Uncategorized

He always fills my gas tank if he drives my car.

He takes the trash out to the curb if he’s home on trash night.

He is the fixer of all broken toys.

He is the battery-putter-inner of all toys.

He always makes the bed if he is the last one out.

He always lays on my side of the bed to warm it up until I get in.

He always gets me Motrin if I mention I have a headache.  And makes me take it. Period.

He holds me when I cry.

He loves me regardless of how much my body fails me.

He warms my hands when they are cold.

He wears a tux without complaint when the occasion warrants it.  And takes my breath away.

He loves my children.  Always.  No matter what.

He loves his children.  Always.  No matter what.

He loves his parents so well.

He worries about whether or not he helps his parents out enough.

He worries about whether or not he helps my mother out enough.

He bandages all our wounds.

He loves my cooking, no matter what.

He drives me everywhere like I was his princess.

It pains him to be late to meet his friends. He doesn’t like to put people out.

He is unfailingly loyal.

He works like a dog to provide for us.

He always makes me catch my breath when I see him.  Every. Time.

He cares for his shift.  He really cares about them.  Quietly.

He never stops trying to make ‘Us’ succeed.

He likes to walk the kids down to the school bus when he’s home.

He knows how I like my coffee.

I love the way he says ‘Good Morning’.

He is the Darcy to my Elizabeth.

A couple of years ago I was playing around with baking and making new recipes for cookies.  I shared the fruits of my labor with my friends, because, I may be fat, but I couldn’t eat all the cookies! (Yes, I could, but this time I didn’t.)

I came up with a cookie so num-num-nummy, that my dear friend, Shirley, suggested I enter it into the Montgomery County Fair’s Baking Contest.  She assured me it would be fun.  She assured me I had nothing to lose.  She assured me I would place or maybe even win!  How could I refuse?

Hey, I’m not immune to ego-stroking.  I’m only human.

So with a light in my eye, I tightened my apron and got to work.  I followed the fair rules and  instructions, made the cookies, entered them, and held my breath.  Never before had I pitted my abilities against anyone else in this arena. It was a mite scary, but I wasn’t daunted.

Yet.

Days later, as we waited for the judging to come, doubt crept in.  I mean, my cooking really wasn’t about quality so much as it was about quantity.   Maybe I was only setting myself up for rejection.  I mean, come on!  It’s not like I’m trained or anything.  I just know what makes my gullet happy, not necessarily a judge’s.  Shirley’s encouragement faded to a distant memory.

And then the call came.

Shirley said I had placed!  My Oatmeal, pecan, white chocolate chip, butterscotch, cinnamon cookie had actually placed in the fair!!!  Sure, it was 5th place, but it was a place, none the less!  I could now tell people I was an award-winning baker!  How could I have doubted myself?  I’m a darn good baker!  I have the backfat to prove it!  And now I would have a ribbon to prove it, too! I wondered what color my ribbon would be.  My ego puffed up so much, I had to wear my stretch pants.  (Though that may have been gas; I’m still not sure.)

My Captain agreed to take me to the fair to see my cookie in its case, and to pick up my ribbon, and my check for $4.00.  (That was the prize amount for 5th place, you see.)  I was so proud, so elated, I was walking on air. (Actually, that might have been gas, too.)

This is what we saw in the Judging Barn:

In between the second and third places, and a little behind, were my beloved Oatmeal, etc., cookies.  And on my entry tag was written “5th Place” on the top corner……but no ribbon.

Someone had stolen my ribbon!  I was incensed!  I ranted about how wrong it was. What kind of psychopathic criminal would steal a person’s ribbon?  That’s like stealing candy from a baby.  Oh the judges would hear about this!  Why weren’t the cases locked, for crying out loud?  Unacceptable! I would get my ribbon somehow, come Hell or Highwater!  I had already made space for it on the wall at home.  What was society coming to that a woman’s baking contest ribbon wasn’t safe?

Troy surveyed the glass case with a furrowed brow,  distracted.  Why wasn’t he listening?  Wasn’t he as irate as I was about this?  What did he think?  Say something!

After deliberating a moment, he turned to me and said gently, “Honey, there aren’t 5 entries.”  What?  “There are only 4 entries.  Someone has made a mistake.”

Lemme get this straight….I got fifth place and there were only four entries?

Ouch.

I snapped my mouth, which had dropped open, shut, climbed down off of my soap box, straightened my hair, and mumbled that I didn’t really want the ribbon anyways.  What would I do with a stupid ribbon?  Only children want ribbons.  Not me.

I never liked the Fair.

A favorite wall plaque of mine reads, “I love you more today than yesterday.  Yesterday you were really a jerk.”

That said, I love my children to pieces.

When I’m not exasperated with them.  Then, its harder to remember I love them, even though I still do.

This morning all was going well…the kids were dressed for school, they’d eaten their breakfast, and had backpacks ready to go.  So I declared that we could watch some more of the Movie “How To Train Your Dragon” that we had started the night before, until it was time to go to the street to catch the school bus.

The kids were immediately transfixed at the TV.  And as their responsible, trustworthy, authoritative-type adult-like figure…. I got sucked into the movie too.  Toothless the Dragon is one of my heroes.  He and Po, the Dragon warrior.

I don’t know what made me glance at the clock, but it was time to go.    Like, now.   I cried,  “Aaack!”.  (My kids know an ‘Aaaack’ is never a good thing.)  Gwen was up like a shot, had her coat on and was out the door in a flash.  I had to call her back because she’d forgotten her lunch, but essentially, she was good to go.

Garrick. ***sigh***  Garrick not so much.  He had not put his socks on, and I had not noticed it since he was sitting on his feet.  So I yelped, “Get your socks and shoes on!  You’ve got to go now!”.

There are a thousand and one endearing qualities about Garrick.  The painfully long time he takes to choose and put on socks is not one of them.

The longer he took, the more exasperated I became.  The more exasperated I became, the shriller my voice rose, the more my voice rose, the slower he worked.  It was not going well.  I tried and tried to light a fire under him as the clocked ticked on.  It got to the point where I was yelling that if he didn’t get his butt out there pronto, and missed the bus, I would personally deliver him to the principal’s office to report him tardy, and NO I didn’t care that his socks didn’t match!

He finally got out the door, looking forlorn and sad, obviously because I’d wounded him with my barking.  He’d forgotten his lunch, I yelled to him as he was heading to the street that he’d have to buy lunch.  (He HATES that.)  His response was a muffled, “Ok! OK! Geesh!”.

And the bus was late.

The moment he was out the door, it hit me.  That familiar wave of guilt that punches me in the gut whenever I have to play the heavy.   THIS, this is the part of parenthood I hate with a vengeance.   I rarely feel like a grown up myself most of the time, so it is hard to be resented for being one.  Why did I have to resort to yelling? Why couldn’t I have checked for his socks before I started the movie?  Why couldn’t he have remembered to put his socks on himself to begin with?

These were questions I clearly had no business asking before my first cup of coffee.  But now that the morning is over, I can answer it firmly and confidently.

“It doesn’t matter why.  Just try to do better tomorrow.”

There is no sense in beating ourselves up for making mistakes or being weak or not being what we think we ought to be.  It’s a journey after all, not a destination.

My Chevy Equinox has car seat heaters.  I may have mentioned that because, well, a warm tush is my life.  It’s something I’m constantly striving for.  I don’t know why; I was just made that way.  Besides, who wants a cold rump?  No one, that’s who.

Whenever Troy and I go somewhere, he likes to drive.  I don’t know if its a manly-man thing (“I’ve got this, little lady, you just sit there n look purty.”), or a control freak thing (“I got this, period.”), a selfish thing (“I don’t care if it IS your car, I want to drive!”) or a fear thing (“Oh hell no you aren’t driving!”).  Most of the time, I don’t mind.  I’m a multi-tasker, and nothing is more fun for me than beading or reading or talking on the phone while getting driven around like a princess.   ‘Course, of the three of those things, only the phone doesn’t make me car sick….. but that is for another post.

And since he is driving, I find I have time on my hands to mess with him.  (Insert Collective Gasp Here.)  Often, its something as stupid as tickling the back of his neck, or switching the coffee cups so instead of taking a swig of his manly-man black, he gets my Mocha (extra whip, please).  But other times, when I am feeling particularly impish, I turn his car seat heater onto full blast.

Troy does not like a warm fanny.  Troy does not like his butt to be called a fanny, either.

It takes a few moments for the seat to really get cranking, and by the time he figures out that his tush is hot, it’s too late.  Usually it goes like this: he looks down to see I’ve done it again, he flicks the heater to off, and calls me, his wife, his one and only, the love of his life…a Retard.

And then he chuckles.

Good lord I love the way he chuckles.

Darn near the best feeling in the world for me is making this serious guy, this man who seems to carry the world on his shoulders, who makes other people’s problems his own, laugh.

And if a hot petootie is the way I accomplish it, so be it.

Troy does not like his butt to be called a petootie, either.

When My Captain was in 3rd grade, his big brother, Dallas, was swinging a bat and accidentally confused My Captain’s head with a baseball.  The bat tore an artery in his forehead that squirted all over the ceiling of his parent’s house.  His mother, lovingly known as Goggy,  aka “The Saint”,  calmly put a dishtowel over it, made a mental note to wash the ceiling, and took the wounded little imp to the hospital.

While the little guy was stuck at home healing, a friend of his dad’s had his son, Ty, keep him company.  Actually, the story goes that Ty was made to play with My Captain.  As in, he didn’t have a choice.

That was a bizillion years ago.  But to this day, they are long standing, loyal-to-the-core best friends.    In fact, Ty and his wife, Maggie, made us dinner on our Wedding Night.  (If you are ever looking for a fantastic Shrimp Scampi, get Maggie’s recipe…better yet, ask Maggie to cook it for you.  You might have to get married or something equally big, but its worth it.)

Now here is the “Awwww!” part of this story.

The boys grew up together, went to the same high school, and volunteered at the same fire station as teens. And now as men, both My Captain and Ty are Captains in the same Fire Department.  They are also both seasoned Paramedics.  Both Troy and Ty are very tall, quite handsome, scary smart, quietly heroic, and irritatingly in shape.  The ONLY difference is that Ty kept his hair, whereas Troy decided he didn’t need his.

Put these two together, and you get all kinds of stories of trouble.  You’d never know looking at them now that they were little hellions then.

A couple of years ago, a local pub decided to have a fundraiser on St. Patrick’s Day, with guest bartenders.  Somehow the manager finagled to get two of the handsomest Captains Montgomery County Fire and Rescue has to offer (I say that with absolute objectivity) to fill the slot.  Here is what the patrons got an eyeful of:

I don’t recall how much money they raised for the cause at the time, but I also don’t recall caring.  I was happy just to sit there and watch.

Is that wrong?

And just think, this amazing friendship, and all this do-gooding might not have happened if his brother had not accidentally bludgeoned him back in 3rd grade.

Life is so weird.