Even though we’ve been delieriously happily married for almost a decade, the Czarina and I occasionally have problems with elaborations on communication. The biggest problem is that she’s never consistent. My nearly-three-year-old nephew calls up to tell us “I went poo-poo all by myself!”, and she’s thrilled. If I call her to tell her this, she beats me. Further elaboration usually makes things worse: telling her during the beating “It’s not as if I asked you to weigh it!” usually wakes up the neighbors with the howls of “What the hell is WRONG with you?” And here I thought I was trying to help.
Believe it or not, I actually learn valuable lessons from these incidents. Namely, when ex-girlfriends call up out of the blue to see what I’m up to, I pay attention to that little voice in my head that tells me “Jump…jump NOW!” Unfortunately, this also means that the Czarina gets worried when I suddenly change plans in midstream, or at least re-evaluate them, which is why she worried when I started wondering if I should go to this year’s International Carnivorous Plant Society Conference 2012 this August 11-13. In this case, it’s not so much a re-evaluation as a concern, but she worried all the same.
That’s not to say that any and all readers shouldn’t register right now. I’ll even note that the Conference is organizing field trips for partners and spouses who don’t want to breathe and live carnivorous plants. Right now, though, for me, everything is going to depend upon how well next May’s Texas Frightmare Weekend show goes, and then we’ll see.