Tag: prompt

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Fall

I have some rough anniversaries in October and November and don’t feel out of the woods until December starts. So fall is a mixed bag season for me.
Sometimes I get a bit emphatic on my two-way relationship with the season. I enjoy getting ready for winter – cleaning up in my garden, getting my wood stacked, and watching the colors. Then I recall stressful events of the past. My other personal nadir happens in January, but that’s a tale for another day.
I do lots to avoid the potential gloom: long fall walks, family time, and activities. Friends who know me sometimes suggest dinners out, vacations away, and elaborate shopping trips to placate my demons. I fear that not all of those are safe or appropriate:

Dinners out would be nice, but my night shift wife is getting ready to sleep around that time. Somehow I don’t think she’d be happy with a peck on the cheek as I adjust the fit on my tux and say,” night, love! I’m off to Club Zombie with my pals!”
For a similar reason, vacations away are out too, ” Hi honey? Yes, it’s lovely here in Bermuda! I so wish you were here with me!” I love my wife and have no wish to return to a divorce.
OK. Elaborate shopping trips? Needless to say, a woodworker’s life is not complete without the latest doodad from Lee Valley, Rockler, or Woodcraft. So what happens when my darling wife sees me sneaking a large parcel into the shop? ” I’m just doing some early Christmas shopping, dear. What is it? You’ll have to wait till Christmas!”
It’s a struggle to get through these months. You have to get your therapy where you can find it. But in the meantime, I am looking for something the size of a large Lee Valley box that I can give my wife for Christmas.
We all must do what we must to get through these challenging times.

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Deep-Six

” By the deep six” was the original leadsman call with the sounding line. Deep-six means to dispose of something overboard. Something deep-sixed is gone; six fathoms gone. That’s what occurred to me when I ruined the omelet I was about to serve my wife and father-in-law onboard Psyche. But I had used the last of the eggs, and after a bit of reflection, I served it with a flourish and glibly told them it was a specialty item – a frittata.
I should have known from previous experiences that the “new” was that enemy of the good in their family. The Cap’n right away shot me a dirty look and asked if I had put in “..any of those damn New York Spices…” Being that salt and pepper were on the approved list, I could honestly say no. My wife gamely tasted it and smiled, “it doesn’t taste anything like an omelet, Wes.” It was about as close to praise as I’d get this morning. The Cap’n pulled a face, “There’ too much cheese in it! What’s this? A piece of pepper?”
I had already started boiling water for oatmeal before the call came simultaneously from both that they’d prefer some oatmeal. So both scrapped the eggs into the waste bin, and I placed the maple syrup on the table along with the packets of ready-cooked oatmeal that they preferred. Then, having lost my appetite, I deep-sixed the eggs overboard and started thinking about the dinner menu.
It might be dicey, but how would they react to a beef stew if I called it ragout de boeuf?