We Had Apple Pie, Not Cake

Forgive me if I've mentioned this before but The Spouse and I had a very brief courtship. We'd only been dating about 3 months when he asked me to marry him and I said yes. He'd been out of town part of the time we were courting so we hadn't even introduced each other to most of our friends or any of our family when he put the ring on my finger.

We had a nine month engagement. Partly to prove that the rapidity of our commitment had nothing to do with anything except wanting to get married.

We were pretty sure that one of the amusements of our wedding reception was people making book on how long we'd last.

Who had 18 years?

HA! See? It was meant to be, people.

Just to Recap

He doesn't say anything about it at home. He goes weeks, nay, months without leaving a comment. But man...bungle the opening line to a joke and he is all OVER me.

Men.

But for the record: "A three legged dog rides into town. The streets are deserted as townspeople run in terror to their houses. The sheriff locks himself in side the jail house. The dog slams open the doors of the saloon and swaggers up to the bar. The bartender, one hand surripticiously on the rifle he keeps under the bar stutters, "Kin I help you, stranger?" The dog glances around the saloon, fixes the bartender with a look and growls, "I'm lookin' for the man who shot my paw".

See? "Paw" sounds like "pa" so if you're hearing the joke and not reading it it sounds like the dog (a talking dog, mind you, which is pretty funny to begin with) is looking for the man who shot his pa, unless you remember that he's a three legged dog so he's looking...forget it. This is why I never tell jokes.

Weekend Update

We had a pleasant weekend, with the right balance of doing and not doing.

The Child had a sleepover here on Friday with 2 friends -twins, as it happens- who were quite delightful, as other-people's-children go. Once, when the 3 were gathered around the piano, singing and laughing, I asked if they'd be back. "Oh yes!" piped one. "You guys are cool".

Kids. So gullible.

Saturday was my errand day. Intellectually I am not yet resolved in this. For many years I've been smug about the fact that my Saturdays were free and not spent erranding with all that 9-5 rabble. But in practise I'm adjusting. The key is starting early and getting a spot in the garage at Trader Joe's. If I can get there before the traffic cop is at the door, I'm good.

I also did Tittlemouse chores and pungled bills, which felt very good. Most exciting of all, I got my wedding ring back from the jeweler's. It is very beautiful.

In the afternoon The Neighbor and I also retrieved my niece Molly. She was in town with her boyfriend but they'd spent all their money and didn't have bus fare to our house. She was wet from walking and sad for leaving her boyfriend so we cheered her up at a Caribbean joint in our 'hood. She had mango lemonade, The Neighb and I had Lemon Drops and we all shared some spicy turnovers with green papaya salad. It was lovely.

Mols joined us for dinner and a movie and then church on Sunday morning. Then we went out to breakfast at Saffron to celebrate the Spouse's and my anniversary. 17 years and I can honestly report I love him more now than ever.

Yesterday afternoon was nearly perfect. The Child, Molly and I all sat in the living room and read for hours. Molly was studying Chinese opera, the Child and I were reading the Twilight series. There was some napping. I also made, and burned, an apple pie. (It's tasty...just stay away from the charred edges). Molly went back to campus and we ate roast beast and Yorkshire pudding. Then The Spouse and I watched the first installment of "Elizabeth"...the HBO one with Helen Mirren. Excellent.

And now a new week begins, which should be awesome because a) I love my job and 2) my birthday is this week and you know how I am about birthdays (even without the gigantic hooha and fuss of last year).

Happy Monday.

Ring Redux

If you have ever been to downtown Seattle, you are no doubt familiar with the Rainier Tower:

It's base is very narrow and then tapers up to the office tower. Got it?

That's kinda what my ring finger looks like now.

I went to the jeweler yesterday and had my wedding ring cut off. The lovely man who helped me was very funny. "The bad news is we don't have any anesthesia," he said. "And I should probably tell you that I flunked out of medical school".

"It's ok," said I. "Just give me a shot of brown liquor and a bullet to bite".

He slid a metal cutter thingy under my ring and made a nice clean cut. With two needle nose pliers he then pried the ring apart enough that he could slide it off my finger without cutting me on the newly sharp edges.

He'll be getting in a shipment of rubies within the next week or so and I'll go back to choose one, then they'll fix my ring. Except I can't have it sized until my finger returns to it's normal shape. Which, he said, could take up to a month. What made me think that a ring which went on to my hand when I was a size 4 would never need to be sized? Very, very silly of me.

The good news? I have a few weeks to find the ruby. Not that I honestly believe I will, but since so many of you seem determined that the Universe will bring it back to me, I'm keeping my eyes open. (Y'all really are the sweetest things).

I have no idea what it's going to cost to restore the ring: a new stone, new tips, a shank for the resizing...could end up being as much as the ring is worth already. Although when I mentioned to The Spouse that I supposed we could just not fix the ring he quickly said, "That is not an option".

He also was amusing because he seemed a little nervous about the fact that my ring finger was now naked. "You have to wear something on that hand".

I have a claddagh, an Irish wedding band. But you see, if I put another ring on that finger it would get in the way of it restoring itself. It has to be jewelry free for a while. Then, later, and seemingly apropos of nothing The Spouse mentioned a recent statistic he'd read that 1 in 3 women in America are having or about to have an affair. As you know, I very rarely say anything negative about my Spouse in these pages. But for the record, sometimes he can be a very, very ridiculous person.

"I am one of the two," I said.

"I'm just saying..."

"Look at me!" He looked. "I have no interest in having an affair. Ever".

I don't believe he truly thinks I'd ever cheat on him. Never mind that I haven't the interest, energy or inclination to have an affair. Why would I ever think I could find anyone better than The Spouse? He's adorable. He brings me coffee in the morning. He takes care of his family. He makes me laugh every day. Every. Day. Sometimes he pisses me off but then, sometimes I piss him off. Hardly reason to go out and see if I can do better. I couldn't. And yes, in reality, that includes Steve Martin.

My point, I think, is that the symbol of the wedding ring, however powerful, is just that, a symbol. It speaks to something deeper and more mystical than the physical thing itself could ever be. I look at my Rainier Tower finger right now, at the impression that ring literally made on my finger and that seems as much a symbol to me as the ring. Being married to The Spouse, being his wife, is embedded in me. Right now the divot in my finger is the sign of that. Nope. Ring or no ring, I'm as wedded to that man o' mine as it is possible to be. End of story.

I did draw a ring on my finger last night and then, briefly, considered getting a little tat. Except that would probably interfere with the whole "restoring the finger" scenario. Although it's kind of a cool idea because then I could satisfy my on-again-off-again fascination with tatoos plus once my wedding ring was back on, I'd pretty much be the only person who knew it was there. And I wouldn't have to worry about it getting sagging and gross when I was older.

Nah.

I am going to take The Child to get a second piercing in one of her ears today. I'm cool like that.

This is Sad

Something disturbing happened yesterday. (No, not the election in West Virginia. Puleeze).

We were eating dinner last night, a lovely little repast of crab cakes and tomato salad, when all a sudden I noticed that the ruby in my wedding ring was gone. G.O.N.E. I know it had happened within hours, possibly minutes of my noticing but there is no possible way we'll find it. (I know only that it didn't fall into the crab cakes. Someone would have noticed that). The Spouse, Lord love him, was down on his hands and knees looking for it around my desk but, like I said, there is no way we'll find it. Most likely it is down a drain, well on its way to the Pacific by now.

It's sad, though. "We've had that ruby for 17 years," said The Spouse. We, you notice. It was as much his ring as mine.

When we got engaged there wasn't a lot of money between us. I told him I didn't need an engagement ring but he wouldn't hear of it. (The proposal had been very spontaneous, so the ring came later). We went to The Shane Company, because we believed their ads about being all affordable and customer service oriented and all that. I wanted a ruby, not a diamond. The Spouse told the salesman how much money we had, what we wanted and the guy proceeded to show us the crappiest, ugliest rubies you ever saw. Not to mention, the rubies weren't yet in settings. He basically showed us our budget in crappy stones, expecting to up sell us. We left. Depressed.

So we went to Nordstrom and bought The Spouse some workboots.

Then The Spouse spied Ben Bridge, a local institution, and suggested we go in there. I suggested we not...if we couldn't get a ring at (what I'd now come to think of as) Hairy Al's House of Low Rent Jewelry, we sure weren't going to be successful at Ben Bridge. But he figured nothing ventured, etc. etc. We went in. A lovely woman asked if she could help us and The Spouse said he wanted to look at rubies. She pulled out a tray of very sweet and perfect little rings and excused herself to help another customer. We looked through the tray and I knew almost immediately which one I wanted. It was like a little vine, a small ruby on a very thin band of gold that wrapped around the finger and ended with a small leaf that nestled the ruby. Inside the leaf was a teeny tiny diamond. It was the prettiest thing I'd ever seen.

Lovely Woman returned to see how we were doing. The Spouse indicated that we'd found something and then asked her "how much". She told us. We looked in shock at each other. "Oh," she said, and not at all patronizingly, "Is that too much? I have other things I can show you".

"No," said The Spouse, "That's perfect. We'll take it". My ring was less than just one crappy, unset ruby at Hairy Al's. The Spouse triumphantly paid cash on the barrel head and sweetly presented me with my ring.

By the time we got married, there was a little more money in the coffers so it was back to Lovely Woman at Ben Bridge. I wanted a larger wedding band and Lovely Woman basically designed my ring. They'd just got in a new shipment of diamonds and she suggested that the engagement ring be welded (is that what they do with gold) to the top of a larger band, with a diamond set on the other side of the ruby from the little leaf. It looks, to my mind, like a teeny posy of flowers. And the band is substantial. When The Spouse first put it on my finger at our wedding, my whole hand felt the weight of it. Talk about your symbols.

We both loved my ring. I would wave it at him and say "glint, glint, glint". It was truly "our" ring because he hadn't wanted a wedding band. Of course, within a few months of marriage he'd changed his mind about that, so for our first wedded Valentine's Day I gave him a band.

Cute story about that: at the coffee hour after church the next Sunday, we took it up to our priest and asked him to bless it. Father R, never one to do things by halves, pulled over 2 of our friends (later to be The Child's godparents), prayed over the ring, then had me put it on The Spouse with all the words from the wedding ceremony, followed by another marriage blessing for the two of us. It was pretty cool.

Anysparkle, after that we could both say "glint, glint, glint" and then we'd gently knock the rings together, rather like toasting with champagne flutes.

Point is, we were both a little sick and sad last night that our ruby has disappeared. I blame myself. Just the other day I was looking at my ring (I still look at it a lot, because it's so pretty) and noticed that it was really time to get the tips redone. The prongs that hold the stones wear down over time and have to be shored back up every so often. Because if you don't, well, the stones can fall out.

I really feel like an idiot today. I can honestly say that I have never taken this ring for granted. I love it. I think about its story and its meaning all the time. So losing the ruby feels a little like a kick in the gut.

I also feel like a chubby idiot because I can't get my ring off my finger. Seriously. I've soaped it up and that sucker isn't getting anywhere past my knuckle. Except it has to come off because a) the ruby needs to be replaced and 2) sleeping with a ring that is nothing but prongs is, uh, dangerous. Can they cut off wedding rings?

I'll find out. The Child has a dentist's appointment today not far from Ben Bridge. So while she's getting things drilled, I'll go in (Lovely Lady is retired, but they are all very nice there) and tell my tale of woe and see what can be done.

Sigh.

Oh, So Quickly

Skol's out! Almost.

From 8-10 I'll be with the other Board members setting up for the end-o-the-year picnic. We party from 10 to 1. After clean up I'm taking my carpool for ice cream and then it's no more pencils, no more books for 2.5 months. (Except for the math tutoring and the 3 book reports that'll be due September 4).

The Child has been singing this for 5 days:



Secondly, I'd like to say that I had no intention of being so provocative yesterday when I alluded to "marriage-altering stuff without providing details. Although, reading what y'all came up with by way of filling in the blanks was tres entertaining.

I'm still not dishing out details. If you've been reading for any length of time you know that I don't write about the internal workings of my marriage. It's just one of my personal blog rules. Suffice to say, there was an area of our discourse that needed some work and we had a very civilized conversation about the ways in which to work it. What was "marriage-altering", to me, was the fact that a) we had a very civilized conversation about something that we'd normally handle by heaving crockery at each other and 2) we came to an understanding that promises to greatly improve how we deal with this area in future. That's all.

Nothing anywhere near as glamorous as a pregnancy (hello? do we not realize mommy is almost 50? Puleeze!), windfalls, moves or new careers. But isn't it nice to know that after 16 years two people can work with rather than against each other? I think it is.

Finally: Last night I went blithely tripping over to The Neighbor's for the customary cocktail to encounter a silent little group in the back garden. The Neighb, her 2 kids and the Son's girlfriend were gathered around Bugsy, the very ancient Bichon, who is on his last legs.

The vet isn't sure what's wrong except to say that his blood cell count is very low and he's on his way out. He gave them some pain medication to keep him comfortable and now we just wait. The Neighb is only hoping that he goes peacefully at home and so do I.

The Child and I both paid our respects. Bugsy was sort of our starter dog. He'd come to stay with us whenever The Neighb travelled. We love the old boy and it will be very sad when he goes to St. Francis. So if all you pet lovers would send good thoughts in The Neighbor's direction, that would be very nice.

Right. Time to rouse The Child, slather on sunscreen and get ourselves off to the last hours of school. I'm going to be so happy when it's 2 o'clock.

Some Other Things

Here are some pieces of information that have absolutely nothing to do with the Big Blow of '06, which frankly, I suspect you're filled to the teeth with anyway.

The first and most obvious is that I made The Switch. Hello, No Longer Beta Blogger. Frankly, I didn't necessarily intend to do this today. Which is to say that when I pressed the button to switch I expected to see the "you're too big, Fatty McFatterson...why don't you put that blog on a diet or something" message. But that wasn't what happened and without much to do at all it was buzzing toward a conversion. Except that because of my big blog it took about 60 minutes and I'm not kidding. And that made me very nervous because the longer it took the more I thought that it would just suck the blog into the void and I'd have to start all over again. Which seemed kind of cruel given that I'd already been without my blog for days and days.

But it obviously worked and here I am on the other side and so far, it's no big deal. Although JP is working on a new banner for me and that might be fun. But as for all the tooling and grooviness and interactive hooha that people like him and the rest of you geeks are all about, not so much. I'll leave the whizbangery to the likes of you.

The second and far more important thing: 16 years ago tonight The Spouse proposed and I said, "Are you serious?" and here we are. And while I was motivated to marry him for very sound reasons (his faith, his sense of humor, his love of good food, his general cuteness), I must say that I had no idea he'd turn out to be quite such a treasure. That was the best, "Ok" I ever uttered.