The Two P’s of Marriage

There’s nothing that can get my husband’s eyes rolling with greater velocity than when I mention I’m thinking about our Christmas plans and it’s June. Of course, I typically get the same reaction when I mention it again on December 10th, but by that point I’m equally exasperated as well. This begs the question; can a “planner” and “procrastinator” make a marriage work? It’s often said that, if you’re honest, you knew about all of your spouse’s quirks before you married them. Typically, you either found them endearing or you ignored them. But I’m not sure I knew the lengths to which my husband could actively procrastinate, if that’s even possible within the laws of physics. During our dating years, he planned dates and we planned outings together. No issues there. He planned when and where we got engaged. No issues, again. We both planned the wedding (though I definitely took the reins). But since then, my need for pre-thinking and pre-planning has repeatedly butted heads against his need for postponing and procrastinating.

Typically, when I bring up a topic that he doesn’t want to “deal” with at the time, he says, “Let’s think about it.”

So I ask, “Okay, what should we think about?”

“I need to think about things,” he says.

“Like what things?” I ask. “Astrophysics? World hunger? How many terabytes could a woodchuck chuck?”

I know that all of this alleged thinking and mulling and musing is merely code for delay, delay, delay. (My husband-translation skills are vastly improving.) Recently I shared a draft of this article with him and he felt that I was portraying him as being one-dimensional. “The thing is,” he said, speaking for procrastinators everywhere, as I furiously typed, making sure to capture the wisdom verbatim, “if we’re thinking, we often can’t be disturbed. We can’t interrupt the process. I can’t think about the baby’s bath water while I’m planning our retirement. We’re working on other problems.” He says all this with a straight face, and manages to hold it for a few seconds, before we both burst into laughter.

The fact is that I know he believes this on one level, and there is validity to it; but the likelihood of him actually thinking about our retirement, or world peace, or the best of the Caribbean islands to whisk me away to, at the moment I want to have “a talk” is highly unlikely. It’s more probable that he’s thinking of how to get past the evil werewolves in Dragon’s Age on the X-box, or whether he could put the kitten in roller-skates. Then, in addition, when I try to push the “talk”, we first have to address whether his coffee-quota has been met for the day and see if there’s any possible need for a sandwich in his immediate future before continuing. Delay, delay, delay.

Compounding all this planning versus procrastinating issue is our lifestyle. We live overseas for two to three years at a time. So, planning is not only necessary for this lifestyle, it’s vital. You have to plan what to bring with you for your years away. You have to plan what goes in which shipment. You have to plan what to put in suitcases and what to mail ahead. If not, you might end up with all your best swimwear and your baby pictures, when you’re headed for Norway, or your years in Jeddah might find you trying to swap your arctic parkas and Dungeons & Dragons accessories for sunhats and spf-clothing (not that I’m speaking from any experience here).

Maybe I take it to another level, but I even try to think ahead and make sure we have a stash of items that can be helpful in any setting, such as generic birthday cards and wrapping paper (otherwise too many nephews’ birthday presents could have been wrapped in the Cairo Times or Kuwait City Daily); I make sure that we have an ample supply of the cat’s medication with us; and if I have a favorite lotion, I bring a few tubs. We have a few sets of nice matching sheets and towels. And I like to make sure we have a well-stocked “costume” box for various dress-up parties we may attend (though if I have Elmer’s Glue and cotton balls, my husband’s set for a costume anytime anywhere – somehow a variation of a Father Time/Gandalf/Leprechaun always seems to fit the bill).

Yes, I’m a tad type-A. But my husband is so far from a type-B that he’s closer to a type-Z. I will admit that his relaxed attitude in regards to planning can be refreshing at times. We’ve had some wonderful spontaneous vacations to Venice and London (of course, I was the one who arranged the flights and hotel, but otherwise we winged it). And I’m all for having a non-structured vacation. But there are other times when “winging” might not be the best method.

A year ago, we were planning (see the word) on adopting a child. I thought re-financing our condo was a flurry of paperwork, but what was required for this made re-fi look like a single snowflake. We had almost completed the paperwork portion, and had the personal interviews coming up. But in addition, there was the planning (see again) needed for the baby’s actual arrival. Now, we didn’t need to have a full-fledged nursery up and running, but we did need baby things at some point in the future. So, I had started the research and list-making phase of parenting.

I had spent a few days researching the safest and most recommended car seats, playpens, and cribs. I identified the safest bottles, formula, and strollers. Plus, I dove in to some of the towering volumes of “how to raise a baby” books that are out there. So, when I told my dear husband that I had finished the overall list of basic needs, and then subdivided it into what will be immediate needs, versus eventual needs, his eyes began to roll with alarming speed.

Now, I don’t want to give you the impression that he’s completely planning-impaired. His handicap is purely willful. He had no problem spending weeks upon weeks, researching and comparing prices and systems for a new laptop. He read reviews, queried friends and we made several trips to the store to “just look” at them. And then finally, with great determination, he bought one (it’s big and has a pretty red stripe on it, and goes well with our other three laptops – I believe we now have a quorum).

So, would we be able to “wing it” once the baby arrived? Sure, many people do. A friend who is equally as type-A as I am, had her daughter a month early, so she had never gotten around to reading the “how to raise an infant” books she’d been meaning to, but her two-year-old is beyond perfect and seemed to survive her mother’s lack of study-time. However, the issue was that I wanted to be minimally prepared, rather than trying to figure out how to rock a crying baby in my arms while trying to Google with one hand “help crying baby”. Having a stack of burp cloths on hand would be easier than grabbing my grandmother’s dishtowels, though I realize at the time you snatch whatever’s closest. And knowing a variety of positions for burping a baby, and practicing them on the cat, helped give me a sense that maybe we could do this.

Will our children suffer irreparable harm from either too much planning or too much procrastination? Probably not. And in the end, I realized that no amount of reading, research, or planning could truly prepare us for becoming parents. But it helped quell some of my anxiety, and as long as I didn’t share too much of my planning plans, it won’t increase my husband’s. So in the end, I guess a planner and a procrastinator can make it work, we just may need a few more eye exams than the non-P&P couple for all our mutual eye-rolling. Now, let’s see if the new laptop also works as a changing table – where’d the cat go?

Husband Antics

(Written January 2012) Sometimes there’s nothing better than a good solid collection of “husband antic” tales. We all have them, even without a husband, you can substitute boyfriend, brother, father, co-worker, uncle, creepy male neighbor, pretty much anyone of the male persuasion. Here are just a handful of mine from the last few months.

One night about a month ago, I was sitting on the couch and glanced up to see my husband shaking and quivering with tears rolling down his face. Knowing this was his typical reaction to something he finds terribly funny (he first goes silent, then starts convulsing, his mouth freezes in a Joker-like smile, and the tears begin to roll -- it’s only when he suddenly gasps for air that I look up and realize what’s going on), I leaned over to see the cause of this hilarity. In this case, he had just discovered his friend’s website, http://englishactorsswallowingpotatoes.tumblr.com. It’s a collection of photographs of British actors consuming photo-shopped potato goodies (Yukon gold, mashed, tots, fries, etc.). I can hear the gender divide even now – half the room is immediately following the link, the other half is re-reading the sentence thinking they misunderstood.

Like any good online find, from this he immediately dove in and found more similar such hilarities. The Bea Arthur with mountains and pizza collages sent him into more silent fits with periodic bursts for air intake (beaarthurmountainspizza.tumblr.com, if you’re so inclined). And just now, as I deigned to look for the link, because I’d hate to get it wrong, I found that there are even more celeb-food collage collections that I had been blissfully unaware of. I mean, how horrible would it be not to give a shout-out to the artistic renderings of Tom Selleck with waterfalls and sandwiches (selleckwaterfallsandwich.tumblr.com). Heaven forbid.

Over the last four years of our marriage, my husband has become quite adept, and with lightening-speed I may add, at his justifications for his behavior or lack thereof. I barely even have to utter, “Why did you…?” or “How did you…?”, before he offers up his latest excuse. They often revolve around lack of consumption or over-consumption of caffeine, carbs, or sandwiches. His latest, and one of my current favorites, was his incredulous claim one morning that, “It’s BC!”. When I offered a blank stare in response, he smiled and said, “Before coffee”.

On our recent trip back to Kuwait from our Christmas vacation, he leaned over and asked me, “Do you think Darth Vader ever has to pee?” This was the question plaguing my dear husband at 30,000 feet. What? Continuing on, he said, “Would you wear all the Darth Vader gear, the mask, the armor, the boots and cape, if you got to give up the need to pee?” I’ve found that it’s often best not to verbally respond, makes it easier to record the lines for future writing needs, so I just stared. “I would,” he said. Then he unbuckled and headed back to the lavatory while I envisioned kissing Darth Vader’s mask each night. Yeah, not doing it for me.

When grocery shopping the other day, I was heading to the magazine area to gather him up and as I came around the corner he turned to me with his arms out, holding a torn paper bag as if it had spontaneously exploded while he stood there. I didn’t even have time to get out What happened? before he uttered, “The halloumi sandwiches fell out while I was distracted by the Hitler book.” Of course they did, dear. The fact that I didn’t even blink tells me that we’re settling in to this marriage thing quite nicely. Give me the exploding cheese sandwiches, and go find a washroom.

Periodically, either before or immediately following an antic-worthy act or statement, my husband loudly proclaims, “Not bloggable!” We have come to accept this as a protected shield around said act or statement. Now sometimes his antics are so delightfully fantastic that I beg and beg and once in a while he relents, though claims first re-writes. Sometimes he refuses and even makes me pinky-swear. If I hesitate, he tries to counter with the threat that he won’t do anything remotely amusing anymore, and I will therefore have nothing fun to write about. At this point I either relent (if I’m feeling particularly tired at the moment and just want to get back to “Dr. Who”), or I laugh out loud with great glee because I know that he has about as much control over his antics as I do. Which merely means, we’ll both be dealing with them for decades to come and therefore I better keep the first-aid kit and our cleaning supplies well-stocked, and find more synonyms for antics.

With a Whimper

(Written December 31, 2011) To mis-quote T.S. Eliot, “This is the way the [year] ends: Not with a bang but a whimper.” And I’m okay with that.

Our riotous New Year’s Eve activities this year may have surpassed any past or even future pathetic activities we may have for the next several decades. I’ll blame it on the rotten cold I got 48 hours earlier, which left me sniffly, achey, and whiney. And which subsequently left my husband with lots of free time to mutter “stupid pigs” and “how did I just mortgage that?” into his SmartPhone (with Angry Birds and Monopoly being the latest addictions).

We did manage to stumble up to our roof with minutes to spare before midnight, where we got a lovely view of several fireworks displays all around us (some just a little too close for my husband’s comfort, so he blamed the “cold weather” on his desire to go back inside, where we watched from the safety and "warmth" of our family room).

I have to admit that I was quite pleased to see some recognition of the delineation between this year past and the one to come. Not just because Cairo failed to acknowledge it at all (in the last three years, we were lucky if we heard a neighbor hoot or a local woman offer up her ululation. to mark the “midnight” moment), but also because I’m more than ready to walk away from 2011 and dive right in to 2012.

To say 2011 was fraught with stress could be a contender for understatement of the year. Yes, every year brings heartache and disaster, pain and suffering, but personally 2011 ranks at the highest for me. And my dentist will agree, pointing out that the grinding and acid reflux have completely worn down my teeth and practically dissolved my enamel (and I doubt “Arab Spring revolution” qualifies under our dental insurance for pretty new crowns).

But then again, we had the most miraculous news of our child coming next February (via adoption), and we celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary, and all our friends and family are safe and healthy, and we did get to spend time with all our friends and family over the summer. But most of all, we survived, stronger than ever. And for that, I am thankful, grateful, and very appreciative (though not necessarily willing to do it all over again).

So as we creep into 2012 ahead of the U.S. folks, we’re sending all our love to everyone for a wonderful 2012 full of miracles, magic and blessings, with peace and kindness reaching out to all corners of the Earth.

Cupcakes in Cairo

So we've had a few birthdays lately and my desire to play with cupcakes beyond penguins has taken over.

Now, they're no "Martha" cupcakes, but they tasted good and looked... well... colorful.

The first batch were supposed to be pink flamingos, but the laffy taffy I used to mold their necks and heads slowly fell over, so within 15 minutes they were all napping flamingos. I did try to place a fez on one or two, but with the extra weight they were definite nappers.

My next endeavor was camels -- it really was inevitable. So I used Twinkies (even though their not vegetarian, which just meant I didn't eat any) for the heads and humps, and if you look closely, each camel head has corresponding two hump-cupcakes behind it. Yes, I had some color issues (how do you make beige, or rather, how do you make a second batch of beige to match the first??).

Anyway, I'm sure there will be more cupcake antics to come. Until I flit to my next hobby, of course.

Marriage – It’s in the Details

Marriage is not what I thought it would be. When you announce your engagement you are immediately inundated with well-wishes and hugs and sappy smiles from your ever-patient girl friends who stood by you as you all waited for “him” to finally pop the question. Then, with barely an intake of breath, these same well-wishers immediately tack on more advice than Miss Manners, Dear Abby and my old Aunt Meg could administer.

“Keep the communication lines open!”

“Don’t go to bed angry!”

“Keep separate bank accounts!”

“Don’t keep separate bank accounts!”

I tried taking it all in, but let’s face it, I was a bride-to-be in love, so unless you were telling me how wonderful my betrothed was or how beautiful the ring was, I didn’t really hear you.

In hindsight I have to say that while all that advice (which has now sunk in, two years later) was good and sound and sometimes relevant, the issues I’m having with marriage on a daily basis I was soundly unprepared for.

No one came close to telling me that our primary disagreements would not involve money, child-rearing or religion, but rather twist-ties, china and bed sheets. And I’ve come to believe that it’s true when people say, “Blame your parents.” If it weren’t for my husband and I having different parents and therefore different childhoods, we wouldn’t have any of these issues. Of course, we’d also be siblings, which raises a multitude of issues off-topic.

For example, my husband was raised in a family that dutifully replaced the weird little plastic doo-dad thing on the bread bag. I, on the other hand, came from a family who discarded said doo-dad and just twisted the bag closed. (I also will argue that going sans doo-dad is more efficient, which matters to me, even when making toast.) I have learned, through trial and error, that replacing the doo-dad means more to my husband than discarding it does to me, so now I twirl the bag and attach the plastic bit, but not without a little sigh of resignation.

China is also a continuing battle. Not politics or export issues, but rather what we eat off of. I was raised by a mother who felt having sets of dishes that are only used twice a year when grandma comes by is wasteful, and I concur. My husband however, claims he is not “comfortable” eating off the “good” china and instead digs to the bottom of the stack for the older, non-wedding china. I point out that it’s all technically china, just one has a green band of color and the other has pretty little swirls of silver and “Royal Doulton” imprinted on the bottom. He merely stares at me and rolls his eyes (like I’m the one being ridiculous). So when I set the table, I use the matching wedding china. When he sets it, he has the old china and everyone else might have some concoction of the two.

The last issue comes out of the bedroom. This is a very personal decision and one that we are still figuring out how to accommodate in each other; just how tight to tuck in the sheets. I have learned, to my painful discovery, that my husband likes to have his feet essentially bound between the mattress and the sheets; as tight as physics will allow. I do wonder if this goes back to some prank his older brother played on him. I, on the other hand, appreciate the ability to move my feet and not have them bent down like a prima ballerina on pointe. So after some tucking, untucking and retucking, we have agreed to disagree and just keep our fingers crossed that Martha doesn’t stop by to do a bed check and see the discrepancy.

Having tackled these issues face-on, I do feel that I am now better prepared to address what other marriage issues will inevitably arise over the years. Probably involving a crises of monumental proportions over whether to fold or bundle socks, or whether toilet paper should wrap over or under. So yes, go ahead and pass on the sensible advice, but don’t forget to add that “compromise” might involve more than career paths, 401ks or vacation plans. Be on the lookout for the battle of the bread doo-dad, it’s a doozy!