Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Bye Bye Bertie

Don't worry. Bertie isn't the pet name I call my husband. I don't even call him Bert, except for on the blog. But the title reminded me of the musical I was in during my high school days. After the phenomenon that is High School Musical, it's finally cool to admit you've performed in musicals. Well, I'm not sure it will ever be cool to make such an admission, but I'm throwing it out there anyway. When I was 16 I played the role of Ursula, the overly enthusiastic teenage BFF to the main character Kim, in Bye Bye Birdie. I got to lead many renditions of "We love you Conrad, oh yes we do, We love you Conrad, and we'll be true..." and deliver my favorite line of all time: "Let's have an orgy!" I believe the stage directions directly preceding that line said "pronounced with a hard g sound," presumably to convey Ursula's innocence. The director did have me leap spread eagle into the arms of Conrad Birdie and wrap my legs around his waist while declaring Ursula's desire to have an orgy, so I'm not sure how innocent Ursula really was.

Back to my Bertie. Bert is out of town this week and we miss him terribly. He left yesterday morning and we won't see him until Sunday night. My kids really miss out when he's not around. And their personal hygiene starts to suffer. Bert's the one who bathes the girls every evening. I don't enjoy giving baths so when he's not around, I can assure you it doesn't happen nightly. We shoot for every other night (you know me, I always say "aim high"). I justify this by telling myself that too much cleansing will actually dry out their skin. Whether this is actually true or not, I'm not sure. But it makes me feel a bit better about my laziness.

It's not all bad when he's away though. I'm finding that with one fewer person in the house, it's easier to keep things de-cluttered and in order. Not that Bert's messy. It's just that now that he's away, there's only 3 of us bringing things into the house instead of 4. After one week of de-cluttering and 3 weeks of being very careful about limiting the number of items brought into my home, I'm happy to report that most of the horizontal surfaces in my home are free of excess junk. And (although this is a revelation to me, it's probably a no-brainer for most) it's easier to keep things tidy when the clutter is gone. Throughout the day yesterday as I would travel up and down the stairs I found little items out of place and would take them with me to the correct part of the house. It's easy to do this if the misplaced item is obviously out of place. Not so easy when the misplaced item is camouflaged by other misplaced items.

Although it feels good to be making progress of this nature, it's certainly not as much fun as singing with my BFF and propositioning a teen idol. Don't you just miss high school?

3 comments:

amydear said...

It's always a love/hate thing for me when Kyle's away. I get a lot done at night, and I get the bed to myself, but I miss him too, and his help with the kids. And your high school musical sounds positively SCANDALOUS! I was Emily in "Our Town." Not scandalous at all.

Todd and Anna said...

We had Bertie over for dinner last night while in town- so good to see him! He didn't offer to give our kids baths though....
Wish you could have come too, it would have been fun to see you all.

Mary Poppins said...

amydear--contrary to what you'd assume from hearing ursula's scandalous line, i do love having the bed to myself.

todd and anna--i talked with bert and he had a fabulous time last night. we would have loved to have been there too. thanks for entertaining him so far from home.