Red Alert

Ever since last August -- I think we all know what happened then -- I have had a really difficult time keeping to my prayer rule. At that time, I'm sure it was just sheer physical exhaustion, as my body recovered from a major assault on it, and then from a life-threatening illness (turns out that MRSA kills a lot of people). Also, dh was home a great deal, and over the years, he's made it plain that he thinks prayer is for "holy rollers."

Well -- his tune has gradually changed, and since he's been home this past month, recuperating from his own stay in the hospital -- I think I blogged about that -- he doesn't seem to mind my praying so much. This week, when I reminded him that I was fasting (he wanted to fix me eggs for breakfast), he just said, "Oh! Okay!" This is a major change for him.

So there isn't too much excuse for the fact that I managed a bare minimum, sometimes, of prayer rule throughout Lent and the Paschal season. I'm just starting to get into it a bit more regularly now. It's embarrassing; I'll have to bring it up in confession; but until today, I haven't been able to figure out what the problem is.

Today I got it. Now I just have to remember it, which is why I'm blogging about it.

When Jim's home, I'm on nonstop Red Alert, a military term for, "Be ready to leap into action at a moment's notice." Yep, that's me.

What happened this morning was that as I was debating whether or not to get into my prayer rule, at 8:30 a.m. (it takes about an hour to do the whole thing), Jim suddenly shouted, "Do you consider this redundant?" and proceeded to quote a sentence that, well, actually was redundant. He does this all the time, bouncing grammar rules off me; he's actually very savvy with the English language himself, but if he isn't sure about a point, it's me he comes to. And while it's flattering, it's also very interfering.

"Would you put a semicolon here?"

"Is a colon followed by one space or two?" (It's two. Semicolons are one space.)

"How does this sound to your ear?" (Reads the rough draft of a report he's doing for work.)

"How many days did I work from home last month?"

Etc.

When he goes into Boston to work, this is not a problem, only when he works from home. Sometimes I feel like saying, "There is life in Rochester when you aren't here, I don't live in a state of suspended animation until you get home, so please stop acting as if I had nothing better to do all day than dance attendance on you." In the heat of the summer, it gets real interesting; he leaves off working around 3:00 (having worked since 6:00 a.m., so all you taxpayers are still getting your money's worth!), and then I'm supposed to Drop Everything at a moment's notice so we can drive up to his favorite swimming hole, where he swims for a couple of hours while I work on embroidery and stew about dinner, which I will still have to prepare when we get back home. Why do I have to go along? It's More Fun with me along.

Do any of you married women have a similar situation, or is this yet another manifestation of the Generation Gap?!?!

And you single gals: Think about this, when you get to hankering after being married. You don't have a life. You're on nonstop Red Alert.