Motherwise Cracks

My husband is the kind that can’t sit still. I can sit still for hours. In his quest to keep busy, he found some fantastically loaded elderberry bushes, plucked them clean and brought home the fruits of his hunting and gathering expedition in the back field.

Sidebar – In the days before his chlosterol went sky high, I used to bake him pies with these wild berries and in fact, my pies were so much in demand that an elderly neighbor man would hang bags of fruit on my door for me to make him one. He would always have enough fruit for two pies: one for my family and one for him. It was all very warm and cozy until I dropped off a pie and got my head bitten off by his girlfriend for making him pies. Apparently he forgot to mention he was diabetic and was getting me to provide him his sugar fix on the sly, which didn’t go over well with the new lady friend. He recently passed away and I was too afraid to ask the girlfriend if it was from old age or complications from his diabetes, but, back to the husband shucking elderberries around my dining room table.

When he is just about done, my mate of 29, count ‘em 29 years, says to me, “Hey Hon. Do you know how to make pies?”

My reply was not very sweet, very crusty, and like the large container of elderberries in his lap, was a bit pithy.

But how could I blame him? He has been on the planet Oblivion for the past 29 years. I’ve booked the next flight to Scruyewulon.

In the event my daughters decide to marry someday, I have tried my best to gently bring my kids to the realization that men are not the swiftest or most observant creatures in the world, but none the less, can be company on a cold night and are fun to do certain things with, and  they come in handy when you have a lot of groceries in the car or with leftovers. I hope that I have succeded because my mother never told me and I have had to learn the hard way. It was is no picnic, and he is lucky that there wasn’t a pie tin in the near vicinity or he’d have a new hat.

On the positive side of this masculine lack of the power to see, to remember, to open the mouth without thinking, is the fact that he hasn’t seemed to notice the 20 pounds I put on this year. I think he thinks I haven’t noticed his 20, so I guess we are even.

Today I am baking the two pies from his berry collection: one for the family and one for his face.

—

“I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man I keep his house.”  ~  Zsa Zsa Gabor

(Dear Zsa Zsa. There has to be a better way.)