What I�m Doing for Fun Tonight
2007-01-24, 2:14 p.m.

Day 885

No Lisele, it�s not going to be one of those �private� moments. Not tonight anyhow.

Last night was interesting to say the least. In a sucky kind of way. Just got an email from Cindy that explains most of what I didn�t know. Glad she sent it, because I was thinking something completely different. Doesn�t excuse her behavior for the evening, but that ain�t my problem.

A bullet style list of the evenings major events, in chronological order:

� Got home. Cindy's home, not at the gym. Reviewed dinner plans with Zach.
� Zach & I cooked dinner. Grilled & dilled salmon, steamed green beans, rice pilaf. Yum. Grilled Caesar chicken for the non salmon eaters.
� Cindy already at least 2 sheets to the wind. She skipped dinner. Rest of us ate.
� Cleaned up dinner dishes. Non-eater Cindy tried to help. I didn�t quite hip check her out of the way, (unfair advantage) but I did resolutely maintain my ground.
� Kids headed upstairs
� I announced to Cindy I was headed to my Al Anon meeting & I�d be back 9:30ish
� Only 4 of us at the meeting. This is good, because it forces one to open up some & share. Turned out to be a great meeting for myself and one other relative newcomer. Too bad Pat wasn�t there. (more on this later � another day maybe)
� While I was out playing Al Anon, Zach & Jill (can you stand it? Zach & Jill. They�re getting married some day too. So cool.) went out for their evening walk. In the snow. They love it. They count the deer munching arborvitae (white cedar) in our very suburban neighborhood. Ours included. 5 last night.
� Z & J get back. Cindy has left, in her car. Zach notes that her whiskey consumption for the evening doubled in the time they were out. This puts her 4 sheets to the wind. (3 was in no way enough. Read on a few bullets)
� I get home. 9:30 on the dot. No Cindy. I assume she is at the gym. With a quart of CC & Ginger Ale (mostly CC & ice, just a drop of ginger ale) to keep her company on the treadmill. Don�t laugh. This would not be a first.
� Zach & I decide on dinner for Wednesday night. (Don�t sweat it OKC � it�s meatloaf & potatoes. Comfort food.)
� 10:10 I hear Cindy�s garage door go up and her car pull in.
� 10:15 I decide to hit the hay. 5:00am comes along when 5:00am does, and that�s plenty early
� 10:15:01 Cindy stumbles in from the garage. Says something to the effect of wiiinnnssshheee waaassschhhaaah floooo ou, ou, ou, gone. After 4 tries. As she�s waving in the non-existent breeze in our family room.
� 10:15:45 I hit the button to close Cindy�s garage door, kill the garage lights and lock up.
� 10:16 I went to bed.
� We�re out of windshield washer juice. I have coupons for 4 free gallons. Think I ever stop by the parts store and pick them up? Ha!

That pretty much sums up the evening.

This morning when I get up at 5am (ugh!) I get my butt ready for the gym. When I get down stairs, I spy a receipt from Macy�s for a $200 expenditure in their electronics dept. Silly me is thinking Cindy did some inebriated retail therapy. Cruising Macy�s with an opaque water bottle filled with her favorite �legal� beverage (see bullet above). I found out I was wrong.

But that was after the spinning instructor killed us this morning. Speedburner Patty. I got there a little late (3 minutes!!) and got my bike adjusted in time to do a hill climb. Nothing like a little exertion to warm you up. Of course, on the down hill portion, she wants us to go like a bat out of hell. 10 minutes into the class, my legs are feeling like lead. A few more climbs & sprints fixed that up. What�s heavier than lead? Bismuth? Uranium? Europium? Yeah. That�s what I have for legs today. So hot they�re radioactive.

Anyhow, when I got to work, I emailed Cindy about our dinner plans for tonight. Turns out she�s fine with dinner. She�s not cooking, what�s to complain about, right? But. Last night she was apparently over at her dads. Seems he bought this DVD player yesterday. One of the ones complete with screen and everything. Has the box, has the instructions. Does not know what he did with the player. And his stereo doesn�t work, AGAIN.

So. About the title? Yeah. Going to Bob�s to correctly wire his speakers. Again. Probably check with the front desk and see if anyone turned in a DVD player. I�m thinking he was toting it around the place yesterday and just left it somewhere. People with Alzheimers do that all the time. What I should do is call him first, see if he found the DVD player, then go over there right after work to re-wire his stereo. He�ll have to head down for dinner at 5:30 and that will leave me a gracious exit opportunity.

Maybe I should think about putting some connectors on his speaker cables too. I can rig them so the right & left sides are identical. He can swap them willy nilly and it won�t matter. Then I just have to convince him to unplug the connectors when he wants to move his stereo every other day, rather than undoing the wires from the back side and screwing it up every time. It would save the B-I-L and I hours a week in stereo re-wiring efforts.

Warning. Al Anon based rant ahead. You�ve been warned.

In swapping emails with Cindy, she made no mention what so ever about her disappearance or entrance last night. Typical. Wish she�d left a note. I mean, I�m testing out the waters on this detachment stuff, but to have her out wandering around in her condition . . . well, this is where I�m having trouble with the detachment thing.

Lets play pretend � pretend Cindy�s plowed and out driving. She could get pulled over. Slapped with a DWI. Fines, license suspension, court appearances, free multi-night visit in jail, cuz I ain�t posting bail � I can deal with that. Might get in a wreck. I could manage that too. Say she gets in a wreck and kills herself. I�d figure out how to move on after that too. But suppose she gets in a wreck and kills somebody else? Well, there�s something that�s out of my control that if it happens? I may not be able to get over that. Some poor unsuspecting soul might lose their life just because they crossed paths with my drunk wife. Could I have prevented it?

This is all just wild speculation, but her behavior is increasing the odds that something like this could happen. I can�t very well take her keys every time I leave the house in the evenings. The only way I can see to insulate myself from the effects of something like that is to officially split. But being an old, stubborn German guy, I don�t think I�m quite ready to try that yet. There�s other reasons too, like Bob�s estate management, his health care proxy and some other obligations related to his will that I need honor. A divorce could muddy the waters there, and frankly, I�d hate to see the B-I-L managing Bob�s money. I�m afraid he�d burn it up before Bob was done needing it.

So. Time to take a deep breath, let go and trust that things will be taken care of. That�s an Al Anon slogan you know. Let go and let God. (or your higher power as you�ve come to understand it) Man, that�s scary. Of course, being apostate (new word I learned. Thanks Circe), like I am, I�ve made my higher power (as I�ve come to understand it) the Al Anon group conscience. So if this whole �let go and let my higher power (as I�ve come to understand it)� bombs out, I can pin the blame on them.

Except that seems like a cop out. So, I have to let go of certain problems, trust that the right thing will happen. If it does, super. My higher power kicked in. If it doesn�t, it�s my fault, my problem all over again. Not to be too flip � but I need to be in the higher power business. Think that�s posted on Monster?

End of Al Anon based rant.

So yeah, I�ve got my evening planned. Mostly. Traipsing around in the snow. We�re predicted to have snow every day through the weekend � accumulating up to 8 inches in the lake effect bands today. Drive across the city, do 5 minutes work, check on the DVD player. Drive back across the city to home. Give Z a hand with dinner and watch Cindy melt into the couch. Don�t you wish you were me?

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