean and I took a financial plunge and purchased a Harvey Ellis Stickley dining room set from a store that went out of business in 2006. We had a Danish modern set, but both felt embarrassed to have people over for dinner using that set — the chairs were stained and the table top was messed up.

We loved our new dining room set — so much that we never used it except for holidays and dinner parties. After a while we began to use it more often — especially in the winter when the room with the kitchen table was chilly — but still we didn’t use the dining room table more than 40 days a year.

The table has a few scratches now — mostly barely noticeable. It also has a ding on one side and a couple of rings from hot dishes being put on it with out enough protection. At this point, I’m not too upset about those minor blemishes. It shows we use the table.

The other day I noticed that the seat of one of the chairs looked different than the others. While the other chairs’ seats filled up the space alloted to it, this one had a 1/2 inch gap. I looked at the bottom of the chair and felt that the support within the padding was bent. Upon further inspection (taking the seat off the chair and removing the staples that held the fabric) I saw that the support was bent on the front and back of the cushion. And — get this — the support in the seat of this Stickley chair was made of particle board. Very thick particle board, but particle board nonetheless.

Dean was all set to get out his jigsaw and make new support for the chair, then I noticed that another chair had the same, although not as pronounced, problem. I thought we should call Stickley or at least the store that now sells Stickley in the area to see what they thought. I checked the warranty and, wouldn’t you know it — the warranty was up for dining room chairs. That’s pr0bably because they are made from particle board. Dean took one of the seats to Sheffield Furniture and was told to bring all the seats to them, they’d send them to an upholsterer for us and let us know when they were done. Whether or not we’ll be charged for this, I don’t know — Dean assumed we wouldn’t be.

But that’s not what is forefront on my mind right now. My pressing question is:

Where are the guests going to sit on Saturday?