What Happened To My Marriage

"Do you have a website or some way to contact you?" the woman from the audience asked me after I concluded the morning session of the retreat I was speaking at. Since she was one of many who had asked, I decided to build a website. Making that decision was quick and painless. Actually doing the work included much suffering. With no technological experience and the complete lack of a tech-brain, I began work. Then I thew things. And yelled. And even cried a little at one point. But, alas, it is done. Hopefully.

My current blog content - fromthecarpoollane.com - is moving to my new website: whathappenedtomymarriage.com. If you would like to continue to receive the blog emailed to you, just go to whathappenedtomymarriage.com and enter your email address. It will only take a minute and will continue to work the same as before (again, hopefully!) Please let me know if there is a snag in my system. And thank you for being a source of support and encouragement all this time!

Anniversary

"Let's open the gifts now," I told Mike, too excited to wait.

"Here? In the car?" he asked.

"Sure. Why not?" I said, grabbing the fat envelope with my name on it and ripping it open.

"It's the book you've been wanting," he explained when I stared at the unfolded paper. "It's not out yet, so I preordered it and printed the receipt. Do you like it?"

"Um, I like it so much that I also preordered it for you."

"What?" he asked. "This exact book?"

"This exact one," I confirmed. "Oh well," I said after several moments of stunned silence. "I got you two gifts, so just ignore the folded paper when you open your present."

"Okay," he said, pulling tissue paper out of of the red gift bag.

"You know what it is, right?" I asked when he stared silently at the DVD cover. "You've wanted this movie for a long time."

"Yeah," he whispered. "It's just that I bought it for you this morning."

"What? Why?"

"Well, I don't know, but I'm a little freaked out right now."

"Maybe we should eat."

"Twenty-three years," Mike said as our salads arrived. "It seems like someone should give us a Lifetime Achievement Award for making it this long."

"I know!" I agreed, slicing into my delectable steak. "I'm just sad there aren't any movies out right now that we really want to see. I hate going to one that we aren't excited about."

"Well, we could skip the movie and just rent one from Redbox."

"And watch it at home with a house full of people?" I asked. "Not very romantic."

"We could put a Do Not Disturb note on the door to the TV room."

"Oh, yeah! Then we could watch a better movie in our pajamas!"

"Do you find it hard to focus on the movie when right out that window we can see the kids shooting off fireworks?" I asked Mike, snuggled under a fluffy blanket.

"It's a bit distracting," he admitted. "I'm sure they will be fine, though."

"They were hoping to watch Dr. Who until we claimed the TV."

"Do you want to call them in and we can all watch it together?"

Twenty minutes later Mike passed bowls of popcorn to all the teenagers crowded onto the couch, and I got out extra blankets.

"Hey," Mike nudged me as the Dr. Who theme music filled the room, "there are your Lifetime Achievement Awards." I looked at the row of kids tucked under blankets, sharing popcorn, smelling of outdoors, fire, and sweat.

"Yeah," I agreed, "there they are. Happy Anniversary."

I Owe Someone Food

My dog is all kinds of naughty. And his blue eyes mesmerize us into letting him get by with most of it. I know, though, that he is a bit scary. He looks large and powerful. When people see him, they think he might be a wolf. Then they think he might eat them. They don't know that he lets babies pull his fur and poke him in the eye or that he runs terrified at the bark of tiny dogs. In fact, he ran away from a min pin so fast one time that he sprained his ankle. So, we've been keeping him chained up lately. There is a lot of construction going on near our house, and we don't want him to frighten the workers. Also, we don't want him to return home with cement plastered all over his paws and legs. Again.


He wants to run though, so he sneaks out any chance he finds. Which he did recently when we had a house full of door-leaving-open teenagers. I noticed him in our front yard a few hours later, and I was happy to see that he was mostly free of cement, but felt concerned when I saw that he was guarding something. I walked toward him and he picked up his treasure in his mouth and pranced proudly toward me. As he walked toward me across the yard, he pranced prouder and prouder. Wondering what he may have killed and worried that it might be a cute bunny, I didn't want to look at what he laid at my feet. Until I saw what it was.

A peeled orange in a ziplock baggie.

I'm sure that whatever construction worker he took it from was terrified. And hungry.