215: Microcosm made up of little things

 Hosting a small family barbecue later today - Saturday.

Everything very pleasant between the two of us. Go shopping for the meat. Have a meal out.

But she is obviously tired. Eaten too much when I had suggested a doggy bag for the excess.

Have to stop off at a supermarket and I buy 3 packs of x2 medium size sweetcorn cobs - cut into two and we have 12 pieces. She does not like this. 'Why not take the smaller ones?' 'I'll just cut them in two and that's not a problem. Couldn't obviously see the smaller ones.' So she goes hunting around for at least five minutes and, behind some trays, comes up with 2 packs of x4 smaller ones. Does it really matter? FFS.

At home, continual instructions - this here, not there, move that over there; all entirely unnecessary.

A good sleep later, this morning all is fine and playful - and I almost forget my irritation of yesterday.

Suddenly, in that ringing, accusatory tone, shouting from downstairs, 'those kebabs we bought yesterday - where did you put them?!' 'In the freezer - somewhere in the freezer.' 'So what is the package in the fridge?' 'The fresh chicken for today.' 'Oh.'

She could have looked in the pack before shouting?

I can well imagine the anger and the diatribe had I really not put the kebabs in the freezer. Accused of total incompetence and so much worse.

Bollocks to it all.

But, these little incidents remind me that nothing really changes. I just handle things better now.

And, you know, sometimes the ironies are mind-boggling.

While shopping, she bumped into a school parent who had lost a child. My wife does like a bit of tragedy porn - and then says, 'they had everything we middle class people want .. and yet ...'; 'it's a good thing that your brother and sister in law are not able to come today. If they had complained about something like they always do, I would have spoken about this lady.'

I did not mention that she herself is the finest example of not being happy despite being quite lucky. I think back to Confidant: 141: In the words of Don McLean, The Day the Music Died - April 2000 (dear-confidant.blogspot.com) and Confidant: 164: The Day the Music Died 2 (!) (dear-confidant.blogspot.com) which outline her behaviours at the very start of our marriage. You could excuse a lack of maturity and age for some of that - she was in her late 20s - but the attitude of feeling sorry for herself and attacking me never stopped. Confidant: 61: Huge row - getting worse (dear-confidant.blogspot.com)

The other weekend she came back having spent it with a couple of her friends and their husbands. 'You are the best,' she said on her return. So why have I lived in fear for doing wrong? And why am I told that the only thing I am good at is driving? Confidant: 208: 'You're good at driving' and 'Just because it didn't work out for you' - know where I stand (dear-confidant.blogspot.com)

Ah well ...