Tall Tales And Tomfoolery As Torture

I always enjoyed tall tales.
Today, not so much.
It's pushing 1:30 a.m.  I can't sleep.  As we approach 9 months of illness and 8 months of me learning of the ongoing and years' long affair, I am tired.  So damn tired that I've buried the lede.

Jenny, feeling healthy, was out again tonight at a Big Sisters of King County alum soiree.  I am in monosyllabic mode, given my restoked anger. She plops down on the sectional and prefaces the interaction with the following: "I have something hard to ask you."  Uh-huh is what she got back from me. She asks, "Have you called Kandice?" This question is ridiculous. I called her once, and I told Jenny after I made the call that I had no interest in speaking with her again.  Jenny then tells me that Eric's the pinché motherfucker's wife, Kandice, has claimed I have called her AND moreover, have suggested the two of us hook up.  To. Be. Very. Fucking. Clear.  Whether he is making this shit up or not, she is about the last thing I would be interested in, the pinché's wife. I laughed and laughed, and then Jenny wanted to discuss it.  I stopped laughing, interrupted Jenny and told her I could give a fuck about the wife of the man she is having an affair with and have zero interest in hearing her discuss this anymore.  I mean, people!!

Neither el pinché and/or his esposa fall into the category of attractive.  Even if I was crass, craven and desperately trying to strike back, this would not be my game.  The two of them are so charming.  Don't take my word for it, here is something worth 1000 words more than I could offer:
El pinché y esposa. 
Los dos muy guapos.
¿No?








I have a sneaking feeling that el pinché is fucking with Jenny telling her this.  

Having asked me this, Jenny announces she is going to bed.  She stands up, turns to face me where I am laying on the sectional, and leans over to give me a kiss on the lips.  I offer my forehead.  She kisses it and leaves in a huff, closing her bedroom door--always a sign she is angry with me.  She is having an affair and is mad I won't kiss her. I will say it again, it's a topsy-turvy world.

9:00 a.m.
I fell asleep around 3.  Between 1:30 and 2:30, Jenny was in so much pain from her arthritis that she was moaning.  She had seen me awake just a bit before this, and her moaning got louder when I didn't initially respond.  I didn't get up.  Then, I hear her get up silently, and walk to the bathroom.  Once there, she begins her moaning again.  I still did not get up. After a couple minutes, she went to bed and fell to sleep in about 20 minutes.  I felt no guilt.  If she needed help, all she had to do was ask. And given her predilection for causing me pain without compunction, I was waiting for her to ask last night.  

I woke at 7:30ish to make my coffee, of which I am imbibing even now.  I went to check on Jenny and she was sound asleep.  I got a change of clothes, and quietly exited her room.  I checked on her every few minutes thereafter, because this is chemo day, and because I am not taking her today, I was unsure and nervous about her departure time. Thankfully, when I went in at 8:45, after waking Abby, Jenny was awake, alert and morose. 

Standing at the foot of the bed, I greet her with my annoying, but real, morning person persona (only happens when I have coffee ASAP after arising). Staring at her phone, with flat affect, she responds accordingly.  Asking her how she slept, she says barely, which I know is untrue. She tells me she is in terrible pain from her arthritis, her eyes transfixed on her iPhone, which I have no reason to doubt.  I tell her I am sorry she is in pain, ask if there is anything I can do, and she declines help.  I go in again, a couple times, and repeat the query and also learn from her that chemo departure is 9:30 a.m.

Hazarding a guess, I know her flat affect, which after 30+  years I recognize means she is angry with me, is borne of both her hip pain and her anger toward me for not offering my lips when she bent down to give me a peck goodnight.  I am still, even now, at a loss to understand her logic here, to identify any valid or logical reason for her discomfiture, her perturbation with my refusal.  Bueller? Bueller? Anybody? Bueller? 

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