I am continually surprised by how confident many obituary writers are about what has happened after the death of the loved one—not even just the confident assertion that the loved one is definitely for sure in the good place, but even more specific declarations such as “was met at the gates of Heaven by her mother, sister, and beloved terrier Angela.” My friends, we do not have that level of detail about the intake process.
It is less than a week until Christmas and I am not going to panic. Today I sneaked my Secret Santa gift into work, and also passed around the Trader Joe’s giant foil-wrapped coins I bought everyone. I liked the mini spatula idea best, but I searched multiple stores and couldn’t find them at a reasonable price or in multipacks; I think I needed to plan further ahead. Another idea I considered was dividing a easy-native-wildflower seed mix into baggies, but I (1) left that one too late as well and (2) was a little unsure about the logistics. Also, some of my coworkers are in apartments, so the framing would have to be stealth-planting, and I actually don’t know much about that. Should I make seed-balls? I don’t know. It started to seem like A Lot. Probably mini spatulas are more my thing, or seed-ball kits someone else put together.
Paul bought a gigantic cabinet humidifier for the house without discussing it with me. It is like having a couple of large fans on, and I am experiencing noise fatigue. Also: it woke me up before 4:00 this morning by cycling on and off every few minutes. I would start to drift back to sleep and then the fan would vroom back into life; I would start to drift off again, and the fan would shut off abruptly into silence. Eventually I unplugged it, but at that point there was no hope of getting back to sleep. Paul investigated and found that the water bin wasn’t installed quite right. I feel like when a huge loud appliance encounters an issue, it should not KEEP LOUDLY TRYING EVERY FEW MINUTES FOR HOURS. I FEEL LIKE AFTER A COUPLE OF UNSUCCESSFUL TRIES IT SHOULD SHUT THE HELL OFF AND FLASH A LITTLE ERROR LIGHT OR SOMETHING.
And with that description of the humidifier, I have suddenly added ‘sledgehammery’ to my vocabulary alongside ‘stabby’. Because OY.
I managed to get later in the month before feeling panicky and overwhelmed, but it caught up with me anyway. Starting baking later was totally fine because it gives me less time to eat all the shortbread and there were no kids here, but I still went to bed last night back-achy and a little cranky.
I dropped the ball on a couple of little gifts I would have done for people I saw yesterday and today that I would have done if I hadn’t lost a few days to sickness. I am mentally shrugging my shoulders at that. Do what you can, let the rest go. Repeat as needed.
The humidifier thing – argh!!! My CPAP machine will sometimes hiss at me like an angry dragon even if I am doing the exact same thing I normally do, like removing the water tray. And it will continue hissing even if I turn it off. Not every time, but definitely only when my husband is still asleep. JUST DO A BLINKING LIGHT.
“My friends, we do not have that level of detail about the intake process.” Perfection.
“My friends, we do not have that level of detail about the intake process.” This makes me think of the Tom and Jerry episode where Tom dreams he’s going up the escalator to heaven.
Our downstairs AC stopped working this summer in the middle of a heat wave. I troubleshot as much as I could while sweating my boobs off and determined via youtube/reddit that the exhaust hose was probably blocked. My bf was not convinced that was the issue and was grumpy and would not help me investigate further. OK. So I bit the bullet and bought a new AC unit because it was HOTTTTTTT and my boobs couldn’t take anymore. Surprise, the new one had the same issue? And my bf had the same issue with not being helpful because apparently his brain melted. I said eff this, grabbed an enormous fan from storage and slept directly in front of it on the couch for the rest of the heatwave. Then I forgot about the entire thing.
MONTHS LATER when he was putting up the xmas tree he moved the AC unit and was like ‘huh, the storm window fell down over the screen and blocked the AC vent, that’s weird.’ And then my brain exploded all over the carpet.
What was your obituary declaration for him???
Here lies Nine’s bf
Beloved Dipshit
He Didn’t Listen Too Good
Comedy gold medal for both you and Allison. But sorry you had to deal with the heat AND the delayed irony. That’s TOO MUCH IRONY.
That noise at 4AM would have driven me out of my mind! Who designs these things, and why is it never someone who has to live with them? I feel they would be better motivated to design it well if they had to have one at their house after.
Such a noise as that humidifier makes (made?) would drive me insane. My husband hears nothing, whereas I hear everything. Our house makes way too many suspicious noises.
I am panicked but not about gifts. I have 2 1/2 days to learn the piano accompaniment part for a Christmas Eve song. And it has key signature changes! I have done zero baking and am planning to leave all of that for Younger Daughter.
I read the first paragraph aloud to two people in my family.
The humidifier situation sounds awful. It reminds me a portable AC we had once that had a tank that would fill with the water it was sucking out of the air and when the tank filled (which could happen in several hours if it was very humid) not only would it turn off, but it would make a loud beep, so you could wake up in the middle of the night just as the room ceased to be cool.
I think the same thing about obituaries! Not just about the intake process (though I do believe in the good place and not in the bad place) but about the qualities ascribed to the deceased. “She lit up every room she walked into.” Did she though? Well. It is nice to think someone will write pleasant things about us, afterwards.
I have a running to-do list. Somehow it is not getting any shorter. Christmas doesn’t have to be perfect, Christmas doesn’t have to be perfect, Christmas doesn’t have to be perfect.