Tag Archives: marriage

Living Dangerously

It’s my wedding anniversary today—16 years. That’s right, I chose to get married on the 13th, throwing superstition and caution to the wind. If that’s not enough, every so often our anniversary falls on Friday the 13th!

I suppose this tells people a lot about my character. Though appearance might suggest otherwise, I am not conventional. Caution has to come to me late, thanks to the laws of nature and physics requiring more prudent thought before action, for my own wellbeing. But that’s new for me.

I don’t conform. I like to be the odd duck, the square peg, the devil’s advocate. “But what if . . . ” is probably one of my favorite things to say. I like to challenge people and I like to be challenged. When I told my father I was going to be a writer (at age 22 with a husband and two small children in tow) his comment to me was, “You can’t even spell, how are you going to be a writer?”

I flirt with tempting fate. My father was right. My spelling prowess is mediocre at best. I seem to get tangled up in double consonants all the time. If I double them, chances are it’s wrong. When I don’t, that’s wrong too. Lately I’m having trouble with vowels—I had to look up consonant. My sister and I both begrudge menopause for eating away at our language skills, but that’s another story.

Anyway, hoping for a career in which spelling skill is essential (remember, this was before spell check) doesn’t seem like the best bet, but my father’s comment was the challenge I needed to succeed. He probably knew that. I don’t think there was any single person more proud of my success. I only wish I’d finished my novel before he died, especially since he inspired so much of the characterization of Pops.

Perhaps choosing a day for my wedding that many people attach to bad luck was just another challenge to me.

Perhaps it appeals to my shadow side, which is very much out there, alive and thriving.

Perhaps I just wanted to be sure my husband would never forget our anniversary.

Halloween was another consideration, with a masquerade ball for the reception. But I’m a (recovering) Catholic girl who made her first communion on that date, and then years later took her first lover on the same date. October 31 seemed like it had enough going on already.

Screen Shot 2018-04-13 at 12.54.24 PMSo, today, I’ll celebrate my anniversary with dinner and drinks at a very nice restaurant, and then come home in time for a little midnight nosh with Hekate.

Yup, that’s normal for me.

 

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Some Days You Just Gotta Laugh

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Source: Pixababy

It’s been a bit of a tiring (yes, tiring – not trying) week for me. I want to say I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, because I want to believe there might be some good in being this exhausted. The good part would be that I’m kind of surprised it’s already Thursday—like really, the whole week is almost gone? That went fast.

Of course, other than dragging my ass out to do two interviews for a feature I’m writing on deadline, I slept all but four hours of Wednesday. So there’s a whole lost day vibe going on.

Anyway, I needed a break. Tomorrow I’ll kick it in gear and get my feature written, or at least get a first draft. Tonight, I needed to laugh. And when I need to laugh out loud, belly grabbing, tears running down my leg kind of laughing, there are a few go-to blogs I can pop in on for some good guffaws.

One of my favorites, The Bloggess never disappoints. Her latest post got me thinking about the weirdest advice my mother ever gave me. It was hard to come up with something. Not that she didn’t give me tons—megatons even—of advice, but most of it was good.

I know, it turns out mother are always right.

Then I remembered the weirdest of some pretty not weird words my mother shared with me. She told me, “Any time you think about marrying a man, ask yourself if you can stand to smell his dirty sox and underwear.”

It still makes me laugh. I can’t help conjuring a picture of literally nose sucking stinking foot and butt clothing. I don’t even want to go into the situations where this might arise.

mom-1364496_1280Some kind of kinky foreplay?

Honestly, though, I knew what she meant because at the time she was emptying my father’s clothes hamper to do the laundry. So not only did she have to sniff these smelly items retrieving them from the bottom of the hamper, she had to handle them, launder them and fold them.

As it turned out, it might have been the best advice my mother ever gave me. Many times when my stomach was executing back flips and my heart was going pit-a-pat over some Studley Do-Right ( do me right, do me wrong, who cares just do me now), I’d hear my mother’s words and immediately the image of his smelly unmentionables would pop into my head. The steamy moment was murdered; talk about your birth control.

Bottom line, you really, really have to love somebody (man or woman) to be willing to get that up close and personal with their smelliest laundry. So, thank you Mom, for the weirdest, best advice you ever gave me.

Oh, and btw, I married a man who does all his own laundry.

Drop a comment on me and share the funniest, weirdest or worst advice your mother ever gave you.

 

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