Happy Anniversary to Me

Happy anniversary to me......and Todd, or course. It's our anniversary, and it's the summer solstice - both of which put a big, fat grin on my face. I was starting to feel sorry for myself, and I'll go ahead and explain to you why. It's my anniversary...............and my husband is sick in bed with what I can best describe as the stomach flu. Yep, you heard me correctly. Not only is he throwing up while sweating and shivering at the same time, but he is doing it on my side of the bed. I've often wondered what's better about my side of the bed. Besides the obvious fact that most of the time I'm actually on that side of the bed, I don't really get it. As soon as I scoot out, he scoots in to my side. I prefer to think that he's trying to get closer to me, rather than believe that my side of the bed is actually more comfortable.

So here I sit on a beautiful summer evening. All. By. Myself. Todd is sick, and all of the kids are scattered, as is the norm. Rather than feel like a complete loser to be alone on my anniversary and the summer solstice, I am trying to make the best of it. And honestly, the longer I think about it, the worse I feel for complaining in the first place.

I'm out on the deck at our house, which is about perfect right now. The sun is behind the cottonwood tree and isn't blinding me, the temperature is perfect, and there are no bugs biting at me. I went ahead and grilled myself a ribeye, and at this very moment have finished that off and am sitting here with a beautiful bowl of berries and whipped cream, and a truly excellent glass of champagne. After careful consideration, I have decided that Iowa in the summer has as many shades of green as the ocean has shades of blue. And while I'd rather be watching waves right now, I must say I'm pretty content to be where I am.

After all, Todd won't be sick for long, the kids will come home, and at some point in the next 48 hours I'll probably be wishing for a little peace, so I'll cherish it while I have it.

Weze

I grew up very close to my cousin Louise, who I always have and always will call Weze. She's two years older than me, which obviously made her wiser and much more savvy than me growing up. I counted on her for all of the really important things a kid needs to learn. Here's a short list of what she taught me:

1. She taught me how to shop. My grandma, "Mom," everyone called her, ran a great little cafe in Mapleton, IA. Mom would give us $2.00 plus a dime for tax, and send us off uptown to buy whatever we could get for our $2.10. This was always a great adventure. The shopping district was all of a block or so long, and our favorite stops were the dime store and the soda fountain. It was always a big decision if we were going to spend all of our money in the dime store, or spend a precious amount at the soda fountain before we hit the dime store. (Speaking of soda fountains, I can't remember the last time I was anywhere that you could order a Green River.)

2. She taught me independence. I probably wasn't the most daring kid, but when Weze was with me, we'd head off to the park and the library, which were about 5 blocks away. This is a pretty darn big deal when you're 6, and someone has convinced you that all strangers are dangerous and out to get you. We'd take turns picking the route to get there, so we could drag it out for the longest amount of time. We'd swing, slide, and grab a book on the way home. Thinking back on it, I'm guessing somebody checked on us and we never knew it, but what a feeling of freedom.

3. She taught me to swear. This is not to be underrated, folks. I'm guessing I was 10 or 11, and at this point in time we'd take walks around the block just to get outside and see if there was anyone worth seeing, I guess. The day she taught me to swear took more than one trip around the block, though. I'd say it was about one trip per swear word, so by the time my swearing vocabulary was complete, we were pretty tired.

4. She let me drive her car when I was nowhere near old enough to drive, and had never driven a car before. For some reason, we decided this was best accomplished on a very hilly gravel road, pretty late at night. Come to think of it, this one may not have been our best idea, but we lived to tell the story, and I do still love to drive.

5. She got me my first illegal drink of alcohol. Does anybody else remember Sun Country wine coolers? I think for awhile they even came in a 2 liter bottle, and peach was naturally my flavor of choice. Gross, right? We lived through that night, also, but I do recall throwing up in the bathroom of some kid's house. I still can't tell you whose house it was, or why we were there. I guess I was just along for the drunken ride.

6. She taught me made up games are fun. One of our favorites that we played for several years was some kind of office game. The main idea of the game was to steal the bank counter checks from in the cafe and spend hours "paying bills." We would write piles and piles of checks to pay the imaginary bills required by our imaginary life. It was a pretty awesome game, and I think we had a filing system, too.

7. And last, but definitely not least, she taught me about sex.........while we were in church. :-)

Love you, Weze!

My Desk Drawer

In my desk drawer at work, I have this little pile of notes on scrap paper held together with a paper clip. They're little snippets of my friend Sara. Everything is dated, handwritten, and started off as a collection of nice things people said about Sara at work. It started one day (March 24, 2006, to be precise) when a particularly difficult and pain in the ass customer called Sara to thank her after a mess that happened at work. This guy called Sara and said to her, and I am quoting word for word, "You are the shining star in this menagerie of a mess." We decided that we must never forget this particular moment, so I wrote the quote on a piece of scrap paper and tossed it in my desk drawer. Another example, Feb 7, 2007, a customer says to Sara, "You are the Statue of Liberty of the transportation business." Now she asks for a torch every Christmas.

Eventually, my pile of quotes expanded to include noteworthy things Sara said in the office. Every now and then, when you least expect it, she throws out a fabulous one-liner that can leave you chuckling for years. We were trying to find vintage dresses for the prom one day, and everything from the 1980's seemed to only come in a size 4 or 6, which generally wouldn't work for us. While we were trying to figure out why this was, Sara informs us, and I quote again, "Cuz nobody was fat then." Another little gem first quoted on August 20, 2009, then again on 11/25, 2009, "Every day is a fucking crap shoot around here." This has since become our office motto.

My joke to Sara about my little pile of notes is that I am supremely prepared to give a great speech at her funeral. I realize this probably really isn't funny, but since I love her, I can say it. When we both "kick the bucket" at the ripe old age of, let's say, 129, I think I'll have enough "Sara quotes" to publish a pretty awesome little book................................which we can pass out at the funeral. :-)