#10 – Mamacita's Projects Are a Lot of Work – FOR ME
PAPACITO #10
Mamacita and I have a pretty functional division of labour.
Mamacita comes up with a project.
I usually end up doing it — or at the very least, I somehow get involved in finishing it.
This isn't some mutually agreed arrangement, of course. I don't remember us ever having an actual meeting about it, signing a contract or even asking for my opinion. At some point during our relationship, I apparently just became a permanent staff resource for Mamacita's projects.
My latest assignment came in the form of a friend's baby shower.
Or actually, I didn't even get an assignment. I just gradually discovered that when the big day arrived, I would be evacuating the premises with all the three-legged members of the household.
That would've been a perfectly reasonable role.
Except that before the evacuation, I somehow ended up mopping the floors and washing mirrors and windows at 6:00 in the morning. In my opinion, I contributed a considerable amount of labour to a party I wasn't even attending — in fact, I had specifically been ordered to stay away.
But when Mamacita asks Papacito for help, Papacito helps — whether he whines about it or not.
I'm not sure, but I suspect I did more preparation for Mamacita's friend's baby shower than I have for my own birthdays.
And this wasn't the first time, either.
Not even close.
Mamacita's Project Management
Mamacita is an interesting creature in the sense that, at her best, she is fucking efficient.
If someone else's shit isn't getting done, Mamacita shows up and things usually start happening.
She even chose, bought and made the decorations for her brother's wedding without the bride and groom ever really knowing in advance what was coming, when it was coming or where it was going.
I think she also wrote the best men's speeches and scheduled those too.
She probably said "I do" on everyone else's behalf as well — who knows.
"You say that then, and otherwise you keep your mouth shut. Is that understood?"
Mamacita organises, plans, figures things out and keeps all the strings in her hands in a way I simply wouldn't have the interest — or probably the patience — to do.
If someone needs help, Mamacita helps — and Papacito gets pissed off.
If something isn't moving forward, she gets it moving. And if someone needs to take responsibility, you don't have to ask many times who'll soon be standing there.
That's genuinely one of the things I appreciate about her.
There is just one small peculiarity in the system:
When it comes to Mamacita's own projects, that same efficiency may require a slightly longer start-up period.
For example, her wedding dress has been hanging on a door for almost a year.
I've been nervously wondering why — are we soon going to look at our wedding photos while she's wearing the dress, are we going to burn it, or is it already being repurposed for something?
Apparently, it's "going up for sale."
And I believe it will.
I'm just not going to speculate on the year.
At this point, the dress has been hanging there gathering dust for so long that soon it probably won't even be fit to sell.
We also started making decorative puzzle-piece pictures for the kid's room.
Started might be a slightly generous word here.
The plywood and tools were spread out across the carport.
They've been there for a little over two weeks now.
This is not, however, an unfinished project.
It's on its way to being finished.
I've learned the terminology.
276 Conversations About One Wall
There is a wall in our living room.
Well, there are several, but one of them has caused considerably more discussion than a wall reasonably should.
Mamacita has wanted to do something to it for about a year.
We've had roughly the same conversation 276 times.
"What could we do with that?"
— Paint?
— Wallpaper?
— Wall decoration?
— Pictures?
At some point, I lost my patience and announced:
Do whatever the fuck you want with it, just fucking do something.
I thought I had successfully withdrawn from the project.
A couple of months later, WE WERE at the paint shop.
I emphasise WE WERE, because this was still Mamacita's project.
To be fair, Mamacita painted the wall herself.
And she did a damn good job too.
My only job was to remove the trim, make new trim and install the new trim.
So basically everything the paint roller didn't touch.
Since we obviously don't own professional tools for every possible renovation, removing the old trim required a little creativity.
The most suitable tool turned out to be:
A Villeroy & Boch cake server.
It actually works for removing trim.
Or worked.
The trim came off, but the cake server bent during the operation.
Afterwards, it was washed and returned to the kitchen drawer.
We won't be getting straight slices of cake anymore, but crooked slices are still slices of cake — designer slices.
The wall was finished.
A year of thinking.
276 conversations.
Paint shop.
Trim off.
One cake server lost in the line of duty.
Paint on the wall.
New trim installed.
Mamacita looked at the result.
"That shade isn't quite what I had in mind."
Good.
We're Not in a Hurry
Another area where we complement each other beautifully is time management.
I'm the kind of person who would rather arrive half an hour early and sit there alone waiting than arrive even one minute late.
Mamacita is not.
We have baby swimming.
We've been there many times.
We know where the swimming pool is.
We know what time the session starts.
We know how long it takes to drive there.
We know how long the changing rooms and showers take with a baby.
And most importantly, we know from experience how long it takes to get out of the house with a baby.
And yet, every single time, we have the same conversation the night before:
— Are you setting an alarm?
— Yes.
— What time?
— 6:00.
— Wouldn't 6:30 be enough?
— It wasn't enough last week.
And the following week, 6:45 gets suggested.
By what fucking mathematics would 6:45 somehow work better than 6:30, which wasn't enough either?
And every single time, we make it just in time.
Not fifteen minutes early.
Not ten minutes early.
JUST. FUCKING. BARELY.
Papacito got up at 6:00.
Mamacita got up at 6:45.
My heart is already pounding in the hallway while my brain is calculating how many minutes we have until we're supposed to already be in the pool.
Mamacita sits next to me completely convinced that we'll make it just fine.
And the worst part about all of this:
So far, she has always been right.
That might be the most annoying part of all.
The same applies to everything.
If training starts at 17:00, it doesn't matter if it's been in the calendar for six months.
We leave at the exact moment when my internal clock has already declared a national state of emergency.
Mamacita doesn't panic.
Mamacita operates.
And somehow, we're on time again.
Barely.
But on time.
Papacito — General Services
And this system didn't arrive with the baby.
Back when Mamacita was still playing top-level football, the team did various fundraising jobs to help cover the players' fees.
Guess who has done inventory at a grocery store?
ME.
Festival teardown?
ME.
Manual snow clearing?
ME.
I've also baked things for Mamacita's events when she has suddenly "gotten a little busy and run out of time."
I've been with Mamacita for so long that my CV now contains jobs in industries I don't remember ever applying to.
Since then, my repertoire has expanded into home construction.
Mamacita wanted to make a headboard.
I told her to go ahead and make one she liked.
Mamacita did.
But eventually, there I was carrying pieces into place, drilling them into the wall and standing in the bedroom drenched in sweat while installing our second headboard.
That's right — this wasn't the first headboard Mamacita had made.
Apparently, the first one did not permanently solve our headboard problem.
Then came the planter boxes.
The deck needed oiling during the summer.
I oiled it.
The outdoor lights had been sitting in a box by the door since early summer, "going up once we figure out where to put them."
At the end of September, I installed them wherever the hell I wanted, however the hell I wanted.
At least the box wasn't in the way anymore.
And at this point, I have to admit something.
I am partly responsible for all of this.
I can't wait.
If a box sits by the door long enough, I install whatever is inside it.
If the deck needs oiling, I oil it.
If we've been talking about curtains for a year and none have appeared, I order curtains.
I tried that one too.
I thought I was being clever.
I ordered some curtains that I thought were perfectly fine, put them up and told Mamacita when she got home that they could stay there until she found the right ones we'd already been discussing for a year.
And holy shit, things started happening.
The temporary curtains were quickly replaced with "better" ones.
They were just way too long.
Shortening them has somehow been slightly delayed.
Mamacita doesn't even really like them herself.
And the actual curtains?
Yeah, we went to a curtain shop and had a look.
They're still under consideration.
So for the first time, I may have attempted to use Mamacita's project management system against her.
I lost.
We now have worse curtains — and they're too long.
Temporary solution?
Papacito & Mamacita
Judging by the names, you might assume there was a bit more Latin heritage in this household.
There isn't.
As far as I know, Mamacita doesn't have a drop of Latin heritage in her, but she more than makes up for it in fire and temperament.
When Mamacita has an opinion, she tends to have that opinion with her entire fucking being.
Over the years, I've learned to recognise the situations in a relationship where it's worth discussing things, making your case and bravely expressing your own point of view.
I've also learned to recognise the situations where it isn't.
For those situations, I have one extremely effective response:
"Yes, wife."
It doesn't necessarily mean I agree.
It means I have a survival instinct.
And if Mamacita says we're going to the paint shop, then WE'RE GOING TO THE PAINT SHOP.
And Yet
If Mamacita only reads this far, I may have considerably more time for writing this blog after publishing it.
Alone.
But so far, this post could easily give you the impression that Mamacita lies on the sofa inventing jobs for me while I run around the house sweating with a cake server in my hand.
That's not how it works.
The truth is, Mamacita is the one of us who sees much more in things.
She gets ideas.
She wants to make our home look like us.
She organises, plans and helps other people. And when someone genuinely needs help or something needs taking charge of, Mamacita is one of the first people to roll up her sleeves.
Whereas I might look at the living-room wall and conclude that it's upright and therefore fulfils the technical requirements of a wall perfectly well, Mamacita sees that it could look better.
I wouldn't have made a second headboard.
I probably wouldn't have made the first one either.
And I probably wouldn't have spent much time thinking about what the living-room wall looks like.
Without Mamacita, we'd definitely have fewer unfinished projects.
But we'd also have considerably fewer finished ones.
And maybe that's exactly why this system has worked for as long as it has.
Mamacita sees what all of this could become.
I think about how to attach it to the wall.
Mamacita starts a project.
I announce that I'm definitely not getting involved.
Mamacita starts anyway.
I watch from the sidelines.
I complain.
And at some point, I realise I'm standing there drenched in sweat in the middle of a project I announced from the very beginning that I wasn't going to be involved in.
We've been practising this for ten years, so apparently the system works.
And since this post still has to pass Mamacita's quality control before publication, let the record show: