Fifth Day in Pajama Bottoms

I do not like pajama bottoms. They make me feel like Joey Buttafuoco. But that is not the worst thing about recovering from hernia surgery, as bad as it is.

The worst thing I think might be the pain associated with laughter.

Last night Christine almost injured me without meaning to when I happened to catch her working on the fire. She's been splitting wood for kindling, which had always been my job when I was in a position to lift an axe. And she's getting good at splitting the dry pieces of wood in the cellar which gives her an exhilarating sense of accomplishment.

Yesterday, in addition to the firewood, we had pieces of our old futon in the cellar and I happened to glance down the stairs as Christine picked up a piece and considered it. It was clearly too long to fit in the woodstove as it was, being two long pieces glued together in an "L."

I saw her look from that nice, dry piece of futon debris to the axe and back again. Then she looked at the chopping block and set the piece down across the block. She had probably seen something like this work in cartoons she'd watched as a child. I tried to say something about a saw, but the last few days had taught Christine something about the power of an axe.

Seeing what was coming I should have thought to hold my hands across the incisions, or even look away. But I couldn't look away as she hefted that axe and, with a lot of help from gravity, brought it down on the impervious board. As it bounced off, not even leaving a mark that I could see, I paid a steep price for my amusement. The pain brought tears to my eyes but not even that could keep me from laughing.

But let me tell you this about my wife: she is strong. She's not strong enough to chop a board to splinters, but, more importantly, she is strong enough to keep the house warm while her husband is laid up. She is strong enough to pick up all my slack without ever betraying any resentment or impatience. And she is strong enough to look cute while being strong, and that's saying something.

I've just got to praise her in the gates, even while I look forward to changing out of pajama bottoms and taking the axe back.