How Not to Make Soup

Have you been doing Zoom chats?  I had my first one two weeks ago, and now I’m Zooming with most of my friend groups.  Last week I Zoomed with my book group, with my “band moms” group, and with my brother and SIL.  This evening, Cliff and I Zoomed with our usual Friday-night-meet-for-a-beer group.  It’s Sunday????  OH NO.  I can’t tell what day it is anymore!

On one of my Zoom chats last week, we ran out of things to talk about.  Don’t get me wrong—we were so happy to simply see each other’s faces that we probably could have just sat there and made funny faces for awhile.  L. pipes up and asks, “Well, does anyone have a song to share or an instrument to play for the group?”  I instantly thought of my kitchen harmonica that I keep in a drawer for times when I want to sing the blues! (It got a lot of use a few years ago when I was turning 50.)  For the life of me, I could not find that thing, but then I remembered . . .  I have a mini-harmonica on my key chain!  I dug that out and began to improvise a Corona Virus-inspired tune, “Oh I’ve got the blues!” and that’s when I heard a big groan and a very quick goodbye.  “Okay, we’re done here. See you soon!”

Oh, man! I was so sad!  The creative juices were flowing, so I quickly penned a song.  Think of George Thorogood’s song Bad to the Bone.  Between each line, think in your head the classic blues riff, “na nana na NA!”

“Oh I’ve got the blues
Because of this flu!
Yeah I’ve got the blues
Cuz I’ve got nothing to do.
Taking too many naps
Eating all of the snacks
Because of this bug
I can’t give no hugs.
Don’t gotta wear pants
Cuz I’m stuck in my manse.
Yeah I’ve got the blues.

*shakes the spit off of her harmonica, and takes a bow*

Another night, I decided to make a hearty soup of what I had in the fridge.  I love to make soup.  I got so distracted and anyway, here are directions for how NOT to make Corn Potato Chowder with Ham:  Cut up veggies and accidentally drop raw potato on the floor which your dog eats (experts say not good for dogs).  Feed dog ends of carrots and celery, then trip over her on your way to the stove.  Remember you are due for a Zoom happy hour at 5:00 and go to your computer.

Log into Zoom only to discover the host completely forgot and is grocery shopping.  Happy hour is postponed until 5:30.  Go back to kitchen.  Brown onions and red peppers in butter while assembling other ingredients.  Get it all going in your beautiful red La Crueset knock-off iron pot.  Add chicken broth and leave on low heat.

Join your Zoom Happy Hour. Chat longer than expected.  Talk about Corona virus. Talk about the Tiger King show.  Laugh and smile, and feel more normal than you have felt in days.  Leave Zoom to stir said soup every 10 minutes, and after awhile you decide it is, well, too “soupy.”  Leave the lid off to try to solidify.

Zoom for another 15 minutes. Say goodbye to your friends.  Smile.  Feel happy.  Refresh your cocktail.

Check on soup.  NOOOOOOOOO!!!! It has turned into DROOP.  DRY SOUP!!!  And the bottom bits are burned (sad face).  Close your eyes and channel Martha Stewart.  You’ve got this:  Add a cup of milk . . .  and add the cup of frozen corn that you forgot (because it is corn chowder). Heat again on very very very low heat, and voila!  Delicious soup!

Hope you are all staying well.  The key to my well being has been a long walk or hike every day.  And wine. And soup. And singing the blues.

Cheers,

Mary

 

 

The Ghost of Onions Past

It is 8 pm.  I was just out back with Ruby the Wonder Spaniel and sensed that something was wrong.  It took a moment for me to realize:  it is sooooo quiet.  There are no planes overhead.  People are in their houses.  There are no cars on the road in our little neighborhood.  I can’t hear any road noise from busy Ray Road.  Even the coyotes and owls must be on quarantine, since I’ve not heard them for days.

It’s nice to have peace and quiet, because OMG, the sounds of all the children home during the day is very annoying.  I’m a preschool teacher; you KNOW I love children!  But the constant screaming from two doors down is enough to work my last nerve. They are just playing in the backyard, and I’m thinking the parents are inside wearing noise cancelling head phones??  The fact that our neighbors have six children under the age of 10 should certainly have been included in the disclosure section of our home sale contract!  Eve asked me, “Did we yell all day when we were little?”  NOOOOOOO!!!

I’ve mostly been inside anyway, glued to the news about the Corona virus.  I listen to NPR a lot of the day, then I watch interviews with health officials on my phone. I saw a very informative interview with Dr. Fauci on the Trevor Noah show today which made me feel more calm about this huge global disaster.

We are using this time to do little things around the house.  Cliff built us a lovely raised vegetable bed in the side yard. I went to Lowe’s a few days ago and bought tomato plants, a banana pepper plant, some basil and oregano. I ordered seed packets of  mesclun lettuce mix, snap peas, and carrots which will arrive soon. We have bunnies in the neighborhood, but I can’t see a way they could get into our backyard. Just in case, we will finish it off with a chicken wire enclosure.  Cliff worked so hard on it, and I will very much enjoy tending a small garden.  I am about a month late on planting seeds, but our side yard is cool and our spring has been unseasonably mild!

We are fully stocked (except for pasta) and will be fine without going to the store for many weeks.  When the stores started having TP shortages, I ordered an 80-roll package on Amazon.  No, it is not the plush Charmin our tushes are used to, but I’m so happy to not have to worry about that.  If you need some, let me know.  I’m seriously using up a roll a day with allergy snot.  I don’t take an allergy pill because a) I’ve never found one that works and b) they all make me drowsy and cranky.  I won’t do it. My springtime allergies started when I was a teenager. I sneezed and was so boogery one year that a boyfriend actually broke up with me over it.  I remember him saying something like, “I just can’t take this anymore!”  Geez.

One of my favorite things to do is cook, so with Eve and her boyfriend often here at dinnertime, most evenings you will find me happily singing along with the radio and playing in the kitchen.  Tonight was a delicious Gnocchi-cheese bake, and I baked an apple pie. Apples were almost free at the grocery last week since people aren’t shopping like they used to and I presume the store has a surplus. After six months in our new house, I’m finally able to locate things easily in our kitchen.  There is a mysterious onion smell in one cupboard, and I can’t get rid of it no matter what I do! I call that area of the kitchen “The Ghost of Onions Past” and oh well, there are certainly worse smells in our house.

The three cats certainly produce a lot of smells, and constant vacuuming is a must to control the litter on the tile. I love my cats; it’s kitten season and I’m planning to sneak in another one (shhhhh, don’t tell Cliff!).  The other day I was vacuuming up litter on the upstairs landing outside of Eve’s room when I had a great idea.  “Eve! I just invented something!  Picture a car-wash style litter box:  The cats enter the litter box on one end, they do their business, then exit through the OTHER side, where their feet activate a small vacuum that sucks the litter off their feet, and TADA!”  Eve says, “Mom, the cats would be so afraid that they’d never want to go in!” I’m still trying to work out that last detail.  Maybe a treat dispenser at the end??  I may be onto something.

If you need a break from the news, there are hundreds of tiny concerts being played on the interwebs.  Jimmy Kimmel is doing a “Bathroom Concert series” where I watched Dave Matthews sing An American Tune on the can from his house.  If you want the full interview, here it is.  Gave me a big smile!  Dan Smith from Bastille has been singing every few days from his living room in London.   I’m still hiking every day.  It’s not as much fun when we are social distancing, my friends six feet in front of me. There is a lot of “What did you say???”  No hugs and they don’t come into our house, but it’s the best part of my day.

And if you need toilet paper, I would be happy to share—just let me know.

Cheers,

Mary

Home from the UK

There really ought to be safeguards in place when logging in to write my blog, for example, how long have you been awake?  Because I have been awake for (counts on fingers) 24 hours, with a one-hour nap on the plane home.  I woke up at 6am London time (the sun was so bright in our hotel room) and was so squished in the middle seat on the plane, it was uncomfortable to nap.  I’m trying to get back on Tempe time; my goal is to stay awake until 11.

My advice to you is this:  VISIT WALES!!!  There are miles and miles of verdant countryside, and from the coast road, the sea views were breathtaking.  The people were so friendly and polite and all seem gifted at the exchange of light banter, happy to ask where we were from and what we’d seen.  We saw ten castles, each different and exciting in its own way.  My favorites were the hill-top ruins with nobody around except for us, where I could close my eyes and imagine myself there 1000 years ago when the castle was inhabited . . . and I’d listen into the wind for the whispers of ghosts.

We began our trip in London, staying at my all-time favorite hotel, CitizenM Tower of London.  It’s always a thrill to be in vibrant London, my favorite big city.  We spent three days exploring the city and revisiting favorite museums, on foot and by Tube.  We are lucky enough to have visited the National Gallery the past four summers . . . and it never gets old.  I always get goosebumps seeing Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, and they had a special exhibit of 75 Monets!  He’s always been my favorite, and we spent hours looking at pieces we’d never seen before. THRILLING.  The British museum was full of school children and large, rude Japanese tour groups, but we were able to push through them and say hi to the mummies, the ancient Greek and Roman sculptures and of course, the Rosetta Stone.  We did NOT yell, “Godzilla” to distract the Japanese tourists as suggested by a friend (haha) so as to get closer to the exhibits, but seriously, the groups we came upon were impolite and did not share space well.

It was so great to get home and give BIG HUGS to our son William and his girlfriend Katherine.  Ruby the Wonder Spaniel and the cats (Cosmo, Tilly, Olive, and Maisy) were very happy to see us as well.  Shortly after we arrived home, the kids left for the movies and Hubby checked stuff on his computer in the office, so ever since I’ve been singing loudly which is something I couldn’t do for two weeks  living in hotel rooms.  We were road tripping through Wales, but any time I tried to play music, we would quickly become lost. The navigation was very demanding and I had to stay sharp:  “In .5 miles take the second exit from the roundabout to B4047.”  Seriously, any time I daydreamed and we missed a cue from bossy British navigation lady, we ended up on one-lane roads with huge-ass tractors coming at us at 40 mph.  (What you do in that situation is run your car into the hedges and exchange happy waves with the other driver.)  If I had a dollar for every time I said, “Oh shit,” our bar bill would have been covered in full!

I’m finally feeling sleepy.  Jet lag sucks, but it’s a small price to pay for my two weeks of adventures in the beautiful UK.

Cheers,

Mary

 

 

 

That Day a Dog Ran into my Car

You will not believe what happened to me yesterday:  I left the house for work at 8:00 and made an easy left onto Warner Road.  Two minutes later, driving west, I saw a golden retriever (off leash) run into the road heading straight for me.  I braked, and felt the loud thud of the dog hitting my right side door.  Panicked, I pulled off onto the nearest side street, grabbed my phone (to call someone to help me get the dog to a vet), and ran towards the site of impact.

I scanned the five-lane road.  No dog. I ran to the canal path where the dog had run from.  No dog.  I flagged down an elderly woman on a bicycle.  I was shaking and trying not to cry and explained what happened.   She pointed to three women walking north and away with a golden retriever and said, “It looks like it’s okay. ”

Well.  The dog could certainly NOT be okay.  I wondered if the women even saw their dog get hit?  It felt like so much bad karma to leave without talking to the owners, so I got back in my car and drove down the residential street that runs parallel to the canal, but I could not find them.  At this point I was shaking so much that I could barely call my school to tell them I would be late.  I drove the 20 minutes to school dripping tears, wondering if that beautiful dog was okay and wondering if there was something I could have done differently.  One might say I overreacted, but I live in a city where we do not run over live animals on the roads on the reg.  I posted about it on the Nextdoor website, saying if the dog had been on a leash, that never would have happened. It kinda ruined my day . . . and the dog’s.

So add a dog hitting my car to the list of awkward things in my life.  Let’s just say I feel like my life needs a good shake or two, sort of like a snow globe with all the glitter stuck in one corner. I’m listening and waiting not-so-patiently for the message the Universe is trying to deliver.  Everyone and everything is just a little bit off—and it’s not even a full moon.  Everything seems to take a little bit more effort, especially at school.  Today I asked my students, “Did you have coffee before school?”  Everybody’s crying or mad, or is handing out some kind of damage.  And it’s not just the students . . .  I get home from work and my kids are angsty.  William is having weird stomach pain and anxiety (appointments are scheduled), and Eve is having terrible luck finding a good summer job.  She deals with the stress by sewing and crafting all over our kitchen.  I find it admirable that she works out her worries by making something new (I’ve always dealt with stress by administering the appropriate number of cocktails), but I must say, it IS messy.  Bits of thread and fabric on the floor, the sewing machine perched prominently on the kitchen table for days on end.  Nobody is helping with the cleaning, and our house looks like a bomb went off.

99% of the time I can turn lemons into lemonade, and today was no different. I mean, it’s my job to make sure I’m happy, not anyone else’s.  I made a plan to meet gal pals for a beer after work (laughing with friends is my favorite thing).  I smiled at my students all day and when one little guy asked for a hug, he randomly looked at my feet and said, “I like your shoes.  And I need to poop.”

Maybe I’m just making things too complicated.  I need to take that little guy’s attitude—just say nice things to people and remember to poop.

Cheers,

Mary

 

May

Because it’s a time of endings and beginnings, May is definitely my favorite month of the year.  The spring semester ends in May, and we feel exhilarated and celebratory for all the work we’ve accomplished in our classrooms, whether we are teachers or students.  Anticipation for summer travel and summer projects is keenly felt.  Summer is a time to reconnect with friends and enjoy lengthy family dinners followed by a good game of Shanghai Rummy.  (I’m thinking a few games of Feely Cup are in order . . . )  I’m pretty sure my family would say in May, Mary is completely spastic, but I would respond saying, “I’m feeling positively giddy!” (My earworm this week is The Wind by Cat Stevens.)

May is also a time when our college student moves back home.  We couldn’t be more excited to move William home from Flagstaff this Saturday (you might recall Eve moved back home at Christmas to finish her degree and save some cash).  I’m trying not to be too worried about transporting William’s huge bed and couch to a storage unit three miles from campus in Hubby’s RAV4.  I have a strong feeling the Universe will smile upon us and all will go well.  If, instead, there is some bad karma to be reckoned with, I will be cleaning the apartment toilets at 10 pm while Hubby is out renting a truck to haul all our crap.  I’m trying not to give this move on Saturday much energy, instead focusing on how happy we will be to have William back home for THREE WHOLE MONTHS!!!!  With Eve here, too, it’s going to be a crazy, fun summer for sure.

Speaking of having our adult children back home, I wish I could travel back in time two years and slap my “oh pity me” self, who was so super angsty about becoming an Empty Nester.  OMG, what a WHINER she was.  Apologies all around to whoever had to hear my sad story about how my kids were abandoning me.  I’ve hated change my whole life, but once it happens, I’m filled with renewed vigor and vim.  (I know it’s usually “vim and vigor,” buy I’m doing a social experiment to see if I can change it.)  Hubby and I actually embraced being the only two people in our house (besides the three cats and Ruby the Wonder Spaniel).  The house was always clean and quiet, and we never ran out of toilet paper or toothpaste. There were always milk and eggs if we wanted them.  After raising three children, it felt extremely civilized (but a little boring).

If I could turn back time, slapping my old pitiful almost-empty-nester self would not be at the top of the list.  I would change a thousand things before changing that one thing.  At the top of my list of things to change would be being a better student instead of being such a wild child, visiting my grandparents in Illinois more often, being more patient with my children, and appreciating how good my life was even though we had little money.

I’ll wrap up with an interesting story from my classroom today: Our students begin the year at age three, and most of them have reached their fourth birthday now.  They are a very social, distracted bunch, so I appreciated when my lead teacher, put in place a strict lunch policy.  All children were to stay in their seats “attempting” to eat their lunches until the clock read 11:55.  This has been a challenge since our students don’t know if 53 or 59 come before, or after, “55.”  Today one boy thought he noticed the clock moving BACKWARDS, and Andrew (wise beyond his years), said, “Time never moves backwards. If any one of you can figure out how to go back in time, you will be the most famous person in the world.”  This gave them so much to think about that they quietly finished their sandwiches and fruit, their tiny containers of hummus, applesauce, and yogurt, and went out to recess with full bellies to play.

Cheers,

Mary

 

 

When I’m Old

Do any of you play Words with Friends?  I am absolutely addicted to this word game, which I play on my phone.  Each morning after my shower, I sit on the couch and play the 10-15 games I have going. I sip my coffee and pet my animals and truly, it’s a lovely way to greet the day.  During my school day, I can’t wait for a free minute to play a word or two, and lately, at night, I’ve been dreaming I’m playing.  Last night I dreamed I played the word “sofa” for 120 points!  This game is supposed to be good for maintaining healthy brain function and increasing memory skills.  A good player will be able to quickly find words in a jumble of letters, which is called anagramming.  Scientists have studied expert Scrabble players by examining MRI images while they are playing, and studies show that the expert Scrabble players are using different parts of their brains than non-expert Scrabble players and are strengthening areas of the brain associated with working memory.  I’m so happy to be addicted to a game that is actually good for my old noggin!  (Read more about it here.)

In general, I feel like my brain is keeping up with me quite well, but every once in awhile I can’t recall the name of an actor, even though I can see his face quite clearly in my head.  Or the name of a movie or book escapes me.  It usually comes to me later in the day, but it’s a frustrating feeling.  More embarrassing is telling the same stories twice to the same person. I’m especially guilty of this with Hubby, but in my defense, I talk to SO MANY PEOPLE during the day that I can’t remember whom I’ve told what!  I try to be entertaining and interesting and am always happy when someone cuts me off and says, “You already told me.” I also have incredibly vivid dreams, so it works the other way sometimes, in that I’ve dreamed that I told Hubby something and in waking life, I’ve never told him.  You know, just little things like we have company coming for dinner Friday, or my sister will be staying the night next Tuesday.  Lucky for me, after all these years, Hubby is used to my crazy ways!

The little lapses in memory do worry me, and lately I’ve been wondering what kind of old person I will be.  I want to be the nurturing, wise old grandma that always has banana bread baking in the oven and potato soup bubbling on the stove and time to listen to every story (like my Grandma Summers).  I’m so worried that I’ll be the embarrassing grandma with Turret’s Syndrome that shouts out things like, “PENIS!” at family dinners, or picks her nose or farts in public.  I’ve heard of elderly people who take their clothes off at the grocery store, or insist on watching the same tv series over and over again (and for me will it be Gilmore Girls, New Girl, or How I Met Your Mother?).  Will I stop bathing and get that old-person moldy smell?  Will I shuffle around the neighborhood wearing my bedroom slippers and bathrobe leading a chihuahua named Honey?

Well!  I’ve gotten myself quite worked up thinking about my future, so I’d better stop here and take a deep breath . . . and I’m pretty sure there’s a new word to be played.  If anyone wants to play WWF with me, message me, and I will send you my Zynga code name!

Cheers,

Mary

 

My New Green Tutu

I’ve heard that one sign of having a job you enjoy is that time flies by quickly while you’re at work. I love my job, and definitely the days pass so quickly that I’m not sure where the time goes.  Today, too much of my time was spent in the bathroom, but our three year old students are still working on “control” (if you know what I mean).  One particularly stinky incident this afternoon activated my gag reflex—oh my goodness, I’m so glad I did not barf on our wee student!  (Enough about that.)

After school, a lovely gentlemen from Ideal Energy came to my house to conduct an energy audit.  My brother and sister-in-law had one performed at their house recently with great results, and after a recent summer family dinner here where everyone was gleaming with sweat even though our AC was blowing full blast, I thought it was either time to give up summer parties . . . or get the danged AC fixed.  The energy audit results will be emailed soon, but apparently we have lots of duct work problems.  GOOD GRIEF.

When our auditor first arrived, he explained the process, then I allowed him to proceed through the house.  He’d been up and down the stairs twice before I realized there was a bad smell coming from that area.  Upon closer inspection, I found a HUGE cat poop mixed with dog kibble right in the middle of the landing.  UGH.  I was so embarrassed.  I’m certain Ruby the Wonder Spaniel is the culprit . . . and just eeeuuuuwww.  I got to be embarrassed again a few minutes later when the auditor pointed out the large pile of ashes in the fireplace and asked if I could cover them so as not to make a mess when he did the pressure testing.  Clearly these ashes were from last winter (January to be exact) since the temps here in Tempe, Arizona are still in the 90s every day.  I paused and thought about making up something about celebrating Fall early or some such BS, but instead just turned pink and covered the mess.  (Cleaning the fire place is a dreaded task.) Then, as I walked the auditor out, I noticed the body of the ginormous scorpion I killed last night on the front door mat.  Nothing says “Welcome to our Home” like a dead scorpion, right?  Add onto all that the fact that I got really excited opening my Amazon package and yelled, “MY NEW TUTU IS HERE!!!”  (I was sharing the good news with Eve, who was here doing homework.)

It’s a weird world out there, and I’m counting on the fact that the energy auditor has seen way stranger households than ours.  And I’m truly very excited about my tutu:  It’s forest green and super fluffy.  It fits perfectly.  It’s part of my Halloween costume!  I’m dressing as a flower garden, or maybe Mother Nature, or perhaps a character from a Midsummer’s Night Dream.  I don’t have to decide yet and am excited to have something new to wear to the school carnival.  I’ve been the Tooth Fairy WAY too many times.

The auditor is gone.  Eve went home.  Hubby has happy hours every day this week due to a local conference.  The house is very quiet.  I decided I’m gonna bake some pumpkin muffins in my new tutu and singing loudly to my favorite tunes.  Best Tuesday ever.

Cheers,

Mary

 

An Even Pelican Kind of Day

Sunday, October 8, 2017

I am in Mexico.

I’m grateful to have two days off for our school’s Fall Break, which gives Hubby and me FOUR WHOLE DAYS at the beach. I have grown so attached to my young students and just when I was starting to miss them, I ran into one of them in a restaurant in town!  How fun to compare stories of our day at the beach! (Over the years I have come to believe that many times the Universe gives you what you need.)

One of the favorite books in our class of three year olds is about Pete the Cat. When he has problems (like stepping in mud in his new white shoes) the book asks us, “Does Pete mind? Goodness no!” and then a picture shows Pete saying “Groovy!” or “Rock and Roll!” or “It’s all good!” This weekend I’ve been channeling our friend Pete the Cat.  The wifi in our condo is down and at first I was anxious about not having 24/7 access to the world, but it’s turned out to be a really good thing.  I’ve read half a novel, four magazines, and taken two really great naps. Rock and Roll! Groovy!

We made great time on the road and arrived at our beach condo Saturday at 2pm. We’d anticipated huge crowds of folks on Fall Break at the border, but for whatever reason, there was no line at all and very little traffic. We arrived to see a very pleasant group on the beach—nobody blasting stereos and everyone cleaning up after themselves.  We’re always disappointed to see a large group set up on the beach RIGHT IN FRONT of our place, and sure enough:  There was a large group of guys with umbrellas and a big pop-up shade.  I took a deep breath and channeled Pete the Cat and shrugged to Hubby, “It’s groovy.”  And it was–it turned out the the group of 14 guys were very quiet. In fact, they seemed downright bored!  I know if it were a group of women, Hubby would dub them a “Hen Party” so I searched my brain for a male equivalent. I settled on “Buddy Fest.” Bachelor party?  Church group?  Gay choir vacation?  Fraternity reunion? They politely sipped their canned beers, standing and chatting in the tide. One man flew a kite.  They packed up at sunset, and we never saw them again. (I love to make up stories about strangers, don’t you?)

If you’ve read this blog before, you know one of my favorite things to do at the beach is count pelicans. Over the many years of vacationing at this beach, I’ve come to believe that the Puerto Penasco pelicans travel in groups of odd numbers most of the time.  Well.  Yesterday ALL the groups of pelicans flying overhead were in groups of EVEN numbers.  I tried to skew the data by counting 18 pelicans, then adding the one guy flying solo about 30 seconds behind. This happened over and over again, until Hubby stated (in a wise voice), “I guess it’s just an Even-Pelican Kind of Day!”  All I know is I think I saw more pelicans Saturday than I have during the whole rest of the year!  We literally saw thousands that afternoon. Where are they going?  What will they do there?  Why are they in such a hurry?

Ruby the Wonder Spaniel is not at the beach with us.  Her hips have grown too painful for her to easily come up and down the stairs to our tiny beach condo.  She loves the beach so much that I’m thinking we will bring her next time, perhaps dragging her down on a blanket and at the end of the day, Hubby could carry her back up the stairs. I am missing Ruby and our cats, but how lovely for the two of us to have a short respite in this beautiful place where the sound of the ocean lulls us to sleep, and there is nothing much to do but enjoy each other’s company, read a good book, and appreciate the fantastic beauty of this Sea of Cortez.

Cheers,
Mary

A Love Story

Once upon a time there was a girl and a boy.  She was a freshman in high school, and he was a junior.  They were in marching band together, and he thought she was really cute. He asked a friend to tell her he liked her . . . to which she responded, “Eeeeuwww!”  This boy wore aviator glasses, and his favorite attire was a brown suede vest with sheepskin lining.  He always teased the girl, especially when she was trying to be funny. Desperately in need of a haircut, he did not (at first glance) seem like the dreamboat this girl was hoping to meet in her first year of high school.

That boy and girl were Hubby and me back in 1978.  Even though I was not romantically interested, we hung out a lot and got to be really good friends.  We were pen pals during the summer while he was visiting his grandparents in Decatur, AL.  When he returned to Tempe in August, (after a year of friendship), we had our first kiss.  It was August 19, 1979.   We were serious for a year, but then Hubby went off to college, so we broke it off and dated other people until we (luckily) got back together again in August of 1997. We were married on a very hot Saturday in July in 1988 with friends and family in attendance and celebrated with a week-long honeymoon in Hawaii. (If you can hear me in Heaven, thank you Clifford and Evelyn! Our honeymoon was amazing!)

Fast Forward to Saturday, August 19, 2017.  Hubby and I were hashing over our “To Do List” for the day when I looked at the calendar and gasped.  “It’s August 19th!” I said.  We haven’t celebrated this date in a LONG time, so I had to explain to Hubby what it meant. I made him do the math . . . it was the 38th anniversary of our first kiss!  We had a lovely long smooch, and then both of us grimaced realizing how incredibly old we are!

But the funny thing is that when you marry your best friend, it doesn’t feel like a long time.  You have fun. You don’t argue.  You agree on almost everything.  You problem solve together.   You have things in common!  We both love the beach.  We both love good art. We both love craft beers.  We’re foodies.   We love our pets (three cats and a dog). We’re both worried about what’s happening in the world and talk about it every day.  We are frugal on every day stuff so that we can travel each summer and see cool new places. Hubby is sweet to attend concerts with me (I love seeing live music) even when he isn’t familiar with the band, like last week when we saw Jillian Banks at the new music venue, the Van Buren in downtown Phoenix.  We like to work in the yard together and go shopping together.  Hubby is an amazing listener; and when it’s my turn to listen to his job stuff, I try SO HARD to not go to my happy place in my head while he describes his travails with the WAN and the LAN and his other computer networks.

I’m trying to think of things we’ve argued about over the years, and I guess the biggest thing would be laundry.  I LOVE to do laundry, because basically you bring stuff downstairs, put it in a machine that does all the work, then you move it to another machine that does all the work, and when it beeps, you retrieve it and you feel like YOU have done all the work!  So Hubby has to deal with wrinkled laundry (because nobody likes to FOLD laundry, right?)  Besides laundry, there have been weekly discussions about work/life balance (uh hum), but overall, I can’t imagine being married to a better guy.

We enjoy each other’s company best over anyone else’s–excepting the company of our children, of course.  We support each other and try to do the right thing (though we don’t always succeed).  I’m the idea guy; he’s the implementer.  I smush the bugs; he picks them up.  Well, you get the idea.  Hubby,  I love you and hope to have 38 more years of kissing you!!!

Cheers,

Mary

 

Yawns

It’s been quite a month of travel for me.  I’ve had exciting adventures and slept in many different beds, so how wonderful it felt to get back to my own bed this weekend.  I slept like the dead–until about 7am when my ears were accosted by the sound of tweeting birds, which is very unusual at our house. These birds were serious about their songs; they did not let up, and after an hour, when (half asleep and half awake) I weighed plans about getting ridding of them (BB gun pellets? Sharp bird pest strips planted on the roof?).  I woke up enough to realize it was Hubby’s alarm clock that we both had slept through. ON A SUNDAY MORNING. I seriously wanted to punch him.  I told him he needs to go back to the old-fashioned BEEP BEEP BEEP alarm or else I will be slumbering in a different room.

Hubby is gone for a week to Georgia on a business trip so his alarm clock will not be disturbing me, but I still haven’t slept well for days.  The last night I was in Illinois, I sustained 60 mosquito bites–45 on my left leg and 15 on my right.  These were not the pesky little mozzies we have here in Tempe whose bites disappear after an hour.  These big-ass Midwestern mosquitos left some sort of toxin in my skin, causing each bite to swell to the size of big red nickels . . . and they are so itchy it’s hard to keep my fingernails off them.  It’s been a week and they show no signs of healing.  If they aren’t better by Monday, I will seek medical attention.  I keep wishing I’d used the bug repellant spray offered but nooooooo, I didn’t want the chemicals on me.  UGH.

Then last night Ruby the Wonder Spaniel got me up FOUR TIMES to go out and do her business between 2am and 5am.  She’d eaten so many cicadas before bed that her tummy was literally buzzing.  She does this every year, and while watching her leap about the yard for her summer snacks is Youtube-worthy, those crunchy treats always give her a case of the runs.  I gave her a Tums that she licked at loudly for a good 15 minutes, but then we were back outside soon after that.  Complicating the situation is that I’d taken a Benadryl to try to calm the itch from the bug bites and couldn’t figure out which way the door was!   Several times in the past few weeks, I’ve woken up in the dark thinking Hubby and I are still in our fabulous British hotel room with the magical view of the Tower of London.

Next week school starts and I will be back to an “early to bed and early to rise” schedule. It will be a difficult transition after a summer of staying up past midnight either reading or watching Netflix, waking up with no alarm clock, then napping mid afternoon.  But I am excited to meet the new staff members, new parents, and most of all our students . . . and be living a useful life again after the long, restorative summer break.

Cheers,

Mary