Tag: spousal relationships

An Abusive Relationship

“Are you in an abusive relationship?”  the Emergency Room admitting clerk softly asked me looking me straight in the eye, watching my reaction carefully.

Mitch was sitting behind her across from me oblivious to the question.  Did he know how lucky he is I like him?  With just a slight change in my expression or lifted eyebrows not to mention if I had burst into tears, it would have been a long time before Mitch saw the light of day again.  I was sitting in the Emergency Room admitting office with the two bones at the end of the middle finger on my left hand jutting at an odd angle for the second time in a three month period for the same injury. Maybe that was why she asked, or maybe it is standard procedure to ask every woman that comes to the emergency room with an injury.

Absolutely I was in an abusive relationship, but the abuser was me not Mitch.  I am the clumsiest the person I know.  I find new ways to cut, burn or bruise myself every day.  I walk into walls, miss doorways and trip over my own two feet.  Mitch is always amazed at the unique and seemly innocuous items that have the ability to draw blood on me.

This time I had been doing yard work while Mitch was working on one of the cars.  I walked into the garage to get my garden cart and noticed a spider walking across the top of the cart.  I hate bugs, spiders in particular and usually scream loudly and flee the immediate area as quickly as I can, knowing that they will hunt me down and eat me if given the chance.  But on this day, I was wearing gloves making me invincible, or so I thought.  I wanted my cart and here was this gigantic menace keeping me from my cart.  Mitch was under the car so he was no help, I would just have to confront the monster myself.  As the spider walked nonchalantly the top of the cart toward the edge to disappear and prepare for a sneak attack I decided to swat him with my gloved hand.  I swung my hand down with such force to annihilate the beast and caught the top edge of the cart causing the first two bones on my middle finger to dislocate and jut up on top of the third bone and knuckle of the finger. 

As usual I starting crying like a baby, causing Mitch to come up from under the car to see what I had done to myself again.  He offered to pull the bones back into place for me.  Are you kidding me?  I told him I wanted to go to the emergency room and I wanted him to take me.

He looked at me and said, “I am right in the middle of fixing the exhaust on the car, can’t you drive yourself?”

“Fine I’ll just walk then, don’t worry about me.  I’ll be fine, I can take care of myself.”  I wanted some sympathy and wasn’t getting it.

He dropped his tool on the floor and said, “Fine let’s go.”

I wanted to get cleaned up first because I was filthy and sweaty from the yard work but “No!” Mitch said that if he had to go dirty so did I.  No fair.  So here I sat sweaty with dirt and grass stains on my clothes sitting in the emergency room waiting for a shot to numb my hand and have a trained professional jerk my finger back in place.

AJ How Could You?

This day started very early as all Sundays do.  We get up at 2:30 in the morning because Sunday is Mitch’s Monday and has to be at work at 4:30 in the morning.  I get up with him, feed the dogs, fix breakfast and take him to work. We started this routine years ago when we worked different schedules and this was the best way to get to spend as much time together as we could, snippets of time.  It has worked for us mainly because we like each other.  We like to spend our free time together.  Odd I know.  Anyway, I dropped him off at work came home and took the dogs for a nice long walk.  That’s one of the bonuses of Sunday, I don’t have to go to work so the dogs and I get to take a really long walk very early before anyone else is up.  It’s quiet and the only things I run into in the morning is deer and small critters.

After the walk, we curled up on the bed and the dogs napped while I read the newspaper and enjoyed my morning coffee.  The day looked like it would turn out nice, no storms as the weather service predicted.  I decided that we should go to the lawn and garden store and buy some herbs to pot.  I like to grow herbs and dry them.  It has worked out well so I decided to branch out and add more variety to the mix.  I take the dogs with me for company and they wait in the car barking and scaring anyone who walks past the car.  Plus when they are with me then they’re not getting into trouble at home.  Bonus.

I potted the herbs I bought and decided to plant the five pepper plants I bought too.  I thought that I would wait another week on the tomato plants but saw a Poblano pepper plant and haven’t tried that variety before so I snagged it.  Plus four more red pepper plants, I couldn’t help myself. 

The dogs were just hanging out sniffing stuff while I planted the pepper plants, I looked up and noticed no AJ.  He had wandered off.  I looked around to make sure he hadn’t gone over to the neighbors to poop in their yard, no sign of him there.  I looked up the hill and spotted him up under the Cedar tree. I called him to come down to me and as he got close I was sorry I had called him.  He stunk to high heaven.  He had dropped his head into something and mashed it all over his neck and side of his face.  Now I had to stop what I was doing, take AJ to the basement garage and bathe him.  And of course I had just put Frontline on the dogs this morning.  AJ how could you?  You’re supposed to be the good dog.

Rule Number One – Change the Batteries

Rule number one – when you buy batteries to replace the dead ones in the indoor shock collars for the dogs, it’s always a good idea to actually change them.  I bought the batteries for the collars the very next morning and as is always the case, I got busy multitasking and totally forgot to change out the dead for the freshly charged batteries.  We had dinner plans that night with my best friend and her significant other, who were in town only for the weekend, so I was busy trying to get everything done for the day and prod Mitch along. 

Mitch is busy working on our latest renovation project since the bathroom finally was finished.  The latest project is totally gutting the dining room and sheet rocking the room ceiling and walls and covering the hard wood floors with bamboo.  Mitch is not a social butterfly, hermit fits the description better, so getting him to stop the rehab and get cleaned up in a timely fashion, is like prodding a giant tortoise to walk faster.  Not going to happen.  So while I’m prodding, nagging and giving him the Look, I completely forgot to change out the batteries.  We go to dinner and have a great time, because once I finally get Mitch out of the cave and into the light, he opens up and enjoys himself.  He’ll even grudgingly admit it later, maybe.   

We get home to barking dogs waiting for me to open the door and once inside, I’m overwhelmed with the wave of destruction the dogs have waged on the kitchen.  In the living room an empty butter container that had housed an unopened pound of whipped butter that one or more dogs had taken from the kitchen table and consumed.  Yummy, eating a pound of butter.  I can’t wait to see which dog ate that.  Farther in the living was a plastic jar of honey or what was left of it.  The lid had been chewed off and the top of the jar had been chewed with about one quarter of the honey eaten.  I picked up the empty butter container, lid and the honey jar and walked into the kitchen to survey the damage waiting for me.  The recycle bin had been opened and contents strewn about.  Why, it’s not like anything in there was edible.

The trash can was knocked over again with trash all over the floor.  Orso also left a wonderful gift in the guest bathroom off the kitchen, he peed on the tile floor.  Lovely.  Surprisingly no one looked at all remorseful.  Imagine that.

The trashcan will now be removed and a smaller one will go under the sink.  God help me if they figure out how to open cabinet doors.  The butter and honey get put up higher, just like living with toddlers and the recycle container will be emptied more often and left outside when I’m gone. 

Oh yes and I am going to change the batteries in the collars right now.

Time Out For Charlie

We abdicated a good night’s sleep in our bed ten years ago when Mitch said, “If that’s the worst thing AJ does, I can live with him sleeping in bed with us.”  This was in response to AJ sneaking in bed with Mitch after I left for work in the mornings.  Now every night it’s a race to claim the best spot and still have the ability to move my legs during the night.  I’m a light restless sleeper, while Mitch sleeps like the dead.  In order for me to get some semblance of a good night’s sleep, we try to position the dogs thusly, Orso at Mitch’s feet because of his size and sleeping like the dead too.  Most nights AJ will opt for the sleep ball next to my side of the bed, unless it thunders, then he has to sleep against me, panting and shaking so bad it’s like sleeping in one of those vibrating beds.  Charlie starts off at the foot of the bed on my side until Mitch drags him closer to him, so that I have leg room.  Mitch is very thoughtful giving me more of the bed, I think this is to minimize me being cranky the next day.

Last night though Charlie decided he didn’t want to move from my feet.  Coaxing him wasn’t working for Mitch so he tried grabbing Charlie’s chest and pulling the dog toward him.  Charlie responded by growling at Mitch.  Big mistake.  In order to show who was alpha (with thumbs) and who wasn’t, Mitch made Charlie get off the bed.  Charlie defiant as ever walked around to my side of the bed jumped back up but as a conciliatory move he moved a bit closer to Mitch or he was planning to eat Mitch in his sleep, I’m not sure which.  Well once Mitch had set the bar, he couldn’t back down and let Charlie sleep on the bed, so Mitch got out of bed walked around to the end of the bed and grabbed his collar to pull him off the bed.  Charlie, defiant and psycho stupidly growled again, this time baring his teeth getting into the challenging behavior thinking he was going show Mitch who was who.  That display of defiance bought Charlie a time out in the bathroom with the door closed.

During the clash of wills, AJ slept in the sleep ball unconcerned, more dog food for him if Mitch killed Charlie and Orso laid in bed watching staying very still to avoid any fallout.  After about fifteen minutes Charlie whined, Mitch looked at me and I said, “You have to go get him not me, otherwise it will undo you establishing yourself as the alpha male.  Mitch let him out and made him lay down on the floor as punishment.  After an eternity for Charlie, 3 minutes, Mitch called him up in bed.  Charlie came and laid down in the middle of the bed close to Mitch and was very contrite.  I still think he wants to eat Mitch while he’s sleeping.

The Most Dreaded Words A Man Will Ever Hear

I can utter a two word phrase that will send Mitch in a panic. “It’s dated.”  Whenever I speak those two simple  words together in a sentence, Mitch knows that another home improvement project is coming at him.  Some might argue that men fear hearing, “I think I’m pregnant,” more, and that may be true for younger single guys, but for a married man, my money is on, “It’s dated,” every time.

In the kitchen the conversation will start something like this.

“You know I think I’m going to paint the kitchen.”

Which causes Mitch to look around at the walls and say, “Why, what’s wrong with the color now?”

“It’s dated.  A fresh new color will make the room brighter.”

He’ll look at me and say, “Okay if you want to paint go ahead and paint, but I think the walls look fine.”

The next words out of my mouth will be something like this, “We really need to change the countertops too.  They are so old and faded, with stains and scratches.  And while we’re at it, we ought to think about new cabinets.”

Translation: he’ll be doing all of the heavy lifting, ripping out cabinets, installing new countertops and whatever else I decide to change.  After we spend days arguing over style, color and materials.  It must be true that opposites attract, because our personal styles are complete opposite.  Mitch has to have balance.  If you have a mantle and you place candlesticks one side of the mantle there has to be the same identical and number of candlesticks on the other side.  Asymmetrical design equates to total chaos to him.  While perfect balance and symmetrical design is boring to me.  I like chaos, it makes life and design interesting.

“What’s wrong with the cabinets?  Wait don’t say it, they’re dated, right?” 

“Now you’re in the spirit, maybe we’ll go darker,” I will answer, totally ignoring the sarcasm.

This will bring on the eye rolling and heavy sighs, but he knows he’s lost the battle, again.  Poor guy.

After the shopping, the arguing and the ultimate compromises on both sides, Mitch will then be called upon to do the hard labor.  I’m the idea person and he’s the implementer.

It’s Them or Me

It’s them or me, and my money is on me. I’m the one with the opposable thumbs. I have the power to reason through a problem. I have tenacity. I also have osteoporosis. I was diagnosed in the fall of last year. Me with osteoporosis, no way. I’ve taken calcium religiously for decades. I was devastated when I found out. I’ve always thought that I was unbreakable. No matter how many times the dogs knocked me down; (and they knocked me down a lot) I would get right back up with nothing more than a few bruise to show for it.  Well there was that one time I tripped over the dogs on a walk and tore the cartilage in my knee.  Mitch had to walk home get the El Camino then come back and get me sitting on the side of the road.  Not now.  I have 5% bone loss, which I was told is significant bone loss. So now I’m taking my weekly dose of Fosamax and have realized that I’m quite breakable.  I’m now afraid of falling and breaking something.  I don’t like feeling this way.  I don’t like fear. 

I’ve not taken the lunging or the yanking the dogs do while walking seriously until now.  It’s been a source of entertainment and fodder for my stories.  But now I’ve realized that together the three dogs are much bigger and stronger than me.  I was five foot two before osteoporosis and losing a half inch, which makes me a great boat anchor dragging behind the leashes, but little more than that if the three choose to charge after the object of their interest. 

Basically they’re good dogs, fairly well behaved, but tend to feed off of each other’s emotions.  If one gets excited about seeing someone, the other two join in and I can’t hold them back.  Not anymore.  So now the serious training begins.  I know labs are hardheaded and stubborn, Orso especially seems awfully thick at times, brilliant other times.  We call him “Box of Rocks”.  Charlie is just hardheaded and willful.  When it comes to a battle of the wills, he will not budge one iota.  The thought of violence is often considered with him.  AJ is soft and submissive, but when no one expects it, he will instigate trouble then stand back and let the other two get yelled at.  Sneaky.

Training three dogs at once is a challenge.  One at a time would be easier, but I don’t have the time to work with each dog individually.  So three at a time is our only option.  I’ve given Mitch the ultimatum, “It’s either they get trained to exhibit patience and not lunge or we can’t have the dogs”.  And I have no intention of not having the dogs.

So it’s them or me.  Bet on me.

The Great Bathroom Remodel Comes to a Close – Finally!

 On April 16, 2011, the first day of our vacation, we started the most labor intensive remodel of our master bath and on January 14, 2012, we are finally finished.  It only took two days shy of nine months to gut and totally revamp the eight foot by ten foot room.  I had this improvished model of reality that the remodel from start to finish would only take one maybe two weeks.  I had no idea what taking out the bathtub, the vanity and removing one closet would entail.  By some sheer miracle of faith, we are still married (to each other!).  There were times I didn’t think the room would ever finish or that our marriage would survive.  The only thing left to do is hang some decorative pictures, even though Mitch looks completely baffled when I mention that, as to why anyone would hang something other than a robe or a towel in a bathroom.  This has been the crux of our differences. 

But I must say that the bathroom looks awesome.  Much better than it did, with the ugliest vanity on the face of the planet.  No more is there a faux wood grain counter top.  Gone is the chipping porcelain sink.  The two pedestal sinks look so clean and contemporary.  Banished is the cramped, closed in space.  The custom cabinets made by Smithville Custom Cabinets look rich and warm, giving us ample storage.  The outdated hanging lights attached to the ceiling are gone and recessed lighting floods the room.  The tile floor looks so much better than the old linoleum and using the same porcelain tile as a baseboard was a stroke of genius, if I do say so myself.  It really does look very nice, though Mitch says was too labor intensive compared to regular wood baseboard. 

I took pictures of before, during and after, but you have to actually stand in the room to fully appreciate how hard Mitch worked and what an accomplishment he made.  I kept a spreadsheet of all the money spent on the remodel and we completed the project in at just under five thousand dollars.  Mitch did all of the work himself, with the occasional help from a few friends.  Otherwise the cost would have been much higher.

I Need a Little Cheese with this Whine

I am becoming a non functioning adult.  This year I am so unprepared for Christmas.  In years past, I always had the Christmas cards mailed by the tenth of December, I haven’t even bought any yet and it’s the twelfth!  I made clear lists and knew exactly what to get everyone.  Not this year, I have no ideas and there is no inspiration in sight.  I used to love the hustle and bustle of shopping, getting out there and finding that special gift for each one.  Now the crowds are claustrophobic and my patience is short.  After standing in the checkout line for over forty-five minutes at Cabelas Saturday, (the first stop) on our annual shopping trek, my enthusiasm started waning and after the half hour wait in line at Nebraska Furniture Mart, I was ready to call it a day.  And we hadn’t started shopping for everyone else. 

I was excited for Christmas back in October, now not so much.  I need more time, more ideas and the energy to execute.  Is this stress or lack of interest?  I’m suffering from input overload.  I need a spa day, but don’t see that happening anytime soon, I don’t have the time.

I am an Evil Person

I’ve been slowly and methodically corrupting Mitch, bringing him to the dark side without his knowledge.  It is so much fun.  To know Mitch is to know what an old soul he is.  I think he was born old.  He has never done some of the truly inane antics everyone has done growing up.  I am constantly shocked at the lack of silly things he hasn’t done.  Every teenager has at one time or another has cut donuts in a parking lot.  Not Mitch.  Mitch was into “entrepreneurial” endeavors growing up.  He had no time for crazy immature behavior.

So now I have to help him make up for all that lost time, even if I have to drag him kicking and screaming into having silly fun.  I can’t go into all of the things he never did, the list would be too long.  But I’m going to help him cross them all off the list, one silly act at a time. 

Last night for dessert, we had leftover pumpkin pie (who doesn’t).  I got the Reddi-Wip aerosol whipped cream out of the fridge to put on his slice and the dogs got very close.  They know what comes out of the can.  AJ has taught Orso that if he sits in front of me with his mouth open, I’ll squirt some in.  It is hilarious to watch whip cream flying through the air and landing in and around the dog’s mouth.  Charlie wants it too but won’t let you get close to him with the can.  He wants the Reddi-Wip squirted on your hand and he’ll lick it off.  Sissy.  Well I asked Mitch if he wanted some squirted in his mouth and he said. “Absolutely not!”  He’d never done that as a kid and wasn’t about to start now.  Really!  I laughed so hard.  Everybody has squirted Reddi-Wip into their mouths.  It was almost a rule, once you opened the can, some had to be squirted in your mouth.  Everybody knows that.

Well needless to say, I harassed him long enough and with the right amount of wine already consumed, he relented and let me squirt some into his mouth.  The look was priceless.  I still laugh when I remember the look on his face.  I asked if he wanted more and sadly, he declined.  Oh well, one down many more to go.

Poor Mitch.

Learning Something New

This year on the annual “Great Pheasant Hunt” the weather was more cooperative.  Saturday was sunny and chilly around 38 degrees to start the day.  Too windy, with sustained winds around 20 miles an hour, but it was dry, no rain or snow.  Not too bad all things considered.  AJ and Charlie were beside themselves with energy and excitement for the upcoming event.  Orso was just along for the ride, as usual.  No interest in hunting, just happy to be with us. 

Even though we’ve been pheasant hunting for decades, Mitch for almost five decades and me for twelve years, every year we either learn something new or a better way to prepare for hunting.  Because we don’t get the opportunity to go hunting as often as we would like nor do we work the dogs as much as they need to stay at the top of their game, the first day has always been very chaotic.  The dogs have so much pent up excitement at finally being able to do the one thing they were bred for, hunt birds.

Fifteen minutes into our first morning, we always tell each other that next year we need to come up a day earlier than everyone else to wear the dogs out a bit and never do.  This year was no different, but now we’ve added a twist, next year we plan on getting set up about an hour before the others and work the dogs away from where we plan on hunting, so as not to chase off any pheasant that may be loitering in the area.  We definitely don’t need any more handicaps. 

This brilliant idea came to me watching the dogs the second morning totally out of control running through six foot plus tall dense prairie grass, losing sight of them almost immediately.  I stomped down the hill and up to Mitch, poor unsuspecting soul, and said, “I have a thought.  This area is too hard to manage the dogs with all of this energy.  We need to slow them down.  I think that we should take them across the draw to the open hilly field and run them to burn off some of their exuberance.  What do you think?”

Mitch was experiencing as much frustration as I was and quickly agreed.  We both knew that there were birds laying low in dense grasses and didn’t want the dogs to scatter them.  So we called everyone out of the prairie grass, called the dogs and regrouped.  As expected one was missing.  AJ was nowhere to be found.  I told Mitch to hold on to both Charlie and Orso while I tromped off to find AJ.  Orso, thinking he was going to miss something immediately started wailing so I told Mitch to let him come with me.  I found AJ heading back to the cars having lost us.  After getting all of us together, Mitch explained our plan and off we headed across the electric fence that we always forget to unplug until one of us remembers the hard way.  Everyone else that hasn’t touched the fence yet laughs at the victim, really glad it wasn’t them. 

Even though it was only 40 degrees, the dogs found the pond at the bottom of the dam a refreshing swim.  Brrr.  Hydrated and renewed, the dogs bolted off up the open ground.  We started yelling, “Whoa!” as soon either Charlie or AJ got too far ahead of us.  The plan was to keep both of them working close to us.  Orso wasn’t a problem never straying too far ahead, as I constantly clomped him in the jaw with my heel.  He prefers to let me clear a path, less effort on his part. 

After walking and working the dogs from one end of Todd’s land to other, we succeeded in taking some of the out of control excitement out of them.  We decided it was time to head back to the tall prairie grass and give it a thorough sniffing.  The dogs worked wonderfully and rewarded us with two more birds.

Who says you can’t teach old dogs new tricks?