When is summer really "summer"? One sign that summer has left the starting gate is when you can see that kids, teens and young twenty-somethings are liberated from their chalkboard habitats. You notice these naifs everywhere during hours of the day that you normally would not. Such is the case in New Jersey now. And that is the case on the street that I live in. It started yesterday. Must be nice to be off for two and a half months, eh?I'm somewhat envious. I miss that feeling of emancipation and anticipation that the last day of school used to bring. It's been a long time. Those sensations are reserved for others to enjoy now: like for my wife and two small kids. Damn.....are they lucky.
Mmmmmm, let me see. Baseball camp for one and viola lessons for the other. A birthday party at our house next week and another in three weeks. Two days at Hershey Park and a day trip or two to Dorney Park. Summer membership at a private swim club. Beach outings down the shore during the week with as many moms and kids that Wifey can fit into the Suburban. A planned trip to Boston and Portland, Maine in late August. Oh, and a trip for them out to Tucson, Arizona for a couple of weeks so the kids can see that grandma' and grandpa' have been taking care of "their" swimming pool.
So, sometime during the summer, as has been the case the last couple of summers, in a certain way, I also get a two or three week summer vacation. It happens when my home looses its natural cackle when the family is gone. It is a good thing, but it is also a bad thing.
I don't like the deafening silence that the house undertakes when they are gone, but I enjoy being able to blast the stereo with "The Who", John Cale and any rock I want at anytime I want. Although I can cook for myself anytime, I don't like how milk, cole-cuts, fruits and vegetables atrophy unpalatably away when the house is alone. I do like the novelty that take-out food presents occasionally and enjoy that I can fill the fridge in the kitchen with as much beer and drinks that it can hold without displacing other foods. I don't like the celibacy. I do like that every time on the first night of their return, once the ducklings are fast asleep for the night, Wifey and I experience the onset of an intense Pavlovian response. It afflicts us both and we delight in the necessary therapy to offset it.I don't like the short term celibacy that summer brings on me, but I'm somewhat uncomfortable, perhaps confused, at the ease that celibacy may likely not be an issue at all if I wanted to.
Wifey is very active in our community. My stay-at-home MBA mom/wife's deep community involvement alone requires that she be armed with a laptop and a cell phone. Very soon a Blackberry will be necessary. It has been about six months now, that I have adopted a not to answer the telephone policy at home if I'm not near one that can display who it is that is calling. We not only have an answering machine, but use Verizon voice mail also.
One day last week when I was home, between the hours of 10 and 11 a.m., I swear the phone rang twenty times by perhaps 15 different people. All this involvement that includes the vice-presidency of the PTO this past year and the presidency of it next year, sometimes requires meeting with moms at our home or somewhere else. In the last couple of years the dozens and dozens of moms that she deals with have almost become fixtures. Whether at drop-off, at pick-up, in the restaurants, on Main Street, at this party or that party, bar-b-q or at the local ShopRite, I recognize them all and they recognize me also. Some of the husbands I know also.
So, it came as a shock (one person has described it as a compliment), that Wifey intimated to me that she feels that this certain mom may have a crush on me. I could not believe Wifey said what she said to me. She added that JC not only asks about me, but wants to know about me. Wifey said other ladies have picked up on it. JC may be oblivious to this unconscious behavior of hers. Wifey held an outdoor luncheon at our home last week when I was off from work. JC was one of the invites. About noon, when the ladies were arriving and settling-in in the back yard, I was still indoors. I was watching World Cup. After most of the ladies had arrived, Wifey came in to tell me that JC had arrived and that she was already asking about me. Good grief!!
Wifey thinks this is kinda' cute and that's why I will not tell her about a couple of other incidents with a couple of other of these "Stepfords".
Last year when Wifey and ducklings were away for a week in October, a different mom, TA, called me at home just to see how I was doing about three days into the Wifey's absence. She called concerned whether I needed anything. Then she said something along the lines like: "......that if you're finding that the house is a little too quiet, that she could come bye to say hello if I'd like to". Whoa! As cool and gentlemanly as I could, I said to her that the house is quiet but wouldn't you rather visit over lunch somewhere on Main Street instead?
Another instance was back in January when we went to dinner with another couple who we've known for a while. Small table, Thai restaurant. Three bottles of wine. Other Wifey, after bottle number one, every time she'd talk to me or if I said something humorous, she'd gesture with a footsie at me. I could only look her in the eyes and smile. Through the conversations I would gesture to her by touching her shoulder once in a while if I wanted to get a point across. I did not want to come across to her that I was not able to flirt as well.
Now that I think about it, there may have been another flirty instance recently. At that surprise party I've noted months ago on this blog, a different mom named JC came over and Wifey and I practically talked to her exclusively and we all got better acquainted that night. She ignored her husband practically the entire time. The episode elicited Wifey to say to me on the way home....."What was up with JC? She just loves talkin' to you Jerry." "I don't think I've ever talked to JC for that long a time ever", she added.
The way I see it, it is nothing more than good natured flirting on my part. I do it to Wifey and she loves me for it. It's all good. I do remember saying to JC at that party after the requisite cheek-kiss, that I hadn't seen her in quite a while and that she was looking like a million bucks that night. I may have paid some of the other ladies some complimentary words at sometime that somehow have distinguished me in a different light.
You'd be surprised what a smile, some good articulate conversation, a sense of humor and some compliments here and there can buy. It's apparent to me that it doesn't matter what I look like. These women I've noted are all late 30's to middle 40's. All with easy highway miles. Good looking refined women with soft looks. Me? I'm a gnome with a paunch. I, however, bath, I brush my teeth and I wear clean clothes. Perhaps, I say the right things also.
So I keep temptation at bay when the Wifey is away. I'm not proactive on these women's passes or the vibes they give off. It would be naive of me to believe that any hanky panky could ever be kept a secret. I have too much to lose.
Just look at the pictures above.
Am I bragging? Am I kissing and telling?
Perhaps Wifey does all the time. Hence the attention.
*!*
posted by JerryNJ @ 8:18 PM
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