With only four days remaining until our trip to Maine, I have been trying my best to recover from this aching hip thing called sacroiliitis, or at least get it to the point where it doesn’t hurt so much. I’ve been taking the meds I was given and refraining from strenuous activity, yada yada yada...There has been some improvement, but not fast enough for my taste. So, yesterday there I was avoiding all strenuous activity, watching the U.S. Open on television, taking hot jacuzzi baths and using a heating pad. What was my wife doing? Rage cleaning!
That’s not entirely fair. She wasn’t actually...mad...or anything, it just seemed like it to me from my view from the couch. She cleaned the kitchen from top to bottom, scrubbed the wood floors, vacuumed the entire house, all the while doing load after load of laundry. Meanwhile, I sat there feeling more and more worthless by the minute. Guilt began to creep in. I started to imagine what she was probably thinking but was too nice to say, “How convenient that your back goes on the fritz just when all this work has to be done!!” Then, just about the time when I was about to offer my limited services to help, she says to me:
...I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that I’m upset with you for laying around the house watching golf while I’m running around like a crazy woman cleaning this house. No. I am not. Your job, right now is to get your back working right so you can drive me to Maine without having to stop every two hours to get out and stretch. So, stop feeling guilty!!
Isn’t it weird how when you’ve been married to someone for 36 years, you start to be able to read each other’s minds? You can tell what’s going on up there just from body language!
This morning, the house is immaculate. My back feels a bit better than it felt yesterday, and we now have three days left until zero hour. Today is packed with business activity, as will be tomorrow for half the day. Then our COVID tests Tuesday afternoon, and packing up Wednesday afternoon.
Poor Lucy will soon discover that she will not be coming along with us...again. She will not be pleased. She already knows something is happening because the staging area for trips to Maine always starts filling the dining room weeks before we leave. She has seen the traveling stuff accumulating in there. Her hopes are high, at this point. But, with some of our time being taken up with lake house hunting on this trip, there will be times when we will be away from the cabin for long periods of time. Having Lucy along will not work well under those circumstances. So, the poor girl will believe with all her heart that she is going to Maine...right up to the moment when when we close the door in her face on Thursday morning. It’s a horrible feeling. I hate leaving her for so long and I love having her up there with us. She loves the lake more than we do! So, I’ll have guilt weighing down on me until we get to Pennsylvania. Luckily for us, Lucy will have one of her best buddies taking care of her...Bernadette, along with her omnipresent fiancé, Isaac. They will lavish her with love and attention which will hopefully help compensate for our treachery.
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