Never fear, Ladies. This post has nothing to do with the Super bowl. To be honest, the only things I know about it are that Maroon Five was boring and
everyone hates a guy called Tom Brady. I couldn’t tell you what teams played, but I saw Tom Brady on Colbert doing Hamlet’s soliloquy and thought he was charmingly awful.
The reason that “halftime” is in the title is because I just had a week off for semester break. It was a welcome relief after what has been a somewhat crappy school year so far (only with the adults, not with the kids). I know I have been declaring my love for my job forever, but this year started off badly with a bunch of conflicts I barely understood. And from there it got worse, culminating in yet another somehow obligatory group therapy session. The moderator lost control of the discussion, so we all ended up suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous accusations. Afterwards, I found myself pondering “To quit or not to quit? That is the question.” Of course the problem, at its core, was not life or death. It was just about money. And all arguments about money suck by definition.
I didn’t want to spend my whole break brooding about work, so on the first day, I invited my two female coworkers over for coffee and a long chat. We all converged on the realization that we three were married to working men and financially secure, whereas our other two colleagues were single earners with housewives and families to support. The whole situation was not an existential one for us. Although we agreed that everyone is responsible for their own life decisions, this new insight gave us three a patience with their behavior and the situation as a whole. The talk did me a world of good and allowed me to put all work-related questions out of my mind for the interim.
Let the vacation begin!
As tradition dictates, we headed to my husband’s aunt and uncle in Tyrol for some skiing (them) and dog walking (me). A five hour drive westward took us from relative spring into the deepest winter. Ten straight days of snowfall in previous weeks meant white walls were lining all the streets and walking paths – some of them up to five feet tall or more. The snow returned while we were there, giving us all 
another excuse for taking it easy (as if we needed one). While my husband took the kids skiing and sledding, I took long dog walks with my aunt and cousin and . . . that’s about it. Otherwise it was just reading and Sudoku and Level 8 and podcasts and wonderful meals cooked by Austria’s greatest chef.
My one excursion was to the big flea market where, last year, I found my old dial-up phone (which works!) and which I absolutely adore. This year the pickings were slimmer. There was a nice set of hand-carved wooden crèche figures, but with the baby Jesus missing. I already bought one of those this year. Later, I did find a cool vintage children’s sewin
g machine – but then the seller not only wanted too much for it, but he was also fairly unfriendly about it. He had turned his back on me to talk to another potential customer, but I remained standing there, mulling over whether to make a counter offer or not. While waiting for him to finish his conversation, I picked up a wooden box from his table and opened it. Inside were a bunch of big carved wooden objects. It slowly dawned on me that they were penises. I quickly shut the box, dropped it back on the table and moved on.
So . . . no new mini-sewing machine.
After four gloriously relaxing days, we hugged our goodbyes and thank yous, and piled into the car to head back east- and homeward. A five-hour driv
e later, we landed back in spring. Temperatures in the low 50s quickly lured us out into the garden to do post-winter clean-up. One of my projects was reopening bathing season for our ducks.
And speaking of clean-ups, I came home to discover my chicken on the wrong side of the front stoop, my glass jars in the wrong formation on the kitchen counter, and all the bottles of cleaning supplies empty. There was a message from Vera that she needed more. I went out and replenished the whole stock. Here they are:
Notice the hostage-picture-style of this photograph with the newspaper in front to prove the date. You are all my witnesses. The next time Vera comes (and has gone), I’m going to line up all these bottles again and compare them to this picture. If it turns out that they are all half empty, I’m gonna . . . I’m gonna . . . seriously think about saying something to her! But then again . . . I think her husband is unemployed and she is working two or three jobs just to get by. So I’ll probably stay silent. Just like I did at work when it started up again.
Conscience does make cowards of us all.
Trek* 