pork and cougars

My husband has a work party to attend tonight.
We don't have childcare, so I am staying home, which is fine enough with me, since people I don't know make me nervous.

This morning he told me in passing that the party had a theme of "food on a stick", and that he needed to bring something.

"I think I will pick up some fruit bars from Trader Joe's on my way."

WHAT?

you are taking Popsicles to a party?

Are you INSANE?

They will melt, and besides, people will think you have a bad wife.

"no one will think that. Why would anyone think that?"

That is just the kind of thing people think, when they see a guy, alone, with a box of Popsicles at a party.
BAD WIFE.

Or worse, NO WIFE.

Besides, I have all these mangoes that Rolf bought on sale. I could make...


" These people are all meat and potato- they are not going to appreciate some vegan mango dish, trust me."

Then I will cook something meaty!

" This is veering in to cougar diorama territory isn't it? "

Yes, it possibly is, a little bit.

When Maxwell was in kindergarten he woke up at 10:00pm, to inform me that he had a cougar diorama due for a science fair in the morning.

I had a new baby and I was very disorganized, and I was working and had no knowledge of the science fair, or of cougars, BUT I stayed up very late building a very fine diorama, that didn't win a prize, but it should have.

Now normally, I would not do my child's homework for him (that is not entirely true), but at this time Maxwell was attending a magnet school, full of stay at home mothers that literally stayed at the school all day with their children!

These folks volunteered all day long and cheerfully put on all kinds of bake sales, art demonstrations and planned endless field trips, while I dropped my child off at 8:45 and picked him up again at 3:00pm and did my one volunteer shift per week, by helping the librarian.

I am not a bad mom, but I do work and I did have this newborn, and the whole thing (the school, not the newborn) was really taxing (we have since left for a more normal school, where the parents treat their children with a proper level of indifference.)

Now for most people this would not have been that big of a deal, but I am a worrier.

I am a big, nervous worrier and a perfectionist too, so having things undone or half done, or poorly done, just sends me right over the edge.
One of my biggest flaws is my over concern with what people think of me, and I spend a good deal of my childhood not having what I need, or not having the right thing at the right time. The idea of my child not having everything he needs, and it not being perfect, is enough to send me right over the edge, so naturally I needed to make the cougar habitat, and naturally, I needed to make some pork kabobs for tonight.

It really is that simple.