Everything is clean
I miss my messy husband
Bring him back to me
Tag Archives: love
In the Closet
No, not that! Though I love and approve of friends and family that are gay or lesbian.
I was in southern California, my sweet old dog had died and I met a guy. It was the dot-bomb era and the company left a white board up with the last item being “fire employees.” They all saw it and went home for the weekend to not sleep and wait to see if their name was on the list. They fired 1/3 of the workforce.
We had only gone out for a couple of weeks but I knew he was wicked smart and a “keeper” and I saw his dark apartment and tons of individual string cheese wrappers going from frig to the dual-brained computer he created from nothing and thought, this guy needs help.
His laundry system was clean pile, dirty pile. He would try to match clean pile socks. I did all the wash, folded it and set it up in two closets. He caught me in the smaller closet and said I needed to learn the Texas Two-Step. It’s been years and I don’t remember it. We started dancing in the closet then out into the living area and he moved away. Actually, that’s why I folded all the clothes, so they could go easily into boxes. Luckily I did, as his mother would have killed him otherwise! She still interviewed me for five days before we married.
He was gone for only two weeks. I had to pay for maids to come into his place. When he returned a guy he gave his recliner to next door asked why he drove back halfway across the country. He simply said, “her.”
Aah, true love. We met a couple of weeks after 9/11 and married (eloped) a year or so later after meeting all the folks. Nearly fifteen years officially, now. No. There are no clean/dirty piles of laundry. Everything is folded, appropriately stored, all the socks are matched and shirts and dress pants go to the drycleaner.
We have an old Zoe dog nearing 14 years who we got at six weeks. She has cataracts and is also losing her hearing and is tripping a bit on walks. No more string cheese, he’s become an expert on cheddar. I created a food snob, and while I packed for him for 12 years now he has his own (and my) suitcases and packs for himself. I just drop off his shirts and make sure they’re boxed.
Be careful, that Texas Two-Step can get you into a lifetime relationship! Dee
Knowing
Years ago my mother gave me a check for my birthday. It was impersonal but I was married to someone she’d only met a couple of times and we were mobile, as always.
My mother-in-law took me to an antique store about an hour away from their home and I found a gorgeous oak dresser with beautiful drawer pulls, like brass tassels.
The drawers do not shut easily as the piece is over 100 years old. One night my husband came home from work and saw a tiny bruise under my thumbnail.
“Did you close the drawer on your finger?” He knew. That’s why I love him so much.
***
All week I eat yogurt, salads (including Caprese with fresh mozz and tomatoes), fruit, Clif Bars et al. On the weekend I need some iron so suggest a nice, juicy dry-aged rib-eye or NY strip. He’s a meat & potatoes guy so I suggest this and what does he say? “Oh, honey, I’ve been eating steak all week.” Boo hoo. Poor guy. I feel so sorry for him eating steak all week! Not. Cheers from Dee and Zoe
Yellow and Blue
There was a dear neighbor I’d known for years and even shared care-taking responsibilities for rescuing a lost cat before we got George adopted. Our old dogs were buddies.
She got mad at me for something I didn’t do, and a couple of years went by. One morning her dog dragged her to my door. I petted the dog and my neighbor said hello. Her dog died the next day.
I received a note at my door. Immediately I went out and bought a vase with yellow and blue flowers and delivered it to her. She invited me in and we became friends again.
A month later my old dog passed. I left her a note. She responded with a new vase and different yellow and blue flowers. We’ve lost touch over the years but I like this story for many reasons.
We were, were not, then were friends. We loved our dogs and they loved both of us. Her dog was persistent to get us back together before she died. A month later my dog knew she was dying (died the next day) so brought a huge teddy bear to the Park, a new thing as for ten years she’d always brought a ball to chase, and said goodbye to all the dogs, their owners and all the kids in the tot lot who always called out her name and ran to see her.
Blue and yellow do not signify death to me. They mean life, love, friendship. My husband is en route home and now I buy him flowers every week. He got them for me for 15 years so now everyone laughs at me for buying them for him. I guess most wives don’t do that. Less time meticulously buying flowers for me means more precious time with us. Plus, the gorgeous flower place where I go is half-off on Fridays!
Today I bought yarrow (yellow), blue/purple thistles, a reminder of our time in Scotland and its’ national flower, and yellow alstroemeria. Yellow and blue. Life, love and friendship. Cheers and have a great weekend! We plan to chill out and make a couple of dry aged NY strip steaks. Dee
Caring
That’s so important to me. Caring for and loving my family. My husband is here two days a week. I make menus, trying to eat healthily and make his favorite dishes while he’s with us.
While he is away our only connection is our cell phones and computers. Yesterday someone reported that our cell phones were lost so our provider cut off service while still making us pay the bill. Great move, loser. I’ve the number on the call you made.
I’m still dealing with this issue. I care about Sir W who went to the vet for an ear infection yesterday, I care about Mrs. P whose granddaughters want a date with my dog this weekend (I’ll have to comb her out). Yes, Zoe has play dates. Kids and grandkids. She should be the official elder mascot. The hip-less wonder dog!
Hunger, war, crime, I care. People don’t use me to my full potential. Dee
Drops
This morning I awoke to water in my ear. I cleaned it out carefully and applied a drop of a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and vinegar, my husband’s concoction. A drop.
Think of one’s life. If you want change it happens drop by drop. One cannot change the world in a millisecond, well, at least not without an atomic bomb, which is why no government has done that to another in decades.
Change happens with seeds of information and persuasion that slowly grow and hopefully flower. Sometimes they die, those are lost dreams, at least for now. Sometimes people “soldier on” and take their hits to get what they want from life, work and especially the government. I’ve taken my hits in all those arenas.
In the end I hope that the number of drops are not rationed because I plan to use many more for positive change. Oh, the drop I placed in my ear via glass vial and glass squeezie thing is all better now. That is how drops work. They help heal things. Dee
The Candy Man
Love is in the air. I took our old dog Zoe out for a late last, last chance as her first one was too early.
Yes, there was a guy with two snickers bars and a package of M&M’s. He was giving them to his girlfriend because he finished off the last of her Girl Scout cookies. Imagine once they’re married, telling that story to their kids and grandchildren.
I know a guy who was and still is in love with me. How do I know this random guy is in love? Who would do that if he were not? My husband moved halfway across the country two weeks after he left me. We’d been going out for three weeks. A former neighbor he introduced me to asked why he moved back and he said, “her.” And you thought he had me at hello.
Walking a dog introduces you to many interesting people and I’ve many stories to tell but I hope this one has a happy beginning, as did ours. Cheers, Dee
Heat and Light
Both are things we treasure in cold weather, especially as I witnessed a first ice fisher out there today, only a few feet from the jetty as the ice is thin.
We also treasure it in inspiration. I don’t remember cooking before age seven when I miraculously found a cookbook in a dusty village library while my mother was off to the grocery store.
The first recipe I ever cooked was from that book, Betty Crocker’s Boys and Girls Cookbook. It was curled carrots. I sliced carrots thinly, and placed them in ice water in the frig. Two hours later I took them out to serve. My grandfather was visiting at the time and he called them “suicide carrots.” Such was the beginning of my culinary life. Everything I cooked he thought he’d die from ingesting.
I wanted my grandfather, parents, siblings, friends and everyone to like me. I learned to cook. Perhaps the best thing my father liked was a cassoulet I made for him from Simca Beck’s recipe many years ago. I would love to make it for him again, with my brother, with two days in the kitchen and items from France I didn’t have. Or we could make it Italian. He may like it even better.
Aunts L and J were also wonderful mentors in cooking and proper English. They still love food and create food for those in need of a good meal, as volunteers.
I was devastated when my husband loved my ten minute (check blog) vegetarian lasagne more than my four-hour version with long-cooked Bolognese and boiled noodles. Then I realized if I made lasagne in ten minutes and cooked it for an hour we’d have more time together.
Lasagne = love? Food, sharing, togetherness, conversation, a toast, that is love. With my berry trifle, it’s also decadence.
As to food I’ve a final exam to pass. Our Swedish neighbor G taught me to make Kottbullar, Swedish meatballs, for us and my husband a few months ago and now I have to take the test and make it for him.
My challenge to Swedish G is true Texas chili, my riff on a classic 1962 recipe from Lady Bird Johnson that was served on the Pedernales ranch for 5,000 guests including JFK.
He’ll have to grind the meat, saute the onions and garlic, add spices and try it three hours later. Then he’ll have his test a couple of weeks later and make it for me. Food is love, darlin’. My husband loves G’s Kottbullar.
My view on life is that if anyone of any nationality or faith met another of a differing one and cooked and sat at a meal together there would not be wars.
Food is friendship, food is love, taste and sharing an experience. I am a complex person and use words to opine, not swards, guns or bombs. I think we spend a lot of our tax dollars for “diplomats” to dine with representatives of other nations. The food may be good but perhaps it is not enjoyed with the camaraderie that best represents our countries.
Savor. Let’s have presidents, princes, diplomats dig in a garden for their meal, together. Cook it, together, and serve, family style to their people. That may actually lead to a representative democracy here in the US of A. and may help other nations as well.
Early on my heat was an Easy Bake Oven. I used it three times. Cooking with a light bulb? Come on. From there I saw light. Thank you, everyone, for getting me here. Cheers! Dee
Posted in Editorial
Tagged Betty Crocker, dinner, food, international relations, life, love, peace, Pedernales Chili
Chopsticks
I called Nanny to tell her what a wonderful, marvelous, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious grandson I married. Today, I figured out that Mary Poppins dropped in and left some fairy dust behind that made our childhood street a wonderful place to live.
My husband usually gets off work and comes home around 7:00 so when he called (I was walking the dog and of course, forgot my phone) it was shortly after five and he was very ill.
I think it was food poisoning, certainly not intentional but I looked after him all weekend. He’s allergic to anything that swims so if someone dunks his french fries in oil that has been used to fry fish… that could do it.
While I normally cook, he was well enough to go out Sunday afternoon and got me some spicy tuna sushi. He forgot the chopsticks. Luckily a kind waitress at a local Thai restaurant, after hearing he did not use chopsticks, had fashioned a set with rubber bands that one would give a three year-old. I took off the rubber bands and used those.
So what did I get in the mail? A set of five Chinese bamboo chopsticks hand painted with Peking Opera facial masks.
A week after we met we talked marriage in a hypothetical way and I said it was always about the marriage, not the wedding. I also told him it was unfair for a potential wife to get an engagement ring. We eloped, but only because my parents were divorced and it was unfair of me to ask them to sit in a small room together.
As to jewelery, we got two matching rings for our wedding, I’ve two magnetic golf bracelets to stem my arthritis, a pair of earrings I’ve worn day and night for over ten years and last year, a silver Claddagh ring I’ve always wanted.
No diamonds, I married mine. As we go through life together I’ll remember that he doesn’t want me to carry in bulky or heavy stuff, so orders it online. And he bought me chopsticks when he doesn’t eat fish. This one’s for Tommy and all the birthday parties we had in our garage. Pin the tail on the donkey up there, kiddo. Dee
Song in my Heart
Yes, I do wake with a song every morning, well, most. And I sing it in my head and sometimes, aloud. It’s usually old musicals and goes from Shall We Dance to … I can’t even think of them the next day.
Often I held a song in my head for weeks and hated it. Then I had the opportunity for another. So perhaps my mind told me that I need a song a day to make me and everyone else happy.
That may be what made me give up guitar. My teacher didn’t want to let me learn what I wanted to learn and was paying him to learn in private sessions. He was a drummer and didn’t care if I knew beginner chords and only wanted me to keep the beat and mess up all the time.
That’s not how I work in business or how I learn on my own time. Famous drummers may get the girls but the guitarists and lead singer do better. I’m married and only want to be able to play and sing for family and friends. I prefer to do the serious work to learn and do better and let the drummer play the drums, keep the beat and I’ll set the tune and do harmony (play second fiddle) from time to time.
Now I keep my nice guitar hydrated every few days but rarely play it. I’m still a beginner, was scared off by my teachers, Bible Belt guy and Drummer. I’ve a treasure trove of music, most of which I just downloaded free lyrics and figured out the chords myself.
Yes, Drummer and I tried to sing a song together and I went up a third in harmony and he followed me. He stopped and said “Oh, I bet you have perfect pitch.” I told him I didn’t know but my father said I did and so did two of my music teachers. From then on it was downhill. He was not nice after that.
The problem is that I don’t have the vocals to do anything pro, I can sing my own harmony to practically anything (not today’s ersatz music for kids) many can play instruments and I quit violin and piano as a kid and regret it. Yes, at 12 I had a band of three guitar players all with no skills and the other two were tone deaf. Now any teacher I find will have tremendous skills to teach me and I’ve wasted something my DNA gave me because I wanted to go to the mall with my girlfriends and I barely remember those girls’ names now.
In order to play basic guitar chords I was introduced to Pete Seeger, Peter, Paul and Mary, and Johnny Cash. They’ve become good friends by their music. Dylan, well I want to play many of his works but the chords are not yet known, I can sing them but not play them…. yet. I’m not a musician but would like schools to place that back into their curricula. Music translates to math. It is not something to cut for budget reasons.
Today I sing on road trips with my husband, especially when he’s asleep (don’t worry I am at the wheel), to CCNY and all my friends, and all in harmony. I could sit as a beginner at my guitar and sing Bob Denver’s song that could make my husband nearly come to tears. In the end it’s all blowin’ in the wind. Dee
PS There is Love (John Denver’s Wedding Song) and I always stand on your shoulders, my dear. Music in schools. All is love, Dee
Cooking with Dee 