D’Aun left for Thailand on January 9th and I’ve been “home alone” since then. Well, partly alone. I always have Sadie around to bark at strangers. But essentially, I’ve had the longest run of bachelorhood since 1981. It started fun but I’m done with it. Looking forward to having D’Aun home!
I thought you’d enjoy a few reflections about being single for two weeks….
First of all, I notice that I can sit down in more places. D’Aun views chairs as storage shelves. Anything at roughly knee high is fair game for holding purses, boxes, mail, coats, items to be returned…virtually anything. There are chairs I can sit in that I’ve never sat in!
I don’t put things away as quickly when I’m alone. Take my shoes off in front of the TV and leave them there overnight? No problem. Dirty clothes on the bedroom floor? Not an issue. I see it as a memory test (where did I leave it?) that works my brain so I stay young.
The house is darker. It’s not that I’m cheap and leave the lights off. In fact, I leave them on too much. But D’Aun does not like even a hint of darkness. When she enters a room, EVERY light has to come on. I’m fine with one small one that keeps me from tripping over Sadie.
I can take 4-hours to watch a movie. Or I can take 30-minutes to watch a movie. There’s a touch of ADD in me, and I find it hard to sit down and concentrate on one thing for a long time. So I hit pause (thank God for DVR’s) and come back to it later. Or just as frequently, I hit fast forward and just go to the good parts. If I did that with D’Aun around … well, it wouldn’t be pretty.
The volume on the TV is way down. Which is truly strange because I’m the one with bad hearing. But D’Aun is an addicted multi-tasker, so she works in the kitchen while the TV is on, and a kitchen can be noisy (fans over the oven, microwaves humming, water pouring, etc etc). D’AUN NEEDS IT LOUD TO HEAR OVER THE DIN.
The food is worse. Much worse. I’m not a cook, and I seem unable to even prepare a decent salad. Sigh.
There is less garbage. To be fair, this is because D’Aun works at home a lot and has plenty of things to throw away. And D’Aun does the shopping for everything from groceries to new towels, and shopping generates trash. But bottom line, when she’s gone, there simply isn’t much trash to throw out. Except maybe for failed cooking experiments.
The bed only sorta gets made. We have eleven pillows on our bed. Eleven. I sleep with one. It stays on the bed. Ten of them stay on the floor all day when D’Aun isn’t here. They seem content.
I have no idea what the weather is going to be like. D’Aun is addicted to weather reports. I couldn’t care less and usually walk out the door dressed completely wrong for the temperature. With D’Aun around, I’m told every morning “it’s going to rain today” or “it’s going to be nice today.” With her gone, they could be predicting volcano eruptions and I’d have no idea.
There are far fewer messages on the answering machine. Two in 11-days, and one of those was for Jedd. Not only are there fewer messages, there are fewer calls. There have been three since she left. I will refrain from smart aleck remarks.
Sadie, our four-year old Golden Retriever, is becoming co-dependent. She was already a people dog, but having just one master around has turned her into my shadow. Kind of fun, actually. Or not, depending on her mood (and mine).
It has been a slow but consistent transition to sleeping in the middle of our bed. Funny how that works. Let’s see, she’s been gone eleven days….so I’ve migrated about one inch a day.
D’Aun, come home soon!