I tofu you

Hunting, Fishing and Other Grounds for Divorce, by Jacki Michels

Shakespeare is noted for his, “How do I love thee, let me count the ways — I love you to the depth and breadth … ” blah, blah, blah.

After a quarter of a century of being a couple, my sweetheart and I have, I think, come close to wearing out our I love yous. “Love you,” has become an all-around form of grammar, morphing as the need arises. It is an exclamation, a comma, a conjunction, a salutation and a departure.

My close friends will testify to many awkward moments when I habitually babble “Love you” at the end of a chat.

With the holiday love fest, a.k.a. Valentine’s Day, firmly behind us for another year, and thoughts of springtime love off in the distant future, I think I can safely trample the sacred ground of romantic hogwash for a moment.

Let’s face it, love as a theory is nice and all, but love works best as an action. That’s right — love is a verb, and I do love verbs. Thing about verbs, there are so many colorful variations of them. Why not spiff up the old tried-and-true love? Surely, there are a few fitting counterparts?

For instance, when things are, say, challenging (read: you would like to have “’til death do us part” hurry up already): “I endurith you.” Might be a verbal contender to expressing one’s undying perserverence … er … I mean, devotion. However, phrasing this emotion to seem like mere tolerance (also a verb) fails to have that special ring to it.

For the moments when your partner says something incredibly insensitive or is otherwise a turd, “I ignore you” is no prizewinner.

When feeling supportive, think before you get too creative, as “I girdle you” is a definite no-no on many levels.

For the lover who, despite once being a carnivore, decided to brave a meatless menu, “I tofu you” is another frightful fail in the love language department.

The same holds true for when you are feeling sweet and mushy and bubbly and you want to gush, “I worship you.” Hold that thought — this one might actually have merit.

A little healthy worship aside, and after much consideration, I agree with the old poet, that there are a lot of ways to count the ways we love. But in the end, there is only one way to truly say what we mean.

So, to my dear sweetheart, I love you, baby.

What else can I say?

Grounds for staying married: Giving that tofu-inspired stir-fry a chance.

Jacki Michels is a freelance writer who lives (and loves) in Soldotna.

Hunting, Fishing and Other Grounds for Divorce: Small stuff

By Jacki Michels, for the Redoubt Reporter

Living in a small town is a lot like hanging out on Facebook — everyone seems to know your business. If you happen to have a Facebook account and live in a small town, it can get a little weird.

Take, for instance, last month. I posted regarding several events, namely my graduation and the sad news of my very best fur friend’s passing. Then, unsuspectingly, I went about my business. On several occasions I was congratulated, on several more I was offered sincere condolences. After a few awkward encounters, I finally I got the courage to ask, “For what?”

Apparently people who weren’t even on my “friends” list saw their friend’s post regarding their comments on my posts, and like a grapevine on steroids, news apparently travels at Wi-Fi speed. This strikes me as super funny because we live in Soldotna, which our family affectionately calls “S-L-O-W-dot-na.” More than once I have felt the need to point out to visiting friends that, seriously, there are only a few short stretches of road where one can actually drive 55. This gets exponentially annoying when someone is going even s-l-o-w-e-r than the posted speed because it is say, rainy and icy, but you are late!

Do you hear what echoes I hear?

Hunting, Fishing and Other Grounds for Divorce, by Jacki Michels, for the Redoubt Reporter

Echoes are intriguing. All one has to do is yell across an expanse and, “Hello! Hello. H-e-l-l-o.” Your own voice bounces back to you.

This is not unlike the phenomenon one experiences while listening in on adult children in the process of raising their own little children.

Words we’ve once uttered bounce back and reverberate off your children’s lips. Then they float over the air and tickle our ears in an eerily familiar way.

For us, these echoes do not bounce back from afar, but from various locations of the house as several of our children (and their children) have bounced back home. Whew!  Christmas was, of course, the best ever, and I am so, so, so glad I get a year to recover — oops! I mean, prepare for next year.

So as we fill our days sweeping up stray pine needles and enduring — I mean, savoring — a few more precious days of vacation before returning to our regularly scheduled lives, various carols replay in my mind. However, the lyrics to the carols keep getting all jumbled up in all the chaos — oops, I mean, delightful quality time. One warped tune goes something like this:

“Said my grown girl to her little lambs (while they were bickering and she was on the phone and they were interrupting, tattling, whining and in general risking being in time out until they were eligible for Social Security).

“Do you want me to settle that for you? I said, DO YOU WANT ME TO SETTLE THAT FOR YOU? I’m Mom, Mom! And what I say goes, so do as you’re told, oh please oh do as you’re told!”

And when she sat down to dinner, after a very long day, and she was hoping the baby was finally asleep, she muttered something like, “Do you hear what I hear? The baby cries, she cries, Oh!”

Breaking down is easy to do — Getting back up and running much more challenging

Hunting, Fishing and Other Grounds for Support, by Jacki Michels, for the Redoubt Reporter

It happens every couple of years. Like rabbits, our “stuff” goes through a hearty life cycle and dies. For the past year, we’ve experienced a dramatic decline in the population of electronic, mechanical and otherwise indispensable gadgets of humane living.

It started with the coffee pot. The carafe, not wanting to balance politely between the sinks, jumped right off the counter and plunged to a messy demise. That makes four pots in five years.

Of course, I couldn’t replace it without buying a whole new coffee maker, so I dug out the old camping percolator. No moving parts, no glass parts and no filters required. Nothing much short of a Mack truck would ruin it, we reasoned.

As soon as the snow flew our snowmachine decided to stage a dramatic death at the bottom of a large hill. Due to the graphic nature of my husband’s verbal tirade, the dialogue of this gruesome scene cannot be shared in the paper.

The newer old cassette player-era truck and the slightly hipper CD-capable car staged a mutinous coup and became acutely ill, both running up healthy repair bills and causing a major disruption. The older than eight-track cassette-set truck (while being driven when vehicle one and two were in intensive care) suffered a major valve malfunction and tragically died on the spot.

What I’ve learned so far

Hunting, Fishing and other Grounds for Divorce, by Jacki Michels, for the Redoubt Reporter

In the Michels household, we’ve all been adjusting to yet another school year. As I stare at reams of paper that will soon be crammed full of this year’s knowledge, I got to thinking on all the things I didn’t learn in school. Some things I learned by experience, and other tidbits I collected. Here’s is a brief list:

• Don’t eat prunes recreationally.
• A dirty diaper, when thrown by a 2-year-old, can coat 8 square feet of a wood kitchen floor.
• Little boys, when given enough train track, will annex the kitchen floor you are trying to mop.
• It is virtually impossible to distinguish the sleeping patterns of teenager and someone in a coma.
• A cat, left to its own devices, will claw open the cat-food bag. A dog, left to its own instincts, will chase the cat and then eat all the cat food.
• Husbands, when given enough gentle nagging, will submit to a man makeover, but they will not enjoy the mud mask no matter how handsome you claim he will look.
• Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia Fro-Yo and wasabi sauce do not mix.
• CO2+H2O<+>HCO3+H+ <+>CO3=2H is the reason beer goes flat.
• The production of Hershey bars in one year, if laid end to end, would circle the globe two and a half times.

Lie to me, or don’t — Men need to learn the honey-dos, don’ts of bending the truth to wives

Hunting, Fishing and Other Grounds for Divorce, by Jacki Michels

I don’t know why, but it seems that s-o-m-e husbands are hard-wired to lie. Shame on you men who are right now shaking your head and feeling superior because you didn’t actually lie about buying that new blowtorch — or whatever it is you happened to forget to mention — and covertly stashed the receipt in the woodstove.

Why lie? It’s not like we wives will not eventually notice the large item that is lurking under that really big tarp that was oh-so-casually tossed over whatever that large mass is in the garage, and eventually — oh, eventually — you will have to fess up.

Could it be that there is actually guilt involved? I think it is more likely that they dread the inevitable: The truth. Because for the next several long minutes he will be reminded, many redundant times over, about the fact that, “We were on a budget!” Which will be followed up by, “You froth at the mouth when I buy groceries and generic deodorant, and you — YOU! Well! You melt the credit card with a blowtorch! Bet you didn’t even get a coupon for it, did ya?”

He will most likely make excuses, but omission of the truth is lying without actually putting any effort in it, aka — lazy lying. Other men take the understated approach to their tale-telling. This is a naughty little habit that goes something like this:

Wife: “Holy dead, decaying cow! What’s that smell?”

Then, looking cross and suspicious, she adds, “Did you fart?”

To which he pinches his thumb and pointer fingers together as he admits to letting a “little one.” There is also the boldfaced lies, the blaming lie and the famous, “I forgot,” which is another subject altogether, unless he is lying and betting that copping to forgetting is safer than the truth — which, by definition, is actually lying.

Oh so vein

Hunting, Fishing and other Grounds for Divorce,

By Jacki Michels, for the Redoubt Reporter

Maybe it’s a coincidence, but since starting nursing school, I’ve found myself noticing people’s veins. While I know that it’s good manners to greet someone by making eye contact and using their name at least twice in a sentence, recently I’ve had a hard time focusing on the topic of conversation.

This is because, what I really want to know is: Would they be an easy stick? Should I use a tourniquet? Are they the kind who turn white and hurl or are they the stoic sort who watch the whole procedure and don’t flinch?

Sometimes I’ll even shamelessly eye veins of complete strangers — take a look at the pipes on that guy! Probably a fainter… .

The other day, as I was chatting with my teenager, I absentmindedly ran my fingers over his impressively muscled arm, noting with pride that he had the “man vein” running proud and juicy down the underside of his forearm. Long story short, there was no way he would be my guinea pig. Not even for a Rock Star drink and candy bar. Not for a Saturday without chores. Not even for unlimited texting. The kid should be a contract negotiator.

I’ve started noticing my own veins. What sites on my hand were most suitable for an IV start? Was that a valve or an age spot? Out of curiosity I did a thorough assessment of my other extremities. I used a mirror. To my horror I realized that the decade-old, fine-lined, baby-blue spider squiggles on my legs had morphed into big hairy blue tarantulas. Tarantulas that seemed to be spelling out my name, in bold!

Unwilling passenger to state of new normal

By Jacki Michels, for the Redoubt Reporter

The time we dread does not often blow a whistle to warn us of an impending wreck. It strikes and pulls the floor from beneath our feet when we least expect it.

It is the moment when the phone rings. You answer it and hear the words that you hear, but you cannot begin to fathom their meaning. You stand there, frozen, trying to figure out how to breathe. You will hear, repeat, process and comprehend nothing, except that what you hear cannot be.

What to do next is a thought frozen in cement.

As you swim in the murkiness of awareness, you might be able to flash back on when the car broke down for the third time in a month and the batteries in the other one bit the dust. Out of desperation you turned back to the cold, old truck. Thinking back, you laughed right out loud as it started up like a champ.

Later, when the tow truck brought you and your trusty old truck home, you said, “Oh well, things could’ve been worse, at least no one is sick or dying.” Perhaps you creatively cursed the automobile industry. Secretly, you may have felt sorry for yourself and grumbled at the expense, the inconvenience.

Love by any other name…

Hunting, Fishing and Other Grounds for Divorce, by Jacki Michaels

Shakespeare claimed that a rose by any other name still smells as sweet. I wonder if he had a girlfriend?

Although “sweetheart” and “babe” seem to be (or not to be) some of the most common terms of endearment for lovers, the potential formation of pet names for the object of one’s affection seem endless.

Some compound variations on the endearments seem to follow a predictable pattern of construction. For those who are made of sugar, spice and everything nice there are definitely some favorite concoctions for whipping up a particularly mouthwatering nickname.

One of the simplest formulas is to toss in a reference to some form of sweetness with an optional reference to a particularly favored part of anatomy, resulting in some classic favorites: Cutie Pie, Doll Face, Sugar Lips, Honey Buns and Sweet Cheeks, for example.

However, one must exercise caution, as Syrup Head doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.

In deciding what to call the species whose ingredients range from frogs to snails and puppy dog tails (eek!), the naming is a much more risky business.

He might be bright and full of energy, but chances are he will not take kindly to pet names such as “Sparky” — especially if you can’t say it with a straight face. “Oh Sparky, here Sparky.”

The fright before Christmas

Hunting, Fishing and Other Grounds for Divorce, by Jacki Michels, for the Redoubt Reporter

’Twas mere days until Christmas, and I gasped at the house!

There were droppings all over, then, eeeeeek! I spied the mouse!

I know it is Christmas, but I didn’t wanna share

my house with a mouse! Oh I know it ain’t fair.

 

But I set out a trapline, and baited with care,

In hopes that one little rodent soon would be (trapped) there.

The dog was nestled all snug in her bed,

And when mousey ran by she barely turned her tired head.

The hub was a’snoozing, Worthless the cat, on his lap.

When’s my turn to lie down for my long winter’s nap?

 

When out on the porch there arose such a clatter.

I sprang from my tasks to see what was the matter.

First was a bark, then a big crash!

To the front door I flew like a flash.

 

Was greeted with paws and a big wet tongue — splash!

’Twas our neighbor dog, Hunter, a big old Lab fellow.

He was dressed all in wet fur, so damp and so yellow.

To the food bowl he ran, his teeth they did gnash!

Then he sniffed at my pockets, as if looking for cash.

When, what to my wondering eyes did appear,

But that miniature rat and my heart shrank with fear!

 

I knew in a moment he was up to some trick.

Then, more rapid than beagles, those big doggies they came.

And I whistled, and shouted, and called them odd names.

 

“Now, Beggar! Now, Shedder! Now, Stroke hound and Woofie!

On, Slobber! On Dog Breath! On, Flatulent and Fluffy!

To the top of the porch! To the top of the wall!

They chased not after mousey, but after that stinky old ball.

 

Then, as moms do before things hit the fan and do fly,

I looked all about, and I started to cry.

“Christmas is coming and there’s too much to do!”

I sobbed while wiping dog poo off my shoe.

 

And then, in a twinkling, I started to scream.

“I’m done with this whole holiday-ho-ho-ho scheme!

“Forget the festivities and all the Yuletide traditions!

“Skip the whole nonsense; I wanna go fishing!”

 

Phone the family down in the Lower 48.

Tell ’em forget it! Their gifts will be late!

In fact, tell ’em Christmas is canceled all together,

since Santa’s elves were experiencing another power outage, due to bad weather!

 

I starting feeling right guilty, like a grouchy, Grinchy, Christmastime thief.

So I turned myself around and dug out the old wreath.

Set out the savior, the wise men, the camels and hay,

and I smiled at the thought of celebrating the day.

 

As I admired the quaint scene on my china hutch shelf,

Gasp! Out popped ol’ mousey!

And I screamed when I saw him, in spite of myself.

Across the floor he did race, a frightened look on his poor little mouse face.

 

You see, I’d terribly frightened the little guy.

Now he was hiding, so scared and so shy.

So I fluffed up the hay where Jesus laid his sweet head.

Thus making for mousey, a soft little bed.

I then called out to my friend, so little and furry,

“There’s room at the inn, so no need to worry.”

 

As I stoked the wood stove and turned out the light

I quietly whispered, “Merry Christmas to all, and to all a warm night!”

 

Grounds for Divorce No. 7,437: Uttering something unflattering about the wife’s garlic chicken while under the mistletoe.

Jacki Michels is a freelance writer, a wife and a mom.

If all is not lost, then where are the car keys?

Hunting, Fishing and Other Grounds for Divorce, by Jacki Michels, for the Redoubt Reporter

There are just some things I shouldn’t do. Like leave the house.

It all starts before I even start my husband’s truck:

“My purse, I forgot my purse!”

I know this because my keys are in my purse and I need my keys to start the truck. I go back to the house to get my purse, but realize I did remember to lock the front door, and, yes, the back door, too.

I glance in the little window in the garage, mentally calculating the width of pane against the girth of my frame. It’s not happening. Then I remember the garage door opener clipped to the visor in the truck.

I go back to the truck. Good — this time I didn’t lock up out of habit.

Last time it cost me $25 plus a big tip. I had locked up after I carried the groceries in, but before I got the sleeping baby out of the car seat. Not this time. Toddler man of that incident is now in middle school, safe in the care of our public school system.

I push the magic button and the garage door opens smoothly. The dog escapes. My purebred German shepherd makes a mad dash across the lawn.

Great, I’m in mentalpause and she’s in heat. We could use a little help with the hormones here.

“Oh, no!”

Walk on the wild side

Hunting, Fishing and Other Grounds for Divorce, by Jacki Michels

There are days when the thought of noshing on crusty bread while sitting at some quaint little establishment that I cannot begin to pronounce sounds so utterly lovely.

It is one of my favorite fantasies. In this delusion I have long, thin thighs and I am immune to the ill effects of carbohydrates and gravity. I wear a pair of stylish, long, leather boots as my lover and I stroll along the streets of Paris — and you must say it like “Par-eiz,” with an emphasis on the “ez,” or it does not sound sophisticated. It is an utterly romantic affair and, someday — ah, someday — we will get there. We dream, we save and we hope to make that and many of our other favorite fantasies come true.

Right from the beginning we had big dreams, and, boy oh boy, were we wild. Once we even danced on top of a — oh, never mind. Just trust me on this. The thing is, life happened, several times, and we burped them and diapered them.

At times our most creative moment involved coming up with clever strategies so we could sleep together. And I do mean sleep — as in increasing our hours of unconscious rest. Like most married folk, we fell into predictable, mostly out of exhaustion.