I Wanted To Burn The Sheets, But My Husband Says Burn The Bed

     In my last post, I promised to tell you what my family was inflicting on me during the time I was creating the memorial slideshow for my husband's aunt. You'd better grab a drink--this is going to be a long one.

     My husband's uncle left us a property in the beautiful mountains of Northeast Pennsylvania and last year, we decided to build a loghouse on it. The plan is to share it with family and friends now, and then retire there in the future. It's about three hours away from where I live now, but only an hour from my hometown, where a lot of my family still lives, so it works out well as a meeting place. The loghouse turned out nicely and is used by family or friends almost every weekend.

     A niece that I haven't seen in years was going to be visiting the area with her son and new baby so my sister asked if we could all meet at the loghouse for a few days. It was going to be my sister, her husband, her two daughters, her son, the new baby along with his older brother, the baby's father, and then my husband and me. Ten people in all or nine and a half since the baby is only a few months old.

     My sister said she would do all the shopping and cooking since this was basically eighty percent her family, but then two days before the gathering, she called to say that she wasn't feeling well and didn't have a chance to shop. She said she would bring deli meat and rolls for lunches, but left the rest up to me. Meals for ten people for three days--no problem.

     I told my sister that I would be arriving on Monday to clean up from the seven adults and seventeen kids who had used the house over the weekend and I would see all of them on Tuesday. No, my sister insisted she wanted to come Monday night. I told her I had to wash sheets and towels and clean and she said she would help. I tried in vain to talk her out of coming Monday so I could have one evening of peace before the crowd arrived. I even called her Monday afternoon to tell her I was just finishing up my errands and hadn't even left town yet so wouldn't be at the loghouse until nine or ten. She said she was already packed up and in the car, ready to go, and would wait for me there. She told me that she would get started on the laundry and I said, "Please don't. I'm anal about the towels because we've had so many pretty ones ruined by being thrown in with dark colors and now they are dingy looking. I'll do them when I get there." (This mostly happened when men "helped" by throwing laundry in the machine. I don't want to stereotype, but the men I associate with have an allergic reaction to sorting dirty laundry. If it can be crammed into the washer with the handle of a broom, it's going in with the rest.)

     I arrived after a three hour drive accompanied by one dog who tries to jump into the front seat every couple of miles and another one who whines for the windows to be down for the entire drive, in 30 degree weather, and gets so upset if they aren't that he vomits. I honestly think the one is trying to get in the front seat to get away from the other one.

     Anyway, after I unpacked and put the food away, my sister's teenage grandson, who had come with her, asked, "Is it okay if I have a snack or will we be having dinner soon?" Excuse me? It's nine-thirty at night, you left your house after six, so why are you waiting for me to cook you dinner? Also, you've been sitting here for two hours with lunch meat and rolls--can you not make a sandwich? My sister, her husband, and her grandson just stood there waiting for me to answer. I took a deep breath and not wanting to start the visit on a bad note, said, "I have some chicken and steak. I could make fajitas." And so I did.

     We ate at about ten o'clock and while I was cleaning up the kitchen afterwards, my sister disappeared for a few minutes. She came back and said, "Well, they probably aren't folded the way you like, but at least they're clean." I asked, "What are you talking about?" She said, "The towels. I washed them for you." I asked, "Did you do the light blue ones or the dark brown ones?" and she answered, "Both. I threw them in together." I was picturing the dinginess spreading over my lovely towels when she added, "There is some sort of red stain all over the light blue ones that didn't come out in the wash." Sure enough, when I checked them, there was red all over them that was now permanently baked in by putting them in the dryer. Why, oh, why couldn't she have helped by cleaning the toilets instead? That would have earned her a hug.

     The rest of the guests arrived the next day and I spent the afternoon cooking a large pan of beef, 5 lbs of cod topped with crab stuffing, two strawberry trifles, homemade rolls, fresh green beans, baked potatoes, and rice. We had a nice dinner and I estimated there were enough leftovers that I wouldn't have to cook the next day.

     Once the kitchen was clean, we all found seats in the great-room and settled in to chat. Like I said, I haven't seen my niece in a few years. She lives down south now and although we share news on Facebook and through emails, we haven't really talked in awhile.

     She told us she is crunchy and most of her friends are as well.

     Now, I learned back in college that if you don't know what a word means, you just smile, nod your head, and pretend you do and then look it up later. I learned this the hard way when I had no idea what ninety percent of the punchlines to jokes meant and I thought "papers" meant the kind with the news in them. I was teased unmercifully for my small-town naivete and learned to hide the fact that I had no idea what was being discussed. Now I just fake it and try to figure it out from the context in which the word is used.

     She went on to say that she showers only once a week and never uses shampoo or soap.

     Well, I thought, no wonder she's crunchy. She's probably crusty, too.

     Turns out that "crunchy" in slang means she has adjusted her lifestyle for environmental reasons. Oh. Then not referring to food and body fluids trapped on unwashed skin. Got it.

     You have to understand that last year, I had emergency surgery after three days in the hospital with severe abdominal pain and woke up in intensive care because I had the beginning stages of sepsis. The first thing I asked the intensive care nurse was, "Can I get a shower?" She said, "No. You've just had major surgery, you have a catheter, you're hooked up to IV, and you have a tube running up your nose and down into your stomach. You cannot get a shower." A few hours later, they took out the catheter and I pleaded, "Can I get one now? It's been days!" The nurse finally agreed to let me give myself a sponge-bath in the little sink in the room, under her supervision. She brought me a washcloth, towel, and one of those little kits with body wash, shampoo, conditioner, and a toothbrush. She watched to make sure I was steady on my feet while I wiped my face and body clean. Satisfied that I wasn't going to fall over, she left the room and I stuck my head under that  little faucet and washed my hair. It felt wonderful! My incision hurt and I was exhausted when I was finished, but my head was no longer itchy. She came back into the room to find me combing my freshly washed locks. She shook her head and said, "I think you can leave Intensive Care now."

     So if I am willing to do all that to have clean hair, you can imagine how hard it is for me to fathom someone willingly not using shampoo on her waist-length hair. She said if it feels greasy, she sprinkles some baking soda in it and combs it out. I remember people doing that as an emergency measure when they didn't have time to shampoo, but never as a total replacement for shampoo. As she was telling us this, my scalp starting itching in sympathy for hers.

     I recycle. I care about the environment. But please don't ask me to give up my Herbal Essence. I'll fight you to the death.

     I understand that different cultures have different hygiene habits. Heck, I watched the movie "Babies" and almost lost consciousness when that mother wiped her child's poop off on her own leg. Maybe if I had been raised somewhere else, I would think it was crazy to shower every day or every other day. But that's what I've been doing for fifty years and that's about all I can stand of my own filth.

     My niece also doesn't use disposable diapers. I understand that. Her mother asked her why she had such a large bag of dirty cloth diapers and she said she was staying with friends and didn't feel right about asking them to introduce urine and feces into their washing machine, so she brought them to my house so I could have the pleasure instead.

     My husband has this habit when someone says something that bothers him or grosses him out. He will go from slouching to sitting straight up and his eyes get really wide. You almost expect steam to shoot from his ears like it did from Harry Potter's when he ate the candy. Well, I was trying to keep a poker face as she was telling us this (not my strong suit) and my husband shot so straight up that his head was almost brushing the ceiling and his eyes were wide open and staring at me for a reaction. I avoided making eye contact with him until the conversation moved to another topic, but fifteen minutes into the new conversation, he was still ramrod straight and bug-eyed.

     I locked myself in my office the next morning and when I came out, Herbie told me that he had made them waffles and eggs, but they had also brought out the leftovers from the night before and mostly polished them off, including the beef that I didn't think crunchies would eat. I spent the afternoon cooking again-three whole chickens, 4 lbs of salmon, two applesauce cakes, and new batches of rolls, potatoes, rice, and green beans. How is this "sustainable" eating? No one could sustain this!

     My husband's second piece of bad news that morning had been that his aunt had passed away. So in between hosting family and cooking another big dinner, I was working on the slideshow and searching for the perfect song that no one would end up hearing.

      The next day, when I had finished cleaning the house and packing everything up for the three hour drive home, I gave my sister a hug goodbye. She hugged me back and said, "You should take better care of yourself. You look exhausted."

     Gee, ya think?