the pathetic trials of the middle class

Yesterday the tone of the day was set before I"d even had a cup of coffee. The husband burst in when I was still in bed, waving an envelope about and asking if I could go to the bank stat as we had to draw on our home equity line to pay the bills. The husband was rather intense and bitter about this, which in turn sparked a bit of temper on my part, as the reason we are short on the necessaries is that the husband traveled to the East Coast to be by his friend's deathbed, then took a second trip to Chicago for a memorial service despite having previously attended a wake on the East Coast, plus the entire family is (over my strong wishes otherwise) being dragged out to Martha's Frigging Vineyard at his mother's command. I feel quite resentful of any guilt-trips or emotional discussions about money when, once again, I've written off any chance of a vacation due to the husband spending all available funds on trips of his own devising (to be fair, it was my idea that he go out for the deathbed vigil, but I opposed the extra trip to the memorial service on the grounds that he'd already been to a wake and we were already out thousands). I know so many people who are darting off to Europe or Mexico now and again (including my mother-in-law, who seems to go there several times a year), and I'm stuck here being a frigging martyr.

Next the phone rang. It was Jim, our pre-k teacher, asking if I could chaperone a trip to the beach (the very worst sort of field trip, involving shepherding the children a long way on a crowded bus line and listening to their whining out in the fog and wind) AND if I could come in another afternoon to do a planned project with the children. I'm committed to volunteering one afternoon out at Iris's school, so this would mean working three afternoons this week. There seemed no decent way out of this, but my crabbiness was enhanced.

The remainder of the morning was spent chivvying Lucy about and arguing with her over her swimming lesson. Ever since Lucy had a technicolor daydream in which "a killer shark" ripped some hair out of her head, she has been terrified of swimming. Countering my argument that swimming is a safety skill, Lucy proposed that for the rest of her life she avoid all water. "You'll never be able to go to Venice," I said, but she was unmoved. It ended in tears, and I felt like crying myself as I watched her little chest heave with sobs as she sat on the edge of the swimming pool.

We are leaving for the children's annual week at Camp Mather on Sunday, and I have very limited time to get everything necessary done before then. Saturday is being completely wasted by attending a party celebrating the end of second grade for Iris's class. This party is being held up in Calistoga at a private club used normally for "leaders", according to their website. This party has my hackles up because I have been told both to bring my own picnic as the catered meal will not include any vegetarian options AND to shell out $50 to subsidize everyone else's catered meat. I contemplated staying home to prep for Camp Mather, sending the husband up with the children (and given how bitterly the children fight in the car, that would be a delight for me), but then I realized how useless that would be. We're a one car family now, and the sorts of errands I need to do (driving out to a suburban Target, going to BevMo for a case of wine, etc..) require a car.

I did manage, in all my crankiness, to run several errands yesterday, but this just added to my foul mood. A prominent item on my to-do-before-Mather list was to get a hand-sewing project together, and I carved out an hour for going out to my favorite fabric store, only to discover that the Black Cat Quilt Shop is going out of business. Say it isn't so! My life is going to be blighted without that place. It is the only fabric store the children will voluntarily stay in while I engage in the time-consuming project of matching up prints for a quilt, due to the rockstar presence of the eponymous black cat.

The day dragged on in this manner, with one stress or annoyance after another. In the evening the Sober Husband came home late from work, which isn't particularly unusual these days, but aggravating as Lucy had a lengthy meltdown after I stopped her from drawing on the floor with Sharpies. I rather meanly vented my spleen on the long-suffering husband, informing him I had no interest in hearing any more talk about money woes when we were spending "a metric fuckton" on his mother's birthday (such a grasp of mathematics and finance I have). In an attempt to suck up to me, everyone ran about tidying up the cluttered and filthy house, and then we all went off to bed, longing for a better day.