This entry was posted on Saturday, September 17th, 2005 at 7:58 am and is filed under Family & Friends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Morning all:
I slept in a little and that means that the coffee is still just perking. I guess it’s the result of our first, hint of early Fall, cool night. Not a bad thing after a very hot summer. Let me head over and load up the mug.
As a husband I totally know where I stand in the pecking order. For that very reason I always talk about Marcia with a very high level of deference. You will always, when a jab needs to be poked, see it poked straight into my eye. Why then after years of marriage and having stayed true to that simple rule am I heading down this path? Please fast-reverse with me to a weekend or so ago. Actually earlier. You should know that two and a half years ago I spent the better part of an afternoon carefully measuring and finally placing, at an exact spot and height, a little yellow tennis ball on a string and hanging it from the ceiling in each of the garage bays. Ok, now on to a weekend or so ago.
I was working on the Deux Chevaux as Marcia returned from Trader Joe’s. The big noisy Benz turned up the drive and headed for the open door and the little yellow ball hanging deep inside. Marcia was much like Star Trek’s Captain Kirk maneuvering the starship Enterprise during the times when he would aim his ship for a distant tiny planet. On screen we’d watch as the little planet would come into view and grow larger and larger, eventually filling the screen at which point they’d get ready to prepare the landing party. Here Marcia finally turned the key and the diesel’s big main bearings stopped clanking—all engines halt. From my perch where I was working on the “starship” Citroën I could immediately tell that something was horribly wrong! There was no way that at such a distance from the “planet” she could send a “landing party”.
Me: “hey Marsh, you gotta get to at least a couple of inches from the tennis ball or the door will slam on the trunk.”
Marcia: “So that is why you hung these things?” “I thought they were for being in the middle or something—whatever.”
Parking in the same spot once or twice a day. Two and a half years watching a little tennis ball slowly creep into view and never asking the question; “why”?
Oh well.
Last Saturday after my company open house we hightailed it over to Jason’s non-profit, Imago, for their summer fund raiser. For the silent auction Marcia wisely did not bid for a week’s stay at a cabin in Canada. In the fine print it was noted that the place was located a 5-hour drive from Halifax, New Brunswick. However, she did win a pass for a class at Cincinnati’s Nature Center. The highlight was a band that cranked till after eleven. Maybe it was because they were playing outdoors, maybe it was because they were plain good. Jake Speed and the Freddies are a folk bluegrass group in the tradition of Woody Guthry reminiscent of the depression-era freight trains and steamboats. The songs were all written to highlight the Cincinnati and river area. Lot’s of social consciousness and are oh so clever, all accompanied by great music. What a blast that evening was. It put the Latin festival we attended the next day with neighbors to shame. Does it appear that we’re festival nuts?
I am thrilled that the “10,000 dead” in the Katrina zone never materialized. However, I am not at all thrilled with the “black humor” that is already permeating the internet. Which reminds me; what is the difference between an election and a disaster in Louisiana? During an election the busses run.
Make it a great week.
Cheers,
Dirk
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