Weekend recap

Imagine Miss Daisy in flannel and Doc Marten’s.

W and I ran some errands this weekend. As is our routine, we completed them Driving Miss Daisy fashion with W driving and me riding along in the passenger seat. This is what happens when you are an old married couple with way too much to do on a Saturday afternoon.

W prefers to drive, and I prefer to be driven. I’ll wait until all the giggling stops before I continue …

Anyway, I’ll jump out of the car to run into the drycleaner or return something at the hardware store. And there’s W waiting for me curbside.

This weekend while we were running our errands, I stopped inside a Starbuck’s to grab a late afternoon pick-me-up and use the restroom. It was one of those deluxe Starbuck’s, and I found myself walking, walking, walking to get to the back of the store. In back, a gaggle of college-age girls gathered around a large table studying and chatting and sipping giant plastic cups of coffee through long green straws. They had painted fingernails and long hair pulled back in various fashions or stacked on top of their heads.

In the midst of all of that femininity, I braced myself as I approached the bathroom. Without thinking, I put on the invisible armor I wear whenever I need to use a public restroom. I steeled myself and prepared for anything.

And then I turned the corner and saw two unisex bathrooms. I felt my heart lift and my shoulders relax. I think I heard Sarah McLachlan singing “Angel” somewhere.

In no time, I returned to W and our great errand excursion, a hot cup of joe in hand.

 

Finding love

W texted me from work yesterday afternoon.

“Can we have the same thing for dinner that we had last night?”

“Um, I think so,” I text back.

It is not a difficult meal to prepare.  Breaded chicken tenders, noodles with butter and parmesan, and corn.

Me, only butchier.

W is struggling with some things these days, so I do what I can to make things easy for her.  I try to have dinner ready when she comes home.  I try to have the house picked up and food in the fridge.  I buy her cards and write her notes and sneak a piece of chocolate in her lunch.  Cooking chicken tenders two days in a row really isn’t a big deal.

When W comes home, I am in the kitchen finishing up dinner.

“Thank you for finding me,” she says.

She says it all the time.  It’s a reference to how we met on match.com.  I was the one who sent her a note.  I was the one who found her.

“Someone has to take care of you,” I say.

“I know,” she replies.

W tells me how lucky she is to have me in her life.   The women she works with always tell her they need a Middle-age Butch to do all of the things I do.  Someone to pack their lunches, cook their dinners, pick up their prescriptions, do their grocery shopping.

I am not available.  I am a one-woman woman.

I remind W that she does lots of things for me.

She disagrees.

“It just looks different,” I tell her.

W is the breadwinner.  Because she works so hard, I am able to work from home and take care of things like lunches and dinners and errands.

She is my biggest fan.  She loves everything I write.  This writer with low self-esteem needs to have her ego stroked.  Often.  Like a giant, needy cat.  Without W’s encouragement, there would be no finished book.

She loves telling people about my book.  I tell her not to make such a big fuss, but inside I light up like a firework.

She tells me I’m cute.  All the time.  Sometimes I even believe her.  She tells me I’m the world’s best lesbian.  But then we all knew that already.

W is the adventurer.  She drags me along on her excursions.  I plant the heels of my Dr. Marten’s in the mud and make things difficult.  But I am always glad to have ventured out and seen the world through her eyes.

She makes me giggle.  If you tell anyone, I’ll only deny it.  And then poke you with a sharp pokey object.

She is the love and light in our house.  The rest of us are just moths.

The things I do can be calculated in monetary terms.  How much would you pay someone to cook your dinner or do your grocery shopping?

But W’s contributions are priceless.  To help a person believe she is a rock star like Joan Jett or Melissa Etheridge and can achieve her dreams is an invaluable skill and service.

It happens.  Sometimes.  When the stars align.  And you find the right person and fall in love.