Monday, November 26, 2007

Kaleidoscope

The past week/weekend has been colorful (and sometimes the lack of it) in its own ways. In the seven years that I've been married, I've realized that spending a whole week with your vacationing spouse 'at home' can get a little out of hand. My schedule gets entirely thrown off track, house seems to get messier, chores keep getting suspended, and we end up sleeping for half the day, which means I have to cram everything I need to do in the other half. And life isn't half as colorful without some major poop duty. Evani has been going at it for nearly a week now. Not her fault though - I think she reacted to the yogurt I introduced in her diet a week back.

Speaking about seven years of marriage - this Thanksgiving morning after both husband and wife wake up, we wish each other a very groggy happy anniversary. Still trying to recover from the 3am diaper duty and in the process of another 6am one (btw, both of which hubby took care of as part of my anniversary gift ;), we joke about how life has changed and what a way to start this special day. This year we were hosting both lunch and dinner and I could see a whole day of cooking ahead of me. So I jumped at the opportunity of having hubby fetch breakfast - since that would be all the anniversary celebrations we would have for the day. So the day goes on. We (actually I) cook, clean, have my MIL over for lunch, clean up after lunch, prepare for hosting friends for dinner. All along we keep wishing each other 'happy anniversary' just to reassure ourselves that this day IS special and we WERE doing something about it. Just as I was finishing up the dinner preparations, hubby offers to take the trash out. Halfway yelling from the garage he asks me to check the trash calendar for recycle or green waste. I go to the calendar stuck on my refrigerator door and as I look for the date, I stand dumbfounded. I yell back - 'Honey, are you sure today is Thursday?' Okay, I'll admit, I did not say 'honey'. I'm a typical desi wife who is incapable of showing any public affection towards her husband. I get the reply - 'Of course - today is Thanksgiving AND our anniversary. Why do you ask?'
Me: 'Ummmm...apparently today is NOT our anniversary - the 23rd is tomorrow, Friday!'
Him: 'huh? Are you sure you are looking at the right month?'
Me: 'This is November - right?"
Him: 'Yup'
Me: 'Yes, I am looking at the right month'
Him: 'Today is not 23rd? Our anniversary is not on Thanksgiving?'
Me: at that point I can barely control my laughter at the whole situation and have to break it to him by saying 'NO'.

Life has surely changed drastically. We get along just fine even if we forget special dates (or mix them up), by not geting each other gifts and wanting only peaceful sleep or ready made food in exchange. No, Shomeek did not end up doing diaper duty the next morning of our actual anniversary and we did share the whole episode with our friends at Thanksgiving dinner and had a good laugh. But we did have Thai take out for our anniversary dinner on Friday. It was peaceful to sit at home and have a quite dinner watching Evani roll around on the floor in front of us and giggle and squeal in delight for no apparent reason. Life is colorful - it just depends on what patterns you make out of it.

Hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I'm sure I did.

4 comments:

ArSENik said...

Amazing! This is your best post that I have read. It reeks of maudlin maturity and defines love simply as a heightened sense of comfort, which is close to how it is defined in my mind, but for which I have gotten grief in the past. Almost sells the idea of marriage to me :)

(blogrolling you, which I still don't know why I hadn't done yet)

PS: Happy Anniversary.

MACMD said...

Happy Anniversary for last FRIDAY! Haha. It's the simplest pleasures in life that are the sweetest. I'm glad you're taking the time to stop and smell the roses.

Mala said...

Arsenik: I'm touched. Thanks!
You will find yourself in my friend list too- - its official now! Us friends just need to meet now. You should make a trip to Sacto and spend a weekend with the crazy Pauls.

MC: Thanks dear! Can't wait to throw myself on that couch of yours next weekend and have some non-baby/adult time. Don't be surprised if you find me snoring in a bit though. ;)

ArSENik said...

Thanks, maybe some day...