Did You Marry an Ape?

My husband and I will be married 25 years this month.  Some days it seems like only five, and at other times it feels like 70. 
 

Someone close to me said it best when she recalled her 25^th anniversary saying, “I thought after 25 years of marriage, we would be like one.  You know, we’d read each other’s mind and finish each other’s sentences.  I didn’t realize that it would still be so much work.”   

Raise your cup of coffee if you agree with this.

I thought about her philosophical statement, and I realized a couple of things. Marriage is when a man and a woman become one.  The trouble begins when they try to decide WHICH one!  

As far as reading each other’s minds, my husband and I at times believe we read each other’s mind, but in actuality we just assume what the other is thinking and—unfortunately—assume incorrectly.  I have grown to the conclusion that it is best to leave the mind reading to the people on television (who, I have noticed, only read dead peoples’ minds.)

After being married for a quarter of a century, I never imagined that I would think so much about those once-upon-a-time wedding vows.   I start pondering the seriousness of them, like the “to have and to hold from this day forward” part. 

“To have and to hold” was fine while I was my brawny husband’s “fragile flower” and I loved curling up next to him during those cold nights.  But now that I’m a hairy, grumpy menopausal bear, I feel ready to rip off that warm leg he throws over me on those 40-degree nights (which are still hot for me). 

Or consider “the better, for worse” part.  The better parts were wonderful.  Kids.  Travels. Homes.  Friendships.  Everyday paradises.  It’s the “for worse” parts that are enough to scare even the family dog.

I vividly recall moving into a rental home in Missouri.  Being a good renter, I insisted that my hubby and I pressure wash the rickety picket fence before giving it a fresh coat of white paint.   It would be a good family project since our kids were all old enough to hold a paintbrush.

Little did we know that the overgrown seven-foot “trees” intertwined with the fence would turn out to be poison oak.  The pressure washing had aerosolized the devilish weeds.  We woke up the next morning with boils on our limbs and faces morphed beyond recognition.  Yes, this was a “for worse” situation.   

My husband has had other trials, too.  Never in his wildest imagination did he think I would transform into a mother ape that pulls an occasional haphazard hair from his ear as we drive down the freeway.  

Imagine being betrothed to an ape during the day and a grizzly bear at night.

As I recall the “in sickness or in health” bit, I am hoping that bad health includes the weight I’ve gained, the flabby arms that are beginning to develop, and the one random white hair on my chin that seems to appear overnight.  Surely this obligates my better half to stick with me.   

The part of the vow that we talk about the most is the “til death do us part” portion.  No, we don’t morbidly talk about death every day.  We do, on occasion, tease that—while we can’t divorce each other (our pact since day one)—we can kill each other.  Our vows say so.

I once read that every man wants a wife who is beautiful, understanding, economical, and a good cook.  Whew!  In that case, it’s unfortunate that the law allows only one wife.  

Happy 25^th Anniversary, Honey.  Thanks for loving me even though I can’t be beautiful, understanding, economical, and a good cook all in the same year.  Now, come here.  Just close enough for me to pluck another hair from your ear and kiss you on the cheek while I’m at it.

Advice & Lessons from My Mother

     Unlike other mothers, my own mother never gave us composed advice like “To your own self be true.” There were no calm and collected words of wisdom like “Be the captain of your own life and ship.”

     My mom did give some advice similar to other mothers’ like, “Stop crying, or I’ll give you something to cry about” and “Wear clean underwear in case you’re in an accident.” There was also the common, “If you keep frowning like that, the crease between your eyes will stay that way.” (This, by the way, turned out to be true.) 

      I think she might have been the one who came up with the Mom-ism "I am not your jeans! I was not put on this earth to cover your butt!" She just had a nicer way of saying it.

     Mom did teach us many valuable lessons. For example, she taught us how to make quick executive decisions. 

     As a newly-wedded wife, my sister was having a serious conversation with Mom about finances. 

     My brother-in-law had told her to ask herself “Do I really need this?” three times before buying something.

     Mom’s advice was given without hesitancy. “Well, that’s easy!” said Mom without wavering. 

“Yes, Yes, Yes!”

     Mom also taught us to be industrious and to not worry about a goof-up here and there.  Mom wisely encouraged us to do something, even if it meant we’d make a mistake or two along the way. If I got in a tizzy because I had dripped paint on the floor, she’d reassure me that I had gotten the room painted. 

     “If you don’t do anything, you won’t do anything wrong,” she’d say. “It’s better to get up off of the couch and do something, knowing you’ll make a mistake, than not do anything at all.” 

     My dad’s sarcastic response to this was classic. “My, woman, you’ve sure been busy today!”

     Mom also taught us to not lie and lived this to perfection. 

     As an example, Mom would buy a new outfit and keep it in the closet for a several weeks. Then when my dad would ask, “Is that a new dress?” she could honestly answer.

     “Oh, no-o-o-o. I’ve had it for months,” she’d reply. 

     She’d also share her honesty in statements like, “We’ve been married 15 happy years. Not bad out of 30.”

     Our mother taught us about justice, too.

     To make sure we didn’t swear like a sailor (or my father), we would get a bar or squirt of liquid soap in our mouths for using bad language.  Chores were to be done when she said so. “Orders from Headquarters,” she’d say. 

     And, I did get a spanking every week for giggling in church. Never mind the fact that she now giggles inappropriately every single week while in the same congregation.

     Mom also taught us humility.  The four of us kids were somewhat athletic, and will never forget the time Mom agreed to stand at home plate and bat with the four of us in the outfield. “This should be funny,” we all thought to ourselves. Mom hit the first pitch down the driveway and made her way easily around the bases for a homerun. She walked back into the house, never to bat again. And we never again questioned her athletic ability.

     Mom also taught us about the aging process.  “Take your picture in a bikini while you’re still young, because when you get my age you’ll look darn good,” she’d quip. Go figure. She was right again.

     She also taught us appropriate fear. Of course, there was the vacation to the Black Hills when, while standing at the top of a hill taking a picture, she heard a rattle snake and came leaping down in leaps and bounds.   But even more so was her “birds and the bees” talk. It was none of this politically-correct “practice safe sex.” She would just scare the bejeebies out of us and say, “Think about bringing a baby home to your father.” That still makes me shiver, 25 years of marriage and three kids later.

     We, as children, did not make her life one of smooth sailing. She had many reasons to say, “I love giving homemade gifts; which one of my kids would you like?” But she never did. 

     Perhaps the lesson that Mom taught us the most was to have a sense of humor.       One of the cards she treasured the most was one that my brother made her while in elementary school. He had to make it in class, and I’m sure the teacher had no idea what it said. 

     “Roses are red, Violets are blue, Sugar is sweet…” it beautifully said on the outside. And, on the inside was a scribbled… “BUT YOU’RE NOT” (with a picture of a face with the tongue sticking out.)

     We love you, Mom. Thanks for teaching us how to make quick decisions, be industrious, be honest, be law-abiding, have appropriate fear, have humor, and to love everyone unconditionally.  In other words, thanks for not giving my brother, Keith, away.

Do You Know Lisa?

    Years ago my sister, sister-in-law, and I decided that we would take a weekend excursion together every other year.  We reasoned that if our men could go hunting in South Dakota annually, then surely we deserved three days somewhere every 730 days or so.  

    Our first excursion was to the All-American city of Boston.  None of us had been to the Northeastern states, so we were quite new to the accent, not to mention other Bostonian oddities like the antique skull with angel wings headstones and such preposterous pride over something like baked beans.

    Deciding to have dinner in the hotel restaurant late one night, we were greeted by the host commenting on my sister’s sweatshirt.  It had a large stylish M with “Minnesota” scrolled beautifully across the front.  

    “I shoulda known ya were from Minnesota by your accent,” he jested.  

    Quick to the draw, my sister kiddingly pushed him on the chest and bantered, “Yeah!  Like you don’t have an accent!  Quarta, Quarta, everybody wants a quarta… pawk in Hawvawd Yawd.”  Obviously, like the rest of us, she was tired of scavenging in her purse for twenty-five cents and trying to interpret the New England dialect.

    He took it all in good humor and then popped an interesting question.  “Do you know Lisa?”

    “Lisa?” we asked.

    “Yah know, Lisa from Minnesota,” he responded.

    “Gee,” my sister said, putting her pointer finger to her lips as if seriously trying to think.  “What does she look like?”

    “Oh, blonde hair, blue eyes… about 5‘8”.”  This, of course, typically described about half of the women in the Scandinavian state, half of those being related to us.

    There was only one way to get to the bottom of this, I reasoned.  “Is she Loo-tren or Cat-lick?”  I sarcastically asked in my best Minnesotan dialect.  In my hometown one was bound to be one religion or the other, with a spattering of Methodists in there. 

    Lisa turned out to be our waitress, and the fun had just begun.  Since there was only one other table occupied in the entire restaurant, we had ample time to acquaint ourselves with our newfound friend.

    Being the daring tourists that we were, we decided to splurge and buy ourselves a bottle of wine to drink with dinner.  To put this in context, we were all mothers of fairly young children, so our opportunity to order vino happened about as often as we saw a two-headed calf born on the dairy farm.

    After a good, long perusing of the vintage wine list (which might as well have been Pig Latin or Star-Trekian to us), Lisa came back to take our beverage order.  We looked at her with bewilderment and, like any good communion-going Lutherans, we inquired, “Do you have any Mogen David?”  This was one wine label we were familiar with, having helped fill those tiny plastic cups down in the church basement. 

    “No,” she laughed.  “But we might have some Boone’s Farm Tickle Pink,” she reassured us.  We all put our heads back and whooped, since this was the only affordable wine one could afford during our college years at $1.89 a bottle.  We liked Lisa.  She got our humor. 

  

    We went to a restaurant the next day to try out the famous baked beans everyone kept raving about.  “Maybe we should have a Samuel Adams beer, since he was from here,” I reasoned.   

    Yes, by golly, this is how we would redeem our naïve need-to-get-out-more selves.  We would show that we not only knew our nation’s historical figures from Boston, but also that we knew something about brews.   

   The waiter arrived to take our drink orders.  Here was our chance to impress him with our Samuel Adams order.

   Full of knowledge and patriotic pride my big sister announced, “I’ll take a John Adams, please.”

   And with that I put my head down, relieved that none of us were donning a Minnesota sweatshirt. 

Trouble Makin' in Dingle Bay

     March is a time to spot leprechauns, four leaf clovers, and ads (subsidized by those who want our green money) urging dreamers to take a trip to Ireland where Irish eyes are smilin'.  I saw such a blurb today gloating "the newly built Dingle Bay Hotel, located in Dingle TownDingle Harbor…”   I truly would think--- by the sound of this alliteration of Dingle, Dingle, Dingle—that this ad was a joke if I hadn’t actually travelled there myself.

    But yes…(fond memories) sigh… I have been to Dingle Bay.  And yes…(regrettable) sigh… I will never live it down.

     As a military wife stationed in Germany, I flew with 13 women to Kerry, Ireland.  In a few short days we became highly intelligent there, learning about bogs, and sheep, and how a general’s wife is the only one who can afford to buy a wool sweater. 

     My most impactful lesson would come, though, on a bus tour around Dingle Bay.  You see, at some point in the swerving and bumping along the narrow dirt road, my dear friend relayed to me her concern that her daughter was being called a dingleberry by an acquaintance.  She wasn't sure, but she didn't think that was a good thing.

     “What’s a dingleberry?”  I had innocently asked.  A shrug of the shoulders was her answer.

     Fast forward about 20 minutes and a good upchuck from a classy wife in the back of the bus…  

     Our group piled out into a teeny pit stop trying to regain our sense of balance, and we were given a tour of a local candy shop.  In her best leprechaun accent (though I think it wasn’t an act) the lass introduced us to her wasabi chocolates, chili chocolates, and one of her best-selling mystery chocolates.

     “Can any of ye’ tell me what me secret ingredient is?” she asked the group as we snarfed down samples.  

     Chewy.  Raisiny.  But that would be too obvious. Berries.  That’s it, I thought.  Dingle Bay.  Berries.  I learned a new word today.  Quick!  Answer first!    Maybe she’ll give me a free box of her best-selling confection if I do.

     “DINGLEBERRIES!”  I declared with a cheek pouched with heaven.  At that point about half of the chocoholics backed up, holding their hands to their mouths like my kids would when they were forced to eat a charcoaled grilled cheese sandwich. The rest of us (not wanting to hurt the candy maker’s feelings, of course) chomped , and munched, and plowed our way through the remaining platter.

     It was upon returning to the bus that I would become highly, highly intelligent. 

      “How could you say that?” some chided.  

     “Why did you say dingleberries?!” chortled others, as the friend who didn’t know its meaning earlier  (yeah, right) was smirking next to me.

     Dismay.  No wonder I didn’t win a free box of chocolates.

     “A dingleberry is the dried poop on the back of a cat’s butt,” one of my favorite travel mates answered.  “Don’t you ever watch South Park?” 

      No, I hadn’t.  And I also hadn’t realized that South Park rivaled NPR in its educational value.

     “Men can have them, too,” another answered matter-of-factly.  Despite my embarrassment, I had a rush of fleeting gratitude.  I may be a dimwit, but –thank you, Lord—that I do not have her job as a Madame Salon Waxer.  (I’m sure she has a more respectable job description, but in my moment of despair and a bad visual in my head, that was her title.)

     I was later informed that long-haired cats are more prone to get dingleberries.  How exactly do I interpret that in regards to the male human species?

     I know it’s hard to believe, but I never fully regained my reputation.  Somewhere in my sugar-high mind I knew then and there that I could not be general’s wife material, and I would never be able to buy one of those darn cable knit sweaters. 

     If I do revisit Ireland, I’ll steer clear of Kerry and the Dingle Bay.  Perhaps I’ll visit Dublin and kiss the Blarney Stone.  And if there’s a slang word for Blarney, I don’t want to know.