karaoke

During the week, my husband and I pass each other in the house as if we’re both servants in Downton Abbey. We give commands and trade off duties and bargain.  You give baths and I’ll read bedtime stories. You change the boy’s diaper and I’ll get a hot stone massage.  Okay, so I made that last one up.

But we’re busy folks, raising two kids and working and trying to keep our house free of small cars and doll clothes underfoot.    And we both loathe cockroaches, which means we actually have to do dishes and wipe off the crusty food from my son’s chair after dinner and take out trash.  It’s exhausting.  So this weekend, we sent the kids to grandparents.  I’m thinking great wine and late nights and crunchy tacos at 2 am and lots of rated-R movies.  I’m planning on sleeping late and catching up on laundry and taking a hot bath.

On Saturday afternoon, my husband went outside to mow the lawn and I went whistling inside to do some laundry. No snacks and naps and fits and messes.  No one to unfold my sheets and streak up the glass and whine about eating broccoli.  Freedom at last!  A clean sparkling house!

I went inside and stared at the pile of dirty clothes.  That is so extremely dull.  I walked into the kitchen and looked at a dirty pan in the sink.  Yawn.  I’ll do that later.

So I went upstairs and did what normal, healthy, well-adjusted, people-above-the-age-of-twelve do.   Watched music videos. I was having such a fabulous time downloading lyrics and memorizing songs and watching Adele belt out ballads that I stood up in front of my computer with my iphone as a microphone and busted out a great rendition of “Set Fire to the Rain” in my pajamas.   I lowered it a bit so I didn’t squeak out the high notes.  I felt strong.  Powerful.  I could so totally rock this in a bar somewhere.  Maybe I should record a CD and rat my hair up four inches.

Then I heard the back door open.   I felt like a kid caught with a sugar soda and came crashing back to reality.  I cleared my throat, minimized the screen on my computer, and went rushing downstairs to throw some clean clothes from the dryer onto the bed.  Suddenly I had a sullen look on my face as I started to fold them.  My husband walked in, crazy tired from pruning and mowing and cutting down some cedar and washing off the driveway.  I’m not sure why I felt I needed to hide the karaoke session, except for the fact that I’m a grown woman trying to memorize song lyrics in elastic-wasted yoga pants while he was out there working.

“Whatcha doin?” he asked.

“Oh, just laundry,” I said.  I rolled my eyes like I was bored to death.  I think I sighed a little bit.  Shifted my weight from one foot to the other.

“All afternoon?” he asked.

“Well, you know, that and other stuff.  Boring house stuff.”  Like singing Rolling in the Deep at the top of my lungs.  Dancing.  Eating some leftover Christmas candy.  Putting on lip gloss. Drinking a beer at 3 pm for no apparent reason.

He shrugged as he headed to the shower, probably because the dirty laundry was still piled up high.

When my kids get home, I’ll be thrown back into reality.  We’ll all eat our vegetables and read bedtime stories and change poopy diapers.  But for a moment – just a blip in time – I was young again, with no worries in the world, closing my eyes and getting lost in the music.

Here’s to you, Adele.   You totally rocked my Saturday.