Sometimes (all of the time) Dave doesn’t like to talk about work. He just doesn’t come home chatty. That’s probably why he passed the submarine nuke psych profile. It’s all classified anyway so there’s really no reason for me to be all inquiring. But there are times when extenuating circumstances merit a bit more sharing, I think. Like going to Japan after the earthquake/tsunami for three weeks. He did a little Q&A before he left, so that was nice. Got more detail on radiation control and different kinds of radioactivity. Yesterday afternoon he went into work for what he thought would be a couple hours. He didn’t get home until after 3am. Sooo, nice wife, I take care of the kids this morning, keeping two boys quiet in a small house is no small feat. Then took them to mass, then to snacks at Starbucks (and coffee for me!) then to get Dave some nice scones for breakfast, then to a craft store for clay and watercolors. The boys and I always have fun together, which I know is a little nuts to enjoy being alone with them, but somehow their insanity seems funnier to me if I’m by myself.

But tonight I was still a little curious. So I asked him what had taken so long. This had happened another time recently – some kind of very involved “evolution” had been going on. He doesn’t want to waste scarce seconds of quiet time communicating anything about work so I came up with a solution – I invented objects and he told me a little bit about them. So I said something like “Ok, so there is a bird feeder that you need to move?” Yes. “But a bird feeder that requires a crane to move it?” Yes. Apparently the bird feeder was housed like Russian dolls in other very big boxes to contain the bad stuff. So it required a crane. Well, that worked once. I could at least picture a bird feeder needing to be moved. So tonight I’m standing in the hallway trying to figure out what took 10 hours more than planned. So after an earlier false start I gathered up courage and asked “So, you were in a barn waiting for a skunk to come to a meeting?” Uh, yeah. But the skunk never showed. “The skunk never showed?” Yeah. (silence for a second or two) Then I said, “That stinks!”  And I started just CRACKING up, realizing the pun. See – I still have no idea what was going on, but at least  I can visualize Dave standing in a red barn at night waiting for a skunk to arrive. It’s something at least, right?

May pictures are now in the album!!!