Goodnight...Sleep (Air)Tight

by Cathy

Ahhh...summertime. We Chicagoans wait nine months before summer births itself to us in the truest sense of the word. I've enjoyed the cooler than scorching temps this summer had to offer but seeing as the heat and humidity are raging this week, I'm encountering the dreaded domestic conflict that comes with turning on the A/C.

What's the problem with doing what every other warm-blooded human does when the heat and humidity reach 100%, you ask? The fact that my husband prefers to sleep in a tomb. In fact he prefers to live in a tomb. When he's home alone, the lights are never on, the windows are never open, the air is stifling and he's couch-hunched in the dark living room covered in a blanket sipping on tea. My teenager is exactly the same way, I am coming to discover recently. I'm sorry but I was not made to live and sleep in a Rubbermaid container of a house.

Bedtime in summer has come to be one of the biggest points of contention in my relationship. Who knew that once the bedtime struggles with the kids ended, I'd have THIS bedtime struggle to contend with? Since the hubby refuses the turning on of the A/C unless it's 100% humidity, 0% wind and temps in the 90s at midnight, I have to live with having the windows open. He lays there wrapped in a down comforter and I, parched tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, an ocean building between my boobs (or as I like to refer to it, "A River Runs Through Them") literally basting in bed, sweat slowly building an outline of my body around me on the sheets.

I throw my covers over on top of him, zombie walk my way to the thermostat and when the click of the air kicks in, the hubby spurts out some tongue clicking of his own and robotically reaches for the down comforter - yes, that still sits at the end of our bed in the midst of summer - and envelopes himself in it like a bear hunkering down for the winter.

I've spent countless summer nights sleepwalking my way back and forth from the thermostat lest I cause anyone in the house to catch their "death of a cold", always concerned about turning the dial to juuuuusssttt the right temperature where it kicks in periodically but not toooooo often. I've awoken after those mornings from my half-assed sleep looking like a slicked up pufferfish.

The other day my girls and I got into my mother-in-law's car and the air was turned up to "freezer" on the dial. Even I thought it was a smidgen chilly. They mouthed to me from the backseat that "it's freezing in here!" and hugged themselves into the embryo position, teeth chattering. I, on the other hand, was sprawled out in the front seat enjoying the blast of cool air all while wondering how my husband managed to grow up in a house where his mother enjoyed (gasp!) turning on the A/C. I looked over at my mother-in-law knowingly and thought, "She gets it. She's normal!" Then I promptly decided that age and A/C levels are in direct proportion to each other; the older you get, the higher the A/C gets cranked.

And you know what that means....it will all be tomb much for husband. That's when I'll tell him to go sleep at his mom's house.

Sitting Shivers

by Cathy & Patti

Charlotte: Where are we going to go?

Ray: I'm thinking Alaska.

Charlotte: Alaska?

Ray: Yeah, it's cold and Mexicans don't like the cold. I say we act like white people and disappear and let our lawyer do the talking.

~ From the television series The Bridge, 

which in part, has to do with Mexican drug trafficking

--------------------------------------

Cathy
As our parallel universe lives would have it, we both married Latino men. Mine, J, is part Mexican. Patti's, M, is Argentinian. Latino men, apparently judging from the warm climates their ancestors hailed from, don't fare well in cold weather, as further proved by the quote above. They enter a darkness where no Happy Light can reach. In fact, they become winter beasts of sorts, that transforms them into bitter, miserable, grouchy, whiny, complaining little mean girls who consistently ask why we the hell we live here and not in Miami.

I'm not thrilled about the arctic plunges Chicago weather takes us on a consistent basis now either. I'm not enjoying my parched skin and the literal crackling of my facial wrinkles forming overnight, or the dryness of my cotton mouth which wakes me up in coughing fits, or the fireworks show that ensues via static electricity every time I move. But I deal with it. I power through it. Hell, my ancestors hail from Greece, the land of abundant islands, sea and sun and Patti is Argentinian and Italian, so same pretty much goes for her. And WE quietly deal with it. However, men being men, they can't handle it. It falls into the same category as being sick.

The other day, I walk into my living room to find this:

The Hobbit? Obe Wan Kenobi? Nomadic tribal elder?

Now clearly, the sheer over-dramatization of J's reaction to the cold is laughable. I stifled my chuckle and as it seemed fitting, I simply greeted him with a "Shabbat Shalom".  Minutes later, Patti and I were LOLing and commiserating via text at how alike our enrobed bundles of misery really are in terms of the literal mourning they go through each winter: the death of summer.

And the texts went on:

PATTI: "By the way, I don't think M and I will still be married after this winter. He is worse than ever with this weather. I cannot take his crankiness."
ME: I get the same from Rabbi Elder over here on a daily basis too, don't worry.
PATTI: They should sit shiva together!

As if luck would have it, they planned a coffee date a few days later without us girls knowing a thing until I happened to call J for something completely unrelated and lo and behold, he was commiserating and shiva-ing with M at a local coffeehouse. I promptly texted Patti to see, did she know about this?

PATTI: Of course not. I'm sure they will just sit there and kvetch about the weather.

I had no doubts about that and I'm certain they kvetched about us as well.

Patti
..as if they had any good reason whatsoever to kvetch.

I'm not quite sure how I could possibly illustrate to the fullest the life I lead from November to April. It is one in which my normally quite "macho" husband is grouchily tucked into corners of the couch and the bed and other cushion-y surfaces, blankets wrapped to the point of swaddling 'round his shivering body, and I pretty much wave a mental goodbye to the man I love and, with heavy heart, say hello to the Winter Monster. There is no light, only darkness and snow and lots and lots of f-bombs.

Here's the thing: As superficial as it may seem, I love tights and turtlenecks and cute leather boots. I love seasons with their breezy, blue-sky summers and silvery, snowy Christmases. And most importantly? I'm pale. Unlike my perpetually tanned husband, I am perpetually transparent and, rather than become golden in the sun, lean toward purple scorch. Therefore, no matter how monster-y the Winter Monster gets, I can't find it in my seasons-lovin', pale heart to up and move to 365 days of OMG I'M SWELTERING and MELANOMA-ING.

The result? I have to deal with Grandpa Bitches-a-Lot.  When Cathy sent me that picture of her own Grandpa Bitches-a-Lot, wrapped up like a Hobbit/Obe Wan Kenobi/Nomadic tribal elder, my heart swelled with kinship for my friend. She knew. She knows. She lives it just as I do. She has her own Winter Monster, one whose moans of discontent rise from within the swaddled walls of his misery for 7 months out of every year.

At first, when I heard the two Winter Monsters had gotten together, I worried. I pictured them both sitting there, scarfed and hatted and multi-coated and shivering, and I knew their shared kvetch-ing would only lead to one-way tickets to Miami - with or without their MUCH better halves. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized the Winter Monsters are also Summer Mourners and, as grieving brothers, they need one another. They are their own support group, of sorts. So let them kvetch. I'll just sit here and sip on my cozy winter tea, turn up the heat, and cuddle up under the fuzzy blanket I never get to use.

The No Purpose Repurposer

by Cathy

I always knew my husband was an old soul, but sometimes? I suspect he may have lived through the Great Depression.

Our family is all about recycling and repurposing; finding creative ways to use items that otherwise may be thrown away. For example, I save plastic egg cartons, cut them up into sections, and voila! Instant paint palettes for my kids. This, to me, makes sense, since there is a valid purpose for it and it goes in the arts and crafts bin where no one else will see it. My husband, on the other hand? He takes the "art" of repurposing household items a smidgen too far.

Countless times he's said to me, as I am about to throw something into the recycling bin: "Wait, don't throw that out! The kids can use it as a pencil holder/storage container/what have you!"
I stare blankly at the plastic peanut butter jar I am holding, blinking repeatedly at it while I try to process what he just suggested. Did I hear him right?
"Um, no that's okay," I say politely as I toss it. "The kids have plenty of pencil holders."
The kids, on the other hand, are not as forgiving with his suggestions, but rather state the more obvious, unfiltered version of my thoughts.
"WHAT?!" screeches Bella. "We can't use the peanut butter container as a pencil holder! That's so....weird!"

My poor husband. He's just trying to be helpful, doing his part in conservation. So, you would think he knows what truly belongs in a recycling bin but alas, he doesn't. He throws cardboard boxes, aluminum cans and milk cartons in the regular trash, willy nilly, without thinking, that duh, these should go in the recycling bin. So half the time I am carefully (and bravely) fishing these items out of the smelly trash all in the name of our great, green Earth. I am, after all, a purposeful repurposer/recycler.

My husband means well, but really? What's the purpose of his repurposing? Let me tell you.

The other night, as I was making my rounds before bedtime, turning off lights, pulling frozen chickens out of the freezer for tomorrow's dinner, I saw this:

Yes, it's a sawed-off milk carton.

"What's this for?" I asked my sleepy spouse.
"Oh, I need it for something."

Thinking it might be for some kind of marketing research project, I left it alone...until the next day when he announced that he plans to use it for his utensils.
"Utensils? What utensils?"
"You know, my odds and ends. Pens, pencils, labels, phone chargers..."

The girls and I all stopped and stared with our mouths agape. We were literally dumbfounded.
"Um....papi...." started Bella carefully, but before she got a chance to finish, I did it for her.
"Bwahahahahaha!" I blurted. "Are you serious?"
"Yeah, what's wrong with that?" he said, half smirking at our reaction. This made me wonder if he just does these things to get a rise out of us.
I promptly took it and tossed it in the recycling bin. "That's what's wrong with it," I said. "I have plenty of decent baskets and containers to give you if you want to store stuff."
"I don't want those."
"Why? Because they're not sawed-off milk cartons or empty beer containers?"

Yes, ladies and gents. Here is what he uses as his other knick-knack caddy:

So what do I make of this? Here's what I know:
His life's work is marketing, so he's always looking at different and unique approaches to packaging and the way things are used and sold. He's always brainstorming, always innovating. There's a reason he has founded two companies and ran a franchise operation: he's an entrepreneur at heart. A purposeful repurposer he is not. But, he gets points for creativity and good intentions.

On the Razor's Edge

by Cathy

When my husband and I first got married, we had some unspoken cohabitation rules we both respected: Don't wake him if he falls asleep on the couch watching television; one bathroom will be mine and the other, his; and we never share razors.

The first rule still stands, the second went out the window when we had kids and the third - well, I guess we've gotten a little too comfortable throughout the course of our 15-year marriage.

For a long time, he had his Mach 3 razor and I had my Gillette razor, a hardcore, futuristic little number made of metal and black grips that I had since I first set a razor to my virgin skin and that could chainsaw through hair like a mofo. I never did frilly pink razors, or those silly rounded Intuition razors (no offense to singer/songwriter Jewel) or those smelly, sloppy hair removal creams (unless I found myself in one heck of a hairy situation).

Is this for shaving or for gardening?

But when he ran out of blades, instead of going to the store to shop for more, (or rather when I stopped buying them for him) he started using mine. You should know that besides his Aveda hair gel, which he makes sure he is stocked up on religiously and consistently, he doesn't bother to really go out and buy any other toiletry of his own, which means, I am the one buying them. And if I stop, the only thing that would make him go buy them himself is when his toothbrush was ground down to a bristly nub, or he couldn't stand his own stench, or doesn't want to walk around with hair smelling of chamomile lavender rose gardens, or use potpourri essence body soap, or when he started resembling one of the ZZ Top brothers. Yet he was now shaving his face with a razor that had been near some unmentionable body parts of my own.

Not only does he use my razor and wears down the $8,000 blades faster than the speed of light, but he has taken to showering in the other bathroom - the one I don't use. (The kids still use both.) There have been many a times when I've slathered myself up for a good shavedown and waaahhh waaaaaaaahhhh. No razor. Having been too lazy/cold/dripping like a human sprinkler to go fetch it mid-shower, or because I just wouldn't think that screaming over the running water, closed door and three rooms away would get me anywhere, I have lately been emerging from my showers not quite as polished as I'd like. And between bringing it back only to have it disappear by the next morning or forgetting to bring it back altogether, I fear that in a mere few weeks, I will emerge from that shower ready to climb the Empire State Building.

I don't know how long this game will go on but one thing I do know for sure is that I am about to take a razor to some unmentionables of his own if this doesn't stop...'cause I'm on the edge.

What's Up, Tsuts?

by Cathy

Indulge me as I vent about one of several pet peeves I have about my husband.

Let me preface this by saying that he is usually asleep when this occurs, rendering him clueless (I think) about what he does, but STILL. 

So picture this: he's fallen asleep, usually way too early for my taste. He's either laying on the living room couch with the lights off, the television now watching him instead of the other way around, or he's already in bed, mummified under the covers, which are pulled up to his nose.

Since I am always shuffling around the house until some crazy hour because of the million little things I have to do  before I can carelessly flop into bed, I am walking in and out of rooms constantly. Most of the time, I am in my own world of To Do's, so I may or may not be aware that he has fallen asleep in a particular room. Regardless, I usually try to keep the noise level down.

However, there comes a time where I HAVE to turn on a light, or check the sound on my alarm clock so that I don't oversleep the following morning, or clean up, or look for something or maybe, just turn on my bedside lamp so I can sneak in a few pages of reading before I hit the hay.

And how does he react to any one of those things? He tsutses. You know, that noise you make when you click your tongue off your upper teeth in annoyance? Yeah, that. He tsutses.

Now if I've purposely woken him up, dropped something ridiculously loud or started singing at the top of my lungs, I can see how he would react like that. But to tsuts at my cleaning the house and preparing to go to bed, I mean, come ON. I know he doesn't know the difference if he's asleep so I try to ignore it sometimes, but others, I respond with a "WHY are you tsutsing?!?" And almost always, I get no response because he's back asleep in no time.

I then chalk up his tsutsing to a mindless reaction - an instinctive reflex.
A rather annoying one.

Of Errands and Men

by Cathy

Moms tackle a lot and most of it via multitasking or at the very least, getting tasks done in rapid succession. We're juggling work, cleaning, cooking, laundry, school drop off/pick up, activities, playdates, doctor's appointments, homework, school projects just to name a few. Of course, I don't want to undervalue the role that some dads play in all of this - kudos to the ones that do and shame on the ones that don't - you are both in this together and your wife didn't have those kids by herself. (But that's a soapbox for which I will get on for another blog post.)

For the purposes of this post (and what I'm getting at here), is that sometimes these dads, whether they are actively pitching in or not, are forced to at some point, step into unknown territory when it comes to handling some of the tasks that moms usually handle. Such as? Birthday parties and the gift purchase that goes along with it.

Before I left to go on my Mexican work vacay, I reminded Joe that he had to take the kids to a birthday party for one of Ari's kindergarten friends on a Saturday night. Yes, you heard right...a kids party on a Saturday night.  (The family is Polish and they did this thing up Euro/Latin style, i.e. totally right up our alley. It was held at the Park Ridge community center swimming pool and the grandfather of the birthday girl, who owns a Polish restaurant, catered the event with enough delicious food and varieties thereof to feed the whole country of Poland. Bottom line, this was our type of party.)

My family and friends were more than willing to fill me in on the deets of preparing for the party when I got back from my trip. My husband, apparently with a plan in hand, decided to stop in at Target with Ari on the Saturday of the party while Bella was in her ballet class. His intention was purposeful and planned: pick up a gift card and head out the door. But the poor guy, not versed in Target visits with the girls, was taken on a joyride by Ari. She worked her way around the store to the toy aisle where she bombarded him with "OOOH how cute!" and "Can i get this?" Finally she found THE ONE toy she was sure her friend would love. After many unsuccessful, time consuming attempts on my husband's behalf to steer her towards the gift cards, he decided to go with it and subsequently, thought it would be a sweet gesture since the gift came from Ari herself.

So they bought it and left with just enough time to pick up Bella from her lesson. Car screeching to a halt outside the ballet studio, gift tumbling around the backseat, he picked up Bella on time and headed home to wrap the gift and prepare the swimming bag for the party.

After hauling up the Christmas wrapping paper bin from storage, they determined that they couldn't wrap the gift in a candy cane motif or reindeer games wrapping paper, so they dug around and found the only neutral paper that had accidentally made its way into that bin:

My 10-year old's idea of Granny Wrapping Paper

So Bella took charge of wrapping the gift (she prides herself on wrapping gifts and does a professional looking job, thanks to the technique I passed on to her from my many years in retail), but not before interrogating her father on the choice of gift.

"Papi, you do realize that this gift is for 3-36 month olds, right?!?"

"What?" exclaimed my husband, as he stared down the box containing the big clunky, plastic teapot and cups staring him in the face. "Really? I didn't even notice that!"

"Yeah, it says it right on here. See?" she pointed and tapped on the box.

"Oh well. That's what Ari wanted and she wouldn't leave without it. She was crying over getting it."
Bella gave her usual rolling of the eyes and started wrapping that gift in the paper above, which she ultimately summed up as follows:

"We were the only ones there that wrapped a gift meant for a three-month old in 80-year old wrapping paper for a six-year old."

Live and learn and make it your own, I say.

Once at the party, they swam, ate like kings and had a swimmingly good time. No one noticed the oddness of our gift - and if they did, they kept mum about it - just like the other school parents that were visibly horrified at how late this kids birthday party was and seemed at the ready to call the party police about it all. They dutifully left at a reasonable hour.

My husband on the other hand? He got home at 10:30pm with sufficiently satisfied. well-fed, tired kids in tow, and another parental task successfully behind him. Good job, babe.

Stomach Bugging

by Cathy

As is probably expected from a trip to Mexico, I came down with some sort of a stomach bug/flu/virus the night I returned from Cabo. Was it Montezuma's Revenge? Was it the water? Was it the stomach flu circulating on the plane? Who knows. All I know is that this mutha was turnin' my stomach out.

Before I went to sleep that night, I felt a little queasy and attributed the symptoms to some 'bad sausage' I ate for dinner, a meal my husband lovingly had prepared for my welcome home. I fell asleep and was awoken at 3 a.m. to some major stomach pains. I got up to use the bathroom and...nothing. I could hear my intestines partying it up - gurgling, twisting and churning the night away - but I could not relieve myself. It was the strangest feeling. I dragged myself back to bed and desperately tried to sleep off the pains. By the next morning, I had a fever and felt like my body was run over by a Mack truck.

My husband continued tackling the daily routine, something he had by now become an expert at: lunches, school and activity shuffling, dishwashing, cooking and everything in between as I quietly napped most of the day and got up to munch on some saltine crackers and wait out this 24-hour bug.

Two days later, ON MY HUSBAND'S BIRTHDAY, he caught the same mutha. He awoke okay enough that day, donned some dressier clothes and set out to renew his drivers license. By the time he came to pick me up from work, kids in the back seat picked up from school, he was shivering so bad he was tearing up.

"Let me drive'" I suggested.
"No. It helps distract me. I'll just drive home," he said in his usual stubborn way.

What ensued after we got home, could only be referred to as a tragic comedy.

He took his shoes off and slid under the comforter in bed fully clothed, teeth chattering, body convulsing with shakes.
"Can you throw some of those wool covers over me? I'm freezing!"
I covered him up to his chin. Five minutes later...
"Can you wrap my feet in that other wool blanket? Just my feet? Yeah...there you go. Thanks."
"Anything else?"
"Can you prop up these pillows for me? I'm not comfortable laying all the way down."
"Aren't you going to try and sleep?"
"No, I can't sleep. Can you prop them up higher?"
Propping takes place.
"No, that's too high. Can you bring them lower?"
Propping takes place. Apparently, said propping wasn't quite right for the Goldilocks of Pillows.
"Can you just...I don't want to be all the way down but not too high." [Insert more propping here.] "OK, that's good."
 "Do you want me to sit here with you?"
"Yeah, for a little if you don't mind."
"Sure."
Pause.
"You know that I still have that life insurance policy in place should anything happen, right?"
"Babe, you have the stomach flu."
"Yeah, I know, I'm just sayin'."
Pause. [Insert silent chuckle from me here.]
"Do you want me to get you some water? You should drink liquids if you have a fever so you don't get dehydrated."
"Yeah, sure....Wait! Can I get a straw with that so I don't spill it?"
"Sure, babe."
"OH and can you get me the Vicks?"
"The Vicks Vapor Rub? For what? You're not congested."
"But I need the fumes. They'll help distract me"
Okaaaaaay. No Vicks was found after a house-wide search; probably swallowed up in the giant pink mess of the girls' bedroom.
"Should I put a hot water bottle near my feet? They're like blocks of ice they're so cold!" he said after whining about not finding the said Vicks.
"Why don't you try to get some sleep?"
"I can't."
"OK, I'm going into the kitchen to cook some dinner. Will you be okay?"
"Yeah. But first can you change me?"
"CHANGE YOU?"
"Yeah, can you help me change out of my clothes and put on my pajamas?"
Okay, this was it.
"Dude, I had this for two whole days and all I did was nap and pad around quietly in my robe. You didn't hear a peep from me. You're a total BABY!"
"OK, never mind, I'LL just do it."

So after laying in bed for some time, getting up to change in to his PJs on his own (evident from the groaning and painful moaning I heard all the way in the kitchen) and getting up to use the toilet frequently, (evident from the scream that would be emitted from the bathroom every time he sat on the cold toilet seat) he announced that he was "STARVING." But before he gobbled up some soup, he asked me for some Aleve because his head was pounding.
"How many, one or two?"
"Ten," he replied.

Some more time passed during which any one of the following comments could be randomly heard:

"I'm so cold!"
"I'm so hot!"
"Do you think I need a cold compress on my head?"
"Where's that thermometer??!" (Again, also lost in the cluttery pinkness of the girls' room.)
"I need to take some Nyquil or something to knock me out." (I explained to him that when I had this, this BUG knocked me out and I took three naps in one day. Why couldn't HE sleep?)

"Can you rub the back of my neck? Where's that rubbing oil? No, not the rubbing alcohol, the massage oil!"

"OH MY GOD, your hands are FREEZING!! Rub nice! Rub them together first, Japanese style so they can warm up!" (After a minute of Mr. Myagi-ing, I told him this wasn't gonna work and he should just rub his own shoulders.)

I left him there and went to take care of Ari, who by now, was in the tub and yelling for me to wash her hair, while helping Bella with her math homework, cook dinner, wash the ceiling-stacked dishes in the sink and the million little things that need tending to around the house, then put off the begging from Ari to play tea party with her and review Bella's homework once again.

Finally, towards the end of the night, I went into the bedroom and saw that Joe was sitting up in bed watching television. It must've been a rough few hours for him because his hair looked like an unstyled, jacked up version of Pauly D.'s hairdo - stiff, sticking straight up but in a curly, longer, messed up mess.

Pauly D's infamous hairdo

"You didn't sleep at all?" I asked.
"No. I couldn't."
"I was completely knocked out by this thing. How are you feeling?"
"My whole body aches." Pause. "Can you please rub me down now?" he added, quietly. "Just rub my calves. They're killing me."

I proceeded to knead his calves, then conveniently, this turned into rubbing his lower back, his upper back, his shoulders, the back of his neck, all while attempting to watch television over the moans, groans, ooohs, aaahs that got higher pitched by the minute. It may have sounded like a fun time to someone listening in, but quite plainly put, it wasn't.

Upon finishing the rubdown, he magically!  instantly! felt better. "My God, what did you DO? It felt like you were rubbing the fever and aches right out of my body! I feel so much better now!" He started chirping away like baby bird that just found his voice. His newfound Chatty Cathy phase led me to believe that I had done my job in helping him get better, and go from baby to man once more. And given that I did get some really good laughs from his miserable ordeal, which made the process of helping him more bearable, I didn't mind taking care of my "baby daddy." That's what we do.

And speaking of babies...

Thought I'd add this, you know, so you can get another view of Pauly D's, um...hair