i think i am married to mr. bean

Mr. Lemony Lemonade maintains that I laugh the loudest when I am delighting in his "stupidity" or misfortune. The upstart of all of this being that I am a complete mean-o bitch who finds humour in others' adversity.

Let me give you a "for example" It is a well known fact that Mr. Lemony Lemonade is incapable of navigating a room in which something is obstructing his path because he is inexplicably drawn to said obstruction and inevitably (and hilariously) trips over it. You could put something on the floor, outline it in flourescent paint, surround it with warning signs and put a guard dog in front of it and like a moth to a flame, Mr. Lemony Lemonade would wander right on over and trip to amusing effect. This, I maintain, is objectively hilarious, not hilarious to just me and symbolic of my unpleasantness but hilarious to anyone and everyone regardless of race, creed, age or gender. Basically, Mr. Lemony Lemonade thinks I am a jerk-a-face because I find him funny but not because of his brilliant fart jokes but because he is just plain ridic.

(hmmmm, just re-read above and thinking Mr. Lemony Lemonade may have point, perhaps am mean old cow...)

Which brings me to yesterday when something happened that proves for once and for all that Mr. Lemony Lemonade is somewhat feckless and deserving of ridicule.

The back story is this; Mr. Lemony Lemonade bought a pair of black linen trousers but they were too long so, he was going to bring them for hemming yesterday, which we did. Keep in mind that said trousers have a number of distinguishing characteristics such as, they were brand new, they had drawstrings in the cuff and THEY WERE MADE FOR A GUY. Also, Mr. Lemony Lemonade had, in a fit of organisation, put them by the door so that he would remember to have them hemmed. Fast forward to tailor, Mr. Lemony Lemonade tries on trousers and whilst doing so comments that they don't seem too long, in fact, they might be just right. He does a turn, examines and decides on a 1/2 inch hem and then off we go. Later that evening as I am getting ready for our night out, I casually ask where my trousers are, "you know the ones that were drying on the rack..." at which point Mr. Lemony Lemonade blanches and says, "which ones?" to which I reply, "the black linen ones..." at which point Mr. Lemony Lemonade looks ill and says, "errrm, ahhhhh..." at which point it dawns on me that he has just tried on my black linen trousers at the tailor and had them hemmed. One might think, oh well, big deal. However, anyone who knows me knows that I am messy beyond belief but verge on the religious when it comes to the care and catalouging of my clothing. I am the girl who owns six pairs of black trousers in varying lengths so that they go with varying heights of heels. I am also the girl that can scan the closet and can quickly identify all missing items and calm is not restored until everything is back in its place. Some call is obsessive compulsive, I call it attention to detail.

I of course spent the entire night, on into the following day and let's be honest, probably the next six to eight months reminding Mr. Lemony Lemonade just how stupid, ridiculous, innane and incompetent he has to be to have tried on a pair of women's trousers and not known that they weren't his. He has even copped to noticing that they buttoned and zipped on the wrong side and didn't have drawstrings but had dismissed the former as some "euro affectation" and well the latter, perhaps fairies did it? He also failed to notice that HIS black trousers were staring him in the face by our front door. If ever there were proof that a man would never make it as a woman, this is it. Clearly, he would be the type to wear white after Labour Day, brown shoes with a black suit and God forbid, a jean jacket WITH JEANS (the horror).

The point of all this? First off, I am now down a pair of black trousers that are wearable with a one inch heel. Other than that it's pretty self explanatory; I am clearly a pernicious femme with a dark sense of humour and a worrying dedication to clothing whilst he is the Hugh Grant of all bumble-foolery and possibly a cross-dresser. God give me strength...

the times, they are a changin'

So, many things are afoot in the Lemony Lemonade household and perhaps the most earth shaking is that I am now bona fide employed by a bona fide employer which means that my lazy days of midday martinis, massages and crapacious television are soon to be at an end. Not surprisingly, I feel terribly conflicted about my return to work. On the one hand, these past few months with Baby Girl have been both joyful and exhausting but bottom line, I HAVE BEEN THERE and now, I won't. That being said, I am luckier than most having had the first year of her life off and now, the past six or so months. I am grateful. The guilt mainly comes from actually wanting to go back to work, to being needed not just to wipe dirty faces, chauffeur between playdates, purchase pink, sparkly, princess toys and cut sandwiches into fun shapes.

What makes me the saddest is realising that I am going to miss those beautiful little seemingly insignificant moments like when Baby Girl spontaneously breaks into song and does a big broadway finish complete with closed eyes and upstretched arms, or the funny little observations she makes like yesterday when she said she said she didn't like the sound of glasses clinking on the table because the sound was "too glassy", or the fact that she is obsessed with nipples. Even sadder though is the realisation that I'm not the most interesting and captivating person in her world and that me going back to work may rock my world more than hers. Now, she is far more interested in playing with friends or doing things on her own. Where she used to want my company whilst going potty, she now pushes me out the door and insists that I give her "privacy" and just today as I hugged her, admittedly for the thirtieth time, she told me to "stop squishing" her.

Forty days and counting; I am determined to make them count.

bah humbug...

I am quite certain that there was a time that I wasn't so very jaded. But my spirit has been broken by large and unhealthy doses of reality, things like student loans, stretch marks, sucky jobs, cheating boyfriends and poisonous friends. I'm not generally this dark but Mother's Day gets me all pissy and vinegary.

There is nothing more infuriating than fabricated holidays. In our quest to be a kinder and gentler society, we now have to have a "day" on which we are collectively required to celebrate and thank someone or something for basically doing what they are supposed to do anyway. It's not enough to have a handful of bona fide holidays like Passover or Christmas, we now have to celebrate Administrative Professional's Day, Nurses Day, Sister's Day, Grandparents Day and so on ad nauseum.

Aside from the completely fabricated nature of the holiday, I feel very uncomfortable with the notion that I am asking my child to annually undertake a grand gesture of gratitude that requires said child to buy me lots of stuff and take me out to an expensive restaurant to ensure that I understand that they are grateful that I endured interminable hours of labour, wiped their ass for the first two and a half years of their life and financially sacrificed so they could have princess dresses, sparkly shoes and go to summer camp. Whilst I like to believe that our mutual respect and gratitude will be expressed as a family in a more informal and ongoing manner, I suspect that Baby Girl is unlikely to give a monkeys about what I have sacrificed for her and would rather that I just commemorate Mother's Day by paying her therapy bills or her rent. So, I am going to spare both of us the indignity of having to celebrate the most contrived holiday ever conceived by the Machivellian retailers and I declare Mother's Day null and void in the Lemony Lemonade house. R.I.P.