Tag: Marriage

Acting & Experiences, authors, beauty, children, creative inspiration, divorce, family, humor., Life in General, Marriage, writers

There’s Treasure Everywhere!

Shari
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At the National Museum of Archeology, Dublin Ireland. 

 

I was a tomboy, still am, kind of. Climbing trees, building forts, turning boxes into foil wrapped spaceships, pine cone fights with the neighborhood kids, (yes, it always ended in tears) these were all the activities of an average Saturday. But the best days were the treasure hunts. Oh how I dreamed of unearthing that iron bound wooden chest and prying open the lid to dig my hands into gold coins and brilliantly colored gems the size of my fist.

Perhaps that why, out of all the wonderful Calvin and Hobbes comic strips, my favorite one goes like this.

Hobbs finds Calvin digging in the yard and asks, “What are you doing?”

Calvin answers, “Digging for treasure!”

“Did you find anything?”

“A few grubs, some dirty rocks, and a weird root.”

Impressed, Hobbs asks, “On your first try?”

Looking  up at Hobbs, his face alight with excitement, Calvin exclaims, “There’s treasure everywhere!!”

I love this philosophy and I lived it as a kid. Because when you are young you know it’s out there. All of the cynicism of grownups cannot and will not stop you from your belief in the existence of magic, of mystery, and hidden treasure. Those muddy rocks by the stream can be stacked to form the foundation of a castle, the fall leaves placed just so make a flying carpet, the rope swing off the hillside is a launch into the sky if only you tilt your head back and punp high enough to feel that thrilling momentary loss of gravity between rising and falling, that magnificent second of weightlessness in a perfect blue sky.

As I grew older, my idea of treasure changed, shaped and/or warped by the expectations and values of parents and peers. I went from craving a pirate ship’s booty to coveting  adulation. Winning was my pot of gold, being the ‘best’, earning the envy of others, succeeding, being known, recognized, and lauded were the treasured prizes.

And we all know how well that works out. We all have some experience with banking on the fleeting nature of approval and popularity. There’s never someone right behind you who is faster, prettier, younger, smarter, or better connected, of course not. Not that being the silver medalist in the local skating competition or Atlanta’s top model aren’t amazing lifetime achievements, laurels you can rest your sorry ass on, confident that humanity is eternally improved by your accomplishments, or maybe, just possibly, a tiny sliver of doubt creeps in, a thought that asks, ‘Is this treasure tarnished? Am I mistaking tin for silver? Can I trust it? Does it feed my imagination or my soul? Does it make me a better person or help anyone else?’

So you turn your goals to developing talent and being active in community, true treasures both, and both full time occupations. That shift from result to process is a gift that colors every day of your life, shifting the filter from that wash of envious green to a rosy glow of inclusiveness.

I like that kind of treasure.

But I’m still a kid at heart. I still believe in magic, I still want the heavy, battered chest, the magic, the shiny prize. Even if only for the fun of it.

And that’s why I love thrifting. I know, I’m using a noun as a verb and that’s annoying, but ever since my girls were little and we moved to a neighborhood with the most amazing second-hand store I’d ever seen, we’ve been hooked.

This place rocks. Clothes, knick-knacks, dishware, furniture, art, jewelry, sports gear, it has it all, clean, organized and cheap! None of that Goodwill pricing crap where every T-shirt is priced at a uniform 5.95 whether it’s worth it or not. If it was a worn tank top, it was 99 cents. If it was a button down Dolce Gabbana with the tags still on it, it might be 13.99. (yes, I did find that!) And there were different color tags, every week two of those colors would be half off and a third would be 75% off.

The thrill of the search and the results kept us going back several times a week to that run down shopping center in our neighborhood’s back yard, not the usual place one would search for fabulous objects.

That shop, Sun Thrift in Sunland, is one of the things I miss the most about Los Angeles. That and the amazing mix of ethnicities, food, and art that a multicultural city affords. Now I have San Francisco nearby, which rivals the cultural aspect, but alas, no Sun Thrift.

Here in Santa Cruz there is a distinct absence of diversity, and that pains me daily, not just because of the lack of good Asian food or polish delis either, but because I prefer a community where the people are as colorful as the scenery. People of diverse backgrounds, belief systems, physical appearances and languages are one of the greatest treats—dare I say treasures?—in life. My life is infinitely richer from the opportunity to have befriended so many different humans from so many cultures, they have expanded my mind and my existence. A golden heart is a precious pearl in any shape, color, or size, no matter where you find it.

Maybe that’s why I still love digging for treasure.

When I found this store I had just divorced husband number two, it was a dark time for me. My family pretty much chose him over me. My mother, who I had brought out from Atlanta to live with us, decided to shun me and live with him and my siblings decided that his big fancy house would be the best place to spend holidays with their kids, especially since our mother lived there, friends I had cared for and hosted for years disappeared like a drop of ink in the ocean, a lawyer on a motorcycle hit my car and decided to sue me for two million dollars, (if I’d known he was that kind of a lawyer at the time I would have backed up and run over him for the good of society). Suffice to say it was a furiously tense time. I could easily have shattered. Instead I took that Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, blew those three panels up to poster size, framed them, and hung them over the dining room table in my rental house. In spite of it all, it was how I chose to feel about life. Even in that horrible time, there was treasure, there was goodness, there was beauty. It might be the two friends who stood by me out of dozens, it might be the shadows the oak tree made on my newly bought curtains, (he got the house and pretty much everything in it we’d built together, but that’s another blog), it might be the greeting I received from my theater friends when I showed up for rehearsal, it might be having a place I could call my own that wasn’t entirely controlled by someone else who should have been my partner, it might have been my girls laughing in the pool out back, something they’d always wanted but been denied by their father’s miserly outlook toward anyone but himself. Whatever it was, no matter how small or huge, there was treasure. Not the least of which was my independence. After sixteen years of giving eighty percent of my love, time and energy to someone else, I was finally going to claim it back for myself. When I wasn’t weeping, exhausted from the ugliness of it all, I was dancing with joy and possibility. Yes, even wallowing in all that mud, slogging through the dirty custody fights, the disgusting lies told about me to my own children, the loneliness and betrayal of losing all but the most loyal of friends, yes even among all the grubs and the mud there was joy and possibility.

I made it through. Now I have all the treasure. My girls are happy and thriving, I write for a living, I travel when I like, I hike in redwoods or by the ocean everyday, and I have a husband who considers me the treasure, and tells me so everyday, a husband who works hard, cares about community and puts me and girls first every time.

I do still like to go treasure hunting, also known as thrifting. So yesterday after a doctor’s appointment, I went to the Goodwill near her office. The seasons are changing, which I adore and most of my real clothes are still in storage back in LA so I just buy stuff as I go, mostly from thrift stores. Currently I’m on a quest for comfortable corduroys, I love men’s pants because they are better made and have an excess of pockets. So I picked out a few things to try on. In the dressing room, I slipped my hand in a pocket and came out with a wrapped piece of paper, at first I thought, “Yuck, someone left their gum in here,” but there was something about the way it was folded, so I opened it and found a huge nugget of sticky weed. Bonus score! (Since I was buying the pants, I figured the weed was a perk, like a key chain with a purse.) Then I went back out into the store.

I had noticed one of the employees was one of those effervescent people who smiles and is helpful to everyone he meets, I always watch people like that because it gives my day a lift. This guy saw me looking through the appliance section and asked if he could help me. I told him I was keeping an eye out for a juicer for my daughter. He went out of his way to help me search, even going into the back where he produced a brand new one, (probably an unwanted wedding gift) that he had the pricer mark at seven dollars for me. That job done, he proceeded to procure a lamp finial I’ve been looking for for over a month. Actually he took it off an ugly lamp, got it priced separately, (89 cents) and handed it over with a wink. His cheerfulness was contagious so we shared a few laughs and then I thanked him and went to check out.

They were Saturday-slammed and had chosen this unfortunate time to train new people at the register, so this guy, being on the ball, hustles up and takes over a register, connecting with each person he helped and just generally brightening the entire ambiance of this second hand, second chance storefront in Capitola, California.

At the last second in line before my turn I spotted some new extension cords and remembered that I needed one. But when I checked the price they were no less expensive than the hardware store so I said I’d pass. There was one, however that was out of the packaging and just bound with clear tape. This guy grabbed it and said he’d ask how much it would be. I told him not to bother as I didn’t want it if it wasn’t around five bucks and the others, exactly the same but still in the packaging, were almost twenty.

He bolted for the back and returned with a sticker, $4.98. Score!

As I paid up, he asked if I wanted to round my change up forty cents to benefit their job-training program, from which he had graduated. I said, as I always do, that of course I did and we both commented on the brilliance and simplicity of helping people to live better lives by empowering them with knowledge and skills. We smiled at each other as he handed me my receipt and thanked me for coming in.

As I gathered my trophies, I extended a hand and said, “I’m Shari by the way.” He beamed, shook my hand firmly and warmly and said, “I’m Tosh.”

And out I went, blessed by another brush with good luck, pleased with my purchases, and reflecting that you never know what you’ll find if you only look with new eyes.

Because really, I was just digging in my backyard, among stuff someone else thought was junk, stuff they’d in effect thrown away, and I found so many gems.

A pair of perfect fit corduroys complete with bonus prize, a fall colored pashmina scarf, a brand new juicer and an eagle finial, all for under twenty bucks.

But most rewarding of all was an exchange with a man who exuded kindness and lifted my heart.

Who works a minimum wage job in a second hand store selling stuff somebody didn’t want any more.

A previously discarded human with a purpose, a job, and a helpful spirit.

A guy named Tosh who restored my faith in the worth of good people.

There’s treasure everywhere.

 

 

Shari, September 24th, 2018

humor., Ireland, Life in General, Marriage, men, Nature: Hiking, Wildlife & More

Traveling Sex

Shari
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I changed the photo from a bare back to please FB promos. Let’s see if it works, God forbid we should see a woman’s bare back.

 

Admit it, the best thing about vacation is the sex. Sure, my husband and I have fantastic sex at home, but there’s just something about sharing a new adventure, a new view, a new country, a new bed even, that I find erotically stimulating.

Let’s back up a sec. Hubby and I are in our fifties. I’m fifty eight—I think, I always have to ask ‘he who is better at keeping track of numbers,’ because frankly, it never really comes up much—and he is fifty-four. Yes, he’s my younger man, it’s not that I prefer them younger, in fact before I met him I much preferred older men based on life experience. I was forty when I did meet my husband, but between him and every other man I’ve ever been with, his masculine hotness knew no contest. At almost sixty we’ve got passion down, or do I mean up? I mean screaming, snarling, glowing with red light, even my hair is happy, sex. And I swear, I honestly declare, decree and shout from the rooftops (*remember that reference) that I’m having the best sex of my life.

And I’ve had some pretty hot sex.

I know that sex after thirty is something we do not discuss in this youth obsessed society, and it’s certainly never celebrated or touted. Especially by men, who, judging by social media, you would think are all eighteen year olds living in their parents basements binge watching porn. Here’s a heads up guys, immaturity is not good foreplay. Sadly, too many women seem to take their cues off of that so-low-it’s-scraping-the-ground bar. Sexy selfies stop mid-twenties, (when they were based on insecurity and so probably shouldn’t have started anyway, so that’s cool) mothers switch off sexual identities, anyone who dares to mention enjoying sex after thirty-five is publicly shamed, young actors on television shows actually say ‘ewww’ when confronted with the idea of people older than a grad student getting off. Which is just stupid and self-defeating because, baby, they are next. If you scoff at great sex as a grown up, you are cutting yourself off at the knees, or much higher. I’m here to tell you that no matter how much hotter you think you are at eighteen or twenty-five than someone in their fifties or sixties, you will spend more of your life over thirty than under it, so start recognizing that your elders are sexy too, and here’s the big revelation: Sex gets better, really, really better with experience. Side note, *if you have the right partner.

 So stop being disgusted by the idea of sex with or by anyone over thirty-five. Especially you men! I hate to be sexist like that, but come the eff on! Sorry dudes, but we’ve put up with your adolescent attractions for far too long, young can be nice sometimes we know, we know, you think we don’t notice that nice pert butt on the girl (or guy, whatever) at the beach? Please, your partner will probably be thinking about it while they are in bed with you later, but if you have any kind of intelligence you won’t give up the kind of intense, orgasming-with-your-eyes-open connection that comes with maturity and real commitment to a worthy partner, faults, guts, cellulite and all. You only think sex is sexy when it’s with women (or men, whatever) under thirty? Bite me. Or rather, don’t. You are an idiot and you are missing out, which is what you deserve. And how long do you think those little chiclets are going to find you attractive? Mmm, hmmm, and whose fault is that? Yours dummy!! Unless a youngster is screwing your money or your fame, it will not last long, and being with someone who has to grit their teeth to get physical with you is pretty pathetic to start out with. So if you want to really enjoy life, and have the best sex ever, forever, stick with me here.

(Quick disclaimer—large age differences do sometimes work, when it’s a love-based relationship thing. That is not what I’m talking about here, I’m referring to selective sexual attraction based exclusively on youth.)

First off, let’s do the math. Say you start having sex at 16. I’m just picking an early-ish number for the sake of comparison. That gives you fourteen years of hot sex until you turn thirty, twenty-four years if you think it’s cool to be hot until forty. But if you live to be 80, which is highly likely these days, you have either forty or fifty years of potential pleasure on that back side. (no pun intended, but take it if you like it.) That’s more than twice as many years to get down and dirty, and I ain’t wasting it.

Now back to sex on location. Granted it’s much easier to feel relaxed and have the time to mess around in the mid-afternoon when you’re on vacation, the stresses of back home are unlikely to intrude. That leaky sink that drips a Chinese water torture tattoo through the night, the dirty laundry you’ve been too busy to do so you just kicked a path through it to the closet, the asshole next door that starts his obnoxiously loud motorcycle at 6 am and sits revving it for ten minutes before pulling out to share the fact that his daddy clearly didn’t love him enough with everyone with a five mile-radius of his route to work, new born babies, hospice patients, he excludes no one, how generous—all these things are gloriously absent.

Hubby and I rarely stay in hotels, we far prefer to rent homes, and this last trip we found some lulus. Aside from stunning views, giant fireplaces and cathedral ceilings, they were all very private, which is really good thing when you want to have loud sex in the claw foot bathtub that could hold four, or even the garden.

If you haven’t had sex outdoors recently, or god-forbid ever, I highly recommend it. A few tips, get a comfortable blanket and even a pillow if you like, personally I prefer a nice breeze on my bare skin, there’s nothing quite like being thrilled inside and out, if you know what I’m saying, and you do, no blushing.

This trip was Ireland, so sometimes it’s fun to go with a theme. A few favorites were sheepskins in front of a glowing peat fire, the edge of the ocean which was hundreds of feet below, a misty, magical forest filled with moss and ferns, next to a burbling stream, and best of all, on the parapet. (*see reference above, I told you to remember it.) It was hubby’s idea and I couldn’t get my shirt off fast enough. We grabbed a thick rug, a fluffy blanket and headed up the stone tower stairs. Start out standing, is my advice, and I should know, facing over the Irish countryside sixty feet over the lake that is strewn out before you like a Gainsborough landscape complete with wooly sheep and swans, yes swans, and then, if you’re us, your husband will lift you in his arms and lay you down to finish off with a view of white cloud studded blue sky and your wife writhing with the wind lifting her hair, (him) or your highly aroused lord of the manor and the meadows that stretch out to infinity beyond the tips of the forest of your castle grounds, (me).

Yep, I can clearly say that until you have amazing sex on the parapet of a 14th century castle, (okay the century isn’t really important) in a light wind with a view over a huge wild lake and cerulean blue skies, you haven’t…well, had sex on a parapet and enjoyed it so much that you were moved to tell the tale.

It was most excellent, and an indelible memory that sends a trilling breath through my body every time I recall it. For all of you going, ‘ewwww’ right now, you lose and I win. ‘Ewww’ your way back to your computer screen and your lotion and pretend that whatever juvenile hotty has the public eye right now would actually be interested in you. Even is she, or he, is, I wish you luck getting them to agree to even a few of the adventures in which hubby and I have had the joy of revelling.

So sorry if I shocked you my darlings, but life does not end at fifty.

Neither does feeling or being sexy.

It’s just now getting really good.

Can’t wait for it to get better.

Excuse me, my husband is waking up.

And I’ve got a little job for him under the redwoods out back.

 

Shari, September 16th, 2018

family, Life in General, Marriage

Sleeping Dangerously

Shari

 

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When he least expects. 

Put me on the ludicrously injured list. No I didn’t slip on a banana peel or walk into a glass door, or get cool whip in my eyes from a pie in the face. The source of my injury is even more ridiculous than a badly executed pratfall, worse than poorly planned farce. I fell off my bed due to an excess of pillows.

I’ve always been fairly graceful, an ironic result of busting my ass so frequently during my years as a competitive ice skater. I’ve fallen off of rocks, paths, cars, horses, sleds, skis, even the occasional man during a particularity athletic bit of loving, but this one was new.

I fell off my bed. Well, I fell getting into bed. Joseph made me a bed that is especially high, per my request, so that we can see out the window, across a lovely field and straight to the ocean. The breezes waft over us at night and the waves are our lullaby. So, to get into bed, I have to stand on my toes and kind of get one butt cheek up over the edge and then shift my weight up over the top as I draw my legs parallel and collapse safely onto our nocturnal aerie.

But I didn’t count on that extra pillow when I was incoming. The mount started out all right. I gained cheek purchase, swung my legs up, my weight started to counter onto the mattress, but then suddenly I was blocked from continuing the inertia, my momentum was arrested, full stop.  Thwarted, for a split second I teetered on the perilous edge of balance, then my weight started to counter back from whence it came, back out over open air, and…

And I know I’m in for it. Yep, I’m going down. Well doesn’t this feel familiar.

But I’m used to falling, I’ll just hit the carpet and roll, I got this.

Oops, forgot about the bedside table, which is about a foot and half below the mattress. The first thing that hits is one of my ribs on my back left side. It knocks the breath out of me and pain fires off from every neuron in my sensory receptors—all of them, it seems every part of my nervous system wants in on the hilarity.

In turn, the bedside table smashes against the wall with a reverberating crash, I land in a sitting position on the floor between the wall and the bed. I can’t breathe, which might be good because breathing hurts like a mofo, but the mishap is so ridiculous that I am laughing, but I’m not really laughing because there is no air with which to produce a laughing noise.

It sounds a bit like this, “Hee, hee, ahhhrg! Hee, ahhhgh, gasp, gasp, Ow! (shallow, broken attempts to obtain air,) hee, hee, ow, son of a….ha…ow…bitch!”

My husband leans over, “Are you all right?”

Since I don’t have the life force to answer him succinctly, I grunt out an interrupted, “Fi-ine.” But the laughter refuses to be ignored or restrained, even by the pain, my absurdity and that of the situation is making my objective self howl with laughter and pain, negating and stunting each other.

“Why are you crying?”

I huff out in the small puffs of air that I can manage, “Bro-ken,” I manage. “Not…crying…laughing…ow…ow….ow!”

“What happened? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine…” I lie again. “…fell…., too…many pillows.

At which point the unrivalled love of my life makes a mistake. A big mistake. “Ha!” he says, “Pillow karma!”

Now I’m out of breath, laughing, crying, swearing, and filled with a red hot need for revenge all at the same time.

It hurts.

Pillow Karma my ass. This from man who sleeps with a minimum of 4 pillows. This from a man who somehow manages to get the pillow cases and the fitted sheet off the bed pretty much every night, in his sleep.

So even in those first few seconds as I sit shallowly sucking in miniscule puffs of air that stab and twist, giggling painful, twisted noises, I begin to plot his demise.

I cannot, of course, reveal the evil machinations of my plan in this blog. My attorneys have advised against it, as it will offer too much proof of intent to the prosecution. Suffice to say that there are worse ways to wake up than when your wife yanks a pillow she favors out from under your head. There are sticky, smelly things that can be added to down pillows that resist detection and deny one a restful night’s sleep. Those feather shafts can be sharp, especially when that’s all that’s in them.

And of course, he can cuddle his pillows instead of his wife until the cracks in my ribs heal enough for me to take a deep breath and really unleash.

It’s been two days, and I’m doing much better, as long as I don’t have to breathe deeply, lift my left arm, blow my nose, or god help me….sneeze.

Please, I’m begging, no sneezing!

Of course, we are moving in two days, so I am still packing and cleaning.

And because I’m on the comically injured list, I’ve got the bed to myself.

Hubby can just sleep on the sofa with the throw pillows and the dog.

Love him so much.

Into each marriage some dissent must come.

And off of each bed, some idiot must fall.

You just have to laugh at it.

No matter how painful a giggle is.

And absolutely, positively no guffawing.

Karma comes in many colors, shapes and firmness levels.

You just go lay down and take a nap honey.

I’ll…uh, I mean, you’ll feel much better.

Where did I put the honey?

 

 

 

Shari, October 29th, 2017

Acting & Experiences, America, Life in General, RV life, trailers

Surviving a Virtual Sh*t Storm

Shari
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Fill those glasses, trouble’s a’ brewing!

 

We’re into our second month of traveling trailer life, and for us newbies, it’s been a challenge, to say the least. Joseph and I are veterans at handling household emergencies ranging from forest fires and mud slides to living without heat or water for months at a time post those natural disasters. Standing outside in the back yard slinging buckets of warm water from the hot tub over ourselves to wet, lather, and rinse is doable, but I can’t say I felt particularly glamorous. At least we didn’t have neighbors to shock, but I think the forest service helicopter pilots got an eyeful once or twice. (I noticed they came back around a couple of times.) None-the-less, this living in a 36 ft trailer that rocks every time Joseph rolls over in bed and I wake up sure that it’s ‘the big one’ is all new to us. Sitting up fast in limited space can be hazardous to your skull shape as well.

Of course, like the champ he is, hubby has been learning and handling things as we go while I adjust to cooking in ten square feet, only getting a hot shower at some campgrounds that offer them, and condensation that drips down the walls so moistly (is that a word?) that I can’t leave so much as a throw pillow up against the bedhead lest our trailer becomes a mushroom farm. Fungus and furnaces aside, I’m pretty damn proud of us. Most people we told about our adventure had one of two reactions. Awe and jealousy, “I’ve always wanted to do that! “ or “How exciting!”Or the opposing counsel of, “Your marriage will never survive it.”

We call that second group amateurs. Living in a tiny trailer surrounded by giant redwoods or with the ocean lulling you to sleep at night is not what we consider hardship. Sure, every few days one or the other of us gets uptight and cranky from lack of privacy, but we know that routine from traveling together for months at a time. A half day on our own and we’re excited to share with the other what we discovered while we were apart. We both know the warning signs well enough to burrow in silently with a book or head for the hills when a question like “Where is that property we’re going to see?” is answered with a snappy, “I don’t know. I didn’t memorise the address.”

Red flags like oh, say, me condemning the peanut butter to an eternity in hell because it had the unmitigated gall to fall out of the cabinet when I opened it, or my Shakespearian actor husband muttering his replies inaudibly as he walks away, means it’s time for a solo walk or maybe just a trip to the grocery store and a leisurely perusal of the gourmet aisle.

Drinking helps. So does marijuana. Fortunately, (or you can add a ‘un’ before that word, your choice) we don’t do those things until the evenings when work is done and we have nowhere to drive and no heavy machinery to operate. So if anxiety strikes around noon, other options must be explored if we expect to have our usual evening of sex and laughter.

Okay, we play a lot of scrabble too.

So far we have replaced the tow hitch twice, extended our sewage pipe, which is no easy feat when you don’t want leaks, and washed dishes with cold water until we could figure out how to work the water heater. (turns out it’s a simple switch in the bathroom) I continually hit the button that extends and retracts the bedroom slide-out thinking it’s a light switch causing the walls to start contracting like a scene from a bad horror movie. I did this so often that Joseph finally hung a picture over it.

Then we go to look at a property where a house burnt down. There is a viewing deck which I immediately see is rotted through. Joseph is about 20 yards away checking out the well.

I call out, “Don’t step on this deck, it’s rotted through!”

He responds with an “Okay!”

I start off up the hill to look at another pad and I hear him say, “Oh, there’s the electrical box.”

Thirty second later I hear a strangled, but manly, scream. My husband is a big, barrel chested Polish man so he does not scream like a girl. My brain immediately has an image of him standing in a puddle with 20K volts rushing through his system and I take off at a run through the trees screaming, (like a girl) “What? What happened.”

All I get in reply is groaning and other various expressions of pain. I come out of the trees to see him on the edge of the deck clutching his knee rocking in pain, behind him, there is a big hole.

Now I’m screwed, there’s no cell phone reception up here, my husband is almost close to twice my size, and there is nothing I can do to help a broken leg.

Do you have any idea how hard it was not to say. “I just told you not to step on that!” I really think I deserve kudos.

Not to worry, my bull of a hubby gasps out, “ACL” meaning that his knee bent backwards again, tearing the tendons. He is such a badass that within seconds he is sitting up, telling me he wants to finish walking the property when the pain subsides enough.

What are you going to do with that kind of courage? I found him a stick, and between that and a little bit of help from me, we hobbled around the acreage. Then went to lunch where we got ice for his knee and two large beers to wash down 4 ibuprofen for his pain. He stayed up all night unable to sleep and took himself to Kaiser the next day alone while I had to drive to LA to spend an absolutely enchanting day at the LA courthouse dealing with some legal crap that should have been settled 14 years ago. On the plus side, I get to visit our daughter, which I try to do for at least a couple days every week.

And the fun keeps on coming. While I’m still down south, Joseph calls to tell me that the RV park in the redwoods where we are staying is backing up with sewage. It’s raining and flooding there so we weren’t really surprised. He said it smelled so badly people started leaving.

Then we found out that the real problem was not the flooding, nor indeed the septic system at the park, oh no.

It was us.

Apparently, we confused a roll of regular toilet paper with the biodegradable stuff and it backed up at our connection. So Joseph goes out, in the raging rain, and clears our sewer hose by hand which, when I asked, he would only describe as ‘disgusting’ because he’s a gentleman and he doesn’t want me to know that it was really like that scene in Shawshank Redemption where the Tim Robbins is crawling through a half mile of unimaginable filth and stench puking as he goes. You’ve got to love a man who can act and direct the crap out of Hamlet and then direct the crap out of our trailer in a downpour.

So now we can officially add surviving a shit storm to our list. Literally.

It’s still pouring, I’m still in LA, and the trailer still smells pretty bad from what Joseph tells me. I just keep apologising that I’m not there to help.

On second thought, dealing with my husband, angry, rain and excrement soaked, in intense pain, unable to bend his knee, swearing and cursing and sweating and bleeding might be one more catastrophe than we bargained for.

Probably better that I wasn’t there now that I think of it.

I mean, how much time can you spend at the grocery store?

And after not a half day, but four or five, I really can’t wait to see him. He’s got a lingerie reward coming, after he showers of course.

Get out there and have an adventure!!

It’s worth it.

 

Shari, February 17, 2017