Mrs. Grouchyface

I was extremely impatient last night. I just wanted to be alone and not talk to anyone except maybe Farley. Maybe I just had too much coffee or something and that made me irritable. I was hooking up Mom’s computer downstairs at her place, installing the wireless network card she bought, annoyed that I didn’t notice it was only good for Windows 2000 or XP (she’s got Windows 98) until after I’d installed it.*

Graham was working down there in the kitchen, getting ready to paint the ceiling, but then he started hovering around me and asking questions about Mom’s computer…how many megs of RAM does it have?…is it a Pentium 1?…perfectly reasonable questions, but I didn’t know the answer to any of them, and just wanted to get this thing done.

I hate being in that mood, because everyone around me suffers. Graham is such a wonderful husband, such a hard-working, conscientious person who would probably walk barefoot across a hot bed of glowing coals for me if I asked, and I’m so miserable sometimes. He just doesn’t deserve it. When I’m at my lowest I’m afraid he’ll get sick of putting up with my seriousness, my intermittent moodiness, and decide to get out while he still can.

We have this little ritual way of breaking the tension when one (or both) of us is in a mood. “Do you still love me?” he’ll ask. Or else he’ll say, “I still love you,” if I’ve been grouchy at him. It makes me smile and realize what a dolt I’ve been. It’s become an ongoing joke between us, in fact. I checked with him last night, and he does, indeed, still love me. Phew.

(*It worked, anyway.)