Most people are excited for the Family Day long weekend. Most people have plans to do fun things. Most people look forward to downtime to kick back, relax and play. The Carpenter is not most people.
You should have seen his face when I told him excitedly that this weekend we would have three whole days off to spend quality time and do stuff – together.
Yep. That face. You know it.
“Family Day? It’s this weekend? We have Monday off?” he muttered aloud to himself, letting the reality and disillusionment slowly sink in. He is the only man I know who doesn’t like long weekends because they interfere with his work schedule. Unbelievable.
I broke the news to him during our Sunday morning breakfast date. Those early morning sessions used to be a weekly tradition, that sacred time when we would get up early, ditch the sleeping teenagers and go out to a restaurant to enjoy a hearty breakfast and catch up on our lives without interruption.
Unfortunately, those dates have declined due to my never-ending litany of food issues. I am not much fun to take out for breakfast. However, to the Carpenter’s benefit, I do share my bacon, because when you love someone as much as I adore him, you share your bacon. Love is simple. Give me gluten-free toast, 2 eggs over-easy with a side of beans, with nothing to look at but his sweet, goofy face and I’m absolutely enamoured (and then quite ill because I’m allergic to eggs, which destroys the whole sexy thing).
And if that didn’t kill the mood, my cheerful conversation sucked the air out of the happily married balloon: credit card bills, kids’ schedules and work deadlines. Hot, right? Nothing warms the cockles of the heart like stress, annoyance and more stress.
Hey folks, this is marriage. Once you’ve stopped hiding your ugly underwear or the sounds of your bodily gases, and you’ve endured your partner’s snoring, really, it comes down to bills, kids’ schedules and work deadlines.
But I was still smiling because, two words: Family Day. Two more: long weekend. How about these two: kitchen paint?
The Carpenter was not smiling. It’s like he could smell the paint before I even opened the can (of worms). Without words, he knew what I was thinking: we should paint the kitchen this weekend, and by “we,” of course I mean “he.” We bought the paint in December, as part of our Christmas gifts to each other, deciding to paint the living room and kitchen as a cheap and easy makeover for our two favourite rooms. But the Carpenter got called in to work over the holiday break and while the living room looked awesome, the kitchen wasn’t started. He insisted I not attempt to paint without his supervision. Who was I to argue? So the paint cans got stacked away. Until now. A long weekend is the perfect time to shake them up.
Don’t worry, I’ll make sure he gets everything he requires this weekend: one good home cooked dinner (just one, don’t push it), an uninterrupted nap and the always coveted time with his mistress the iPad. But first, we paint (and again, “we” equals “he”). But what I’m most looking forward to is the slow dance in the new blue kitchen. Nothing beats that.