What kids you were, traipsing back up that isle, posing beside cake and fountainy arrangements
with lovely silk flowers,
with your hair the way you kept it, because the fancy do your mom’s friend proposed just
wasn’t right.
Not for now and as long as you both were going to live.
And living was a much bigger job than you could imagine, then,
bigger, fuller, tougher, duller, sharper. Deeper.
More stretched and gritty and scene-filled.

And on you traipsed, giggly, floating,
scared to life.

Tim was in the Navy long ago, when we were first married. I’ve written another online-accepted piece, this one inspired by events during our first married year, in a land not-so-far away but that might as well have been the moon, with two creatures alien to one another trying to navigate its craters.

You can read the tale here, at Long Story Short, where apparently it fits their Valentine sensibilities.

My cousin Lydia’s wedding last weekend, officiated by my dad, was dubbed “traditional untraditional.”

Then there’s this little guy, whom you may have wondered about in an earlier picture. GORT (“Goes On Road Trips,” also a reference to The Day the Earth Stood Still), who actually lives in Seattle, was roped into cheering for the Oregon Ducks last Saturday as they pummeled the Huskies. No wonder poor Gort looks confused.

What can I say better about the time spent with my hubby than this?

For being a nice, breakfast-in-bed sort, I let him browse flying machines to his heart’s delight.

Always fun to imagine more power.

We imagined history, too, with a tour of the home in Newberg, Oregon where Herbert Hoover lived during part of his childhood.

Besides history, Newberg is also home to my editor acquaintance, Lisa, who’s becoming a good friend.

Lisa told Tim she had been eager to meet a literary character. Later, I asked Tim what he thought of being called that. He said it was interesting, as it was the first time someone had dubbed him literary. Plenty of times before, he noted, he’s just been called a character.

We wandered on home, down 99W, pausing whenever a clutch of little shops caught our fancy. I liked this one’s floor.

Next day, it was time for the Timinator, as he sometimes calls himself, to meet the latest Terminator, still playing at our local budget theater.

Unfortunately, Tim got called away a half hour into the movie. Fortunately, I’d ridden there with Tim’s sister, plus, the movie was good. This fourth one does everything the third one failed to, and I won’t mind seeing it again with Tim.

His sister, Stephanie, has been visiting from New York. She noticed, on Saturday, that a local bar called the Starlight Lounge was having a tribute to another iconic sci fi franchise.

I’ll leave you with a parting shot of the man I adore, enjoying a moment beside an actual dress uniform of Starbuck’s, auctioned off after the series ended.

Tim went on to wow the, ahem, slightly geeky bar crowd with a dazzling gadget. Of course, he’d happened to bring along his sonic screwdriver.

Mom and Dad celebrated their 23rd wedding anniversary the day before Tim and I tied the knot, in Tacoma, in a church with an English style chapel, back when people were recovering from disco and in between Stars Wars, A New Hope and Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back.

Life’s interesting. Technology surged forward last century, all of us caught in its tractor beam. The universe whipped by. We landed here, where foods come in pouches and people stare at their palms to socialize and we’re chemically sanitized each morning.

I’m not complaining, really. The choice to opt out of techno-experience still exists. Though my usual routine is to continue sampling gadgets and programs and Trader Joe’s tasties, sometimes, in spite of myself, I take a different path.

I don’t, for example, receive texts from anyone. I don’t think my cellphone has that capability. (Tim bought it for my birthday, um, possibly not long after the disco era’s demise.)

Last summer I stopped eating gluten. Not my plan at all, but after a glorious night of food poisoning, I decided to try recovering via my daughter’s new food regimen. My digestive system loved me for it.

Most recently, as in this past week, I started trying a shampoo-free lifestyle. This I also had not planned, though I’ve been intrigued by Marianne’s posts about using baking soda and apple cider vinegar on the hair. I’ve always had strong allergies to some hair products. The “sensitive” products cost quite a bit, and I buy mine at the mall. But they ran out of my “sensitive” product at the mall and don’t know when more will come in, so one recent morning I did the salad treatment to my head. It felt, I kid you not, really good. The hair’s soft. No scent lingers. Most importantly, no itching happens.

So far, I’m still using one product, a dab of mousse on my stubborn, kinky bangs. But that sounds like nature, anyway, right? Bulwinkle, anyone?

I’ll let you know when I stop showering and move into the back yard with my snakes, so you can give me a wide(r) berth.

I had just been processing out loud many elements of our weekend that I need to make happen, somehow, including lunch today for those of us who may or may not be around at the noonish hour. I wanted to fix nachos. It takes time to prepare the layers of ingredients, including cooking hamburger meat with seasonings, cutting up the peppers, grating cheese, and so on. Then of course the meal is quick to bake, but the finished product doesn’t keep well. Cheesy tortilla chips get soggy fast.

Tim’s brain hummed happily, I could tell, as he went on telling me how to make everything and put each element in a plastic bag (as in Ziploc). “Then you bring it all out when we’re actually ready to eat.”

I was annoyed. Tim was nearly done with his whole morning routine before leaving to hit garage sales by 9:00. His “plastic bags” were all in a row. He loves things that way, and I’ve learned to love him for it. How else would I, a low-energy, artistic-type loafer (a word used a few times this week in interesting contexts) survive? It’s frustrating not to be able to explain how doing things ahead takes away from my creative routine (which on weekends includes time, I always hope, for unscheduled stretching of mind and limb). Tim doesn’t understand. He doesn’t have to worry about recharging his muse (or whatever it is I do). Somehow he’s always “on.” It’s the way he’s wired.

The reason we’re still together, though, is he has learned to love my loafingness, and he doesn’t push his way on me. Even when it sounds like he might be, like this morning. I could say to him, sarcastically, “And I could never have thought of that,” and he could catch on real fast, looking up at me over his reading glasses (that for some reason make him exceedingly sexy) and rephrasing – I don’t remember how, but his words told me, Wait, I didn’t mean to do whatever I do that upsets you. And I backed off, too, and took a shower, and then I ate a leisurely breakfast and afterward made nacho fixings and put them in plastic bags.