The Party

This being the wedding day, I am posting the last of the three true love stories that I originally wrote for my friend on Tumblr.  If someone that I know reads my blog and is a character in the story wants to quibble over details, just let me remind that person that I got the story second and third hand because he tends to tell these things to other family members and then assumes he has also told them to mama. No matter, the details aren't what's important, anyway. 

This is a true story. It happened to two people I know.

She wasn’t supposed to be at the party. 

She was from Venezuela. She and her husband met in high school, attended college in the United States, married and had a baby. She thought she knew everything about him, but it turned out she didn’t. Now she was living in London and he was living in Scotland, and their divorce was almost final. She brought her little boy up to visit him and then they were going to spend three days seeing Loch Ness.

But there was a mix-up with his driver's license, so she went back to London. After all, there was that party.

He wasn’t supposed to be at the party.

He was from the United States. In 2008, he had taken a job with a start up company. The owners’ plan was to build the business up enough to be tempting enough for a larger company to buy, but then the recession of 2009 hit, so the owners had to run the company themselves. There was enough European business for the company to send him and his boss to live in London as their European branch. 

His cousin was getting married back home that weekend, and he was supposed to be there, but he couldn’t get the time off.

But there was that party. That was how they met.

A year later, she got a promotion and a transfer, back to Houston. Around the same time, his company told him that having him based in Europe was too expensive, and that when his visa ran out, they wanted him home, back in Austin. Since he mostly worked either from home or onsite, he asked if really needed to live in Austin. Could he maybe live in Houston, and just go to Austin the few times a year he was needed there?

So now they both live together in Houston. They are building a house and making wedding plans.

He says he wasn’t supposed to be at the party. She says she wasn’t supposed to be at the party.

I say they were.

How I Met My Husband

While looking for some medical information that I hoped I had scanned into my computer, I found a folder called "True Love Stories", written to give to someone on Tumblr who was collecting stories of unconventional meetings and couplings. Since I have been too preoccupied with my son's upcoming wedding to write lately (not too busy, mind you, just too preoccupied), I decided I can post these, at least. This is the first one.

Some background to the story: when I was in graduate school, I met my first husband. He was an Eagle Scout and enjoyed camping, so he volunteered as an assistant scoutmaster with a scout troop near the university we attended. Our first real date was to a covered dish dinner award ceremony (Court of Honor) for scouts achieving merit badges. I don’t remember any of the scouts I met that night, but keep in mind, there were a lot of them there.

Next background bit: ten years later, my husband and I were invited to a party for the troop’s 50 year anniversary. By then we had a two and a half year old son. Our marriage was getting a little rocky, given that he had a hair trigger temper, but I was in it until death do us part, and not looking for anything more than a few minutes conversation with the cute young man with curly brown hair standing next to me at the refreshment table. In fact, by a day or so later I had forgotten him.

By four years later, it had become apparent that the death that was going to part my husband and me was likely to be untimely, likely to be violent, and likely to be mine. I tossed him out of the house and filed for divorce. Eventually I joined a singles group that, among other activities, held a weekly volleyball game. One night, I looked across the volleyball net and saw a cute younger man with slightly splayed feet, a feature that for some reason I found totally adorable. I also thought he looked ten years younger than me, and figured he wouldn’t be interested.

It turned out he was interested, and only six years younger than me. After a few weeks of volleyball, he asked me out for dinner. We talked the usual getting acquainted chit-chat people do on first dates, and I learned he was a) from New Orleans and b) an Eagle Scout.  “Where in New Orleans?” I asked, suspecting I knew. “Uptown.” “What troop were you in?” I wasn’t surprised to hear the answer. “Did you know (ex’s name)?” “Yes, he was one of our assistant scoutmasters.” “He’s also my ex-husband.”

By this time I decided if I had spent my first date with my ex-husband watching this kid get his Eagle Scout award, there wasn’t going to be a second date for the two of us. In his zeal to prove to me it wasn’t so, the next week the cute young man showed me the dated certificate that came with his Eagle, and along with it he had a program from the 50 year anniversary party.

Oh, my gosh! The curly haired young man  (now less curly haired, and starting to gray) from the party!

Eight weeks later we were engaged, and slightly less than a year from our meeting at the volleyball game (the meeting I refer to as “the one that took”), we were married. Twenty-seven years later, we are still married. I fondly imagine Fate pushing us together two or three times, saying, “Will you idiots just get it, already? I have other business to attend to.”

And it took 2 or 3 tries, but we finally got it.

It Rained on My Birthday

At least, it rained all morning long. Having just turned 67, I can be philosophical about rain on my birthday, but we had a lot of errand running to do, and the heavy rain made it inconvenient. We were going to go pick up my birthday cake and a few odds and ends at Whole Foods, and then go see Maleficent, at my request.

John thought there was an early showing of Maleficent, but it turned out that that was for Saturday only, as I found out after he dropped me as closely as he could to the theater before going to park the car.

He always does that. When it’s raining, he drops me off as close as he can to wherever we are going, parks the car, then braves the rain on his own. When we are done, he goes to get the car while I wait until again, he gets as close as he can to pick me up. He has done that for as long as we’ve been together.

So we decided to go see if the cake is ready early. As I waited inside the door for John to finish parking the car, I saw the fresh flower display. I picked out a combination to make myself a bouquet with, and when my husband found me there, I announced that we were buying me flowers. He didn’t argue over that, or the bag of mix and match cookies that I added to the cake, milk, and rosewater that we went there for originally.

The reason I am dwelling on the cookies, the flowers, and the rain is because ever since DWTS ended, I have had romance on my mind. Well, not so much on my mind, but it’s been on the minds of the young fangirls I hang out with on Tumblr, as they review every look, gesture, hug, and sentence that occurred between “Mavis” and “Mikhael” throughout the season. I frequently see things like, “I want someone who holds me like that” or “I want someone to tell me, ‘I don’t need you to be better. I need you to be you and I’ll do better.’ ” Sometimes it’s, “I won’t settle for anyone who doesn’t look at me like that.”

I appear to be the only one who gets an entirely different lesson from these last several weeks, the lesson that goes, “It has never occured to me to tell my husband ‘I don’t need you to be better. I need you to be you[rself] and I’ll do better.’ I bet he’d love to hear that.”

I’m not sure about the lovestruck gaze. I think if he caught me gazing at him like that, he’d assume I was having a neurological event and rush me to the emergency ward. But he might like it if I could at least refrain from rolling my eyes when he launches into another story about his latest day of dam inspections.

Of course, I have been on the other side of this situation: accepting crumbs and trying to convince myself that they were true love. I understand the younger ladies of my internet acquaintance who are shaping their views of what it is possible and reasonable to expect in a relationship. I’m glad they are determined not to sell themselves short just to have a man* in their lives.

I hope though, that life will broaden their views of what constitutes not selling themselves short. I may have to pick out my own birthday flowers at the grocery store, but I don’t have to wade through a rainy parking lot to get the car. My husband may not send moony-eyed looks in my direction, but he will do battle with my problems with only a plastic teaspoon, if need be.

So maybe I don’t need him to be better. Maybe I just need him to be himself, and I’ll be better. 

Or maybe we could both just be ourselves, because we seem to like each other that way.

*or woman, but I associate the kind of “you need one, so do what it takes to get one” thinking with advice pressed on heterosexual women. I could be wrong about that.

Goddess

My husband thinks I am a goddess. At the very least, he thinks that I have magical powers, and who but a goddess would have those?

I guess the first magical power is not so much a magical power as it is a magical device. What looks to you and me like an ordinary purse is really, in his eyes, an anti-gravity device. Any object of his that he finds it inconvenient to carry magically ceases to weigh anything once it is tucked into my purse. Of course, to me it feels like it weighs something, but once his glasses, bug spray, recent purchase or other item is in my purse, it doesn’t weigh anything to him any more. We goddesses are magical that way.

My second magical power is the ability to stretch time to infinite limits. That is why even when I have notes on the whiteboard in the kitchen saying “doctor appointment, 10:30 AM”, “haircut and color at one”, or “walking with D at the mall”, hubby finds it perfectly reasonable to add two or three chores to my schedule. Actually, I’m not sure he thinks of it in terms of adding chores to my schedule. I don’t think he realizes I have a schedule. He doesn’t think I have a schedule despite my telling him what is on my schedule.

And that brings us to my next magical power: mind erasure. I can erase any information from his mind by the simple act of sitting him down, looking him in the eye, and telling him about it. For instance, I can say to him, “I’m going to the grocery tomorrow. Be sure to write down anything you need on the whiteboard.” Then when he comes home to find food in the refrigerator, he will say, “I didn’t know you were going to the grocery.” If I ever have an affair, it will be a piece of cake to hide it from hubby. I’ll just sit him down and say, “John, I have a boyfriend. His name is Harry. I’m meeting him at a motel tonight and won’t be home until after midnight.” John will never suspect a thing.

My final magical power has been recently acquired. I can now see what is going on behind my back, at least if what is going on involves my cat. Noise will be coming from the kitchen while I watch TV, which is in the opposite direction from the kitchen door. “What’s that?” I ask. “It’s your cat. Can’t you see him?” I forgot to mention that in addition to being in the opposite direction from where I am looking, the view of the kitchen is blocked by a wall. No matter. Goddesses can see behind our backs and through walls.

Yes, of course, I have told him that my purse gets heavy when there is too much in it, that I make plans for my week days in advance and can’t always add last minute chores, though I will if I can, that he can learn a lot from listening to me, particularly the answers to questions he just asked me, and that no matter what his mama told him, mothers don’t have eyes in back of our heads. The logical side of him agrees with all of this, and he does try to mend his ways.

The illogical side of him still thinks I’m a goddess. 

  

To the Moon, Martha, to the Moon!

Saturday we went to the Little Theater to see their latest production, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

The January-February production of each year is always a heavy drama. The first year we had season tickets, the production was Arcadia, which I actually liked, unlike the 60% or so of the audience that left at intermission and didn’t return. John thinks they left because of the bad language. I thought it was because the plot is hard to follow, but I suppose if you are having trouble following a plot, profanity stands out all the more. In subsequent years we’ve had A Man for All Seasons, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and A Streetcar Named Desire. The lead actress in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was a professional who was paid for her performance, and gave a short acting workshop while she was here, but I thought the actress who played Big Mama blew her off the stage.

I was not looking forward to seeing Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? I had never seen either the play or the movie, but I had read the play and found it pointlessly depressing. Since we had the tickets anyway, I tried to cheer myself that maybe it had redeeming features when actually performed.

I never thought anything would make me feel nostalgic for A Streetcar Named Desire, which just goes to show, never say never. While I didn’t find any of the characters in Streetcar likable, I could at least sympathize with them. The characters in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, I just wished dead. If they actually had been drinking at the rate the script called for, they would have succumbed to alcohol poisoning long before the audience succumbed to a numb wish for it just to be over, already.

I know a chunk of the audience agreed with me because everyone sitting to my left kept talking about how bad the play was and how they were just staying to see how it ended. John kept talking about how bad it was too, but was reluctant to act on my common sense observation that we could leave. (When I say “kept talking”, I mean during the two intermissions. Nobody was actually rude enough to talk during the play.)

The acting wasn’t the problem, either. The actor who played George has also acted professionally, including bit parts in some recent movies, and the actress who played Martha has extensive amateur experience. The two junior leads weren’t as accomplished, but they weren’t bad. I didn’t get the impression that these were dismal performances, just dismal people.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is very much a piece of its time. The main character, Martha, is disappointed that her husband George hasn’t succeeded in his academic career and become the obvious successor to her father as the head of the college where he teaches. Neither Martha nor the playwright had the imagination to see Martha as the successor, at least if she had been willing to put in the hard work required to get an advanced degree (which women were doing even back in the WW2 days, which is when she would have had to have started according to the play’s chronology.) True, back in those days she would have had an almost impossible task to be taken seriously as a president of a co-ed college, and so probably still would have ended up a disappointed, philandering drunk, but she would have been a far more interesting disappointed, philandering drunk than she is in the drama as it stands.

Martha doesn’t come across as a person who has a passion for any kind of academic subject, and if she were more self-aware, she might have had more sympathy for her husband’s failings, but then we wouldn’t have a play. Of course, not having a play, at least this play, doesn’t exactly have a downside.

Even if Martha had taken the mid-century female risk of backing her husband George against her daddy when George wanted to publish his novel, her life may have turned out better, and more importantly, there would have been no play. 

I know Albee is supposed to be some kind of genius and “his works are considered well-crafted, often unsympathetic examinations of the modern condition,” (wikipedia) but if what you want is a dramatic treatment of the fine line between love and hatred in a mid-century marriage, any episode of The Honeymooners did it far better.

I’m serious. Ralph and Alice had a contentious relationship, and his threats along the lines of “One of these days, Alice, POW, right in the kisser,” although never acted on, made even some 1950’s audiences uneasy. Yet it was clear that they (unlike George and Martha) had each other’s backs. What made them wildly popular was that they were not the romanticized married couples of Leave It to Beaver or Father Knows Best. They were poor, harried, and contentious, but they were believable. Better yet, they were likable. You wanted to spend Saturday nights with them.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? also has the theme of reality versus illusion running through it, as each of the couple’s stories and games is revealed to have another side to it. As George says, “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

There again, I think The Honeymooners comes out on top, although the illusions are purely Ralph’s as he drags his buddy Norton into one get rich quick scheme after another. His illusions, though, are more true-to-life than George and Martha’s tall tales, and therefor far sadder when once again they fail him. You really hope against hope that this time it will work, instead of peeking out from one eye asking, “Can I go home yet?”

Besides, Alice and Tracy actually have conversations. In Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? , George and Martha have conversations, George and Nick have conversations, and Martha and Nick have a conversation, but conversations between Martha and Honey all take place offstage, even though one of the conversations triggers the tragic events of the play. It’s not just that the play fails the Bechdel Test, it’s almost as if there is an Anti-Bechdel Test that it is determined to pass.

But the scariest revelation of the author’s view of women is given in Martha’s soliloquy, in which she explains to Nick why George is the only man who has ever made her happy. I’ll spare you the long form and sum it up as “Bitches be crazy, amirite?”

On our way home my husband complained, “I think they could have ended that play after the first ten minutes.” On the other hand, he appreciated one line, when George said, “I’m six years younger than you, and always will be.” He’s six years younger than me, and as he reminded me, “always will be."

“I know,” I said. “I’m counting on you to take care of me in my old age.”

He made some smart-ass response in return, but what I heard was, “Baby, you’re the greatest.”

Hope Springs

Now that the Olympics are over, John is again looking for movies for us to see weekly. This week’s movie was Hope Springs, with Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones as the older married couple who have fallen into a rut. They sleep in separate bedrooms since he hurt his back, but worse (to me, anyway) is that they don’t seem to connect on any level. Arnold is obsessed with his job and golf, not necessarily in that order, and Kay has a job at a clothing store but seems mostly to identify with her roles as wife and mother, and is taken for granted in the first and at a loss in the second now that the kids are grown. 

When an attempt to initiate sex with her husband fails, Kay decides to take action and signs them both up for intensive couples counseling in Greater Hope Springs, Maine. Arnold is highly resistant, refusing to go at first, showing up at the airport only when Kay leaves without him, and sabotaging several of the exercises the therapist assigns for them. When he finally realizes what he has to lose and plans a romantic evening for Kay, what began well ends badly. They return home with Kay feeling frustrated and Arnold asking “It hasn’t been all bad, has it?”

I know I am supposed to identify with Kay, but I felt bad for Arnold. Both characters are stereotypes who only emerge as real people because they are being played by excellent actors. But Arnold in particular seems like the stereotype of the emotionally distant husband who thinks coming home at night and bringing home a paycheck are all that he needs to do to be a good husband. The movie pokes fun at him and Kay finally voices her disappointment at him for using gift giving occasions to buy things for the house (a hot water heater, a cable subscription), but I see these “presents” as Arnold’s way of being her protector. 

I’m reminded of a older couple I knew when I was much younger, living in a small town in New Jersey. They owned a small grocery store in the heart of town. One day, the husband told us proudly, “She never had to eat margarine. Even during the war (World War II), she always had butter.” I thought that was the most romantic thing I had ever heard anyone say.

Of course, I don’t know how his wife felt about it. She might have preferred less butter and more flowers, or diamonds, for all I know. But I suspect she knew he really wasn’t just talking about butter.

Arnold, however, is not even at that point. Kay is important to him, but he has his own disappointments, and seems to think that if he never complained, she shouldn’t either. His biggest fear seems to be that if they admit their disappointments with each other, their marriage will fall apart. It’s easier for him to understand that his house needs maintenance than that his marriage does.

The movie does have a happy ending, as unlikely as it sometime seemed that it would ever get there and despite the painful moments along the way. Don’t go expecting the merry, slapstick comedy the previews seem to promise. But go, is what I’d advise. Bring tissues.

This Was Supposed to Be a Different Post

Sunday I was going to go to St. Anonymous to hear what should have been the next in the Relationship Training series of sermons, What Women Wish Men Knew. I figured since I had deconstructed (fancy word for “made fun of”) the week before’s sermon about men, it was only fair I do this one as well.

However, as I was in the shower, my husband popped his head in and told me the men’s Olympic basketball final was being shown live on television. That was the end of church for the morning. The game was close until well into the fourth quarter. By the time it ended, the late service had been going on for five minutes, and while I could have hopped into my car (shorts and all) and made it to church in time for the sermon, I wanted to see the awards ceremony. No matter how many times I see teary eyed athletes singing along to the national anthem, it never gets old.

I shared with my husband the irony of Dr. J choosing the morning of the  Olympic basketball final to preach a sermon on What Women Wish Men Knew. I wonder how many men showed up to listen?

My reaction to What Women Wish Men Knew lists is mixed at best. There are what, about 3 and a quarter billion women in the world, so how likely is it that we all have identical lists of things we want the men in our lives to know? There are some things that bother other women that don’t bother me. Not that I’m one of those chill girls who thinks if something doesn’t bother me, it shouldn’t bother you either, I’m just saying we’re all different. There are some things that don’t bother other women that do bother me. There are some things that are context dependent. Yes, I like it if a man holds a door open for me (and I’ll say thank you), but I don’t like it if I get the frowny face for holding a door open for him if I happen to get there first and don’t want to slam it in his face. I also don’t want to have to slow my pace so he can get there first and hold the door for me.

Also, I think birthdays and anniversaries should be celebrated with flowers and cake (or candy) and dinner out and a present (like my dad always did for my mom), but hubby finds that a bit excessive. So is that something he “should” know? He never forgets special occasions and he does give me a present and dinner out, so I have learned to adjust my expectations accordingly. I’m not going to enjoy making him do more than he feels comfortable with.

 I think if I had to make a list of What Women Wish Men Knew, it would consist of two things:

1) We each have our own individual list 

and 

2) We’ll tell you what it is if you make it safe for us to do so.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the same list covered what men wished women knew.

Well, maybe plus one more. The worst time to give a sermon on What Women Wish Men Knew is when the gold medal round of men’s Olympic basketball is going on.

Relationship Training

“Relationship Training” is what Dr. J has decided to call her sermon series on relationships. This past Sunday’s sermon was on What Men Wish Women Knew. This information was supposed to come from the relationship surveys that Dr. J had handed out the month before, but she admitted she supplemented the responses she got from the 16 men who turned in their surveys with information she got from other sources. Most of the bits of wisdom she revealed I recognized as having been floating around on the internet for a while, and to which I give as much credence as I do other bits of wisdom floating around the internet. 

For instance, item number one is “We aren’t mind readers”. Actually, I have no trouble believing that. My husband, for instance, can’t even read his own mind. Ask him where he wants to go for his birthday dinner? “I don’t know”. Ask him what he is planning to do with the five wooden Siamese cat sculptures he is purchasing from a vendor in the Bangkok Sunday market? “I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

That doesn’t stop him from trying to read my mind when he thinks it is to his advantage. My real reason for wanting to recover the dining room chairs, in his mind, had nothing to do with my stated reason, that the cats had scratched holes in the chairs and stuffing was poking out. No, my own personal member of the we-can’t-read-minds brigade was sure he knew the real reason for my wanting to recover the chairs, and it was that I am never happy with what I have. 

Guys? If you want to contend that you aren’t a mind reader when it suits your purposes not to be a mind reader, do not ever begin a sentence directed at your wife with “The real reason you want . . .” We do notice logical contradictions. 

Then there is the item that goes “We only see 16 colors. Peach is not a color, it’s a fruit.” That, of course, is the reason the CEO’s of all paint companies are women. Sherwin Williams is a woman who was given the name “Sherwin” because it’s her grandma’s maiden name. And that dude who painted the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel was really a cross dressing female. Trufax.

Honestly guys. It’s okay for you be bad at something like color perception. You can be bad at it as an individual, is what I’m saying. It doesn’t need to be a group effort. I mean, I’m a woman, and I have a hard time telling peach (the color) from apricot (the color). I think  it’s only in the past ten years I’ve been able to tell the fruit apart, and now the world has sprung pluots on me.Is that fair? Next thing you know, that Sherwin Williams character is going to start hawking pluot paint and we can both be confused about it.

But my favorite, favorite one was “Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That's what we do.”  Uhm, no, that’s what you don’t do, except for those values of “help” that mean “give orders”. Here’s how it works around my house. It’s 5:00 Friday night and a bill arrives in the mail. It’s the same bill I have paid six months ago, and have spent the past six months trying to convince the payee (using   a copy of the cancelled check) that I have already paid.  I know this means another call to the billing department, but as I just said, it’s 5:00 Friday night and I can’t call  until the billing department opens at 9 :00 on Monday morning. So I am grouchy and frustrated and I say so. Several times.

No, telling me “I guess you’ll have to call them again” is not helping me solve the problem. It’s just telling me that my problem, which is that my weekend has been ruined by the unfortunate timing of the bill, is not a real problem (which is a weird thing to do if you want me to believe you can’t read minds) and only the problem that you think you have a solution for is. You don’t get cookies for that. 

To be fair to hubby, he often does offer real solutions to my problems. Just yesterday, I thought the light switch in the living room was broken because nothing happened when I pressed it. Hubby figured out that both light bulbs were out, and stopped what he was doing to go out into the garage, get the ten foot ladder, and change the bulbs, which is something I can’t do because of balance problems. Did I then complain that he didn’t let me talk about my feelings about the broken light bulb? Of course not. I thanked him profusely. He offered a real solution to the real problem. An offer of real help with solving a problem doesn’t start with “Why don’t you . . .?” It starts with “How about if I . . .”

I don’t even think the “offering useless advice instead of help or at least sympathy” behavior is exclusively male. I know I have been guilty of it. When my husband used to come home and vent endlessly about his boss, I would offer useless advice, like using “I” statements with his boss. I suggested he say something like, “When I am told to stop work on what you told me was our number one project to work on something else that is our number one project, I feel confused.” 

For some reason that advice never went over well.

No, really, guys, we are perfectly capable of noticing that when you are the one venting about your boss, or your idiot brother-in-law, or the car mechanic who broke your car, you aren’t asking us for help in solving a problem either. You just want our assurances that you are right and the other guy is wrong. Even when we honestly think you are wrong and the other guy is right.

I do understand, having been there myself, what it is like to deal with a partner who whines endlessly and doesn’t seem to try to fix the problem. And sometimes a nudge toward action is what is needed. In my billing department situation, if it had been 9 AM Monday and I had still been whining instead of calling, “Quit complaining and go call them” would have been a reasonable thing to say. 

So what is the right thing to say when your beloved is complaining about a problem you can’t really solve? YMMV, but “Damn, that sucks. How about if I take you out for dinner?” works great for me.

How hard is that?

Now and Always

Every month the Foundation for Historical Louisiana meets at the Old Governor’s Mansion and hosts a speaker. Last night’s speaker was Christian Garcia, who has just edited and published a book of letters written between his maternal grandparents between 1901 and 1916. His grandfather had been a state legislator and attorney and thus was often away from home working.

His family saved all the letters and Garcia was given them twenty years ago by a family member who hoped he would do something with them. The something he did is a book called Now and Always: A Louisiana Love Story. Garcia’s talk consisted of a short movie followed by readings of some of the letters, and then a summary of things he learned while researching the history of that period and compiling the letters. 

I went home wondering how it would be to have access to extensive correspondence between family members. My grandfather wrote to my grandmother once while he was visiting other family in South America. I know this because I sat next to my grandmother while my aunt translated the letter from Italian for me and my brothers. My grandmother greeted each term of endearment from my grandfather with some Italian words of her own which I didn’t exactly know, but the tenor of which were obvious from her facial expressions and gestures. I’m not sure what she was mad at him about, but it did make a nice change from the times I sat between the two of them while they competed for my attention. I would love to have that letter today.

My dad did save some of the letters my mother wrote to him while he was overseas during WWII. I remember they began with “my dearest darling”, which I thought was funny because who thinks of their parents being in love when they are little. I don’t know what happened to those letters.

I do, however, have a letter my mother wrote to my paternal grandparents in 1943. The letter was written from here in Louisiana, because my father was stationed at Camp Beauregard near Pineville, Louisiana (a few hours north of here) and my mother had rented a room in town to be near him. They had just been married the previous month and her coming to Louisiana to be with him was the only honeymoon they got before he shipped out. My dad had sent me the letter for me to read with the idea I was supposed to send it back but I sort of forgot, for that version of “sort of forgot” that means “didn’t want to”.

The letter begins with my mother explaining why my dad did not write himself.

 . . . [H]e is kept so busy that he can’t even write. Last week they sent him out on the firing range at another camp. He was there for six days. He was supposed to get Wednesday night off and also Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday. But he was out on the range and had no time off. When he came back he had a six day beard. He couldn’t even write to anyone.They gave him yesterday off and we went out. We came back too late last night. He wanted to write, but he asked me to. He will write the next time he gets off. You see, the reason he has very little time is because he has to go to school for an hour or sometimes two each night.

My dad was actually a good correspondent for most of his life. He was the one who wrote to me once I left home, and sent all the news of my brothers, sister, and eventually nieces and nephews. He kept up a long correspondence with a boyhood friend in California. I have only one letter from my mom (my stepmother) announcing my sister’s third pregnancy. So I imagine he actually did feel bad about not being able to write to his parents himself.

I went out to camp on Monday. I was watching him work. He’s good! [that was actually double underlined.] He’s the best officer there. I was allowed to go in his hut. Mrs. Adler (her husband shares a hut with Frank) was with me, so we went in and sewed the patches on their jackets and overcoats. That’s the first work I’ve done for Frank since we were married.

That’s my favorite part of the letter. My poor mama, a new bride living in a rented room while her husband lives in a hut, not even able to cook or clean for him. She must have felt as if her life had been interupted. And I don’t know whether my dad was the best officer there or not, but I had my own experience of her fierce loyalty to anyone she loved a few months before she died. My cousin and I had come home from the candy store with a box each of some kind of taffy. Terry could not find a chocolate in her box and I had two. She accused me of stealing hers, I denied it. My Aunt Nellie ordered me to give Terry one of the chocolate candies and my mother roared, “If my daughter says she didn’t take it, then she didn’t take it.” (Picture double underlines here.)

I moved into another room here. It’s nice and roomy. I have a three piece bedroom set, a nice easy chair, and a small vanity bench that I use as a table. I also have a sink in my room and space for my wardrobe trunk. It’s very pretty. It’s bigger than the other room I had and right off the living room. We can use the living room as often as we want. The people are all very friendly, so I don’t feel lonesome on the five nights Frank isn’t off.

She goes on to ask about other family members, then adds

Tell them we wish they could see the beautiful countryside down here. Oh, yes, down here you don’t need a license to drive and you can get enough gas to go pleasure driving if you know the right folks. Too bad we don’t have a car.

Same old Louisiana (although now you do need a license to drive).

She signs it “Love and kisses, Julia”. I’m pretty sure the name on her birth certificate was “Giulia” because that is how it was spelled on her wedding invitations, but naturally she would have Americanized it as soon as she could spell. 

Ten years later she was dead, of a rare blood disease that turned into blood cancer. My maternal relatives would frequently say, “I guess you don’t remember your mother”, but I do. I remember the time she defended me to my aunt (although looking back , I suspect I did take my cousin’s candy, not out of larceny but out of sheer inattention.) I remember one afternoon I sat with her in the living room while she read a book. Every time she looked up, I smiled at her and she would smile back. I began to worry that she would get tired of smiling back, but she didn’t. She smiled back every time. I remember the time I had an abscessed tooth and Dad let me sleep in their bed the night before my dentist appointment. I couldn’t sleep and kept pinching her back so she would know I was there. The next morning I asked if she knew I had slept in her bed and she said, “Sweetheart, I knew you were there.”

So I kept the letter, because it is her, just the way I remember her, now and always.

My mother and I when I was 3 or 4.

Survey Says

Sunday at St. Anonymous Dr. J handed out  a relationship survey for members to fill out. The answers are going to be the basis of sermons she will preach on what women wish men knew about women and what men wish women knew about men.

What I wish men knew about women is that each one of us has our own unique wish list and that I would be happy to convey mine upon request if only a man would a) ask and b) listen to the answer. I can’t speak for other women, let alone men, but I wouldn’t be surprised if something similar held true for them.

Anyway, after five demographic questions about age, marital status, and sex, the survey asks the following questions. The answers I’ve come up with so far are given, followed by comments in italics that won’t appear on the form when turned in. 

6. The most common misconception about men is:

That they know how to use logic.

7. The most common misconception about women is:

I really wanted to say, “That ‘vagina’ is the word for our external genitalia rather than being the name only for the sheath that connects the vulva to the uterus”, but did I mention that this survey is for a church? So here’s the answer I’m really giving:

That we don’t know how to use logic.

I don’t mean to flip the stereotype and say that women are more logical than men. I think it’s clear that human brains are no more perfectly suited to logic than our bodies are to bipedal locomotion. Even when we humans, male or female, think we are being logical, our thinking is often full of fallacies and shortcuts. So I think men are less logical than they’d like to believe and women are more logical than we’ve been led to believe and we all could use critical thinking classes.

8. If I could convince members of the opposite sex of ONE thing it would be . . .

They aren’t the Princes of the Universe.

Was the Queen song written  to be the Highlander theme or did it just get borrowed, does anyone know?

9. The TV or Movie character that most accurately portrays my view of the ideal man is:

Nico on Necessary Roughness.

 (What? He fixes things, just like my husband. I like that in a man. He’s also amazingly easy on the eyes, but that didn’t influence my answer, honest.)

10. The TV or Movie character that most accurately portrays my view of the ideal woman is:

She’s not the ideal woman, but I like Mary Shannon on In Plain Sight. She has many of the same flaws that I do, but she’s proud of hers.

11. I believe the secret to a happy, healthy relationship is:

a poor memory.

Okay, yeah, I understand that a poor memory can just as easily lead you to forget the good stuff that you need to remember to stay in love with your spouse or let you forget the bad stuff that you need to remember if you are in a relationship that’s dangerous, but the ability to forget the little irritating thing your spouse does  can be really helpful. Besides, I’m on my second marriage; I’m not sure anyone should be asking my advice on happy, healthy relationships.

If anyone wants to chime in on any of these questions in the comments, feel free. I have until July 9 to turn them in.

A Vignette Involving My Husband

I wrote about how my husband and I went to Opelousas a short while ago to go to the racetrack. While we were there we had lunch at Back in Time, a unique little cafe in which the menu items are largely named after movies, movie characters, and movie stars from the mid-20th century. We like to go there and split a muffaletta, and I like to get the Italian Iced Tea.

The Italian Iced Tea is not something you would find in Italy. It is unsweetened iced tea poured over a serving of sugar free Italian ice, and so far as I know, Back in Time is the only place that has it.

The day we were there, my serving of Italian ice was frozen hard. It looked as if it had been measured out into the glass and the glass then stored in the freezer. No problem, I thought, just sitting in the tea would make it soften up to eating consistency, but by time I had finished my portion of the sandwich, it was still rock hard, as I pointed out to my husband with a sigh. Since the teaspoon that came with the tea was plastic, I wasn’t having a lot of luck breaking it up.

Shortly thereafter, I made a trip to the restroom. I wandered slowly back to the table, looking at small items that the cafe has around it for sale. When I got back to the table, I saw my husband with my iced tea glass and plastic spoon in hand. He had patiently chipped away at the ice until it was the consistency I wanted.

Happy Valentine's Day

It is fashionable every February 14 for people to complain that Valentine’s Day is a “Hallmark holiday” and totally commercial and that they can show their love for their dear ones on other days. To which I say (although generally under my breath) “So what?” Chocolate tastes good. Flowers look pretty. Cards are cheerful. Go take your hipster disdain for happy-making things someplace else, thank you very much.

Three years ago, hubby and I were on an Antarctic cruise on Valentine’s Day. I bought him a large Valentine’s Day card before we left, and carefully kept it hidden and unmangled for close to a week before giving it to him on the day. He was thrilled and sent me belated flowers when we got back.

The day the flowers were to be delivered, I had a migraine and left work early. Hubby called work to find out if the flowers had been delivered, only to find out I was at home. He called me there and fessed up about the flowers. Meantime I was feeling better, and didn’t want to miss my flowers, so I called work to tell them I would be back in the afternoon. “You can’t come back,” said our panicked receptionist. It turned out they had told the florist to take the flowers to my home.

You don’t have that kind of delicious romantic mix-up in your life if you spurn Valentine’s Day. 

When it comes to Valentine’s Day meals out, however, hubby and I have stopped going to restaurants on the actual day. We generally go a day or two later, when the wait staff is not rushed off its feet. This year’s plan is to go have lunch at Houmas House tomorrow, at the Cafe Burnside. We have eaten there before, and it is the perfect Valentine’s Day (or thereabouts) kind of place, plus the weather should be nice enough for us to stroll around the extensive landscaped grounds.

The crawfish pumpkin bisque at the cafe

Houmas House

I did give hubby his gift this morning, though. He buys most of his clothes at JC Penney, and ever since they instituted their new marketing plan, he has missed the $10 off coupons he used to get in the mail. So I bought him a gift card. He of course got me flowers and chocolate. 

Happy Valentine’s Day, everybody.

Love

spider lilies blooming in the backyard

My husband is not the romantic type. His attitude for the most part is "I told you I loved you some time or another and I'll get back to you if that changes." Once when we were on a cruise I saw that there was a ceremony being held for couples who wanted to renew their vows. When I asked hubby if he wanted us to renew our vows he did not even look up from his coffee as he asked in bewilderment, "Why, have they expired?"

What hubby is is the practical type.  When I locked my key in my car twice in one month, hubby drove thirty miles round trip each time to unlock the car with his spare key. Then he bought me a magnetic key holder to put under my bumper. When my son had an ambitious science project to complete that required simulating a beach in a kiddy swimming pool, hubby borrowed a pickup truck and drove to a sand pit in the rain to buy sand. When I had surgery on my foot, hubby helped me wrap my foot in plastic bags and get on and off my shower chair for weeks until I finally got the bandages off.


Not to mention that he does most of the housework and half the cooking.


Even so, occasionally I am moved to remark that it's nice to get flowers as a surprise. And surprise he does. One day I came home from an errand to find a vase full of orange flowers like the ones pictured above sitting on the mantle. 'Where did you get them?" I asked. As it turned out, he got them from the vacant lot next door to a rent house he owned downtown. "There are a whole bunch of them," he added. "If you like them I can dig some up and plant them in the back."


Ah, my ever practical hubby. The spider lilies, as it turns out they are called, are the oddest flowers. The leaves bloom in the spring, then they appear to die away, and leafless flowers pop up a few months later, when I least expect them. As I said, it's nice to get flowers as a surprise.


So I'm keeping him. Him and the spider lilies.

The One That Got Away

This past Saturday, Andrew Cohen wrote an article about a woman he used to date who was marrying another man:

Some readers found it touching and others found it creepy. Columnist Lizzie Skurnik weighed in here.  I found it a little bit of both, though I have to agree with the critics who found the article more about Andrew than his lost love, and who thought his offering her "worldly absolution from any guilt or sadness she felt between the time she said no to me and the time she said yes to him" was a bit superfluous, seeing as how she was marrying another man, a circumstance most people would accept as evidence that she had moved on.

But mostly I found it puzzling, because I have a hard time identifying with the idea of the one who got away.  I must admit, my romantic life has been far from typical. The only relationships I have had that lasted longer than 8 weeks  are my two marriages. I'm not sure what that says about me, maybe that I'm very good about not wasting other people's time? The other thing is that the only break-up I initiated was my divorce from my ex-husband. In all the other cases I was the one dumped. Nonetheless, I categorize the relationships as Narrow Escape 1, Narrow Escape 2, Narrow Escape 3, Narrow Escape 4, Sweet Jesus, I actually married that man, what was I thinking, Narrow Escape 5, three mostly platonic friends one of whom was probably gay and then Hubby! Yay, I finally did something right! Okay, to be fair, Narrow Escapes 2 and 3 were nice guys who had the sense to realize we weren't right for each other before I did, and Narrow Escape 1 was as young and immature as I was. But Narrow Escape 4 put up red flags I didn't recognize when he complained about how his mother stuck him and his father with "her jobs" while recovering from her hysterectomy and Narrow Escape 5 lived with what looked like post-college surroundings into his late thirties, an inability to treat himself well that suggested maybe he wouldn't have treated me any better in the long run. Besides, I suspect if ex-hubby and I had broken up before we married, I would have remembered him as a nice guy who had the sense to realize we weren't right for each other instead of knowing him as the abuser he turned out to be. 

I actually ran into one of the mostly platonic friends about four years after my marriage. We looked at each other for a bit saying, "You look familiar" before recalling we had actually had a few dates. He had also married and we managed to congratulate each other on having found happiness without adding out loud "with someone else, thank the Lord". I doubt any of the others remember me, but if they do, I'm Narrow Escape number whatever. Fair enough.

Hubby, fortunately for me, is the one who didn't get away. We have the same values, the same political views, the same attitude toward money and spending, and just enough differences in personality and in taste in music, movies and the like to keep life interesting. If I hadn't had the good fortune to get dumped by all those other dudes, I might never have found him.  

Sometimes I get all the luck.

Wrong Number

I am not one to spend a lot of time on the phone. I got a cell phone for emergencies and because it makes it easy to meet up with family members on trips, but most of the time it sits in my purse and I never hear it ring. I upgraded to an iPhone when my son gave me his old one, and then upgraded to the new iPhone so I could send multimedia texts.

Shortly after I got my new cell phone, I began getting calls from a local number, and the occasional voicemail. The voicemails made it clear that that the caller was not looking for me. At first I figured it was a one time mistake, but then I began getting 4 or 5 calls a week, and voicemails of the “Hey, baby, this is your husband, call me back when you get this” variety in a voice that was not my husband’s.

I called the number back one time, and a woman answered. She insisted no one had called my phone from her number, and when I pointed out that the only reason I even had her number was that it was on my phone, she hung up.

Weeks later, I called again, and got the man who had been calling. He said he has a cell phone with almost the same number, and sometimes dialed me by mistake when trying to call his wife. I asked him to please be more careful, and a few weeks went by with no wrong numbers, until a few nights ago. I was actually holding the phone (playing solitaire) when it rang, and answered to hear “Hey, baby”.

“You have the wrong number,” I replied, to hear a hasty “Sorry, ma’am” as the response.

Yesterday, I got another voicemail. I think my caller is dyslexic.

I have been sharing my voicemail woes with my husband, and we jokingly refer to my caller as my secret admirer. This has got me thinking, though, about a marriage website I used to read, and what the people there would make of all these phone calls.

I should point out, in the interests of full disclosure, that I am now banned from the discussion board on that website. It’s the only discussion group I have ever been banned from.

At any rate, in addition to forums to discuss general marriage problems, of the “he leaves his dirty socks all over the house” variety, the site has forum for infidelity support, and I used to read that for the same reason other people read The National Enquirer. In addition to discussions of specific posters situations, there was a lot of discussion about “how to know your spouse is cheating, and what to do about it”. If my husband were to post that his wife was getting a lot of calls from a strange number, and claimed that someone she didn’t know kept dialing the number by mistake, he would be told in no uncertain terms that this is a big red flag, that I am having an affair, and that I am even less adept than the usual wayward spouse at making excuses. What would follow would be advice to install a keylogger on my computer, put a voice-activated recorder in my car, and maybe even hire a PI.

It’s not as though the phone calls are the only sign of my obvious infidelity. From the list of “50 signs your spouse is having an affair”, I match at least ten:

5. Starts talking about getting together with old friends they haven't seen in years. Just yesterday I told hubby that I found an 80 year old woman friend of mine on Facebook.

6. Starts shopping for new clothes. I do that at least twice a year, and still dress mostly in cotton pants and work T-shirts.

12. Express opinions on subjects that they never had an interest in. Lately I’ve talked a few times about global warming.

14. Encourages you to visit parents or friends alone. I used to encourage hubby to visit MIL alone all the time.

16. Car is kept free of paraphernalia belonging to you or the kids. My car is the one space I can keep clean. The rest of my personal space looks like I belong on a reality TV show.

17. Starts attending extended seminars or conventions. I’ve been to two in New Orleans in the last three years. That should tell him something.

20. They suggest that you open up separate checking accounts. We’ve always had separate checking accounts.

21. Often forget[sic] to wear wedding ring. I don’t know about “often”, but maybe twice a month.

38. When they lose stuff they accuses[sic] you of gettting[sic] into their "stuff".... I don’t actually accuse him, but when I’ve lost something (a regular event), hubby’s first words are “I didn’t touch it.”

43. Grocery shopping and other excuses to get out "alone." We take turns doing the grocery shopping alone. We used to do it together, but we’d always fight over which mayonnaise to buy.

Of course, hubby would have a problem installing a keylogger on my computer - I use a Mac and to hubby, it may as well have been designed by Martians. And if he installed a voice activated recorder in my car, he’d wind up hearing more country music than he likes, since what he likes is none at all. He’s welcome to try, but what I really think he should do is answer the phone for me next time “Hey, baby” calls. That might solve the problem once and for all.

One Down, 99 to Go

Yesterday I was given a homework assignment by a sort of mentor of mine to take 100 pictures of things that are not on a level between my eyes and my knees.  Above is the first picture of this series - a picture of the ceiling fan in the third bedroom taken while I was lying on the floor under it.  I also learned my first lesson - if you are going to photograph a ceiling fan, turn it off first.  Unfortunately, this bright idea did not occur to me until after I was on the floor.

The ceiling fan is part of a funny story.  My husband is a lovable, sweet person in many ways, but like anybody, he has a few flaws.  He is a talented man who can fix almost anything.  He can do electrical work, plumbing, rough carpentry, and painting as well as cooking, sewing, and cleaning.  So whenever we need anything done around the house, he will usually do it himself rather than hire someone to do it.

The problem is, a jack of all trades is, as we all know, a master of none, so while he almost always does a good job, he runs into snags along the way, and every time he runs into a snag, I hear the same thing.  "This was all your idea.  I never wanted to do this, but you just had to have your way."  Before the ceiling fan, the previous most inappropriate time he recited this litany was when he fell off a ladder onto the toilet while painting the bathroom and broke a chip out of the rim of the toilet tank.  From that moment on, the chipped tank has always been, in his mind, all my fault.  In my mind, it has always been a sign that my husband, while adorable, is pretty much as cracked as the tank, but I usually keep that opinion to myself.

Fast forward five years.  I have problems with the light in the third bedroom, which is where I keep my computer.  I suggest to husband that we hire an electrician to fix the wiring.  Husband says, no, the real problem is the ceiling fan (the light fixture being attached to the fan), and that he has always wanted a new one anyway.  We go to Lowe's, and he picks out the fan he wants, which is one I wouldn't have picked but can live with.

Okay, gentle reader, you know where this is going, don't you?  Sure enough, half an hour into the project I hear grumbling coming from the third bedroom.  Either the fan will run but the light won't work, or if he gets the light to work, the fan won't run.  I walk into the room just in time to hear, "This was all your idea.  I never wanted to do this, but you just had to have a new ceiling fan." 

I spoke in an amazingly quiet voice for someone on the verge of (justifiable) homicide.  I explained in the careful tones one uses with someone wearing a tinfoil hat that, no, in fact, I had not asked for a ceiling fan, I had asked that we call an electrician to deal with what was obviously faulty wiring, and that the fan was not only his idea, but his exact choice.  He had to admit that it was so.  Shamefaced, he returned to his task, and eventually got the fan working.

Poor baby.  Now every time he starts into his "This was all your idea" routine, all I have to do is say, "like the ceiling fan".  He really doesn't know what hit him, but the way I figure it, he's just fortunate it wasn't a hammer, wielded by me.

I love that little fan.