Newlywedded

To the Doghouse.

<WARNING: READ THE ENTRY "ON HIS WAY" BEFORE YOU READ THIS ONE>

After receiving news from the vet that our little ear situation was going to cost upwards of $900 to operate on, Mike and I were livid. He strutted around the house mumbling about "that little dog" and "he's so f-ing cute but, Jesus, did he have to cost us so much money!" He even wanted my sister in law to pay for the operation. It was turing into a family disaster. I pictured a sign above our front door that said "No little fluffy white dogs allowed." I imagined my sister in law having to pay a fortune for a dog walker - I imagined her never wanting to speak to us again after banning her dog from our house.  The next day, Louie returned home with his head wrapped in bandages and with the ever so sexy CONE jutting out from his collar. It’s the saddest thing you’ve ever seen.

MIKE: “Now the dog can get 500 channels.”

ME: “Oh that’s horrible.”

MIKE: “Not as horrible as what I’m about to tell you.”

ME: “What?”
MIKE: “The vet told me that the…uh…problem was probably NOT caused by Parker climbing on Louie’s ears.”

ME: “Oh?”

MIKE: “It was probably caused by…”

ME: “By….”

MIKE: “By...an…ear…”

ME: “infection?”

MIKE: “that went…untreated.”

And here’s where the shit hit the fan.

ME: “Are you f-ing serious???!!!!!! I could f-ing kill you!!!! Do you know how many times I asked you to….???!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This was the moment we’d all been waiting for. The moment of truth. The moment of…

I TOLD YOU SO. Four words that every single wife around the world itches to say. Four words that ring on high from suburban rooftops, downtown lofts, throughout city streets and in buses. Four words that are shouted gleefully in minivans and taxi cabs. THIS WAS MY MOMENT and…I couldn’t do it.

I took one look at him and the way he looked at his dog who was now head butting everything in sight with his ginormous cone. It was heartbreaking. The $900 bill on the kitchen counter was all the I TOLD YOU SO he needed.

BUT…there was ONE thing I couldn’t resist. Over breakfast the next morning, after my meltdown had worn off and I was feeling a bit less haughty, I went in for one brief second of satisfaction.

ME: “So dear, what have we learned from this experience?”

MIKE: “That dogs with floppy ears get infections?”

ME: “Uh….OK…that’s true…but what is the essence of the lesson?”

MIKE: “That vet bills are really f-ing expensive?”

ME: “Yes…true…but what’s the principal, the core, the root of what this is all about?”

MIKE: “Just say it…”

ME: “OK…I’m going to say it once. It’s also really true. It’s kind of a mantra, actually. You’ll enjoy it.”

MIKE: “Go for it.”

ME: “Listen to your wife.”

I grinned.

MIKE: “Are you happy now?”

ME: “Thrilled.”

Maybe next time it won't cost $1,000...

 

 

 

 

 

On His Way...

 

A few weeks ago…

 

ME: "Mike?"

MIKE: "Yeah?"

ME: "The dog stinks."

MIKE: "Yes, I know. He always stinks. He's a 10 year old dog."

ME: "No, no. This smell is really different. It's like...it's really bad. He smells like nasty belly button smell, you know?"

MIKE: "Gross."

ME: "He's your dog."

MIKE: "Oh, now that he stinks he's my dog."

 

The following week...

 

ME: "Babe?"

MIKE: "Yeah?"

ME: "I'm worried about the dog."

MIKE: "Why?"

ME: "Because of that smell. I think it's his ears. Maybe he has an infection."

MIKE: "He's fine. You worry too much."

 

The next Friday, we were sitting at a friends' house after drinking way too many margaritas.

 

ME: "The dog's ears still smell. I think he needs to go the vet."

MIKE: "Fine."

OUR FRIENDS: "What's wrong with the dog?"

MIKE AND ME: "His ears stink."

OUR FRIENDS: "That means they're infected."

ME: "See!"

MIKE: "Fine. I'll take him..."

The next day, after more and more pestering, I googled "stinky dog ears" only to find hundreds of websites on ear mites, bacteria growth in the ear, hearing loss and tons of information that scared the crap out of me.

ME: "The dog probably has ear mites."

MIKE: "I told you, I'm taking him. Stop worrying about it."

I closed my laptop, gave the dog a look as if to say, "I'm rooting for you," and shut up about the whole thing until a few nights later...

MIKE: "OH MY GOD!"

I rush in.

ME: "What?!"

MIKE: "Look at the dog's ear! It's completely swollen!"

While I was convinced that this was my "I told you so" moment, I had another thing coming.  Mike called the next morning after taking the dog to the vet.

MIKE: "It's a hematoma caused by severe trauma to the ear."

So it wasn't an infection after all...

ME: "How do you think it happened?"

MIKE: "Well, there's only one way..."

MIKE AND ME: "Parker..."

We uttered the words as if we were detectives on an episode of Law and Order and we'd just cracked the case. Ahhh Parker. My sister in law’s so cute you want to throw up (just a little) Havanese/Poodle mix puppy. He’s the yummiest, most loveable, most angelic little thing and what’s more? He’s absolutely obsessed with Louie. In fact, he spends most of his days climbing on Louie, French kissing Louie, and of course…HANGING on Louie’s ears. Hence, THE PROBLEM. 

To be continued...

THE GLAMOROUS LIFE

Last weekend, I organized a girls' night out.

A good friend of mine from back east called and said she'd be visiting-this was the perfect opportunity to get the ladies from college together for a blow out. The truth is, living with a man doesn't afford a girl many opportunities for ladies' nights-the kind of nights when you get super dressed up for no reason and drink way too much...the kind of nights when staying up late doesn't consist of watching an episode of Friends that you've seen 750 times.

The thing is, I always seem to think that scheduling an oh so infamous girls' night out will leave my husband high and dry.

ME: "So, I'm going out with the girls friday night."

Here's where I wait for him to say something along the lines of, "What am I going to do without you?"

MIKE: "Sounds great. You guys'll have a good time. Can you pass the salt?"

ME: "Good time? Oh no...we're going to have a GREAT time. Yup. We're having dinner at this fabulous new restaurant and then we're going to go out...BIG TIME. Uh huh...it's going to be serious."

MIKE: "I think it's good for you to do things like that."

Here's where I wait for him to finish with, "But of course, it'll be no fun for me without you."

SILENCE

ME: "So, what are you going to do while I'm gone?"

MIKE: "I'll figure something out."

ME: "Yeah. I'm super excited. Can't wait!"

The big night rolls around. it's 10pm and I'm out to dinner with my girls.I look around the table and every single one of us can't stop complaining about how hungry we are.

ME: "I'm starving!!!"

THE GIRLS: "ME TOO! 10pm's really late to be eating. I usually have dinner at, like, 6:30!"

ME: "Yeah. I'm usually hungry by that time. I generally don't like to eat this late."

All of a sudden, I realized something. "OUT WITH THE GIRLS" might not be as wild and crazy as I had thought. Our dinner conversation was starting to resemble lunch at the retirement home with three old ladies.

ME: "Are you guys really hot? It's hot in here, right?"

THE GIRLS: "It's ridiculous. We have to ask them to turn the fans on."

The waiter comes over and turns the fans on. Two seconds later...

ME: "I'm freezing. Are you guys freezing?"

THE GIRLS: "It's an icebox. Let's ask him to turn the fans off."

And so it went. We were hot. We were cold. And then...

THE GIRLS: "Seriously. I feel like I've gained a hundred pounds. My pants are so tight on me."

ME: "Yeah. The crotch of my pants is up so high that it's literally cutting into me. If I could, I'd seriously take my pants off right now and walk out of here in my underwear. No joke, I can't breathe."

Cut to the club. Three drinks in and...

THE GIRLS: "It's so f-ing loud in here."

ME: "You'd think they'd turn the music down just a little bit so we could talk."

Four drinks in.

ME: "Christ my back's killing me."

THE GIRLS: "I've been seeing a chiropractor for the past three months."

"I'm getting acupuncture. Too bad liposuction doesn't come with it."

It's midnight.

ME: "I'm exhausted."

THE GIRLS: "Me too"

Yes, the three of us realized something that night. Something that I'd tried to ignore for a while...something that maybe only my 33 year old husband knows.  I AM NO LONGER 22 YEARS OLD.

MIKE: "How was it?"

ME: "So fun...but I definitely am not 23 anymore."

MIKE: "I figured you'd realize that when you started yawning at midnight. You can't even stay awake past 11:00pm. You always fall asleep on the couch watching Friends."

The image I'd had of myself trapsing around town fabulously durnk, wearing a micro mini and sneaking into my house at 3am hoping not to wake my dear old husband turned into me walking in at 12:30, pathetically sober, and wearing pants with the top button undone and the fly open.

MIKE: "What's up with your pants?"

ME: "Don't ask. Is Friends on?"

Ahhh...the glamorous life.

The Man in the Plastic Mask

My husband is obsessed with basketball. Despite recent, very painful surgery on his deviated septum (to repair the damage incurred from 4...count 'em 4...broken noses due to the ever so sexy bball) and a rather long recovery he's back on the court. Granted, he hasn't played for about 2 months but let's not kid ourselves...he was planning his comeback the second he was wheeled out of the hospital. I, the loving wife who spent countless appointments at her husband's ENT doctor, watching him the pull the tampons (used to prevent bleeding...eww) out of her husband's nose so he could shove a camera up it only to report, "Yup, that basketball's pretty dangerous," have remained rather mum. I did, however, break my silence during the NBA Finals when Paul Pierce was whisked off the court due to a "knee injury"-or so they say-

ME: "Just remember, you're not allowed to play basketball unless you get one of those face masks."

And there you have it, folks. After a slew of phone calls-including one to Rip Hamilton's doctors in Detroit-I returned home from work to find my husband sprawled out on the floor of his office with paper mache blanketing his face. The dye was cast. The mask was on its way. 

Later that week, Mike and I were at a lunch meeting when his phone rang.

ME: "Who is that?"

MIKE (covering the mouthpiece): "I have to take this. It's my face mask."

The FACE MASK is now a proper noun. It's a person who makes important phone calls--urgent ones in fact. Later that day, THE FACE MASK, arrived at our house all shiny and plasticy and...uh...hard. Mike puts it on as if he's just been coronated and it's some sort of priceless family heirloom. He adjusts it. He wiggles around in it. Then, he smiles.

Later that night, we had friends for dinner.

MIKE: "Guess what!"

EVERYONE: "What?"

MIKE: "The FACE MASK is here!"

Everyone looks puzzled. Mike races into the kitchen, grabs the mask, puts it on and again, he SMILES.

EVERYONE: "OOHHHHH"

All the guys want to know how it's made. They like to knock on it and push Mike around to see if the mask does anything weird...they want to see if they can break his nose through it. Like all guys, they want to be the ones to prove it wrong. 

Now, no matter where we are...

MIKE: "Yeah. I'm back to playing basketball now that I have THE FACE MASK."

RANDOM PERSON: "What face mask?"

MIKE: "I had a Rip Hamilton face mask custom made! A guy came to my house, took a mold of my face and..." 

If we're at home, he whips it out. If we're in public, he covers his face with his hands and mimes the mask, and still, guys walk up to his face, look closely to get an idea of exactly how it's made (even if it's not even there), laugh and shoot me a knowing look...as if they think he'll get injured no matter what. If it's not his nose, it'll be something else. 

Yesterday, he came home with two swollen, taped fingers.

At this rate, he might need to be the man who lives inside a giant, hard, plastic bubble. It'll be hard to dribble, but at least he'll be in tact.

Sometimes I think...

we're in relationships just to have our thresholds tested. 

The other night while I emerged from my car juggling books, my purse, and a bag of takeout, my phone rang. As I walked into the house, I fumbled for the phone and answered it, still holding the accoutrements of my day and almost dropping nearly everything with each step I took. Mike stood there and watched me teeter on the edge of drowning in Kung Pao Chicken as I attempted to have a phone conversation with a friend.

ME (into the phone): "Hey, what's up? Yeah, yeah I know...uh huh..."

MIKE: "Who is that?"

ME (into the phone): "Oh my God, really? That's insane. Wow...uh huh..."

MIKE: "Who is that?"

ME (still talking on the phone): "If I were you I definitely wouldn't. No way! Uh huh..."

MIKE: "Who is that?"

I wave him away with my hand, dropping the books and still trying to seem like a good friend as I uh huh'd my way through the story without stopping to yap back to my annoying husband. I was doing my absolute best to ignore him. He continued to follow me throughout the house...

MIKE: "Is that Lisa? What's she talking about?"

ME (into the phone): "I still don't think you should go."

MIKE: "What are you talking about? Are you talking about that thing? You mean, she shouldn't go to the thing?"

And then I found myself having an involuntary conference call...

LISA (on the phone): "I don't really feel like..."

MIKE: "Tell her I said that she shouldn't go..."

LISA: "Is that Mike talking?"

ME: "Don't listen to him...go on."

LISA: "Tell him I said 'hi.'"

ME (To Mike): "Lisa says hi."

MIKE (To Lisa): "Hi. If you're talking about what I thought you were talking about..."

LISA (To Mike via me): "Is he now trying to get in the middle of our conversation?"

ME (To Lisa): "Yes, he is."

MIKE (To both of us): "What? Are you talking about me?"

LISA (through the phone to Mike) and ME (to Mike): NO!

MIKE: "You're talking about me, aren't you? You shouldn't do that. It's not nice."

And so on...

You do start to wonder if you get extra points in the afterlife for not banging your husband over the head with the phone after having a conversation like that. When I was little and I used to do that to my mother, I got the COUNT. "Alexis, I mean it! ONE....TWO....I mean it. Leave me alone while I'm talking on the phone! All right, that's it! THREE...You're grounded!"

I think I'm going to have to set up a bluetooth system throughout our house so that every single conversation we have so that each of us can participate in the other person's conversation--a perpetual conference call. That, or we should have those isolated calling rooms that they have on reality shows for the contestants to talk to friends and family uninterrupted by their insane roommates. Or...maybe THE COUNT would work.

ONE...TWO...THREEEEE...

OK that's it! You're...you're...uh...sleeping in the guest room? How do you ground a husband? 

Anyone?

Let Me See That

If you've ever been in a relationship, you understand the unique role that technology plays in the life of a couple. There's always one person who considers him or herself more "technosavvy" than the other, and this often causes, uh, friction when it comes to precious items like computers, TVs, cellphones, remotes, cameras and...you name it. I'm not necessarily technologically stunted-I have a blackberry...I text, I email, I cruise Facebook...While I'm not building the next MacBook Air, I do know my way around a hard drive. But if I see myself as even minutely talented in the ways of screens and keyboards, my husband is Steve Jobs...that is..in his own mind. 

If I'm working on my computer, Mike will walk up behind me to "check something online" which will prompt him to comment on the state of my desktop and inevitably, take over.

Mike: "Let me just see something."

Me: "Why? You have your own computer."

Mike: "But this one's right here. Let me just see..."

And he begins messing around-opening and closing windows--pressing buttons...

Mike: "You need to do a software update."

Me: "I know. I haven't had time."

And sure enough, right at that moment, something will be screwed up on my computer and I'll bang things, huffing and puffing...

Me: "Aarrgh!"

Mike will walk right back over to the computer, and even if I haven't asked for his help, I'll get the oh-so-manly...

Mike: "Let me see that!"

Me: "Why? I can fix it myself."

Mike: "Let me just see it for a second."

Me: "I'm perfectly capable of..."

Mike: "Let. Me. Just. See. It."

Me: "Fine!"

He fiddles around for two seconds and I never know if he's actually DONE anything because I always get the same diagnosis.

Mike: "It was your [INSERT COMPLETELY TECHNICAL TERM I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THAT HE'S PROBABLY MAKING UP BECAUSE EVEN HE HAS NO CLUE WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE COMPUTER], you just needed to [DO SOMETHING THAT HE MADE UP, YET AGAIN, BECAUSE HE HAS NO CLUE WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE DAMN THING].

And inevitably, I have to say...

Me: "Thank you."

Grrr.

This behavior isn't reserved for computers, though. The other night, Mike and I were watching a recorded episode of Samantha Who...

Mike: "It's a commercial...fast forward."

Me: "That's what I'm doing."

Mike: "Wait a minute! Don't go so fast...the commercial's are going to be done and you're going too fast!" 

You'd think I was driving 90 mph alongside the edge of a cliff or something. But sure enough, Christina Applegate appears onscreen and I can't slow the fast forward function and we speed right through to the end of the show before I can stop things. Mike grabs the remote out of my hand.

Mike: "Let me see that!"

Me: "Why? I'm rewinding..."

Mike: "You're no longer in control of the remote. You're too fast and we always have to back up. See..."

He shows off his stop and start skills on Christina Applegate and a Nike commercial.

Mike: "I know exactly when the show comes back from commercial and exactly when to stop and start things."

Me: "Fine!"

That night, I was fiddling with the remote for our ceiling fan.

Mike: "Don't turn that down. You'll be hot in two seconds."

Me: "I just don't know why it's not..."

He grabs the remote from me.

Mike: "Let me see that!"

If only couples had dual climate control, side by side TVs and remote controls to turn the volume down...on one another...

 

No Peace

Remember when I mentioned that every time I send Mike to the doctor, I end up suffering for it?

Remember that surgery he just had? The one that's supposed to help him breathe better, and more importantly, the one that's supposed to help me sleep better?

Ah yes, we're back to the deviated septum conversation, only this time, he's fully recovered (still, no basketball playing yet...and he hasn't gotten fitted for his mask). He loves to walk up to people (friends, family, me...) and breathe deeply in through his nose and out through his nose-as if he's leading a class at Yogaworks. Then he says, "Hear that?" and whoever he's talking to at the time looks puzzled and usually says, "Hear what?" He then does the breathing thing again, only this time, it's more exaggerated, and followed by breathy speech during which he sighs, "I can breeeeeaaathe." The person he's addressing usually opens their eyes wide in fake shock and says, "Wow...that's incredible," and then he has to explain that there's no room for sarcasm here because indeed, before the surgery, he actually could not breathe and that this new sensation of having both nostrils clear does, in fact, feel like an enormous miracle. Then whoever he's speaking to feels like kind of an asshole, but it's completely fine because they can now ask him if he's cleared to play basketball, which opens the conversation up to the fact that he's having a pro basketball players' face mask fitted for him, which usually leads to the discussion of Rip Hamilton and then on to the playoffs. Mike will pontificate on the state of the Lakers, whether he thinks Cleveland will win and how much he LOOOOOOVES Lebron James. It's all just perfect.

I, on the other hand, don't have the joy of reveling in new breathing abilities. I, in fact, have always been able to breathe beautifully out of both nostrils. I don't suffer from horrible allergies and i don't snore. I can't seem to understand why...out of the hundreds of thousands of semi normal singles dudes in their early thirities who don't snore like obese 80 year old men...why I had to end up with one who does. Why? Why? Why? Why? You may be wondering, "Alexis, what's the problem, he had the surgery...everything should be all good."

WRONG. He STILL F-ING SNORES. EVEN AFTER I NURSED HIM BACK TO HEALTH. EVEN AFTER I CHANGED HIS BLOODY BANDAGES AND MADE SURE THAT HIS EVERY NEED WAS CARED FOR AT EVERY SECOND OF THE GODDAMNED DAY. EVEN AFTER I WAS THE IDIOT WHO CONVINCED HIM TO DO IT IN THE FIRST PLACE AND ATTENDED EVERY SINGLE DOCTOR'S APPOINTMENT, PICKED UP EVERY PRESCRIPTION...ALL IN THE HOPES THAT ONE DAY...THIS SURGERY WOULD BENEFIT ME TOO.

He's feeling fabulous and I'm still awake at 3am. I realize now that I was being completely selfish. I sent him into the O.R. so that <em>I could have uninterrupted sleep. What the hell did I do that for when I could have just refilled my prescription for Ambien and called it a day? So the other night, out of a desire for retribution, or maybe just out of sheer exhaustion, I did something horrible. I was caught in the crescendo of the concerto more commonly known as "Dog and Mike Snoring Opus 1" when I turned sweetly to my husband, tapped his shoulder lightly, and said, "Get out."

MIKE: "Why?"
ME: "Because I need a good night's sleep and I just can't do it with you and the dog snoring."

He sat up.

MIKE: "C'mon Louie"

And he and the dog slumped out of the bedroom....Now, while sending the two loves of my life (one furry and one not) away was simultaneoulsy awful and delightful, the fact that Mike and the dog got up and did that for me was almost as good as the doctor guaranteeing he'd never snore again. I woke up the next morning feeling utterly guilty, but completely rested. I could now face the day, and possibly, another night of my favorite musical piece (Mike and Dog, Snoring Sonata in D Minor).

As if that wasn't good enough, last night at about 3am, Mike not only woke me up with his snoring, he woke himself up. With a quick snort he shot up and looked at me, eyes wide open...

ME: "It's OK honey, just go back to sleep."
MIKE: "I think it's time for you to pick up my pants."

And with that, he closed his eyes and passed out once again. Even in his dreams, he's thinking about what I can do for him: take care of him post op, endure a lifetime of snoring, and pick up his pants.

I guess it's all worth it. As long as leaves the whole bed to me every once in a while...

It's an addiction

The Deviated Septum Surgery Saga Continues...

When a wife has undergone her first "taking care of the husband after surgery" experience, she feels empowered, as if she now truly understands wifehood to the fullest. One of the most enlightening aspects of taking care of an invalid husband is the understanding of WHAT IT MUST BE LIKE TO HAVE A NEWBORN CHILD.
Yes, over the past week, my husband has morphed from a 32 year old to a three week old baby. The first few days out of surgery, he needed assistance to and from the bathroom, he needed (literally) to be fed, bandages needed to be changed, I had to make sure he didn't wear the same clothes for three days, that he showered, etc. Now, I was completely prepared for all of this especially because, well, it was my idea. If I wanted him to stop snoring, this would have to be done. Of course, in all of this, I'd never stopped to think about why he'd have to have this surgery in the first place. I just figured the septum issue was a hereditary thing--something he'd been living with his whole life and that I was just the crazy wife he sleeps next to every night who could no longer tolerate the snoring. It wasn't until I'd had a post op convo with the doctor that I realized why I was sitting in that waiting room in the first place...

ME: "How did everything go?"
DR: "Everything went great. Did you know that his nose had been broken in at least four different places? I was pulling shards of bone out of his sinuses. That was the main problem. Do you know how he got the broken nose(s)?

And all I could think was, "I'M GOING TO BE MAKING SMOOTHIES FOR HIM THREE TIMES A DAY FOR THE NEXT WEEK ALL BECAUSE OF F-ING BASKETBALL."

ME: "That would be his addiction, Dr...to...

TO STREET FIGHTING? TO JIU JITSU? TO BOXING?

ME: "To basketball. 5 nights a week. 4 different leagues. Six serious injuries and I'll add this surgery so now we're at seven."
DR: "He might want to stop playing."

THE ANESTHESIOLOGIST WALKS OUT OF THE O.R....

ANESTHESIOLOGIST: "Everything went great, but there was one thing..."
THE DR AND ME: "What?"
ANESTHESIOLOGIST: "As he was falling asleep, he was talking about some mask that he wants. For basketball? He's just waking up and he's still talking about it...do you know what he's referring to?"
THE DR AND ME: "Yup."

Two days after the surgery, he called the Detroit Pistons PR company to find out where he could get a custom Rip Hamilton face mask for basketball.

ME: "Have you thought about maybe...not playing basketball anymore?"
MIKE: "I'll have a face mask. It'll be fine."
ME: "But what if you still get knocked in the face? I don't get how that's really going to help you."
MIKE: "I'll have a face mask. It'll be fine."
ME: "I still don't..."
MIKE: "I'll have a face mask. It'll be fine."

For the next nose surgery, maybe I'll go out of town and hire a nurse. Hmmmm....

Download mask.jpg

Just the basics, thanks

When I dropped Mike off for his operation, I suddenly felt completely WIFELY...so wifely that I couldn't control myself.

What's wifely, you ask? It's a state in which a woman who is somewhat "domestic" but not completely consumed by the kitchen suddenly feels the urge to morph into a Rachel Ray/Donna Reed hybrid.

My wifeliness was so strong that I left the hospital and drove straight to the market, where I proceeded to fill my shopping cart with enough flowers for a funeral and every possible kind of food. I strolled the aisles overwhelmed with confusion over what Mike might want once he "woke up." It was as if I was preparing for his last supper...or rather, his first supper...a meal that would determine the course of the rest of his life. I called my mother.

ME: "What do you think Mike's going to want when he comes out of surgery?"
MOM: "Sleep."
ME: "I'm serious. He's going to be hungry."
MOM: "Probably not. He's going to be so out of it, he'll pass out for several hours and when he's less drugged, you can ask him what he wants."
ME: "I want to be ready. This isn't helping."

So, I planned for every scenario. Jello, Pudding, Pasta, Ice Cream, Loaves of bread, Berries, Juices, Smoothies, nuts, cookies, cakes and everything in between went in the cart. I raced home, unloaded the bags, and looked around my kitchen--everywhere I turned there was food-the sink was filled with flowers and it sort of looked like I was going crazy. I pulled down several different kinds of vases from the shelves of our pantry and snipped stems, arranging and re-arranging the flowers as if I were having dignitaries for dinner when really, my husband was going to be lying on the couch for a week, sniffling, swollen and begging for Jamba Juice. As I dusted and tidied and worked myself into a frenzy, it was clear that I was preparing this house for myself--not for him. I was doing it so that I could be comfortable being stuck here for a week because he couldn't care less. My mother was right, he was going to be a zombie...a zombie with some beautiful Casablanca lilies on his dining room table.

I called my sister in law.

ME: "I'm going nuts."
JENNA: "Why? What happened?"
ME: "I just spent the last three hours making our house look like a hotel for your brother."
JENNA: "What's wrong with that? You want him to be comfortable."
ME: "He'd be comfortable sleeping in a lawn chair."
JENNA: "That's true...well, at least it'll be nice for you, right? You're going to be the one doing all of the work so you're just preparing for the storm."

After I got off the phone with her and finalized my fourth flower arrangement, placing it perfectly on the living room console table, I checked my Blackberry. There was a text message from the nurse.

FROM 3105674665
Michael's recovering-he wants popsicles

Of course. The one thing I didn't buy.

When we arrived home, Mike gingerly lowered himself down to the couch. He was bruised, bandaged, on morphine, and disappointed about the popsicles.

ME: "Honey, I rented you a ton of movies."
MIKE: "No movies now. Basketball."

Not only would he be happy sleeping in a lawn chair, he'd be happy sleeping on our sidewalk as long as he was watching the playoffs. How could I forget? Basketball--the thing that got his nose into this predicament in the first place was the only thing he wanted to watch...in a perfectly primped room, with his favorite pillows propped on the couch and 15 DVDs stacked on the table...nothing compared to watching Phoenix and San Antonio battle it out.

ME: "Are you hungry?"
MIKE: "Just...basketball. Let me watch."
ME: "I'll make you a smoothie."
MIKE: "No smoothie. Water...and basketball."

Water? No Jello? No toast? No ice cream? No shake? I stomped off to the kitchen, ate two snack packs of pudding, and came back with a bottle of water. There was Mike, passed out cold on the couch with the remote in his hand. I left the water on the coffee table and slid the remote out of his hand to silence the screaming crowds blaring from the TV.

MIKE: "Don't turn it off. I'm listening."

Even in a morphine coma...incredible...well, at least he forgot about the popsicles, right?

There's nothing more pathetic...

than a man who's feeling sick, or rather, who is thinking about becoming sick...

It all started last Saturday when I realized that Mike was going in for his deviated septum surgery in a few days and I hadn't "prepared" for his absence-not that he was going to be ABSENT per se, but more that he would be laid up, in the house and not able to physically "do" anything. It's not easy for me to get him to do things when he's healthy, and it was clear that as he was mentally readying himself for "recovery" (for a surgery that would be happening in five days), it wasn't going to be easy to get him to do things then, either.

ME: "Mike?"
MIKE: "Yeah?"
ME: "Can you help me in the kitchen?"
MIKE: "In a minute..."

In case you've never been in a relationship with a man, "In a minute," pretty much means...NEVER.

ME: "Honey, it's been a minute. Can you help me now?"
MIKE: "One second"

"One second" is even worse than "one minute" because it means ABSOLUTELY NEVER. STOP ASKING. I'M NEVER EVER COMING.

Mike waltzes in the room a half hour and ONE SECOND later.

MIKE: "What did you need help with?"
ME: "Nothing. I already did it."
MIKE: "I told you I'd help you."
ME: "Yeah but that was, like, an hour ago."
MIKE: "You know what? Don't ask me to help you and then just do it yourself. Besides, basketball's on so it's hard for me to get up in the middle of a game."

Then he stomps off in a huff.

And the PMS of the week continued. I was wondering why he was so cranky and then I realized that he was anticipating the surgery. He was like a 15 year old girl in the midst of finding having to find a semi-formal date and pass geometry all while watching Gossip Girl.

ME: "Honey?"
MIKE: "Yeah?"
ME: "Do you think you can figure out what lights we need in the backyard?"
MIKE: "What are you talking about?"
ME: "We've put all of this cute furniture and stuff by the barbeque but we don't have good light. I was wondering if maybe you and Joey could take a look at it before you go in for surgery next week."
MIKE: "No."
ME: "What do you mean, no?"
MIKE: "You want me to figure out something that has to do with decorating. I can't do that. Whatever I do, you'll hate and then I'll be in trouble so I'm saying..."
ME: "No."
MIKE: "Yes."
ME: "Hmmm. I didn't really consider figuring out where there were electrical lines for a few outdoor lights a decor thing...I thought it could be a guy thing. For you and Joe..."
MIKE: "I'm not even going to attempt to think that I know what I'm doing out there. So..."
ME: "Yeah. 'No.' I heard..."

Under any other circumstances (i.e. not a few days before surgery) he would have been fine, but it was like he was already channeling being completely helpless...watching TV for hours on end and comforting himself with toast and tea.

Yesterday, on our way to surgery (at 7am), the car was quiet and we were still pretty groggy. As I chugged a cup of coffee and checked my Blackberry, I could tell Mike was in a daze...almost as if he were readying himself for the painkillers. He was a method actor...delving into the "feeling" of taking Vicodin. He said very little in the car, and as we passed a billboard of a bunch of girls lying by a pool he muttered...

MIKE: "Have you seen those bathing suits? The ones that have, like the g-string in the front?"

I look at him, perplexed.

MIKE: "You've seen them, right? It's so thin in the front that it's like a g-string and then there's another g-string in the back too. It's weird. Who wears that? God, I'm tired. Do you think I can have a snack when I'm done? How long is the surgery? Do you think I'll be on morphine?"

Whew. Let the games begin.