Why is it that all my plans always seem to turn to shit at that critical moment. Everything starts out well. I get everything planned out, figure out what needs to be done, and then, whosh, it all falls to total shit.

I should jut give up.

Saturday we’re planning on having a grand old time for our fifth wedding anniversary (it’s actually Friday, but who wants to celebrate alone?). Folks are coming in for the baptism on Sunday and we figured it would be a nice opportunity to goof off a bit. Menu is planned, chores have been given out to various people, one of whom is going to be kind enough to attempt a certain dish I’m not feeling smart enough to do. (Yep, I was serious about that, else we'll have no veg with our meat. The horror!) All seems great!

Then Mr. Organized decides that having the friends around is also a great time to pick the friggin apples and squish ‘em and start them on the road to fermentation. Lovely. But Mr. Organized (first name is Notso) forgets that I like to plan these things in advance, so that I’m not stuck at the last minute with fifteen hungry souls trapped around a table while I’m trying to de-bone chicken thighs and feed a three month old and keep a toddler alive and keep a three-year-old from sticking forks in a light socket—one that’s still hanging from a wire four years after the renovation was started. I can multi-task, mais pas a ce point la!

AND: someone has to set up the place (wherever that turns out to be) where we’ll be eating Sunday—all forty of us. There are tables and chairs to set up, the table needs to be dressed, the buffet put up. There are THINGS THAT NEED TO BE DONE. But these finer points of entertaining escape him. The fact that we aren’t exactly sure where we’ll be eating is certainly playing on his mind, along with the myriad of other things—all business related , of course, but he is the one that needs to worry about them—but it’s not doing much more than playing. I don’t know if he thinks a magical solution will just present itself or what.

No, I do know that’s exactly what he’s thinking, because that’s what usually happens.

Hi, My name is Magical Solution.

Actually I’m already sick of the whole thing. Mr. Organized complains that each time his friends come it’s chaos, and he’s sad he doesn’t get to spend as much time as he’d like with each of them. I can totally understand and relate to that. I’m usually running after kids when my friends are around and that is a huge conversation killer. But I often feel like the whole of the work gets dumped on me, gets thanklessly dumped on me and hey, these are his kids, too.

But there’s the Farm Argument, and while the farm is paying the vast majority of the bills I can’t really bitch too much. Well, I can, but then he and I sit there and try to figure out traceless ways of killing each other.

I hate those apple tress. I really do.

And I’m not too particularly fond of the farm, either.

Especially the putain de farm equipment that keeps breaking. All. The. Damn. Time.

But it’s not only Mr. Organized that’s throwing wrenches in the machine. It’s this place. It’s the mayor. It’s just fricking life. Everything is conspiring against me. The weather’s turning cold, so our lovely champagne-cellar/barn/garage thing is out. No sense in having people sit down to eat if their butts are only going to freeze to the benches. The mayor is just a prat and I’m so sick about him closing down the church and kicking us out that I have to physically restrain myself every time he sticks his smiling, pro-American face out of his window to tell me I shouldn’t smoke. 97.8% of our guests have replied in one form or the other. That missing 2.2% will either show up or not. I have to move beyond caring about details. And let’s face it, 2.2% is a detail.

So as things stand now, tomorrow is the last of the Big Clean. No sense in doing it too early or I’ll just fuck it up again and who has time to do housework? Not I. (Seriously, those of you who don’t have nine weeks of dirty dishes piled up beside the dishwasher that hasn’t been unpacked for a month, or fifteen loads of laundry waiting desperately to be washed before they rot, or floors that will protect you should the Earth ever lose its gravitational pull, HOW THE HELL DO YOU MANAGE?) Thursday is the Big Shop, because we can at least pretend that the fresh eggs in the dessert are fresh, right? Friday is the Big Prep, because you know, animals? They come with bones. Bones are too crunchy to eat. And Saturday, is the Big Chaos. Mr. Organized is under the assumption that those not arriving by train will be here at Sparrow Fart. Ha! (Mr. Organized forgets that certain folks work Saturday morning, and others live far away, and even others have other things to do, things more important than wallowing in sheep dung while shaking apples off a tree, and still others have a combination or even all three of these things going on in their non-farm-related lives. Forgive him, but Mr. Organized hasn’t lived in the non-farm-related realm for entirely too long.) I don’t even want to think about Sunday. If I make it to the Big Sprinkle and the Big Feed afterwards I will consider myself extremely lucky. If not, maybe the dingleberry they elected to run this joint will open the church for my funeral.

Then again, that’s a sure-fire way to bring the roof down.