Moo ha ha , tee hee

   I have been told that people think I'm funny. Thankfully, only one was my mother. I have been trying to figure out what to do with this alleged "gift". This has been going on for a while, me floundering in mid life, that is. The humor thing has been going on since I was a kid. I loved mad libs in grade school and watched Mel Brooks movies as I got older. My father was probably the biggest smart-ass I knew. We kid's grew up with dear old Dad singing "Happy birthday to you, you escaped from the zoo, you look like a monkey, and you smell like one, too". I swear I thought that was how it was sung until around age 8.
   A steady diet of Bugs Bunny was also part of the program, although I think that was as much because the owner of the television was a fan as anything. I recently turned 50 and whenever I think about bitching about that fact too much, his words come back to me. "It could be worse, you could have a kid your age. " I read a joke that says what doesn't kill you gives you  unhealthy coping mechanisms and a warped sense of humor. Throw in a family history of depression and I think you've got a recipe for sarcasm. I should also point out that not only are we Polish people Not a slender race, we have no filters.
    My experiences as a kid were largely observational. It's also funny to think that as a Catholic family, my parents may have taken the old fashioned marriage vow that mentioned to "love, honor, and obey". My mother was 19 when she got married and claims that she didn't speak English at the time and so didn't understand what was going on. If my father expected any form of "obey" out of my mother, he was quickly disabused of that notion. I watched my parents function as best they could with little money and an unhappy marriage but we kids were of the seen and seldom herd variety.
   My own offspring has the luxury of being heard and she's inherited our family's capacity for humor and sarcasm. We've had a friend who warned us "the tape recorder is always on" you need to be careful about what you say around your kid. It surprises me how she manages to use what she hears appropriately. I can remember playing Candyland with her at age 4. Typically, I was not one to play any game aggressively with her but I also don't let her win. This particular time, she was winning until she selected a card that sent her back to start. She looked at her card and said "I got totally hosed!".  It came back to haunt me early, and it hasn't stopped yet.

The big 5 oy!

   It finally happened. I recently had THAT birthday. In the weeks leading up to it the question was to party or not to party. Truthfully, I felt funny asking my husband to throw a big bash when he is currently unemployed. We decided on a small gathering of some good friends at a nice diner. It wasn't easy since it was Father's Day weekend. The day I was born, my mother told me they had to call the doctor away from his family. I've been hearing "Couldn't you just get me a tie?", ever since. I was happy and grateful to see our friends were able to be there. They even ordered me a birthday cake, no gag candles included. I also received a wonderful wine basket from one friend and a pretty glass to drink it in from someone else.
    You could say though, (warning - mush alert!) the best gift I got was the reminder of family. Years ago I learned that you really can't define family by biology. People just don't live long enough or behave well enough for that. When I looked around the diner table, I felt slightly less scared of my own mortality or maybe just plain loved. The fun problem of turning my age is that cosmic reminder that "you could be next!" as the supply of older relatives dwindle. Oh well, I figured we had a nice dinner with a few good friends and that was enough. I had no idea I was wrong.
    The following week was spent preparing for vacation at the beach. My daughter finished school and I spent that week cleaning, packing, getting teacher thank yous together, and wrapping my brain around the idea that I am seriously fifty. Going away is like small scale version of the holidays. There's a lot of anticipation and work and then it flies by and you feel let down when it's all over.
   We were blessed with another great week at the beach and the worst thing we had to handle was a sunburn. The drive home was largely uneventful except for the GPS taking us off a wrong exit and we pulled into our driveway tired, loaded down and slightly carsick. Our garage doors hadn't been working for weeks so I thought nothing of it when I had to get out of the car to let us into our garage. As we pulled in though, I was wondering if there was something big or weird in our garage, although I Couldn't imagine what.
   During the vacation, we had talked to my mom who had said something odd. She asked my husband where his car keys were and said our friend Cindy needed his car out of our garage. Normal, intelligent humans would have put two and two together at that point but no, some of us are still sharp as a bowling ball. I asked my husband why my mom would ask such a thing and he said,"I have no idea why she said that, maybe she's just tired" - and I BOUGHT THAT! Dear reader, if you ever throw a surprise party for someone, choose an extremely dense victim and all will be well. That did have me scratching my head but rather than act on the impulse to investigate, for some reason, I just went back to my jigsaw puzzle.
   Later, on the trip home, my husband took the wrong exit and damn near had a cow! What's even funnier is that I flat out said "I'm not late for anything", not knowing I was dead wrong! Since our garage doors had not been working for weeks, it wasn't remotely odd when I had to get out to go in to hit the button for my side of the door. What was odd was seeing my mother's car on our street. I thought "She's watering our plants today??", but we're home now. See previous paragraph about dense victims.
    Not only was my house packed with people whose cars I did not see, the place was decorated, too! Surprise was an understatement! My girlfriend had great decorations that said Vintage Vixen on them and best of all, the biggest container of sangria I'd ever seen. If you have to get older I Couldn't have asked for better company to do it with, but next birthday, I think I'll go a little easier on the sangria.

The big change

  This is the first summer in who knows how many presidents  that my husband and I are both home.  This is also the summer that yours truly hits the big 5-OH (crap!). I certainly don't feel like I'm that old. What's interesting about it is that my spouse seems to have launched a one man campaign to be extra nice to me. I think he's trying to cushion the blow. My father was famous for saying it could be worse, you could have a kid your age. Believe me, there's no comeback for that one. I've tried. We got to run an errand together without offspring  and I got a brief flashback of life before child.
   It's like getting a smartphone, you get pretty spoiled pretty quickly. We are also lucky that we can afford a Summer camp this year so that even though school is out, hopefully we can still have some grown up time together before he finds another job. Having the spouse home is also letting me get to accomplish more without worrying about getting home in time to pick up her majesty on time. We have sort of been living like roommates for the last several years, which was really bugging me.  After almost sixteen years of marriage, I'm glad to have the chance to remember why the hell we got married in the first place.
   I have mentioned previously that I try to never stop a man from voluntarily cleaning anything. The same holds true for repairs. While I am enjoying my spouse's unemployment mostly, I can't help but wonder if it isn't starting to get to him. It's been a little over two weeks since his job ended and he has more than kept himself busy, and not just obsessively job hunting. Good for him!, and you're correct. It is good for him. I just didn't understand how necessary it was for him to keep busy. Truthfully, I expected him to get depressed and veg out for a while. Instead he seems to be pressuring himself to get a plethora of things done in a day. Is it possible to miss stress?!
   My guess is the lack of routine is very disconcerting. We are all of us creatures of habit, after all. When you've been doing the same thing for over ten years and then suddenly you're not, it can feel like hitting a brick wall, even when you know it's coming. It occurred to me that even though I'm unemployed I do have my own general routines that, in a sense, feel like a job. It could be that this huge shake up will be good for us all. I hope to get my husband back, our daughter will see more of her dad whether she likes it or not and maybe, just maybe, we will actually find time to enjoy life. Let's not get nuts!