Saturday, November 19, 2011

Scared Stiff

Francisco is leaving tomorrow for a nine day trip to visit his family in the Dominican Republic. Given that he hasn't been there in over a year and a half, you would think a trip like this would bring him great joy and excitement. Not so with my dear man, alas, he is scared shitless. Literally, a walking catatonic.

He decided in the past few years that flying terrified him. I have also a tremendous fear of soaring the lofty skies, and I can't help but feel a tad resentful of his copycat anxiety that followed mine. I almost want to poke him and say "Hey! That's my phobia! Get your own!" But alas, I understand it, so I just pat him on the back and tell him everything is going to be fine.

Unfortunately for him, the nerves won't disappate with the landing. My husband is gravely uncomfortable in other people's houses, and the constant visiting he will have to undergo upon arriving in his home country is a source of constant worry. The custom for him is that you visit your family and you give them a (monetary) gift. Parting with our savings while sleeping in an unfamiliar bed in a hot, loud, mosquito laden netherland has Francisco in a total tizzy.

I cannot wait until he goes and comes back (alive) to tell the tale so I can stop walking into a room to see him staring at the wall with fear in his eyes. Poor man.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Dark Days and Darker Nights

I just caught up with my last blog entry and realized that I haven't had time, or electricity, since then to write about the aftermath, and yet somehow I didn't miss it.

We were without power for six days following the Saturday night October snow storm. A tree branch fell on the lines to our house and ripped the meter off the wall, causing us a bit more trouble than most of our street in getting ourselves back and running. So as the rest of Mountain Road shined with the warm glow off the televisions and bedside lamps of our neighbors our house, and that of our next door neighbor, remained in the dark.

Initially I fled the scene. Waking up in the afternoon Sunday after work the night before to a cold dark house with no food seemed like too much damn work, so I packed up the kids and went to my mother's and demanded she make us dinner and let us watch TV like the rest of America. Two days later my conscience got the best of me and I headed home to join my husband in the pioneer land.

Really, if I'm being honest, it wasn't that bad, and I maybe even liked it just a little bit.

We have a wood stove that keeps our house toasty and a gas range for making meals, so the only change for us (after cleaning out the fridge and freezer, ew) was that we were forced to sit around in the evening by candlelight and speak to one another. Strangely enjoyable.

My kids loved reading stories by headlamp and cozying around the fire so much that when the lights came back on Nathan actually cried, he was so disappointed. They didn't run back to their plugged in lives as I had imagined, but rather continued playing dress up and wearing the headlamps, making me wonder why we have grown so attached to all of these modern conveniences. Except the dishwasher. Let's get real, I need the dishwasher.