2 posts tagged “this so called married life”

Well, truth be told, my husband is a hunter. Not just any hunter, mind you. He is the Great White Hunter. He combines his passionate love of nature and the great outdoors with his deep sense of spirituality and oneness with the universe and goes out to kill defenseless animals.

I am coming to terms with this because I love him. Frankly, I absolutely adore him. He is a good man, a wonderful husband, a romantic, a creative, an adventurer, and damn good looking.

But I now am understanding what it is to be a hunting widow or even a hunting wife. Case in point...

1. I have given permission (much to his surprise) to put his gameheads up in the living room of our new house. My only concession is that I want to fill the room with lots of plants, have the animals' faces poking out through the greenery, have a soundtrack of tribal drums on a continuous loop and hang up a sign that says "Jungle Room."

2. I have purchased an upright full-size freezer in advance of his return from his first sheep hunt in the middle of absolutely nowhere. I couldn't call him to get his final approval so I hope he likes it. The Sears guy said it won't cause freezer burn. And its big enough to put some ice cream with up to 585 pounds of meat.

3. I am renting lots of DVDs spending my nights drinking and watching movies. Wait a minute - is this the sign that I'm a hunting widow or that I'm a 40-something woman or is that the sign of a Suburban Housewife. I forget.

4. I have no idea where my husband is other than he had to be flown in, the plane was going to land on a small lake if there weren't too many icebergs, then he had to climb up a glacier to higher ground where he could set up base camp (if he remained by the lake, calving icebergs would send 20 foot tidal waves across his campsite). Then he was going to hike up the mountain sides that are so rugged and remote the pilot assured him there would be no one - and I mean no one (save my husband and his hunting buddy) - in the area. Who me, worried?

5. I'm looking up how to prepare sheep meat on the Internet. Not that I will touch it, much less look at it until it is fully cooked - by my husband of course. But I figure since he and I made a pact that he would always cook the game meat, and I would always make the side dishes, the least I could do was find some sheep recipes for him. And in two weeks, it will be MOOSE.

I also have a pact with my husband that he must bring all game meat to the house already carved up and packaged in plastic or paper, as if it came from the supermarket. Other than the mounts, I refuse to see carcasses in my house or garage or yard. I want to cling to some delusion that he really didn't kill Bambi. Because we all know supermarket meat doesn't really come from sweet innocent animals, right?

God, it was so much easier justifying my meals in my vegetarian days.

I'm feeling like a Suburban Housewife, although I don't really know what that feels like. Still, whatever I'm feeling, it must be it.

Symptoms of Becoming a Suburban Housewife:

1. My weekly calendar is planned around dinners. What will we have for dinner tonight? Tomorrow night? And what will I have to shop for this week to have just the right ingredients for those meals?

2. My trips to the grocery stores are now dominated by a goal-oriented shopping list to prepare said planned meals. No more am I wandering aisles picking up whatever looks good. It is all about the meal plan.

3. I'm vaccuuming. Other than the occasional vaccuuming of my RV using a handheld Dirt Devil and crawling around on my hands and knees, vaccuuming has not been in my vocabulary for years. I find myself reaching into the coat closet and pulling out the honker of a vaccuum cleaner my husband inherited from his grandmother and actually vaccuuming with it.

4. I'm doing crossword puzzles at bedtime. Okay, maybe I've been doing crossword puzzles for a while, but now it feels like an unavoidable pattern. Get into pajamas, get into bed, get out the crossword puzzle. Any day now I'll be needing bifocals to focus on my puzzles.

5. I've got those weekly plastic pill boxes by my bed. I have two of those plastic pill boxes that have a compartment for each day of the week to take my vitamins and supplements. So this may actually be a sign that I'm getting old and has absolutely nothing to do with Suburban Housewifery. I am now officially my grandmother.

6. I'm taking rainchecks on sex. Not that I don't love it, and not that I'm not totally attracted to my gorgeous husband, but I'm finding that sleep is a priority and I'm saying things like "We can do it tomorrow morning, I promise" or "Maybe wake me up in a little while and see if I respond."

7. I am clipping coupons. I kid you not. I am going through the newspaper like a sleuth, pulling out the coupon inserts and scouring them for suitable product discounts. I'm even contemplating enhancing my grocery shopping lists with items that I really don't need but have coupons for. Now that is scary.

8. I'm really liking my wine. I've discovered The Little Penguin Shiraz and Merlot. At $5.49 a bottle, this is the Suburban Housewife on a Budget's dream come true. Almost $2 less than my previous all time favorite cheap wine, Yellow Tail. I'm a connoisseur of cheap table wine. Help!

I'd go on, but personally, I'm terrified. I've spent so many years as a single, urban professional that this Suburban Housewife stuff is really freaking me out.