Mao De Vaca!

I’ve been quietly living with a disability for about 5 years. Not something I normally talk about here, but here I go anyways. 

 Shortly after I got married, my wife and I discovered that I was born with a genetic inability to say no to my wife. In the honeymoon phase, this made it very difficult to keep a budget, have a savings account or drive past a mall. 

          As our marriage progressed, I would occasionally screw up my courage and let out the odd timid peep of “do you think we should?” when asked about, say, buying shoes instead of paying the quarterly tax bill. This, of course, led to a constantly full closet but many sleepless nights, and not in the good sense. 

       With time, of course, as a married couple is wont to do, people get to know each other as they grow together, and my wife came to recognize that while she had a walk-in closet of beautiful designer clothes and shoes, I was wearing wal-mart fashion. This led to an awakening of sorts, and to my eventual manning up and occasionally saying no to new spending, all the while assuming that by doing so, I was saying goodbye to ever having sex again this side of judgement day. Like I said, growing together. 

        Magically, I did not burst into flame or get forced to live in exile for having said no. life went on, and we have been able to do some things that you just can’t do living check-to-check. My wife still has a decently-stocked closet, and the ‘linen’ closet is actually a shoe closet with some shelf space for linens, but in fairness, some of that is even mine. Not that I’d buy a lot of shoes anyhow. 

            So, now that I occasionally have to be the hand of restraint, my wife has taken this to mean that I am the great skinflint of the world. “Hohnee, you veddy chip! You… {gesture of a raised forearm with a clenched fist} Mao De Vaca, hand of de cow!”

“Uh… thanks?”

“Nao… mao de vaca! You veddy chip!”

Mao de vaca.  She's got a walk-in closet of clothes that cost more than my parents paid for their first house. Her purse cost a week's wages from what I made fishing when I was single...but I've got the moo moo booger hook!

No BS, that 1/2 sweater cost more than everything I was wearing. Also, my forehead looks so big now, I should be able to talk to dolphins through it. 

         Now, I joke, of course, and so does she. The fact is, I'm handsome enough that I can get by with a $9.99 Wal-Mart polo shirt and still make the girls swoon. Or maybe just pass out from nausea, I dunno. But yeah, she dresses nice, and I in fact feel silly when she buys me clothes that cost too much. My wife understands that the money I don't spend on clothes goes towards hers, and somehow in her South American way of thinking, this makes me cheap but loveable. 

        Now, when I came home from my last trip, I came home to an empty house at the Ant Farm. My wife was in Brazil organizing her mom's healthcare for an upcoming surgery. She spent a busy 2 weeks meeting, bribing and cheerleading to get everything in order, and then came home... all paid for, trip, stay, surgery and aftercare, by us, and made possible principally by the good folks who tolerate my presence here on our floating gas station, which is to say, by her mao de vaca, who thought to have a savings account just in case, say, someone needed a kidney out. 

        Long story short, my mother-in-law is recovering, less a kidney, and one surgeon down in Brazil is getting a new goddamn BMW, I'm sure. Meanwhile, my wife's family is still enjoying the presence of their matriarch courtesy of a cheap prick who did what they couldn't. I'm assuming that, for my wife's family, I've bumped the Holy Spirit out of the #3 spot in the holy trinity for the time being. My wife's uncle sent her back with a big bottle of cachaca, moonshine, basically, or maybe rocket fuel. My wife's nephew, my mother-in-law's primary caregiver, and the family joker, sends me a bottle, too, but not your traditional glass bottle. I get this:

 

Yes, that is a cow's foot with a bottle in it. This is now the centerpiece of my bar, which is the centerpiece of my living room anyhow. 

        Being married to a Brazilian is fun. 

    

Never mind the kool-aid, don't drink the water

One of the hardest parts of being out here on the water is when I can't be there for important things at home. Things that require a husband's or a son's input, or, just occasionally, presence. And here I am, essentially impotent.
    My mother-In-Law in Brazil is blind and has chronic stomach issues. Periodically, when she needs to go to the doc, she calls up her only daughter, my Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife,  in far off  'Nova Iorque' (because suburban Boston just doesn't have that Zing 6,000 miles to our south, I guess), to hit up the Bank of Paul, and I"m OK with this. My mother-in-law is a giant pain in the ass, but she's also funny and sweet and awesome, and Brazilians like to talk shit about America's evil nature and the awful health care system, but Brazilians can't step foot in a hospital unless they can prove they can pay for their care beforehand. Jesus, that's a place where you have to have your credit card out before you call 911.
     At any rate, Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife really, really misses her mom tonight, and is really missing being able just to 'be there,' when her mother needs medical assistance. In a stressed fit of pique, she tells me that I can't imagine how hard it is to know that someone needs her, and she can't be there.
     To the contrary, in all the world, I can't imagine someone who knows better than I the awful impotent feeling of not being able to be there. I am sitting on this metal box, listening to my wife, who is feeling lonely and lost, and misses her mother, and here I am, just 250 miles from her, but a million miles away.

   I can't come home for every crisis. I'd be home every few weeks for something. As awful as this is, my mother-in-law's bad digestive system sends her to the hospital 3-4 times a year, and I can't be there for my wife every time. Understanding that is a hard, painful lesson that has to be relearned periodically. Watching my wife suffer through the same lesson is worse.

At home and Abroad (Part one)

I'm gonna do something iffy, open up a little more than usual, and maybe foment discussion. I really would like to learn about how mariners deal with the home and sea life, finding their balance.

If you're a traveler or a mariner, pretty prease, leave an email at my personal address here, an anecdote in the comments, whatever, and talk about how you try to balance your home life and your personal life. I'm sort of struggling with mine, sitting here on the cusp of doing the Big Things that a marriage needs- building a home, forming long-term plans, and learning how to disagree. So, if you've ever enjoyed reading the stream of BS and occasional truth that comes out of my mind, please drop me an email as you read the next few entries.





Part one.

So, I'm running consistently into the same stumbling block here at home: Specifically I'm not having the fun I need to balance my weeks at work with the more meaningful pleasures to be found at home. The art and science of being a good mariner and a good husband are at war, and it's not a war of attrition or any sort of slugfest- I think I'm simply doing a bad job of keeping everything in balance.
I've been trying to make long-term plans with Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife for our future, and we're hitting disagreements on almost every level, which is frustrating for both of us; one of my greatest fears is that I'll start to look to work as a rest period from the more challenging aspects of my life, namely my home life, and this most recent time off has been stress-filled to the point where, yes, the stress of work is easier to handle by comparison. I guess that I feel that in acknowledging this and making plans to shake things up, it's a reasonable start to putting the fun back in my fundament.

***********************************
The first time my wife ever met my folks, back when we were dating and her English left her unable to yell at me meaningfully (sigh... those were the days), I was ambivalent about the situation. I was by no means sure that I was going to stay involved with her, beautiful as she was, but sort of pro forma, I spoke to my mom about putting in the good word about how it was fun and easy to date a merchant mariner who worked 4 months away from home at a time. After all, I was following in my dad's footsteps, and the 12+ month voyages he used to do were a hell of a lot longer than my 120-day voyages... besides which, I only made one full trip a year, my lobstering schedule being more important to me at the time.
So, when I put in the word, I says "Ma," I says, "Put in a good word for me about the sailing. This one seems nice."

My mother, you have to understand, has nothing but fierce allegiance to her family. She, of anyone, would put in a good word for her youngest boy, the one who had trouble meeting nice women.
Well, my then-girlfriend and my mom hit it off. My mother, being somewhat deaf, but too vain to wear a hearing aid, likes when people speak slow and carefully, and my wife, being unfamiliar with English, spoke slowly and carefully. My ma did the same.
So, with a behind the girlfriend's back, bulging eyes-and-waving gesture, I remind my mom to put in a good word. As if on cue, my wife-to-be asks my mother "end iss okay liffi'ng with hees chob and da' lon' timey away?"
My mom, ever the bastion of family loyalty, picks this moment to drop a bombshell that no one, especially my dad and me, expected out of her. "Oh, no, dear, it's a terrible burden, waiting and making a life and a home, and then he comes home and screws it all up for months."
As tactfully as possible, I say to my dad "Jesus Christ." Imagine, torpedoed by your mom.
Luckily, my mom's outburst being unexpected by everyone, including her, I guess, she blurted the words out fast and hurried... and my wife is nodding and smiling, saying yes. Dodged a bullet there. She didn't understand, but was too embarassed to ask my mom to slow down.
...and then, seeing my mom's look of query, she does what she has never done before or since... she asks someone to repeat themselves.
After, I'm thinking "Shit, she was hot, too."
What happens truly amazes me. My girlfriend and my mom are laughing, hard, apparently at the 'oh shit' face I'm making. Being mature and poised, I let out a whiny "Maaaaaa!...." My mom briefly puts an arm around my girlfriend and gives her a squeeze before turning to my dad and letting her go.
I guess I noticed this, but it didn't register at the time. Other girlfriends had approached meeting my parents as running a gauntlet, and maybe my folks did the same. This was easy. Not fun, per se, but funny.
***************************

So, that was how my wife met my parents. My dad is getting really sick now. The guy who wasn't expected to live to see 1990 is finally running down, a victim of simple anno domani. My mom is keeping everyone together, and doing what she does, watching over my dad, and us. The place my parents met my wife-t0-be was a beautiful if smallish Italian cucina, a marble-and-tiled homey kitchen, perhaps the last beautiful vision brought to fruition by one of my brothers, since, unhappily, laid low by a broken back and unable to take a person's vision and transform it into their home. While I thrive, much of my family struggles, now, and that's a story with no happy endings, but many happy moments, and one that weighs in on my conscience, if not on my plate. While familyhood continues, and I struggle under a deadline to be a good dad with the time I have, and a good managerial employee, and a good person, we live our lives.

TO be continued.

ye olde docke daye

Finally, we had a chance to unload trash and take on stores, fuel, water, grub and spares... being the only non one-trick pony in Philly, we're busy running around like a one legged man in an ass-kicking contest while the other bunker barges in the port seem to be on a sunday Goin' to meetin' schedule... the price we pay for being versatile in ways that others here are not, I guess.

Anyhow, rearmed with fresh vegetables and salad fixin's, we're ready to cast off lines and continue our relentless assault on the septic system while we bunker up the thirsty ships of Philly. In just over a week, I can return home, where Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife and I plan to celebrate our 2nd anniversary. Since, of course, I was at sea for our first Anniversary (and our first Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter), it's on me to pull off a night to remember.