So yesterday we were all recovering from the Snow-Pocalypse, and all around the city there were stories of generosity, hospitality, and heroism. But sadly, I have to report that the only heroic acts taking place in our household were the superhuman efforts my husband and I were making not to kill each other. Although I don’t know if that really counts, because I’m pretty sure we already promised not to do that in our wedding vows (though not in those exact words).
I knew it was going to be a rough day pretty early on, when my husband came into the living room, looked at the conceptual sketch of someone in Seated Mountain Pose on the top of my deck of yoga cards, and said, “I don’t know what that’s supposed to be, but it looks like [graphic description of his special boy parts]. So…there went all my zen, and now I can never not see that, THANKS SO MUCH FOR RUINING YOGA FOR ME.
Then of course there was the matter of our work space. My office is the sun room, which opens off of the kitchen and, most importantly, has no door. My husband’s blatantly door-adorned office is at the other end of the house where it is warm, plus there are two big screen computer monitors, a very large table, oh, and did I forget to mention, A DOOR?! A door which, as Data would say to Tasha Yar, was “fully functional”.
So naturally, he set his computer up in the kitchen. And then there proceeded to be hours and hours and HOURS of meetings. So many meetings that there can’t possibly be any more meetings left in the entire world. All of which, apparently, could only be conducted at full volume on the speakerphone.
There’s a joke in my family that started after my brother and sister-in-law got married a few years ago. They aren’t a couple who really fight, but when they do it’s apparently conducted through what they describe as “tone”. As in, “Hm, I believe I might be hearing some tone.” So when my parents Face Timed me so that I could wish my grandmother a happy 90th (!) birthday and I was unable to unclench my jaw wide enough to form coherent words my dad said, “Oh, so it sounds like there’s been some tone there today.”
But eventually the work day ended, and we soaked in the experience of our special bonus time together by spending the entire night at opposite ends of the house.
Things have been much better today, and they opened up his office mid-morning. As he was getting ready to leave my husband turned to me and said, “You know, since I can do most of my work online or on the phone I thought about working from home again today, but I can’t get onto our office network. I think this is my computer’s way of trying to save our marriage.”
Never in life have I been so grateful for technology.