Tuesday, July 10, 2007

the nutshell edition

I don't have a lot of time today to go over the fun that was this past week/weekend, but here are the highlights:
  • managed to have a knock-down, drag out of a fight with Husband that lasted pretty much all of the day and night on Tuesday, including an hours worth of fun on our cell phones while I sat and cried in my office. Nice. While I don't think that we accomplished much other than blowing off steam, I sort of saw a glimmer of enlightenment in him. I'm just waiting for when the glimmer disappears.
  • called my Mom and Dad on Wednesday to meet us halfway so they could take Son for the weekend. There was no way that I was getting out of going to KC, so this was the best solution. He had fun, so I guess that everyone won.
  • drove to Des Moines on Thursday night, and KC and back to Des Moines on Friday after the funeral. Very strange service, if it even qualified. No one wore black, the urn (she was cremated) wasn't anywhere, and the whole thing felt like a little get together with little to no reverence. I didn't expect big crying jags or anything, but the only people that seemed to understand the purpose and depth of the service were the ministers. Afterward, we were asked if we wanted to go through her apartment and take anything. What?!?! My MIL and Husband's oldest sister when through and loaded up their car to go home and sort out things-basically grabbed anything that wasn't nailed down just for the sake of getting "stuff." My other SIL requested a rather nice dining room table-which didn't seem as greedy-they are buying a new house and are still using a table originally purchased by Husband's parents when they got married, at a farm sale no less. It seemed far more appropriate. If Grandma had been around, I'm sure that if SIL had asked, she would have been happy to see her have it. I think that the reason that the whole thing threw me was that the last funeral that I was at was my grandmother's. Full mass, packed church, lots of family (my Grandma was one of nine kids), and a real sense of loss. No mention was made of disposing of anything (my grandfather is still alive, but they have a will and everything has been decided for years). The focus was on the person. Maybe the difference seems so sharp because I was very vested in the person-I don't know.
  • arrived back in Des Moines to walk into a thermonuclear fight between the couple that we were staying with. Their marriage is on the verge of imploding, and its harder to watch when there is a very bright and innocent 2 1/2 year old also involved who got caught in the crossfire. She was so scared to hear them screaming at each other-I wanted to just grab her and take her away from it, to help her feel safe. I was in no position to do that, but it took everything that I had to not smack them both and ask them to look at their daughter, who was on the verge of tears-before they came home she had been laughing and playing. It made the fight that Husband and I had on Tuesday almost look productive. They have been married less than four years. Husband tried to mediate and let the husband cool down, while the wife vented to her parents, who had just returned their daughter after taking care of her that night while they went to a small group therapy session. I have my own opinions, but Husband has known the husband for almost 20 years-I really couldn't add much. I played the coward and hightailed it up to our room with my night snack and insulin at hand. Thank God they have cable upstairs.
  • The rest of the weekend was a little tense, but Husband and I stayed, since we both needed the break. The amazing thing is that I must have been more tightly wound than I thought-my morning sugars are now consistently down in the 80s, as opposed to the upper 90s. This is in direct contradiction to what should be happening at this stage, since my resistance should still be going up for another six weeks or so. Just goes to show how much stress can affect things. I'll be curious to hear what my endo's office has to say about it, since I faxed in a week's worth of numbers this morning.

There is probably more, but overall, the whole thing was probably more of a blessing than a curse-we really needed the away time, and Son had a ball with my parents. He did come home with a major eczema flare-up-either from something he ate or just being outside all of the time-but he got home in one piece, and is certainly in a better place for it. The presription will help with the rest. I'm not as apt to want to wring anyone's neck this week (but hey, it is young), and Husband isn't being the total and complete jerk that he was last week. Not too bad.

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