LITTLE ROCK — One night last year, Hubs was doing the usual flipping-between baseball-games-and-cruising-other-channels thing when we stumbled across a sitcom we'd never seen.
The scene unfolding involved a woman telling her husband (boyfriend?) that she couldn't sleep in a bed he bought and shared with a previous girlfriend.
Hubs and I looked at each other and laughed.
"The table," we said in unison.
My spouse came with a lot of accessories - an ex-wife, two kids, the ex-wife's husband, and the material remnants of his life with the ex.
Some of "their" stuff was already in Hubs' post-divorce house when I moved in.
But then, over the next few years, each time the ex dropped off the kids for the weekend, she brought over more things they'd shared during their marriage.
"I thought you might want this,"she would say, proffering various dusty items.
A popcorn bowl.
A tea pitcher.
A lamp.
Mind you, by this time they had been divorced for several years. The ex had remarried. It's not like she hadn't had time to dispose of all these unwanted items.
"Ugly," I said of the popcorn bowl (to Hubs, not her).
"Already have one," I said of the pitcher.
"Ick," I said of the lamp.
And finally - "How freaking big is their garage anyway?"
At first it didn't bother me. But of course then I started analyzing and wondered, "Is she trying to make a point? And if so, what?"
In all likelihood, she probably saw the handoffs as easier than a garage sale.
Or maybe her new husband didn't want all these marital leftovers in his house either.
Whatever her reasoning, I didn't really want our home to be the dumping ground for all the items she and Hubs once shared.
For one, our small house was already cramped.
Second, I didn't want to be surrounded by things she and Hubs had picked out together - things that weren't to my taste or liking.
Not wanting to sound like an insecure, crazy-girl new wife (which, of course, I was), I first used the argument that we had no room for all these things.
And I was trying to be diplomatic, because for all I knew, Hubs was the one who picked out that hideous popcorn bowl.
But then Hubs announced that the ex was bringing over their former dining room table.
And I flipped out.
"No more stuff!" I ranted, hurling the popcorn bowl and tea pitcher into a garbage can.
It wasn't so much the image of them sitting around the table - in a scene of domestic bliss - but their refusal to leave the past behind and let me decorate and outfit my house in my way.
Hubs protested.
"But I always liked that table," he argued.
It sat in the garage for months, collecting dust. Finally, he took it to a flea market.
Now it all seems so silly. At the time, however, when I was trying to establish a new and shared life with this man, I didn't want all this stuff getting in my way. Literally or figuratively.
Lord knows there was enough mental flotsam without adding ex-furniture to the mix.
So while I laughed at the sitcom and the couple's bickering over an ex-spatula - secretly, I totally got it.
After months of hushed planning, my Forces of Nurture co-columnist Cindy Murphy and I can finally share our big news:
We have a new baby!
Before you start calculating and puzzling - Cindy's little Benny is, after all, only 7ish months old, and no, I haven't been hiding a swollen belly - grab your laptop and type in this address: littlerockmamas.com.
There is our newest pride and joy, a Web site loaded with information, insight and entertainment for central Arkansas mothers.
I'm blogging as Arkie Mama.
And Cindy is Mom on a Wire.
Please drop by. We love company!
Cathy Frye, a news reporter for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, has two stepteens and two children, ages 4 and 6. Also a husband. And a geriatric, deaf dog. E-m ail her at
Family, Pages 31, 33 on 08/26/2009