My husband is the father of four, now grown, kids.  His birthday is also within days of Father’s Day.  Our Los Angeles sons will send cards, eventually.  Daughters send a thoughtful gift or two to arrive on or before these days.  It is the same way for me, as their mother.  But, this morning I could see it was going to be one of those days with daddy.  He flopped the newspaper on my chair’s ottoman.  We get it for the sport’s page.  Then he went into his daily rant about cable news networks looping the same stories day after day.

I told him that baseball games seem, to me, to be repetitive in nature. “Just watch the last two innings to see your team snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory.”  I said.

Those are fighting words, so I left the room and let him gripe to the cat.

Before I had a sip of coffee he asked me to make up a grocery list.  This is a sign that he is irritated.  He’s on his way right now to terrorize fellow shoppers.  He is ready for confrontation in the soup aisle.  He comes home rustling bags of groceries for me to “save”.  These have routine holes in the bottom, and he scoops cat litter.  Need I say more?

It is suddenly very hot outside, after a cold spring.  He’s in shorts and a paint spattered shirt.  But, he can play his music as loud as he wants in the air-conditioned car.  He needs a shower and a shave, but is saving these activities for his “special” days.

He threw out my coffee pot last night.  I drink tea.  Tomorrow is garbage day and I hear him sigh as he prepares to drag the cans to the end of the driveway.  I loved being out of the house on garbage day before he retired.  I was outside of the house, and for a brief number of minutes I had myself to myself.

He is angry with my dentist, which does not serve me well.

He is a Hungarian (gypsy) and I feel him get restless because we have lived here four years.  He likes to move every three years.  The actual packing, loading, trucking, unloading, and unpacking is my job.  I have to guess what is bothering him when he is restless and annoyed.

He can’t believe it when I do not clean once a week.

I am usually too tired to write after a cleaning day.  “I am going to write.” I told him…then clean.  I am usually too tired after writing all day to clean.  Besides, unless someone drops in, who cares?  He goes into the bathrooms to clean them, and asks me questions about how to do it.  He has a Ph.D.!  “Figure it out for chrissakes!”  I say.

I think he is bored and he missed a minute and a half horse race yesterday.  He’ll watch the pre-race bullshit for two hours and then drags me to get excited about the actual race.  He knows NOTHING about horses.  I do, and I am not interested.  It’s a bunch of rich people drinking heavily in the sun and some tiny jockeys speaking in tongues before the race.  Vast sums of money are involved.  But, that’s not the real money maker.  It is stud fees that make the money, if the horse is a winner.

It is nauseating.

He needs multiple hobbies, like four crying babies and toddlers.  He golfs.  He splashes water around pre-washing dishes to load in the dishwasher.  He washes and dries clothing, and the missing socks and shrunken clothes are mine to put away.  He has an I-Pad and can watch these ridiculous pretend slot machines whirl ducks, geese, stars, and gold coins around and around.  I read in bed, and I can hear the irritating sounds emanating from his game playing.  I go to sleep and wake up to a blinding light coming from his I-Pad as he spins the tumblers on the games.  He tries to pretend he is playing a ten-dollar a pull machine at an actual casino.

We have real issues.  Our youngest son is looking for a different place to live in the L.A. basin.  Our youngest daughter was in a car accident. She’s sore, but the car is off to the junk yard with broken axles.

He will be o.k., by the way.  This week he gets to be my age.  He bought me a cake and I ate the damned thing.  I took my blood sugar with a new meter the next morning and the screen read “HI”.  “It just greeted me!” I said.  Well, I was wrong.  HI means my blood sugar is above what can be registered on the meter.

On days like these I wish he’d go to a sport’s bar and watch the screens with another batch of retired men.  He’d have a beer, or two, if he went. At the end of the day, as we crawl into bed, he’ll admit that he had a foul mood all day.  At the end of the day I’ll say, “That’s okay.”