Trajectories

Before I begin, permit me to honor the life and work of comic genius Jonathan Winters. His brilliance will be missed in this world, but think what kind of party they’re having in the afterlife!

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I just read about horrible job interviews and how they led to refusals or acceptances of what turned out to be great or bad jobs and thought about how these change our lives.

Thinking about our lives now, we are mobile but together, but our trajectories could have changed in any way since birth. Jim may have become a dairyman/rancher if only to keep his father’s business going. He was more methodical and focused but has been bounced around a bit in life by economic downturns.

I have had many decisions to make in life, and in some I’ve done well. In others I wasn’t confident enough to trust my brain and gut to get there but in my 30’s I learned a lot about myself and what is needed to get things done and thank my dear friends for that journey every day.

Jim and I met over lunch at a restaurant in So Cal. Random, or fate. What would have happened if either of us made any other school/job/life decision otherwise, if we’d each taken a different trajectory?

We’ve been together nearly 12 years, married for over ten. We have a nine year-old dog that we adopted as six weeks of age and is going strong. I believe one calls it traction.

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Let’s go to cooking. Friday night is pizza night and I make the crust and everything. I do not like the texture or taste of regular supermarket mozzarella and have been able to find a drier version of fresh mozz that is tasty.

Unluckily, I got ovolini, fresh, and tried to dry it out on paper towels before adding to the pizza (which also had sauteed porcini and a few slices of deli pepperoni. The mushrooms lost all their liquid by the sautee so the cheese leaked all over the pizza, the crust was stuck and it was a nightmare to clean up after, but tasty. Live and learn. Next one will be Fontina val D’Aosta and perhaps roasted butternut squash, even though my dear husband will ask “where’s the meat?”

We’re very different but belong together as we make each other stronger. Plus he has saved every electrical cord he’s met since birth. Years ago there was a cable company that only took care of our condos. They’d leave for two hours at a time and come back smelling like cannabis.

They’d been at our place for a 10-minute installation and I wanted to get out of there and run some errands. When they said they had to go back to the truck to get some simple tv/cable wire I said “Wait!” I got Jim’s box off the top of the closet, picked a set of wires and asked “Is this it?” Reluctantly they said yes and fixed it immediately without another 2-hour cannabis session in the truck.

Yes, my stuff is in his way and his is in mine but that’s the way it goes in a friendship, relationship, marriage. See, I have saved things that he needs now.

That fateful day we met, we talked for over three hours, then exchanged numbers (I had no cell phone) and shook hands and walked away. The next day, he called and asked me to the movies and dinner and opened the car door and when he took my hand to open the door for me to exit, he held it and has never let go. When I look up the printed maps for our old neighborhood, I see directions to my place from 2001 and it’s heartwarming. Good and tired after taxes were accepted. Dee