Preparing For Their Arrival

They're coming home today. The kids. Mrs_C.

It's an 8.5 hour trip if only one stop long enough to get gas. With meal stops and bathroom breaks - longer. It took them 10-11 hours to go there from leaving to arrival.

I may puke. I'm at work and I'm thinking I may leave early.

They're coming home. I want to see the kids, but I dread dealing with Mrs_C. My mind is made up, but I have such dread and fear around the subject of being harshly direct (not rude, though) about there being no chance in hell we will ever live together again.

I've been sloughing and avoiding the pain. For years really. The confrontation. Confrontation? I dunno. The wail of anguish. The tears. What will the kids say? Specifically daughter.

I know I'm justified, but I can't stand the pain I know I will cause.

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There's almost no food in the fridge over at the house. I threw out much of what was left in the fridge after they left for holidays. Not that there was a huge amount in it anyway. It smells a little bad. I was going to clean it yesterday, but that's not my fridge anymore.

I bought food for them. I know that she won't make much of anything when she gets back. She'll be "too tired". I was the one who got everyone fed and watered after a trip. The kids will have to scrounge. They'll end up eating crackers or dry linguine (they're kids, what can i say...). Or maybe some of the buns that are left in the freezer from before I left. Or she'll pick one cucumber from the garden, or something.

As I wander around the house while they're gone - I feed and water the dog, walk the dog, I water all the plants indoor and out, I did my laundry (avoiding paying $1.25 per machine per load at the apartment) - as I wander, I notice all the elements of life there are gone. They were gone before they left too.

The house has turned much like Mrs_C's apartments before we were married.

Sterile.

They look like a furnished apartment or a hotel room that is waiting for someone to move in. All mess is confined to two areas - a table downstairs and their desks in their rooms.

I don't live there anymore.

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I stayed up late last night cooking for their arrival home. They will be tired - they may or may not be hungry (kids are always hungry), but something is always needed on arrival home.

Both son and daughter phoned me on the weekend before they left (without knowledge of the other's call) to complain that there was no food. There was food - but we're talking kids here - scroungable food. I described some of that previously in: Monday, July 10, 2006 - Sunday Morning Coffee With Mrs_C

I tried to plan a menu that would be light enough after road food.

I've made a home made split pea-tomato-carrot soup, a bean sprout and cucumber wedges plate, salad, I rescued some frozen smoked turkey slices I had put in the freezer in late may (ziploc - their still good), and cut some canteloupe. There were some whole grain cibatti sour dough buns left in the freezer so I will have those available as well. I think I prepared something else, but I can't remember. I will plate it and put it under plastic wrap in the fridge after work.

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I noticed she was out of coffee. Well, there's only one scoop left in the bag. I didn't buy any. Not buying her coffee mad me happy. Why? For an example read: This is getting beyond stupid posted Monday, May 15, 2006. The short version is that Mrs_C would go through an inordinate amount of premium coffee (at $15/lb) - wasting whole pots at a time - multiple times in a day. She has been known to go through a lb in 4 days on a long weekend - mostly through wasted pots. And then she would give me shit for 1) being "always out buying coffee" 2) spending too much money on coffee - saying she didn't need to have premium coffee - regular stuff was "good enough" 3) on having lousy coffee when I bought something other than the premium brand - and when I bought some regular stuff for her and my own bag of premium she would drink mine not hers - and when confronted not have a good answer.

I got quite a level of cruel satisfaction knowing that Mrs_C would be out of coffee on her first morning back after a 10 hour road trip. But she'll probabaly hop over to Shoppers Drug Mart and get some in the evening because she'll want some on arrival home.

But I can still bask in my small moment of evil-doing in not buying her any for her convenience. If I were truly cruel I would throw out her filters - but she'd use a napkin or something, and then I would have committed a sin of commission, not omission... (for all you fellow catholics out there). I told myself that I would never be actively mean to her, but that I would allow her to deal with her own, uh, ways - and not rescue her. Especially not pre-emptively rescue her. Like buying coffee because I know she's out.

That must sound soooooo petty.

But fuck it. If I won't be mean or retributive in a big way, I can still do it about some little things.

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They're still coming home tonight.