L-o-n-g weekend

We’re just about at the midpoint of this long weekend, and it’s not quite turning out the way I’d expected, though I didn’t have any specific expectations.  Yesterday afternoon we went to SO’s son’s for a BBQ and to see the grandkid.  I expected to have the morning free to do something else, which I sort of did.  But I just wasn’t feeling right.  We slept until after 9, which was slightly bizarre, but I know I needed it.  It was almost noon before I got up and moving.  We walked to the park with Big Dog to see the little kids’ July 4 parade.  That was cute, but the walk was difficult, so I got sort of depressed that I am still having trouble with a 6-block walk.  My leg was weak and my knee kept snapping back.

We got back with about three free hours to kill so I decided to do some weeding and pruning in the garden.   I’ve been having an issue with getting lightheaded after standing up suddenly, or actually just after standing up at all.  It’s happened enough that I’ve now learned to be prepared, and to make sure there is something nearby to steady myself with when it happens.  This time I leaned against the truck after squatting and pulling weeds for a couple minutes.  Instead of the usual wave of blurred vision, this time I completely fainted.  Things went black and the next thing I knew I was on the ground trying to recover from falling.   So that was weird.   The even weirder thing about it was the way my mind went into some sort of dream state.   I can’t re-call any details, I just know it was as if I’d fallen asleep and was dreaming, for a few short seconds before I came back to consciousness.

So, I quit weeding and went to the yard and sat down for awhile, and listened to the baseball game.  I’m not sure what if anything else I did, but soon enough it was time to go.  The party was enjoyable enough, though everyone there was generally of son and DIL’s age, and almost all had kids under the age of five, I still managed to find enough people to make polite chit-chat with.  Having Big Dog there made for instant conversation, especially with the four-year-old set.  We did the social thing, visited with the old neighbor (SO used to live in the house Son and DIL live in now – he rents it to them).   Drove back home, walked down the street to the schoolyard to watch the ten minute fireworks show.  Came home, did the tub, went to sleep.   My stomach was still causing problems, and I felt sick most of the evening.

This morning we slept late again, although when I mentioned it, SO said “you slept late.”  I assumed since he was still lying there, that he had as well.  Whatever.   So I irritated him, I guess by not being able to wake myself up and get ready to go to the gym fast enough.  I wanted to put new pod-casts on my iPod before going, and asked for five more minutes.  I guess I underestimated how much this irritated him.  When we got into the truck to go, I said, “Sorry – it took me 9 minutes instead of 5.  I took another four minutes out of your morning.”  I guess one could interpret this as sarcasm or snottiness, though I didn’t mean it in an particular way.  His response was, “Why don’t you get off my F’ing case??  I’m so sick of your F’ing attitude!!”  Except the F word was fully articulated.   I almost thought he was kidding around, it took a couple millisconds for me to figure out he was actually serious.  I was pretty much stunned into silence.  I would have expected him to be irritated that I was slow, and would not have been surprised if he’d said something about the wasted time.  What was completely out of left field for me was the attitude comment.

I guess no one with a bad attitude knows that they have a bad attitude.  I know that my attitude is sometimes depressing, about how I’m always sick.  But I thought I had been going out of my way to be appreciative of all the work he does for me.    I’ve tried not to comment about how morose and silent he frequently is.  Occasionally I’ll tease him about being grumpy – but not lately.  I thought things were fine.  It never crossed my mind that he felt I was “on his case.”  Sometimes I feel like I’ve been living with a total stranger.

It was a very painful flashback to the explosions from the ex that would come out of left field.  I don’t know where this is headed.