The Waiting Game

I would love it if someone could explain to me why most women ( at least all those I know ) have , for our entire lives, played the waiting game.
We wait, from the time we are little girls, for the "right man" to come along so we can have "the wedding" and I put it parentheses becasue it will , without doubt be THE most wonderful, romantic, costly, beautiful AMAZING wedding in the world, bar none. And when we start waiting for this, it doesnt actually matter who " he " will be , because its the wedding , at this age that matters.
At some point , it does become about the who "he" is. Not a huge part, truth be told, because for the most part its still about waiting for the wedding itself.
Then the who does matter...and we wait. Is he smart enough, handsome enough, successful enough, kind enough, romantic enough....are any of his attributes " enough"??? Well...maybe, provided the wedding is going to be good enough.
Then we wait...until he proposes...until we accept and set a date ( and some men wait YEARS for this part ) until the day actually comes around. The waiting for the date and the day is enough to send some of us around the bend and cause us to become bridezilla.....or just plain nuts ( rather redundant, I know ).
So, the day comes. It is done.
Now we wait...for him to come home from work...to have time to spend with us ( and I guarrantee its not the same before as after...since HE no longer has to wait for us there is no urgency on his part ) to tell us how much he 1) loves us 2) misses us 3) wants to spend every waking moment with us . No. All that is over. Now , once again...we wait.
Maybe next we wait for ....a first child to be born ....*yawnnnnn* this usually takes 40 weeks...to us that is the same as several decades and to him its over in the blink of an eye. Sorta. He usually notices A) our ankles have swelled B) we are NOT interested in sex after the baby internally is the size of a small watermelon or C) we cant see our feet and we are , therefore, not as sexually available as prior to this blessed occurrance. Duh.
So the blessed event eventually occurs. Again , duh.
Now we wait ...what is it? 6, 8, 10 weeks before we again can satisfy ...
Then we wait till it doesnt hurt.
Then we wait till our bodies get back in shape ( ya, right ) .
Then , assuming we dont repeat the last few sentences again and again and again..which I admit I did....we wait.
To be the most important part of his life.
Wait to be more important than his parents...his job...all the other things we have been waiting for since day one and guess what?
It does not happen.
So at this point...I am waiting ( shocking isnt it??) to be primary in his life, for not having to wait for all this crap to be done and I STILL have to wait.
Cant get him on the phone without waiting.....
Still not as important as his (mother, brother, job ...name it...I still dont rank in the top 3) ...still waiting.
And I have to wonder, at this point in my life, if this is what God put me here to learn.
To wait.
Have I mentioned I dont wait well ?
Nothing like stating the obvious.

Update on Gertie (who is so not a gecko)

Checked with the pet store and Gertie the not-a-gecko is still hanging in there although her babies did not survive. She is still in shock and her back legs dont work and NO I am not adopting her.

Lions and tigers and LIZARDS??? oh my...

Today started like most other days, with me doing pom poop patrol...scraping , spraying ( and trying not to gag ). While engaging in this lovely activity the dogs started going totally bezerk, nutso WILD! And Bikki, our blonde uber-alpha and who also happens to be 1) overweight 2) extremely bitchy in addition to being a bitch and 3) the only "hunter" among the poms, had something in her mouth and was shaking the living crap out of it, literally.
I rushed to try and rescue whatever it was, praying it wasnt a rat or some other rodent, only to find out it was a huge (ok, huge to me in the reptile dept. is anything over 3 inches and this baby was in the 9-10 inch catagory) jackson's chameleon.
And hanging from this prehistoric looking reptiles mouth was what appeared to be its stomachs ( do they have more than one ??) or something that could definately have been pre-born lizard babys. Bikki had bitten it then shaken her head repeatedly and whatever this reptilian's innards were, they came out through its mouth. Neophyte that I am when it comes to any and all reptiles, this was not ok.....actually completely and totally GROSS is what it was.
Still , I could not let the dog eat it ( ackkkkk ) or kill it...soooooo, using the dog ( clean of course ) pooper scooper, I gently (?) shoveled it into a shoebox and watched. It did not die.
So I called our pet store ( they sell these prehistoric critters AND the bugs they eat ...another hearty ACKKKKKK ) and agreed to take "it" for observation. Which they did ( after I had taped that sucker into a box sooo well - with air holes , of course , that even godzilla could not have gotten out.
Then I googled jackson's chameleon.
They do indeed give birth to live babys and what had come out this girl's mouth ( yes, ugly as she was, it was a she )
was preborn babies.
Didnt know ( thanks wiki ) they could have between 8 and 30 babies. But , yes a girl and yes , she is at the pet store. Will call tomorrow to see if anything survived...how it managed to live the 4 hours plus after the attack is beyond me.
So....according to Tia, this is just the kind of thing my mother would have done. And I do admit that my mom was willing and did rescue anything that walked...I just am pretty sure that she never rescued anything scaled, slithery or that had a tongue that could zap stuff from half-way across the room. Cats, dogs.....never lizards.
Still....one of His creatures ( have to ask Him at some point " Lord WHAT were you thinking...with mosquitoes, flies and reptiles????) and I have done the best I could.
I did not run screaming ( scream factor of reptiles is wayyyyy above flying cockroaches by the way ) and I have tried to get it help, while not allowing it to be eaten.
Brownie points, right ????

A man works from sun to sun but woman's work.....

...is never done. It is a recurring thought I have about "retirement" and what exactly that means. Because I dont get to...retire. I am pretty sure no matter what , that John is still going to expect meals and clean clothes. I am pretty sure he will expect those nice new toilets to get scrubbed ( no, they are not the self-cleaning models dang it!) And I imagine when the dust is thick enough to plant things in, he will expect me to get rid of it. So while he is busy building things or buzz cutting the trees or whatever else it is that men do when they retire to stay busy (and keep their wives from chasing them around the house with sharp knives or other implements of destruction), I will be doing what I have been doing since I was 18. Except now I am slower...and slower. And its more painful... squatting to clean behind the toilet has never been easy but now its torture and I cant help but wonder who looks back there anyway?? Well, aside from me, I mean.
So about that retirement thing......how does that work for women?

Fathering a child...so different from being a father

My family history is definately more about the mothers than fathers. My mother's grandfather was one of those mean german patriarchs who never smiled and didnt seem to love anyone or anything. You have seen pictures of men like him : grim looking and rather frightening. Fortunately for her, he died young. That seems harsh but apparently living with him was no treat. He was miserable and made everyone else miserable too.
My mother and her mother lived with them since my grandfather was in the Navy and on the go all the time. Then my mother's father got a splinter in his finger ( weeks before sulfa drugs came out ) and he died of blood poisoning when she was in the 5th grade.
My own father, Buck, was less than great in the "being a father" department. He liked being with his friends, out and about, more than he liked being present in my life. Mom decided we could do without the drama and trauma of all that he brought to the table. Divorce. Mind you , I still got to go see him but even that was something less than wonderful. I never knew which girlfriend he would be with or if she would be kid friendly. The one he eventually married was not. At least not to me. I was 12 when he remarried....got to spend part of the year with them in Salt Lake City but that was the last time I visited with them. She had a miscarriage and said it was my fault ( apparently I was sooo awesome that I had life or death powers over the unborn). For years I believed that. He also sexually assualted me that last visit....another reason I wasnt ever keen to go again. Ah well....
Then there was ( is ) my step-father who dumped my mom after 17 years of marriage so he could revisit his past with an old flame. Although he was an amazing man who actually did the father job of raising me, the hostility I felt ( feel ?) about what he did to my mom overshadowed all the good things. From this distance ( and advanced age ) I see that nothing in that situation was about me, per se, and forgive him. Still......it could and should have been so different for her.
Which brings me to the father of my own children.
What a difference. He was up in the middle of the night when they were babies, changing diapers, rocking them, loving them the way a father should. Something that even as recently as the 70's ( dont chuckle, it seems recent to me!) men simply did not do. He was in the delivery room for every birth....and has remained a part of their lives ever since. He is the one they respect above all others....he is the one they love beyond measure. He is the one they know they can turn to when their lives are falling apart and they KNOW without doubt that he will be there. He is their strength and support. He is their biggest fan club. He simply loves them.
And that is the difference between fathering a child and being a father.
What a blessing...what a gift from God that my children have this man in their lives.
What a blessing to me...to finally see and know what being a father is, up close and personal.
What a gift that they will never know what its like to be without that love.

I hope there is food in heaven

Looking over the cookbooks in the kitchen I realized some of them are paperback copies of some that I have in hard back version. And the paperbacks arent even mine...they were my mom's.
Three in particular stand out, not because they are different but because each of them have scores of sticky notes attached , the name of each item hand written for ease of locating them, sticking out of the pages.
Since my mom died I have always fantasized about finding a note, written just to me, hidden somewhere no one but I would look. Something...anything. Well, this was a message, even if she didnt mean it to be.
After going through all the recipes something did indeed strike me. All those recipes were of things she never got to cook and never got to eat in the last 20 yrs of her life. She was married to a man who liked almost nothing except meat and potatoes ( with the occasional chicken thrown in for good measure).
All of the recipes are for things like asparagas soup, stuffed bells, swordfish....not your everyday menu but guarranteed things that my mother wished for and never got to eat.
She knew Jesus as her savior and I hope to see her in heaven but it is also my fervent wish, no prayer, that there is food in heaven for my mom to feast on...all those things she couldnt have while here on earth. I was blessed to be able to spend the last 10 days she had on earth with her and I did cook whatever she asked for. I just had no idea how many things she missed and wished for over all those miserable years.
If there is a divine, all you can eat buffet, you will find my mom there, partaking of the rare and unusual ( sweetbreads for pity's sake!!) eating her fill and as she did here, keeping her girlish figure.
mmmmm....mmmmm