How the shortest month can make or break a marriage

There’s an old country song called “If We Make it Through December,” but Merle Haggard got the month wrong. It’s February that can make or break a marriage. Did I buy flowers when I should have bought jewelry for Valentine’s Day? Did I get my throat blessed for St. Blaise? Did I give up the right indulgence for Lent on Ash Wednesday? Do I admit that I already gave up on my New Year’s resolution?

The shortest month is the longest to get through. The days get longer, but not long enough yet. The sun still sets far too early. It’s even worse on the East Coast, where there’s real weather. There are days that I miss snow. But not enough to move back.

Mrs. E. (my friend Crazy Mike’s ex) lives in Delaware, and we email each other almost every day. ’Cause I get along with other people’s ex-girlfriends. She wrote to tell me about the recent big storm and how excited she was to have a day off from work, where she could stay home and bake chocolate chip oatmeal cookies.

An hour later I asked how the cookies turned out. She kvetched that she couldn’t make them. There were only two sticks of butter in the house, and her husband had insisted she make grilled cheese sandwiches.

Different marriages have different rules. If my husband Brian had insisted on grilled cheese sandwiches in a blizzard, but I had only two sticks of butter, I would have fried the grilled cheese in olive oil. Or mayonnaise. My mother, Nurse Vivian, taught me that in a pinch I could even make them with bacon grease, but whenever I say that, my GP, Dr. Rodriguez, shudders.

“I could never do that,” Mrs. E. explained. “That’s not how our marriage works.”

Maybe it’s just that Brian and I are more practical. He knows that you cannot bake chocolate chip cookies with either mayonnaise or bacon grease. God knows I’ve tried. This way we get the grilled cheese and dessert. But Mrs. E. went cookie-less on a perfectly cozy day, and her marriage chose melted Velveeta over gooey Ghirardellis.

Different marriages have different rules to get through February. As January ended, I expected that the Roof Cow down the block would be decked out as a Groundhog for Feb. 2, but instead John (Roof Cow’s dad) climbed up there and draped her in faux tiger fur. Fearing that they might have turned into Cincinnati Bengals fans overnight, I yelled up to the bovine and she explained, that, no, this was the first week of the Lunar New Year, the Year of the Tiger, and Susan (Roof Cow’s mom) had sewn her a new outfit. Gung hay fat choy!

But while I was out, I did see my shadow.

February is a tough month to choose decorations in the Outer, Outer, Outer, Outer Excelsior. The calendar is too crowded. Our Bedlam Blue Bungalow has hearts and a St. Valentine’s Day village. Down the block, another neighbor is flying the Progress Pride banner in honor of Black History Month. A few of the faithful still fly their Niners flags. What with the Winter Olympics, we’re lucky that Mardi Gras was moved to March this year. But in John and Susan’s February marriage, faux feline fur trumps Punxsutawney Phil.

The only February holiday we all get off, Presidents Day, is the only one we don’t decorate for. I have yet to see anyone hang a Millard Fillmore ornament or deck the hall with Calvin Coolidge.

Mr. and Mrs. E. John and Susan. They all have unspoken rules that make their relationships work, to get through the winter that is February. Maybe that’s the essence of chosen family, choosing the rules that make the relationship work.

February’s been a tough month already. Brian had his original hip replaced with titanium (interestingly, the surgeon’s name is Dr. Shin), and Aidan received his first suspension. What rules do Brian and I have to get through February? Well, we keep it simple:

⏩ Never side with one of the teenagers against the other parent.

⏩ If it’s an Olympic year, leave the television set to NBC, even when curling is on.

⏩ If we’re out of butter, fry it in bacon.

February’s been a tough month already. Brian had his original hip replaced with titanium, and Aidan received his first suspension.