I Had a Great Mother’s Day

I hope all you mothers out there had a lovely Mother’s Day.

I had a pretty good one. Not only did my kids actually get me cards but they each got me a gift. I got two tear jerker cards from each kid, I suspect neither of them read them because my kids are not all that sentimental and the little one can’t read. My son signed his card with both his name and his sisters name which is so sweet. After all these years something has clicked in him and he is a really thoughtful young man. Of course he might just have been concerned that his sister might have signed some not very cryptic text message like she did on his birthday. He also gave me a gift certificate to Barnes and Noble which is just about the best gift anyone could possibly give me.

I went to the cabin for the weekend. I hadn’t been up there since last fall and the place needed to be opened up. There was also tons of raking to do. An overwhelming amount of raking. This past weekend was the weekend that the kids go to their dads so I was planning on going by myself. That is until I realized how much work there was to be done up there and I decided to invite ex#2 and daughter. Ex#2 is having some mold issues at his house so it seemed like a good idea to keep the girl away from his place.

Ex#2 built the cabin. We had been dating for about six months when my father decided to remodel the cabin. He hired my now ex to do the wiring on the place. It wasn’t a huge job so he happily accepted it. Then the general contractor quit and ex#2 ended up running the whole project which grew and grew as the months went by.

My father wanted things done to the place that were not feasible given the budget, he wanted them anyway and then would complain about the cost. Ex#2 thought things should be done a different way than my father did. They clashed non-stop on the project. To make matters worse ex#2 and I became engaged during the project and decided to move to Seattle during the boom of the late 90’s. It became a huge pissing match between my father and ex#2 and most of the pissing had little to do with the cabin. Ex#2 proposed to me at the cabin and one of the neighbors designed the ring. The cabin was a place of great joy and a complete pain in the ass for all involved. The clash between my father and ex#2 is probably the biggest contributor to our eventual divorce.

So suffice to say that ex#2 knows the cabin inside and out, and considerably better than I do. The mechanics of the place are a mystery to me so having him up there to help open the place was nice. Ex#2 also loves to cook so I knew if he and the daughter came up I would have to do no cooking. Ex#2 brought his dog who we acquired during the remodel project and who grew up at the lake. The dog is a complete tard and has a severe case of OCD. He spends the day in the lake chasing large rocks and then walking around the yard with them in his mouth. His teeth are worn completely down to little nubs. He makes Stanley the Bassador look like a brain surgeon. The daughter brought a friend as well.

We spent most of the weekend raking. We must have made at least twenty trips back to the woods to dump the tarp full of leaves. We are still not finished but made a good effort. Of course ex#2 complained about the maintenance of the cabin the whole time he was up there. I knew he would do this and usually just ignore the whole thing. He is correct about everything but I tend to get defensive so knowing how we can argue, and how the cabin is a huge trigger for those arguments I tend to shut up.

Sunday morning the plan was to have a nice Mother’s Day brunch that the ex would prepare and then finish the raking and leave to go and see our mothers. We hoped to leave before noon. Of course it rained so the leaves were all wet. Ex#2 noticed that even though it was raining no water was coming out of the downspouts. Upon closer inspection it was noticed that the gutters needed cleaning in a big way. This is why I invite my ex husband to the lake. While I was trying to get the cabin picked up he had climbed on the roof and was cleaning all the gutters. I walked outside and heard “Hey Jen, would you mind cooking your own Mother’s Day Brunch?”

I would of course happily cook my own brunch since he was up to his elbows in wet leaves, dead critters and pine needles. He even fished the dead turtle/possum/muskrat, it was really hard to identify the dead headless thing, out of the lake.

While finishing up the last of the raking the neighbors, who were also raking, stopped by the fence to chat. We talked for several minutes about what a pain in the ass having a cabin is. We asked about their kids and they asked about my mother. We have been neighbors with this family for thirty some years. The neighbors commented on the OCD dog and wondered how old he was now. I’m sure as they went about the rest of their day they must have been scratching their heads saying to each other “Didn’t they get a divorce?”

Ex#2 and I have been divorced nearly twice as long as we were married. We are not dating, we are not involved, I’m not even sure we are friends. It’s not like we talk to each other about everything. I certainly haven’t told him about dating project I am doing for this blog and he has yet to tell me about any of the skanks women he has dated. We talk about our daughter, mutual friends, our families, safe topics. It’s not complicated but it is bizarre.

I had a lovely Mother’s Day. I got the raking done and the gutters cleaned. The dock needs to be put in and the boats need to go in the water so I am really looking forward to Father’s Day.