Passing strange

Strange things are happening. First of all, I’m forgetting to eat. I never forget to eat. I love eating. I love food. I love the way the clock is divided by meals and snack time. In fact, my clock has pictures of food at specific times: Almonds at 6:30; cereal at 8:30, a fresh nectarine at 11:00, salad at noon, cow/pig/chicken at 6:00. If the clock doesn’t tell me when to eat my stomach always does. I love a crunchy, salty snack at 3:00 – corn chips or carrots, saltine crackers and butter with a shake of salt, peanut butter and mustard on a hunk of celery. I love my husband’s ritual of “cheese o’clock” and its accompanying pint of beer or glass of wine. Most of all I love dessert after dinner. I’m making rhubarb pie tonight – if I remember.

I have no schedule. For a person who is a chronic list-maker and clock-watcher, this is disrupting my personal time-space continuum. Recovering from knee surgery is doing this. I’m at home. No work schedule to adhere to, no bus to catch, no exercise regime other than physio to give me marching orders. The sun is handy, though. From my spot on the bed, I watch the maple tree outside the window begin to glow and I know it’s about 10:30. When it knocks on the window over my desk I know it is 1:30-ish. When yellow ribbons glide over the peace plant, it’s coming up to four o’clock. When the whole room warms up, its sundown.

I’m like a human sundial.

My husband has become attentive. I blame this on retirement. When our youngest daughter asked how she would get home after track and field practice one day this week when no late buses are running, I said “Ask dad.”

Oh yeah. He’s like a stay-at-home-mom now.

From the ages of 3-6 she asked me nearly every day why I couldn’t be at home all day, like Brianna’s mom. At last her dream of a stay-at-home-parent has come true.

Weirdest of all, darling husband has become an e-mail correspondent. For years – YEARS! – friends and family sent messages for him TO ME because he NEVER read/replied to his e-mail. Now, his former colleagues are daily recipients of must-read-now articles gleaned from the New York Times and he doesn’t understand why they don’t respond right away.

I see by the sun it is time for a nectarine. Thanks for listening. Wishing you sweet things today on a schedule that works for you.