With her seniors for two weeks. She was melting down last week about her schedule (her students can’t possibly do anything without her being there to support and witness them), and I said, hey, just think–in a week you’re going to be on the way to Hawaii for two whole weeks. In the back of my mind, of course, I was anticipating being able to hold my two weeks of martyrdom over her head (I never get to go away, you get all summer off, etc.), but she said that, to tell me the truth, she’d much rather stay home than go, which screwed that up.
I’ve been busy with grading and stuff, and with our crazy schedules and the usual helpfulness of the Monsterlings, the place was a mess before she left. Nevertheless, it’s my responsibility to get the place respectable before she gets home, along with several other things. So, apart from the spring cleaning, I’ve got the following going on:
Monday: Take Brendan to SAT prep after cooking dinner after work.
Tuesday: Mairead goes to fencing after I’ve gone to work and taught (returning a bunch of papers)
Wednesday: Take Mairead to her family counseling appointment in Middlebury (dealing with Aidan’s schizophrenia) after fixing dinner, take Aidan to get his blood draw, so I can fill his Clozapine prescription. Take both to McDonald’s afterwards as promised.
Thursday: Teach after work, pick up Aidan’s Clozapine on the way home.
Friday: Get out of work 1/2 hour early to speed home so I can take Aidan to play therapy in Montpelier, an hour drive each way.
Second week, much the same, except they’re all back in school.
There are other things. I’m to purchase Mairead’s round-trip airfare to spend the summer with Granny in Edinburgh. Because this means she misses the Jonas Brothers, I have to try to find out if they’re going to be anywhere in the vicinity after she gets back. I need to take Brendan to his driver’s examination (there goes our insurance). I’m supposed to take her car in for maintenance and inspection, so she can get her registration renewed. I’m to get the lawn cleared up and the tractor engine tuned. The two younger ones, Aidan and Mairead, need summer clothes (there’s a sale at Kohl’s Wednesday through Saturday). Pay Mary’s speeding ticket. Set up an appointment at Dartmouth for Brendan and Julian (our exchange student) to check the place out and interview. If you see a good deal on a vacuum cleaner . . . (picked one up at Tuesday Morning today). Find out who borrowed our staple gun and fix the screens on the porch. Remember to help the girl with her math; she gets very upset when she doesn’t get it. Make Brendan do that paper on The Great Gatsby that he hasn’t done. Mrs. Shapiro called and said that it would be wonderful for Mairead to have a garden; so if you could build a raised garden . . . .
I mean, holy shit . . . isn’t Mairead going to Granny’s for the summer?
Does this stuff happen to you all when your spouse leaves town?
UPDATE: I forgot about returning the rental skis. There’s probably other stuff, too.
Comment by Mikey NTH on 4/20 @ 5:50 pm #
Does this stuff happen to you all when your spouse leaves town?
I’m single without kids, so I wouldn’t know.
Comment by Dan Collins on 4/20 @ 5:52 pm #
Right, Mikey. Rub it in, man.
Comment by JD on 4/20 @ 6:00 pm #
Yes, Dan. The weeks were the better half is away is inevitably the week where a child catches a rar tropical disease, schools are on a 2 hour delay, cars break down, etc ….
Comment by happyfeet on 4/20 @ 6:04 pm #
I have to vacuum. At some point. Also I have almost all the stuff I need to make this healthy sort of black-eyed pea/hominy dip thinger what you eat with corn chips that my sister-in-law gave me the recipe for a couple weeks ago. Also I have some Christmas cards on the table next to my computer I need to open and put them in the box where I put cards and things. I could do that now I guess. It’s just I hate Christmas cards. They always make me feel guilty for some reason.
Comment by happyfeet on 4/20 @ 6:09 pm #
I really can’t imagine having a week like yours. You hang in there.
Comment by Cowboy on 4/20 @ 6:22 pm #
Dan, my brother in arms, I hear you.
I had been looking forward to today all week, because everyone was gone! Three of the kids at the respective “ex’s” for weekend visitation. Mrs. Cowboy and another of the kids at a dance recital in Indianapolis.
However, last night before they all left, two of the little miscreants found a three-week old kitten abandoned in the woods near our house, and consequently I spent the day feeding the little beggar-tick with an eyedropper.
When it peed in my hand, I cried.
Only not those tears of joy, oh no.
Comment by Cowboy on 4/20 @ 6:27 pm #
…and papers? Let’s talk papers sometime, you and I, ok?
Freshman Comp, American Lit II, Women and Literature (don’t ask, ok?), Business Writing.
What do you think would happen if we happened to stumble near an open flame with our arms full of essays? This is what I dream of every night.
Comment by Dan Collins on 4/20 @ 6:32 pm #
I’ll tell you what sucks, Cowboy. Trying to explain to students why their papers smell like cat pee.
Comment by cranky-d on 4/20 @ 6:47 pm #
When I was a TA, the student’s tests often ended up with tomato sauce stains from pizza. I also found that having a few beers before grading made me much kinder.
Comment by daleyrocks on 4/20 @ 6:52 pm #
You’re never supposed admit letting it get to you Dan, unless it’s to trusted friends like us.
Now climb down off the cross, you might need the wood for a fire next winter.
Comment by Dan Collins on 4/20 @ 6:52 pm #
Yeah, cranky,
My old grad school roomie Swervin’ Dave McIrvine used to stay up grading all night with a bottle of single malt and a couple packs of Marlboro Reds. In the morning there’d be no scotch, every receptacle in our place would be full of cig butts, and there’d be a pile of graded papers for which the writing was larger near the top and the grades higher, too.
Comment by Dan Collins on 4/20 @ 6:55 pm #
Thanks, daley. I’m going to try and save some money by line-drying some stuff this summer, too. I just have to run an eye screw into that cross.
Comment by Cowboy on 4/20 @ 6:58 pm #
Dan:
I’ll toss off a couple of shots of cheap tequila (if JD loosens his grip for a moment!), and throw a stack of research papers on the end-of-the-semester bonfire in your name.
Comment by memomachine on 4/20 @ 6:59 pm #
Hmmmmm.
To get rid of me for the summer either I spent my summers at my aunt’s house or I worked for a local farmer.
Frankly I can’t imagine having to do all that nonsense.
Comment by JD on 4/20 @ 7:34 pm #
While we are on the topic of how we wpend our summers, I still really want to host a get together in August. I might even spring for some good tequila as well as providing a place to stay.
Cowboy – Women in Literature? That is like caricature teaching about the black experience in one of the most lilly white counties in the country.
Comment by Ardsgaine on 4/20 @ 7:36 pm #
I’m by myself with the kids all day long, so the difference between wife here/wife not here is actually not that huge in terms of how busy I am. It does make it so I don’t have to worry about cooking a real dinner, and there’s a little less laundry to do until she gets back and dumps it on me all at once.
I didn’t know that you teach, Dan. Where at?
Comment by Dan Collins on 4/20 @ 7:39 pm #
St. Mike’s, Ards.
Comment by Rusty(no not that one) on 4/20 @ 7:54 pm #
Does this stuff happen to you all when your spouse leaves town?
Yes.
Tomorrow my wife goes to California to be with our oldest daughter who is undergoing emergency back surgery. My wife will be gone for about a month. I have to take my youngest to school and pick her up after. Fortunately she is 15 and knows how to be helpful around the house. She knows how to be helpful, she just doesn’t want to be helpful.I will make sure food is prepared, laundry is washed, homework is finished and on and on.
Comment by Dan Collins on 4/20 @ 7:57 pm #
Ow. Sorry about that, Rusty (NTO). Hope your older daughter’s okay.
Comment by datadave on 4/20 @ 9:13 pm #
and Dan, I enjoy your work here even if we disagree politically…but doing the full frontal is a little much..I really didn’t expect to end up knowing any of you all, but after the mentioning of the TMBG concert at Higher Ground? Yupp, I think I might have even saw Brenden and you at Friendly’s afterward but that’s probably just my imagination. And awhile back, casually looked in the p-b and guessed that it was Dan and Mary Collins.
Hey, did Jim Case retire recently at St. Mike’s…and you know George Dameron at St. Mikes perhaps?
ah, shit. maybe I better shut up…..
kid annecdote: I took my then 13 year old son on the Long Trail for 3 days of backpacking less than two years ago and that was sort of a rite of passage after we’d almost came to blows over his whining about a particularly exhausting stretch of trail and he wanted to express his anger w/o concern for a bunch of UVM students in the shelter at the end of the passage in the darkening gloom. Then next morning, he shouldered his pack and even after confronting a scary snake (to him anyway) he outhiked me and showed his mettle by fearlessly leading the toughest route on the trail (imo) without whining or complaining. At the end of my physical rope after 3 days of backpacking, he, the complainer, now wanted to go on for another section while I was exhausted and ready for his mom to pick us up at the expected time (my cell phone was almost dead too).
All and all it was a good trip but our anger at that one midpoint was harrowing. And we ate every piece of food and that was another reason to not go on. I am afraid that cured him of overnight hiking although last year he went with me and my girlfriend for one overnight camping and backpacking weekend. His damned Ipod though was a little annoying and my English teacher mate had to let him know that she wasn’t going on any forced march and we’d be staying at the beautiful lake for the weekend. Now, that I think of it, it’s nice having the woman around too when confronting these family issues.
Comment by thor on 4/20 @ 9:40 pm #
Two weeks is a week-and-a-half too long. Plan ahead and have some select porn lined up, else you’ll get moody.
Comment by McGehee on 4/20 @ 10:23 pm #
Wives go away?
Comment by Salt Lick on 4/21 @ 3:04 am #
No, I get a maid, like the Obama’s.
EAT MY DUST, YOU BITTER HONKEY!
Comment by Rusty on 4/21 @ 5:00 am #
Thanks Dan. She has a completely deteriorated lumbar disk. I’m told that it’s a fairly routine procedure to replace it with an artificial one, the disk. But at a time like that a girl wants her mom around.
Comment by Lost My Cookies on 4/21 @ 6:29 am #
Yes it does Dan.
Last time my wife left town, I got a suprise out of town job interview, two boys with strep, the wife “forgot” she had promised to babysit a freakin’ infant, a wresting meet, swim meet and fencing practice started (I too have child in training to stab me through the heart), Son number one had a band concert, and the anti-biotics gave the youngest the massive explosive shits.
On the other hand I got the job, so when the wife came back, I left for six weeks. payback.
Comment by ThomasD on 4/21 @ 7:57 am #
When my wife goes away the boys and I go into bunker mode, keeping all activities to a bare minimum. I’m the primary cook anyway, so that’s a given and an opportunity to cook some things that my wife just won’t eat. And unlike my wife I’m of the opinion that most articles of clothing can be worn at least twice before laundering. Plus as a side bonus, when my eldest was about three he decided that he would never wear underwear again. Beyond that, if it’s not spraying arterial blood or on fire, we pretty much work around it.
Comment by oldirishpig on 4/21 @ 9:59 am #
I am widowed and have raised 2 kids alone for the last 11 years. To avoid the nervous breakdown, you learn what HAS to be done and what doesn’t. It isn’t pretty but the boy graduates from HS this next month and the girl is only 2 years behind. Stop your whining, lol.
Comment by Nathan on 4/23 @ 4:24 pm #
Heh. When my wife goes away, it’s usually with the kids to Grandma’s house, while I’m chained at home to the 9-to-5. That usually means evenings of cheap pizza and kung fu movies for me.
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