A new love seat dissipates anger in the Ference-Smith household.
Frank and I bought a new couch today. I’m aware that that sounds sort of boring, but we are not the kinds of people that can afford to just go and buy a new couch whenever the mood strikes. In fact, the money for this one was a birthday gift to Frank from his mother, which was very generous of her.
But: the real reason it is so exciting to get a new couch is that from the moment it arrived in our apartment, Frank has hated our old couch. I mean hated. To be fair, it is a shitty couch. It’s from Ikea, which I’m sure you are all aware varies highly in quality from product to product, and is pretty much the cheapest couch they sell. We bought it when we moved in together, along with basically all of our other furniture as we were both the roommates that didn’t own furniture, so there wasn’t a ton of money to go around.
There’s a lot of stuff that changes about a person after living with a person they’re dating, after a while. There’s the Big Stuff, of course—ideas about the future, the possibility of personal identity in coupledom, masculinity and femininity, all that stuff.
Then there are the Specific Things, particular to each person. The messy learn to become neater, the antisocial get used to being dragged to parties, the disinterested-in-television start to enjoy watching Top Chef or Rock of Love or Gossip Girl -- the gradual blending of personalities that takes place when two different people make the thousand compromises necessary to successfully cohabitate.
Frank is away this weekend in Ohio, attending his brother and sister-in-law's baby shower. This has cracked people up when I've told them—it's kind of hilarious to imagine grumpy old Frank drinking mimosas and making diapers out of tissue paper or whatever people do at baby showers—but I don't think it was that kind of scene. More of a family reunion.
This is, after all, his parents' first grandchild. When I first found out that his younger brother (younger than me, even!) was a) getting married and then b) becoming a father, of course I freaked out. Regular readers of this column will know that it is my wont to freak out about nearly everything. Look, there's two types of people that write about their lives on the internet: neurotic freaker-outers and people with exciting lives. Try reading the dating column if you prefer the latter.
Buying real estate forces Audrey to internally face some questions.
Hoo boy, things have been a little heavy around the old Ference-Smith house of late. See, I've come into some money. Which is awesome. But it has changed the conversation about buying an apartment from, "I'd really love to buy someday when we've saved enough for a down payment" to, "OK, now, what's this whole mortgage thing again?"
Which is a little scary. I mean, I do want to buy an apartment. Like a lot. After this spring's getting kicked out of our place debacle, I look forward to living somewhere that I am in control of. And unlike many of my friends, the commitment of home buying doesn't seem scary to me.
Audrey wonders if a third kitten will exceed the optimal cat-human ratio.
Readers, and imaginary readers, who probably outnumber you, be aware: this will be a blog about cats. If that offends your sensibilities, then move along to more scintillating fare. Cat people, here is my issue: I think I might need to get another cat.
I admit, I like cats. I didn't used to, but then I got some. I now have two. The first was adopted hesitantly and largely because of Frank. Her name is Elliott. The second was adopted off Craigslist because I thought that Elliott was lonely—she would mew and demand constant attention. I accidentally ended up with a gigantic, young, creepily smart cat named Ruggles.
Elliott still cries and demands attention, except that now she also hates Ruggles. They fight. Like a lot. I come home to find fur stuck to the floor with some indeterminate fluid or kitty litter and blood everywhere. He has gashes all over him from the fighting, fortunately nothing serious, but I swear I'm going to come home one day and find him missing an eye.
With Frank away for four days Audrey ponders being home alone.
Well, so Frank left Sunday morning for a four-day business trip to San Francisco. Which is great for him, I mean, San Francisco is awesome. I’d love a free trip there. It’s just weird because that’s kind of almost the longest Frank and I have gone being apart, pretty much since we met. Probably a Christmas or Thanksgiving trip has topped it, but at least then we were both home visiting family, not one person left alone in a two-person apartment.
This weekend, Frank and I were invited to spend the fourth at friend’s family’s house in Vermont. We’d gone for the holiday last year, too, and knew that it was going to be awesome—the property is huge and beautiful and wooded, the house is old and charming, there’s tons of stuff to do and games to play and the couple who host always procure plenty of delicious food and booze.
So in short, we knew going in that we were going to have a good time. Last year, the group that went up was fairly small and made up of disparate parts: us, the hosts, a couple of friends from Neal (the male host)’s law school and a couple of ladies from Caroline (the female host)’s business school. Yes, by the way, all my friends are accomplished except for me.
So, the prophecy has come to pass. Frank now hates our new apartment. If you’ll recall, we were unceremoniously booted from our last place a few months ago and lucked into a great new apartment. An apartment that, at the time, Frank agreed was in many ways superior to the place we were leaving. It’s bigger, it’s a better neighborhood for us, it’s not on the ground floor, etc.
But I knew—I just knew—that after he got settled in, he’d find a way to hate this place, because that is what he always does. Okay, to be fair, we’ve only lived in this place and the old place, but still. What always happens is that he gets all excited about an apartment, then as he lives there, he starts to see little flaws. Of course this apartment has flaws. Every apartment has flaws.
This weekend I was in Connecticut for my Nana’s funeral. It was, obviously, very sad. She’s the matriarch of my dad’s side of the family, and not having her around any more will be strange. As my parents were the last of five children to have children of their own, and because we lived in Texas, far away from my other cousins and aunts and stuff, I never knew Nana as well as my other cousins did.
The period that I spent the most time with her and my Grampy was when they lived with us in San Antonio because Grampy had to live in assisted care and my mom didn’t work then, so she could help take care of things.
I came home on Thursday night to find Frank sprawled out on the couch, looking a little grey in the face.
“I think I just had a seizure,” he said. “I bit my tongue and I was jerking all over the place.”
I, of course, completely freaked out. For anyone who doesn’t know me, I am a notorious worrier about all things medical. Even for a non-weirdo, though, a seizure is a big deal. I mean, it’s your brain. You don’t want things going wrong in your brain.
After making him answer the three stroke questions (if you don’t know them, you really should. Early identification can significantly decrease the damage a stroke victim suffers) I got him some crackers and water and had him explain exactly what had happened.
