Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

The Downside of Early / Cheesecake

I have become a person who shows up early.

All my life I have been chronically ten minutes late. Every school, every job, every curfew. You'd think it would drive Gary crazy. Happily, all Gary's life he has been chronically ten minutes later than I.

This was my daily schedule:

• Into bed at 11 pm over Gary's protests ("It's only ELEVEN! Stay up with me!")
• Pulled awake by Gary's first alarm at 5:30. (Gary always claimed he needed sleep in multiples of three, so six hours was better than nine.)
• Zoned out again until Gary's second alarm at 7:00
• In bed half-asleep until it was really too late to get anywhere on time

So that explains why I was late to work, but not my inability to get to any meeting on time. I think subconsciously I spent every minute of the day reclaim those minutes that had been taken away by the alarm.

This is my schedule now that Gary's retired:

• Into bed at 9:30 pm over Gary's protests ("It's only NINE THIRTY! Stay up with me!")
• Sleep until I am awake. No alarms.
• Lie in bed a while, fully awake.
• Decide on my own to get out of bed
• While fully awake, determine how much time it will take to get somewhere and leave ahead of schedule

Now that I don't start my day with a deficit of a stolen hour, I'm happy to show up early. Sadly, that has revealed to me the downside of Early.

No one else is early. No one else is even on time. I never knew, because I was always ten minutes late, but almost everyone is two - five minutes late.

I can't tell you how many times I've arrived fifteen minutes early for a noon meeting, and then at 12:00pm when NO ONE IS THERE WHY WHY I lose faith and start making phone calls. "WHERE ARE YOU? AM I IN THE WRONG ROOM?" And no, I'm never in the wrong room, it's just everyone is Late.

And then, the hypocrisy of all the five-minutes-laters tutting at those who show up ten minutes late. "YOU are LATE," they accuse. Hah. So were you. I know. I was on time, nay, I was Early.

The other downside of Early is that on the weekends, when you could sleep in, you wake up early and then have nowhere to go. Instead, I find myself waiting around for Gary to get up, and as the hours tick by I get madder and madder. Eventually at one p.m. I march in and demand to know when he went to bed (usually four a.m.)

That won't happen today. Today I'm running errands. I had to wait till eight a.m. for Trader Joe's to open and I was a little mad about that. Hey, Trader Joe, why can't you be Early like me? I need my Dulche De Leche for my Pecan Pie Cheesecake.

That is the one I made last week. So pretty I had to take a photo. So fool-proof I made a mistake on every other step and it still turned out great. I brought it to a work pot-luck and I could hear people murmuring  "cheesecake ... mumble ... cheesecake ... inarticulate ... cheesecake." It could have been "that cheesecake is awful ... no, the pecan pie cheesecake ... yeah, it was such a pretty cheesecake, too bad it sucked." I need to recreate my Cheesecake Glory for Thanksgiving.

And if I don't leave now for Trader Joe's, I'll be late for the movie we;re headed for at 11:40.

I Hate All Bears, Too*

The menopause is hitting me hard.

My default setting is "I Have Had Enough of This" and it can spike in no time.

For example, Gary and I were reorganizing the laundry room.

(We were reorganizing
... because we bought a new clotheswasher. We bought a clotheswaher ...
... because Sears gave us a deal. We got a deal ...
... because we just bought a refrigerator, and ...
... because we are suckers.
Sears and McDonalds both have caught us in their buy a product / get a coupon for the next product trap.)

Anyway, I say "Gary and I." To be more accurate, I reorganized the laundry room while Gary expressed his intention to use zip ties to stabilize some wire shelves.

For three hours, while I did the rest of the work, Gary changed his shoes, put on a back brace, stretched, and TOOK a NAP.

Then he heard me climb on top the dryer to put on the damn zip ties myself, damnit, and he came in to the laundry room to say:

"What are you doing? The zip ties? I don't want you doing that, you'll do it wrong."

I don't remember much of anything after that.

I didn't launch myself off the dryer onto his head, but I burst into tears, and he yelled, and I screamed, and he stomped into the room and slammed the door.

I charged in there and called him the "C-word."

"Oh," you think, the long "C-word". Nope. The short one. I know, it made no sense, because as he immediately pointed out, that is a pejorative term reserved for the ladies, but it is the worst term I know, and I was angrier than I have ever been.

And I know all of you are virtuous and would never use THAT word, and I say, you have never had your zip tie skills questioned by Gary while on top of a dryer. You can't judge me.

(Every once in a while now Gary kisses me on the nose and says, "I'm your little c%@t.")

Anyway, I am not rational. I can't even curse properly.

* The title comes from the top cultural reference for menopause: the All in Family episode Edith's Problem.

 

(We just watched the full epiosode here. It made me cry.)