Monthly Archives: July 2007

Happy Birthday



Tomorrow my daughter will be five years old. It also marks the day that I realized that there was something horribly wrong with her father. A unfortunate collision of anniversaries. The latter half of my pregnancy was marred with increasingly frequent “incidents” that I suppose had I not been pregnant and sick and preoccupied, I would have picked up on. I don’t talk much about the specifics of the early days of my husband’s illness. Partly out of guilt because I didn’t see what is so obvious to me now, but mostly because I know that the things he said and did were a result of the damage that was being inflicted on his brain and thus changing his personality and ability to reason.

I went into labor the night of the 26th. It was about 10:30 when I realized that the rhythmic tightening of my belly was actually regular and close enough to be early labor pains, and of course my water breaking about 15mins later confirmed that I was right. We had been out to dinner earlier, and Will had had a bit to drink. Another thing I didn’t know at the time was that his ability to metabolize certain chains of acids found in food and drink was nearly gone. His illness was a metabolic disorder. His body had stopped producing a particular enzyme it needed and as the acids built up it triggered his immune system into attacking the coating around the nerves in his lower back and the dura matter that protected his brain. The disease also triggered a hyper response from his adrenal glands that was slowly killing them as well. Alcohol is largely composed of the type of acid that he couldn’t metabolize any longer. Even small amounts triggered erratic behaviors because it was like a poison building up in his system that his body could barely eliminate. Long story, but the short of it that night was that he was not much help to me. On the way to the hospital, the stress of the situation caused one of his increasingly more frightening memory lapses where he would get lost in surroundings he had know all his life, much like an Alzheimer’s patient. His stressed adrenals meant that he reacted out of proportion to a situation, so he was angry and a bit scary. Once we were finally in the birthing room at the hospital, his overwhelmed system just shut down, and he spent the rest of the night and into the morning before Katy was born wandering the halls of the hospital in kind of a daze that had the nurses more concerned about him than me at times. Aside from the nurses who periodically checked in on me, I went through the first eight or so hours of labor on my own.

I don’t like to think about any of this really. There is no point anymore. He was sick, and I was too busy to notice, or what I did notice I chose to rationalize away. Though it still bothers me that I failed him so utterly at a time when he needed me so much, the worst of it now is that my daughter’s birth is not a happy memory for me. She is my child. The only child I will ever have and all that I have left of Will, and her birthday is tinged with regrets and sadness that unfortunately I have never managed to completely hide from anyone. Time and distance hasn’t made much of a dent in this of yet, but I have hopes that someday it will.

White Pants in Summer



I ran across an article on BoomerGirl today about the importance of a good pair of white pants for the summer season. It reminded me of when I was young and I actually believed bullshit like that. No one outside the health care profession, unless they are in the Navy, should ever wear white pants. Those white trousered models in magazines, prancing through sunny fields or sipping sweet umbrellaed cocktails at French looking cafes, are not real. They were created with sophisticated computer graphics programs like the ones George Lucas used to make the new Star Wars trilogy. White pants cannot be worn by ordinary women. Not unless they really want the wide thigh look and are okay with strangers knowing everything about their underwear from color to make.

I haven’t willingly tried on a pair of white pants since college, forget about owning them. It seems to me that every year when I run across the must have list for summer fashion, the article that inevitably extolls the “essentialness” of white for the lower half of the body, and I am not really sure why. White, you would think, can be combined with any color, but that is just not true. White can really only be worn with navy, and the ubiquitous navy top is always a part of any white pants photo spread. It creates a decidedly nautical look. Kind of Kennedy Hyannis Port. On a real woman though it looks more like the Madeline type of fare your mother would dress you up in when you were five.

Just to prove my point that white should only be the color of sheets and wedding dresses (every single time too) and not pants I found this link on MSN that discusses the do’s and don’t’s of wearing said pants. Rules? I think that if rules are necessary for the wearing of anything it is a sign to run away from said fashion.

I can remember a pair of baggy white pants that I owned my sophomore year in college. I even have a picture of me in them that I won’t be posting here, but they saw me through that spring and summer. Wore them to Busch Gardens in Tampa and to a house party that twins, Lisa and Laura, hosted unbeknowst to their parentswhile they were away. It was my first and only visit to a Chicago suburb, Naperville , and a really cute, but incredibly drunk, frat boy puked on my matching white Keds. I loved those pants. I matched them with every type and color of shirt and sweater imaginable. And god did they make me look like the Stay-Puf man from Ghostbusters. Yes, I know you are supposed to buy white pants a size larger to avoid this. At least I know it now. But if those pants had been any larger, my roommates and I could have worn them at the same time.

White pants, like removing the neckline of sweatshirts, are best left to fashion ghosts past, and fashion advice in general is better ignored. An article this week in the Edmonton Journal extolled those of us over 40 to use the Annette Bening test when dressing ourselves. Apparently past 40 women have less fashion sense than we did say back in the 80’s, although frankly I don’t see how we could have possibly been more hideously dressed then in the era of big hair and dressing like a White Snake hood ornament. But, the article assures its readers that the worst fashion faux pas’s are committed by old women who dress too young and think, mistakenly we are lead to assume, that they are still attractive. Notice I didn’t use the word sexy? Women over 40 can’t be sexy. Consider yourselves informed. One of the funnier quotes from the article discusses how AB, as they refer to her, would never be caught wearing “a tiny, gut-hugging T-shirt that reveals her bra straps”  and though this is likely true, just about every teenager I have taught in the last two years looks just like that and it really is as horrifying an image as it sounds. Perhaps the AB test should know no age limit, eh?

Much of what passes for fashion looks horrible on nearly all women no matter their age. There really is something to the old adage of keeping it simple. Thankfully I have never held a position that required a fashion sense from me and my new position of hous frau hasn’t changed that. A nice fitting pair of jeans and a t-shirt will take a girl far, or far enough anyway, but white pants will only land you on the don’t page of a fashion magazine with a black dot over your face.

One Month Tomorrow


Yesterday was 4 weeks since Rob and I married. Tomorrow is the official one month anniversary. My mother-in-law called yesterday to see how I was doing and wish us a happy one month. My aunt sent us a card that arrived today. Rob and I have been…..um….busy ….being newlyweds. Among other things. Like the continual sorting and purging of stuff, getting ready for Katy’s birthday and our trip West Yellowstone over the long weekend that is coming up soon. And there is, of course, the immigration paperwork to make sense of with its hoops and hurdles and appointments to make.

In between all these we managed to score a real live babysitter and go out on a real date last weekend. Dinner in the city. A visit to the pub after. Snuggling and nuzzling for the whole world to see and wonder why people as old as we are couldn’t do that sort of thing in the privacy of their own home. 

Today while I was folding laundry and marveling at the number of t-shirts my husband not only owns but manages to go through every week, I reminded myself that I love to see Rob in a t-shirt and jeans. He is the least clothes conscious person I know. Clothes are a necessity and he treats them as such. Maybe that is why he looks so incredibly good in jeans and a t-shirt. He is easily the sexiest man I know and his demeanor has a lot to do with it. So sure of himself and who he is under his skin that everything he wears takes on a self-confident aura that is powerful and attractive.

He sent me a mushy email today. Well, mushy and blatantly suggestive. Since so much of our early courtship took place with him at the computer in his office and me at the computer in my classroom, I have this mental image of what he must look like as he sits there typing away. Jeans and t-shirt, except on days he has big meetings. Bright blue eyes. “Gin and Juice” playing in the background. That smile he smiles at me when he is thinking something naughty. And I can’t wait to see him. The anticipation hasn’t changed or abated and I wonder if it will over time, as it seems to for so many people, and I doubt it highly.

Happy One Month Anniversary, my Love.