Tag Archives: Christmas Movies

Here’s Mud In Your Eye…………

Every family has their legends. This is one of ours, but I’m absolutely certain it’s true.

My mother-in-law was one of the kindest, sweetest women you could ever meet. She was the quintessential housewife. Marie ensured that there was always great food on her table and good food available in her kitchen if she wasn’t there in that moment to prepare something for you.

Her freezer was never empty. In fact, she was so committed to having snacks available, that we deemed her freezer a “hard hat” area, in fear of all the goodies that would fall out onto your head if you opened the freezer door too quickly.

I was never fortunate enough to meet my father-in-law, but by all accounts they had a fine and long lasting marriage.

There were glitches, however. And when I hear stories like this, I am so proud of Marie. Words  like moxie and gumption come to mind.

So one day, John, Marie’s husband, comes home from work and saunters out to his garden.  Marie, who never learned to drive, has been home alone all day long with no one to talk to.  She kind of waits for her husband to come home so that she can have a nice conversation, a nice dinner, and a bit of grown-up human interaction.

There was a time when she used to follow him out to the garden and chit-chat while he was weeding, pruning and picking ripe vegetables. But his grunting instead of answers, or turning his back to her, quickly made her realize he was in no mood for conversation, even though she was dying for a pow-wow, a talk fest, a tete-a-tete.

So when he immediately goes out to the garden, she’s well….pissed. She, of course, would never use that phrase. She might say she was upset, disappointed, or put-out. But let’s be honest, she was pissed.

When John finally comes in to wash up for dinner, Marie is in a tizzy. As her husband is alighting the stairway to go change out of his gardening clothes and  get ready for dinner, Marie can’t contain herself any longer.

She confronts her husband, something like this, I imagine:

“It would be nice if you could talk to me for a few minutes when you get home from work.”

“What?” he replies as every clueless husband on the planet would.

“I would just like to talk a for a little bit.”

“We’re talking now,” he said, seriously meaning it.

“No, like just a few minutes to talk about our day,” she tries to sound like she’s not whining.

“What are you whining about? We’ll talk at dinner,” he responds ending the conversation and turning to go.

“Well, that’s not how I see it.”

And with that John says (in my imagination).

“Well, how do you see this?” And with that he spits in her eye.

Marie chases him around the house inside and out, the whole time the two of them are laughing, knowing how ridiculous this is….. but he never went to that garden first again.

Marie and Jean..2 girls with Moxie
Marie and Jean..2 girls with Moxie

Go, Moxie!

“You Just have to Laugh….”

©2015 Cathy Sikorski

2014 Reasons to be grateful….okay only 10…..

Everyone has something to be grateful for…just look around you:

1. Grateful that my cleaning lady is downstairs and I’m up here typing.

2. Grateful that my company left, not because I didn’t LOVE having them here, but now I can forget to put on a bra, or clothes and run to answer the phone or quick send that email.

3. Grateful for my sister who basically cooks the entire Thanksgiving dinner, except the turkey and stuffing and brings it to my house. You should all be so lucky, especially when it’s snowing.

4. Grateful that my brother-in-law is home and snuggled in his independent living and not in a nursing home anymore……even if the visiting nurses still try and get me to look at the miraculously healing wound on his derrière.

5. Grateful for my darling, amazing, commenting, fun, funny, interesting readers of this blog.

6. Grateful for Depends, mail order drugs, external catheters, bed pans and spit cups. Yes, those inventions make my life better.

Wine...just wine
Wine…just wine

7. Grateful for the Hallmark Channel, bad Christmas movies and wine, really grateful for wine.

8. Grateful for all the people, Facebook posts, somee cards, and Pinterest posts that make me laugh.

9. Grateful for heat, electricity, water and wine, not necessarily in that order.

10. Grateful that I am able to sit here and write this blog because I have an amazing husband, daughters, mom, brothers, sisters, friends, a cleaning lady and wine.

Thank you all for being my readers, my friends, my supporters and my partners in laughter…Laughing alone isn’t nearly as much fun and…..

“You just have to Laugh………”

©2014 Cathy Sikorski