Monthly Archives: December 2011

THANKSGIVING OR ALL-INCLUSIVE? This year we left Seattle on Thanksgiving morn and headed to Mexico. I love holidays, but missing Thanksgiving stress not entirely a bad thing. Nevertheless, Christmas lurked around the corner, so it would not be total escape.

THE LOST SHOES: Kids lose things. Usually they turn up. My wife, however, does not wait for missing things to appear. When anything of the girls disappears, an inevitabillity, chaos ensues. Me? My “Don’t worry, they’ll turn up” attitude does not console. I figger – My wife works hard, why spend time searching? She figgers – an afternoon spent ransacking the house because a $10 hat is missing is time well spent. The latest tragedy concerned Gia’s shoes. It was the theme of Christmas week, as if we don’t have enough going on. No rest for the shoe-misplacers.

My wife spent three days looking, every minute when she wasn’t working, eating, or sleeping. Not only that, she wouldn’t let anyone else rest until those damn shoes popped up. “Caleb, we must find those shoes. Everyone, we’re not doing anything until those shoes turn up! Caleb – search the car. Ava and Gia, get your butts downstairs and find them shoes!” Aaaaaargh! Turned out nephew Elliot wore them home last time he was here. We picked them up at Grandy’s on Christmas eve.

GENDER CONFUSION – HOW vs. WHAT: Why do people talk endlessly about nothing? Yes, I’m not innocent, yet I’ve learned to keep my boring thoughts to myself, for the most part. Others? Maybe it’s just a me vs. everyone thing, because my dad and father-in-law have their moments, gab is a human affliction, not just a female one, but as a sexist with an inferiority complex regarding women, I’ll focus on the ladies. When a sister or wife calls, I need to be careful to ask them “how” they’re doing, but no matter how much room I give them for a short answer, I’m in for a detail-laden screed about kids eating/playing/related chores/ or a gallery of shopping and work-related detritus.

Gad-friggin’-zooks. There is beauty in simplicity. When they ask me about my kids or life, I’ll say, “All’s fine.” For the most part, you hear one kid/life story you’ve heard them all. It’s not that I don’t care about family & friends, it’s just that I don’t care about minutia. When I ask my wife about her day, unless there is actual news, I’m looking for a one-word answer, or at worst, a sentence. I treat as I wish to be treated, and this is a problem, as my wife could talk all day about coffee and clothes, so there’s a disconnect. Do men and women interpret the meanings of “how” and “what” differently?

So I phrase the question as a yes-no, using the interrogative pronoun “how”. It doesn’t matter how the husband (stay-at-home dad) phrases the question, though, because the woman (hard-working wage earner) will answer in essay form.

Husband: Did you have a nice day?/How was your day? (The correct answer is either “yes” or “no” or something like “nice”)

Wife: It was okay, it started off fine, but now my flight home is delayed a half hour so I thought I’d call you while I wait at the airport, I’m so tired. I think I’m going to have to buy new shoes. These shoes started to hurt my feet, but maybe it’s just because I’ve been standing a lot all day. I really worked hard today, but when I was driving to the airport there was this accident and traffic was blocked for about five minutes, but at least the flight coming here to San Francisco was smooth. And the weather was good, too, sunny, although it wasn’t that warm, maybe 60 degrees. I arrived to the meeting early so I had time to prepare, and that was nice. But even though traffic was bad the line at the airport was pretty good and I was happy to get through and then I was major disappointed because the flight was delayed. (By this time husband is chewing on his gums) Then she’ll ask me:

Wife: What’d you do today?
Husband:It was fine.

That being said, truth of the matter is, I love hearing my wife chirp about her day, especially at the end when we’re winding down, but when you’re a hard-working stay-at-home dad (don’t roll your eyes) long, endless conversations need to end.

TOFURKEY & GRAVY SODA: My wife works with retailers, and Jones soda gave her a free case of this holiday season’s brew: Tofurkey & Gravy Soda. I guess I’m late to the game as this concoction has been out for a while, but it just shows people will buy anything. It is a gag, but it’s been successful, and evidently sells out every year around the holiday season. Go figure. So…with that, happy holidays to all!