Hummingbirds and marriage

Well, Rocket Boy is back in St. Louis and I'm feeling the letdown, though I'm trying not to let it take over entirely. It was wonderful to have him here for so long -- 39 days in all -- and I'm trying to focus on that and not on the fact that he's gone. We figure we'll bring him back for a week in August, so that's something good to look forward to. I almost made him a new reservation this morning, then figured I should talk to him about it first.

The day he left, the hummingbird babies started to fledge. At first there was one in the nest and one sitting on the edge of it. Then that baby was brave enough to fly to the next branch over.

This morning there was no bird in the nest, but one baby was flying carefully nearby, peeping like mad. Our next-door neighbor and I watched it as it flew from branch to branch, down to the ground (where it seemed confused) and then back up into the tree. I don't know whether the first one was already gone and this was the second one, or just what exactly happened. All I know is that they are both gone now. My darlings! I hope they will come to my hummingbird feeder (I saw a bird there twice today, probably the mom) and to all the flowers we planted.

And Rocket Boy is gone too, and the house is quiet. Although it was so nice to have him here for so long, I have to remind myself that there were downsides. Because he took over the office (our 3rd bedroom) for work, I felt as though I didn't have a "place" in the house. I use my desk (and computer) as a jumping-off point for all the other things I do. So, the whole time he was here I felt displaced and antsy. I tried to relocate, but it didn't work. The kitchen, for example, is not my place because that's where I have to cook and do the dishes (both highly dispreferred activities). If by some miracle he manages to move back to Colorado permanently, I hope he doesn't have to work at home fulltime. I like having my place.

Another downside was sleeping. For the last 18 years we have slept in a small double bed (our bedroom is too small for a queen). Rocket Boy finds its saggy old mattress uncomfortable, so he puts a foam pad under the mattress pad (I remove it when he leaves). The foam pad sticks up a couple of inches and is a little more than half the width of the bed, so I get a little less than half the bed to sleep on, even though I am the wider person. He suggested I get a foam pad too, but I've tried sleeping on his and I don't like it. I suggested we get a new mattress. He was open to it, but it didn't happen on this visit.

Also, I like to sleep with the window open and the shade up, while he likes to sleep with the window closed and the shade down. A compromise: we went to sleep with the window open, and at some point each night RB closed it. So when I woke up each morning the room was hot, stuffy, and pitch black, even if it was, oh, say, 9 am. It's easier to sleep together in the winter.

This morning I woke with the sun, but a little earlier than I had planned, because of an insistent little peeping sound coming through the open window. It was the baby hummingbird! Tomorrow morning, though, the little peeping sounds should be gone.

I was struck, on this long visit, by how much I enjoy Rocket Boy's company, even though I also often get cross with him. Primarily, I enjoy talking to him -- especially about politics, but really about anything. His mind works so differently from mine that it's very interesting to bounce things off him. Colorado's primary (for Senate, House, CU regent, etc.) was yesterday, and we both voted early (by mail, like all of Colorado) after discussing each race at length. We also discussed the PBS NewsHour each night and whatever was in the paper each day (the Daily Camera which is delivered to our driveway and the New York Times which I subscribe to online).

I try to talk to the twins about these things, but it doesn't go well. Politics is the worst, most boring thing imaginable. They're only interested in the coronavirus if it's mentioned on stupid TikTok.

Rocket Boy and I had many conversations about books and movies, as well. A few days after he arrived we finished Tuck Everlasting, and since he hadn't gotten to choose a bedtime book since last year, we gave him a turn. He chose Zotz! by Walter Karig (we own my parents' old copy). Zotz! was a really strange choice, seeing as how it was written for adults, not children, it takes place during WWII, so it's full of references that the twins didn't understand, it's both sexist and racist in a 1940's sort of way, its humor is mostly about bureaucracy, all of which the twins missed entirely, the novel's climax -- if I can use that term -- involves the main character's erect penis, which I had to explain to both the twins and Rocket Boy, and it's written in a convoluted style, long intricate sentences (like this one!) that I had trouble reading aloud and everyone else had trouble parsing, and it's 268 pages long, so we spent basically an entire month reading it, one or two boring chapters per night. RB had also purchased a DVD of the movie of Zotz! and had it sent to the house, but he hid it until we finished reading the book. If anything, I thought the movie (made in 1962) was even worse than the book. The movie has almost nothing to do with the book, but that didn't bother the twins since they hadn't understood the book.

During the month of Zotz!, Rocket Boy and I read up on Walter Karig and learned that he had also written three Nancy Drew mysteries (under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene, of course), including one of the few I had actually read, Password to Larkspur Lane. So I paid a visit to the Bookworm and found a copy of that magnificent tome for $3. But then we learned that Walter Karig's Nancy Drew books were substantially revised in the 1960s. So, I ordered a 1932 copy of Password from Abe Books for $15, and it arrived the day before Rocket Boy left. We took a break from last-minute projects to lie on our small, uncomfortable bed and compare old and new Nancy Drew mysteries. It's really hard to reconcile U.S. Navy captain Walter Karig with sections like this:

The girls accordingly enjoyed themselves by admiring each other's dainty lingerie, choosing the stockings which would best match slippers and frocks, and so for a time forgot the mystery. Helen was in ecstasies over Nancy's powder blue evening gown, which made her look like a quaint little princess. Nancy was as sincerely complimentary of Helen's rose-colored frock with its deep yoke and bertha of hand-made lace.

This is not in the 1966 version!

After we finally finished Zotz! it was my turn to pick, and I chose By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder, because Laura is 12 during most of the book and of course the twins are 12. Although it was never one of my favorite books in the series, possibly my least favorite, the twins are enjoying all the parts I didn't like. I keep hearing that kids like to read about bad things happening -- well, I certainly didn't -- but the twins do. Anyway, this choice of book led to many late night comparisons of Silver Lake and the fascinating annotated version of Wilder's Pioneer Girl, published a few years back. Rocket Boy would say, "Did xyz really happen that way?" and I would pull the large and heavy Pioneer Girl out of my bookcase and look it up. And then we would look up something else and something else and something else.

I don't mean to imply that there was anything so

terribly special about these conversations -- we're not literary geniuses, our language is not brilliant. But I wonder -- and maybe I'm selling American manhood short with this idea -- but seriously, how easy would it be for me to find another man as willing and eager to discuss all these random topics?

So, despite the fact that I wish he would let me keep the window open all night, I'm struck by how much I still enjoy our marriage, after almost 18 years. And maybe the distance, the separations are making it better, not worse. But I still wish he lived with us.