2009: The Year of the Selfish Valentine

For Valentine's Day, I surprised Brad with a grill. I can NEVER surprise Brad so I'm quite pleased with myself for pulling this off. But I felt a bit shady. I thought to myself, as I purchased the grill and the grill accessories ( that's kind of a girly word...um...is tools better?) that it's kind of a selfish gift. Happy Valentine's Day, darling: you may now cook for me! But he's actually been wanting a grill for a while - and I knew this. So I was happy to oblige. Plus, now, we can have people over for barbeques and the like. Yay! Suddenly our world will explode into an exciting whirl of social-butterflyness. Um, no. Sorry to disappoint, but I doubt that either one of us will ever emerge from our comfortable, introverted cocoons to become social butterflies. But whatever. I digress.

I went to Lowe's to purchase the grill... and I told Philip ahead of time that I was going. I think he was a little miffed that I wasn't taking him but handling Aiden, a cart, and a wheelchair would have been a bit much. It was weird being at Lowe's without Philip; I would hear the beep-beep of the forklift and have to stop myself from instinctively running toward it. Like a moth to a flame...( Boy, winged creatures are popping up all over this post. Butterflies, moths...I suppose bats are next. ) I saw a few of Philip's employee friends and they were astonished to see me without Philip but happy to meet Aiden. A couple of the forklift guys said to him, "I knew you before you were born!" It made me smile.

I came home from buying the grill and guess who came to the door? The neighbor boy...with steaks! What timing! Yes, these foody neighbors are going in the Hall of Neighborly Fame!
( THEN...yesterday...they sent their daughter over with...wait for it...a WHOLE CHICKEN...which we cooked all day Sunday in the crockpot. It made for a sumptuous dinner. It's all we can do to keep up with eating the glorious food that gets thrown at us by our neighbors!) We didn't actually grill the steaks yet b/c we haven't assembled the grill - ahem, HE hasn't assembled the grill yet, there will be no WE about it.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

Scrabble-tastic! or "How Scrabble, far from ruining our relationship, has improved it!"

You know you've been playing online Scrabble too much when you find yourself in traffic rearranging the letters of the license plate in front of you, trying to make a word out of them.

As iron sharpeneth iron, so playing against better Scrabble players ( Brad and Julie - a friend from high-school- hurray for Facebook!) is slowly improving my game. But two games at once is about the max for my brain. I get into a game and think, "Where is that letter "G"? Oh, it was in the other game I'm playing...Rats!"

The old stereotype of a husband coming home and sitting down behind his newspaper has been replaced with a new stereotype in these modern days: the husband sits behind his laptop. But the thing is, in the old days, wives usually couldn't get INTO the newspaper to speak to their husband. ( But that would be pretty funny... Now I'm envisioning this scenario where a husband finds an article written by his wife telling him all about her day...) Poor things - the wives of yesteryear were reduced to standing behind the newspaper wall and shouting. ( Now I'm envisioning another scenario where the wife is taking a Reaganesque stance and demanding of her husband that he "...tear down this newspaper." ) ( I think my creative juices have been spiked or something. Yes, this is weird.)

ANYWAY... my point is... the wives of today CAN get on the computer and harass their husbands. It's called "online chatting." BLOOP! Up pops a window and there is the wife, invading the cyber-sanctum. Of course, husbands are still free to ignore them. But whatever.

DISCLAIMER: Brad does not ignore me and rarely tunes me out. ( At least, that's what I think. Who knows...? If he does, it's done very intelligently.) But whatever tuning out happens, it can go both ways. Sometimes the un-computered spouse will mumble something passive-agressive about wishing that he/she was the computer so that the spouse would pay attention to him/her. And it's a little joke that both of us understand and at which neither takes offense. We take it as a little wake-up call, jolting us from our cyber-trance, informing us that the other wants to spend time with us. Computers make the heart grow fonder. At least, sometimes. With us.

ALL THIS TO SAY...the other day, I found great joy when I discovered that I COULD be the computer. When we started playing online Scrabble, sometimes he would be upstairs on his laptop, I'd be downstairs on mine, and we'd be chatting away like lovers separated by many miles...It was SO much fun! The best of both worlds! On the computer, and yet with each other too!

Now all we need is a laptop for Aiden and life will be complete.

I am kidding.

Thanks, Gretchen, for encouraging me to get back to my therapy!