Style over Calendars

Daddy and Mother just started seeing a counselor to help them cope with and best manage their new lifestyle. At their first appointment the counselor suggested they keep a calendar. After all, Daddy often forgets conversations and decisions that occurred minutes prior. For example, the doctor recently ordered Daddy to get more exercise, so he lay out some workout clothes the night before joining the gym Mother already attends. But after showering the next morning, he dressed in his usual attire as if a debate over which track pants to wear never took place. The counselor thought Mother should buy one of those huge office calendars with tear-off pages for each month. That way Daddy can see detailed notes regarding what the day will bring, and hopefully will feel calmer and less confused.

Mother will write Daddy’s daily tasks on an index card that is separate from the enormous calendar:

• make coffee
• make the bed
• wash the dishes
• take out the recyclables
• clean doggie nose prints off the breakfast room windows
• sweep the porch, deck, steps and sidewalk
• refill the bird feeders

Daddy felt particularly excited about placing a check mark beside completed chores.

“I don’t know where we’re going to put that awful calendar,” Mother moaned on the phone. “Daddy will not spread it out on the pub table. Oh, it will fit on the back of the door in the boiler room…” she trailed off, measuring the dimensions while she talked.

No matter what, aesthetics prevail in the Wages household.

When I still was in denial about Daddy’s condition, I often complained to Mother about Ryan’s hideous comforter we would have to use after moving in together. My former bedspread boasts lavender fabric with tree branch silhouettes while Ryan’s consists of an ugly suede patchwork of two-tone brown. (His ex-girlfriend picked it out.) My bed set is much more soothing and beautiful, but alas, I have a full-size mattress and he, a king. So we snooze beneath the suede atrocity, while my blanket lies lonely in the guest room.

“What does it look like, Bobbin? WHAT?” Mother winced through the phone as I attempted to describe Ryan’s comforter. “Oh, god…”

In another phone conversation soon after, Mother notified me that a member of the church had called to check on Daddy. “You know, she said you can always register for a new comforter. People could go in together on it.”

Small wonder that the dialogue transitioned from Daddy’s mental health to Ryan’s and my registry.

Daddy keeps telling me I have to live my own life and be happy. I guess replacing the comforter is one superficially miniscule part of moving forward. I need to put that on Ryan’s calendar.