Dear Diary- Week 7

Tags

date night, dear diary, family, friends, humour, love, pets, tea, Valentine's Day

Dear Diary – It took a moment for my mind to attune to the song playing on the radio: Time after time by Cyndi Lauper. Forget the boys. My childhood best friend and I would sing it with gusto, knowing that whatever life brought us, we would always be there for each other.

With Valentine’s day fast approaching, I already found myself cloaked in nostalgia. That childhood friend, My Funny Valentine, died in car accident on Valentine’s Day. She’s the main reason I wear black every year on that date. It was a pact that I keep every year. Also, too many Valentine’s Days Past just sucked!

I miss my friend.

I miss my best friend from college days, who recently died of cancer.

I miss my best friend who ~~thought~~ acted like she was my mother. We spent so much time together when Youngest Son was small. I lost her to a heart attack in 2019.

When I spell it out like that, being my friend might be a dangerous thing! I should warn people…

I went to visit a new friend who is trapped at home in a cast, and has been house-bound for months. She’s living like it’s the pandemic except everyone else’s life goes on normally. Anyway, I went for ginger peach tea and was blessed with delicious pecan cupcakes, that her hubby made. It was his first attempt and they were a success. I’m still thinking about them!

As I was driving the 5 blocks home, my other friend’s spidey-sense must have tingled and she called. How did she know I was in the car? This time she didn’t ask me to do anything for her, but she mentioned she was going to walk somewhere for coffee because she was going crazy. (Going crazy is a short trip for her). It was a beautiful day and without taking a breath, I blurted out “I’ll pick you up and we’ll go for tea”.

What was I thinking? I had just spent 2 hours having tea. I didn’t need more tea! I had already ~~wasted~~ spent several hours with her this week, which included going for tea. I had stuff I needed to do at home. AND, I desperately needed to pee.

And yet, I felt peace. I felt God reminding me that people are more important than projects. I had all day Saturday to deal with crap at home. I still had time to get ready for my hot date with Hubby. And how many times had I been stuck at home, desperately lonely and moaning that I had no friends.

I had friends, people who wanted to spend time with…me. I know they’d be there for me. And they both like tea! I’m blessed.

You can pick your friends.
You can pick your nose.
But you can’t pick your friend’s nose.
Unknown

Dear Diary – There’s nothing like a romantic dinner at a sticky table in the mall’s Food Court, with the hum of human drones in the background, punctuated only by the shrieks of small children. I was wearing my new, VERY comfortable leggings and a light-weight top. I had fixed my hair (although 5 minutes after I was done, it returned to its natural state of pure fluff) and even put on make-up!

Hubby dined on chicken, deep-fried and crunchy, with a side of fries, while I went straight for the fries: Bacon double-cheese fries to be exact. They were delicious!

By the time we finished eating, walked to the other end of the mall and bought Hubby a belt, the staff were starting to tidy up to close. It was 7:30 p.m. When I worked retail, we weren’t allowed to start cleaning until 8:55 and we didn’t lock our doors until 9:01.

We quickly ducked into the lingerie store, which I toured in 30 seconds. I didn’t see anything that excited me. I can’t speak for Hubby. There was certainly lots of pink satin this and pink lacy that, but everything was minuscule, and mostly sheer. No one wants to see this in that, including me! After cracking some great one-liners, I was happy to move on…to the couch at home.

I don’t think I’ve been so excited to be outside after dark since Junior High.

Dear Diary – I was disgusted by the attempt at humour by a real estate agent. His photo was plastered across the back of a bus with this tagline:

Don’t get divorced, just buy a bigger house!

Dear Diary – My doctor has new paper dresses. They suck. It took me way longer, especially in my natural state, to figure out how to unfold it and insert my arms in the arm holes. Fortunately she’s always running behind or she might have been blinded by so much white flesh all at once.

I repeated the process in reverse when she ducked out again. The exam was over. She was just in the process of printing off prescription renewals and had to take a call. It was a long one and I could sense the parking meter counting down, so I decided to get dressed. I dressed the bottom half first, balancing precariously on my sore ankle. Then I tried to put on my bra under the paper dress. I had no idea how long this phone call was going to be.

But there was a problem! The paper dress didn’t want to let go of its hold on me. By this point, I had stress-sweated so heavily under the arms, that the paper dress was clinging to me only there. I suspect what happened was that I had stopped sweating during a discussion following the exam, and the sweat dried the paper dress to me. I had to stifle a scream as I literally ripped the paper dress from my body like that strip they use during a waxing. I didn’t have time to confirm that I had now torn all the remaining stubble from my armpits because I could hear the phone conversation winding up, and I didn’t want to get caught undressed. Which is odd when you consider she had just almost seen every square inch of my naked flesh.

The good news is I still appear to be relatively healthy. The bad news is she’s retiring at the end of June. I am not looking forward to finding a new doctor and breaking them in.

Dear Diary – I was thinking about trying this recipe…

…but I don’t know where to buy lemoms.

Dear Diary – Yes, Hubby brought me red roses, and a chocolate bar…and dessert…a couple days before Valentine’s Day. Yes, he might have thought to do that on his own. Or, yes, he might have done that partly because my friend surprised me with a pink gerbera daisy and he didn’t want to be outdone.

Whatever his reasons, I appreciated it.

I used to worry sometimes, what our life together would look like after the boys had moved out. Would we just become really good roommates? Would we put on a good act in public or pretend to be “in love” when the boys were home? We’ve always agreed that we want more. We’ve seen it with other couples and I don’t think those folks are as happy as they think they are. Or could be. It really doesn’t take a lot of effort or time to stay connected, not when you know it nurtures a deeper relationship that is not only a beautiful thing, but blesses both.

After all, there was something special there when the relationship began.

We’ve been married a long time. I joke that the first 15 years were the worst. Some of them were pretty bad, but we both believed we were worth fighting for…And those days when I really wondered, I asked God to show me the good things about Hubby, to teach me how to communicate with him and show him that I valued him.

God did. I’m so very glad.

In a world gone mad (In a voice so sad)
Sometimes it’s crazy (Crazy)
To fight for what you believe
But you can’t give up (No)
If you want to keep what you love (Keep what you love)
Rise, Skillet

Dear Diary – Angus was whining one morning, so I went over and he hustled to greet me. He let me pet him and he rumbled. I think it was a purr because he makes the same sound when he gets fresh veggies. Which I gave him, and he rumbled again…after he snatched it and ran into his igloo.

He won the war, by the way. It was systematic. First, when he failed to widen the entry way sufficiently to get his igloo in the box, he tore down the corner of the box, flattening the side. Second, he pulled out the pee pad, rolled it up and chewed it to bits. Finally, instead of putting his igloo in all the way though he parked it on the edge and peed all over the box…so much so it was a soggy, disintegrating mess. I know this because I tried to move it to clean his patio.

The box has been recycled.

I give up!