Starting All Over

Now that The Man is home, he cooks. He easily slips back into his old routine. But he wakes up earlier, even without the call to prayer from the sound system of a nearby mosque.

This morning, The Man drove The Boy all the way to school. I don't do that with The Boy. I tell The Boy it's his responsibility to get up and leave the house in time to get to school on time. But The Man said he's missed The Boy's school for a whole year, so on the last day of school, he wanted to drive him. I tell The Boy this is an arrangement between him and his dad.

Later in the morning, The Man and I looked at photographs of his friends in Yemen, then we went out to do errands and have lunch on Bloor Street. I can't remember the name of the restaurant. Unmemorable food except for the fact their BLT is a triple-decker. Then we came home to set up my new free-standing hammock. I had to reconfigure my garden to fit it in. The hammock is bigger in my backyard than it looked in the garden centre.

Already, The Man has accused me of accusing him of being disagreeable. I tell him I wouldn't be having an argument about how to fix something if I just did it myself. Yesterday, I hung up an over-the-door shoe rack in the basement because it didn't fit over my closet door. He suggested I return the rack to the store. I was determined to make it work. So I built a ledge on a wall in the basement and hung the rack there. It is out of sight of living spaces and works perfectly now.

I think The Man is afraid of my new found power with electric tools and my Rambo style of getting things done. But I sure like having him around.