Bibliomama

So yeah, it's really fun, being alone with the kids for seven days and nights and then having my husband come home, dump all his laundry on me and leave his crap all over the house I've been trying not to let be destroyed all week. Then we go over to my Mom's house for dinner and he gets fussed over for how tired he must be and tells whimsical, charming stories about being in Hong Kong while I was alone with the kids for a week (except he leaves that part out). Also , he got home right after (I'm talking minutes) the school Halloween dance, meaning I had to herd the kids through an appalling mass of heaving bodies, deafening Black-Eyed Peas songs, lame D.J. patter and miniature Spider-Men (Mans?) and Hannah Montanas trying to take me out at the knees every other minute for two and a half hours all by myself . Actually, I suspect he landed at four o'clock and hung out at the airport for five hours drinking coffee and reading the magazines in the Elite Lounge just s

1) that we decided not to try to cook a turkey 2) my kids wrestling, trying to pull off each others' pants, and browbeating each other in Scottish and German accents, which they may or may not know are Scottish and German accents 3) my husband bringing me chicken soup and ginger ale on Monday while I was reading in my bedroom and feeling guilty for being sick and housebound most of Thanksgiving week-end. 4) Fred Vargas 5) my Wednesday walk with Pam 6) blue flowers 7) Angus playing the Ode to Joy on the piano (one hand at a time) while Eve dances 8) running water and indoor plumbing 9) chicken korma 9b) that everybody in my family will eat chicken korma. Seriously -- I can make chicken korma and rice and peas and every single person will eat it. No leftover noodles or cut-up raw vegetables or cheese or hard-boiled eggs required. One dinner. One! 10) sparkly footprints leading from the kitchen table across the floor, up the stairs and into Eve's room 11) Little, Big, by

My husband is a good guy. The complaints I have (because I am a person filled with bitterness and bile and people, it has to go somewhere) are by and large fairly trivial (which is not to say I can't work up a good vituperative rant on any one of them at any given moment). I don't know whether he's done any random coveting of our neighbours' wives (hey, hasn't everyone?), but he's good on the basics, and the big things. But sometimes? I just don't get him. He overthinks things, he overcomplicates things, and it's like he thinks it will cause him physical pain to just agree with me about something. A few months ago one of the shelves in the kitchen started giving way and he had to reinforce the supporting posts. Whatever -- crappy mass builder stuff. A couple of weeks ago one of the drawers in Angus's dresser came off the rails and wouldn't go back on. The dresser belonged to Matt's younger brother, making it roughly thirty years old -- not t