Ron's Choice

Five Reasons I’m Lucky Ron’s My Spouse

I asked my husband Ron what I should blog about this week, and this was his brilliant idea (technically I believed he phrased it as, “How Lucky I am to be Married to Ron”).

Here goes:

Five: My Toilet Paper Use Has Decreased. In my single days, I used a whole lot of toilet paper. Now, thanks to Ron, I only use lots. How, might you ask, did Ron become aware that I used too much TP? I asked myself the same question – especially since I swore I’d never go to the bathroom in front of my spouse. That rule ended shortly after our wedding when Ron burst into the bathroom to take a shower while I was on the pot unrolling a massive line of white squares. The point is, he helped me realize I can accomplish the job with half the amount.

Four: My Cooking Abilities Have Expanded. Long gone are the days I ate Cheerios for dinner and let my dog lap up the milk. With another mouth to feed, I took a few cooking lessons at Williams-Sonoma (they were wonderful, barring the salmonella). These days I whip up a plethora of dishes: spaghetti pie, Mexican lasagna, um . . . spaghetti pie. “What else do I cook?” I asked Ron. “Mexican lasagna,” he said. Tonight we’re having a variation of spaghetti pie. It’s called spaghetti.

Three: I Learned to Golf.

Here’s how to golf:

Step 1: Talk your spouse out of buying you the golf clubs on discount at Costco and into buying you Callaways, one of the most expensive brands on the market.

Step 2: Demonstrate that you’re truly dedicated to learning the game by treating your spouse to golf school.

Step 3: Relish in the luxury of the hotel room at the resort, gorge on the delicious food, soak in the Jacuzzi tub. Oh yeah, and crank those little white balls onto the fairway during lessons.

Step 4: After golf school ends, watch your game deteriorate – badly.

Step 5: When you flub a ball (99% of your shots), begin whacking your irons on the fairway.

Step 6: Repeat Step 5 except add dirty words.

Step 7: Quit.

Two: My Money Management Skills Have Improved. Ron, bless his heart, is cheap. Well, he’s frugal. Okay, he’s 50% frugal, 50% cheap. If there’s one unequivocal rule I've learned by observing Ron’s financial practices it’s this: it’s expensive to be cheap. Pick any topic and I’ll give you an example. Cars? Okay, the other day Ron and I were low on gas. Ron passed a gas station. Then another. Another. “I can’t believe these prices!” he cried. Then he said: “HaHa! Gas is two cents per gallon cheaper here,” and swerved into a shoddy looking station with the brand name GAS. “Do you realize you spent more money driving to sixteen gas stations than if you’d just filled up at the Chevron by our house?” I asked. Never mind the fact that the next day my car was making a strange clunk, clunk, clunk sound. See where I’m going here? Cheap, but expensive.

One: There are Too Many Reasons to Count. Time to get serious. Remember my toilet paper problem? Ron has taught me I don’t need to be excessive about anything and everything in life (what a relief!). Ron’s taught me to slow down and savor time – our fellowship at the dinner table (over my spaghetti pie) is a great example. Because of Ron, I’ve experienced new places, new activities, and new people – all wonderful (except for golf). Most importantly, he’s brought abundance into my life in ways that are much more meaningful than healthy finances. Thanks pumpkin!

Sweet Home California

. . . where the sky is so blue (and a little orange from the smog).

As soon as I stepped on west coast soil – if the blue and gray carpeting in the airport terminal counts as soil – I shouted: “I’M HOME!”

Okay, so I shouted internally, not out loud, but it was as if I’d sounded my barbaric yawp that Walt Whitman writes about.

Ron had to fly to Los Angeles for a work conference, so he had asked me if I wanted to come along.

“Yeeeeeees,” I sang as I ran down the hallway. I threw a handful of t-shirts and shorts in a suitcase and raced to the airport – that’s why I’m here a week early.

In the cab, I called him from my cell phone.

Me: I’m home!
Ron: Yeah.
Me: Everything looks great!

Technically, the cabbie was driving through a construction zone complete with litter and graffiti, but I meant “looks great” as in “looks familiar.”

The street names: San Vicente, Wilshire, Pacific Coast Hwy.
The trees: green palms, orange corals, purple jacarandas.
The restaurants – Monsoon, Blue Plate, The Lobster.

Not to mention the sparking blue ocean and perfect weather.

HOME!

I savored every day, every hour, every minute. I saw people I’ve missed and I saw people I didn’t even know I missed. For example, when I stopped by Starbucks, guess who was there? The Starbucks lady! The same one that’s always been there!

“Sweetie!” she said.

“I’m home!” I said.

I was even nostalgic over the shoe salesman at Bloomingdales. Too far out? Okay, how about the smell of sweet jasmine? The oozing blue ocean that’s soothing to my aching soul? The pregnant moon shining above the mountains in the morning sky, ready to give birth to a new day?

I could barely contain my longing to return. To cope, I made 60,000 appointments with my therapist.

“Does Ron know you feel this way about California?” she asked.

Yes, he knows.

But now what?

I agreed to move away. I agreed to support his job change. I agreed to give the east coast a try.

But how long do you have to wear an outfit before you admit that it JUST DOESN’T FIT? That the east coast is too scratchy (mosquitoes) and wet (rain) and formal (major lack of flip flops)?

Here’s what I decided:

I think maybe this time apart from "home" is a gift.
I think maybe I should be grateful.
I think I’m gaining understanding and information and perspective from 3000 miles away.

So instead of trying this very minute to solve what feels like a massive dilemma, I’m going to sit on my feelings for awhile. I going to let myself miss my home and let myself love it and let myself dream about how Ron and I could make it a part of our lives again one day – when another gift presents itself.

***

On a separate note - thanks to everyone for commenting on my last posting. I've accumulated so many new books I have no idea how I'm going to travel back without breaking my suitcase.

Empty Spot in My Purse

Today’s Mail: a red package from Netflix (the documentary Grizzly Man); a form letter from Merry Maids seeking my business (nope, I like the independent cleaners); bills and statements; statements and bills.

Bummer!

I’m waiting for my review copy of The Overachievers. I’m writing a book review on it for the August issue of Whole Life Times – which I’m super excited about – and my big, grand plan was to read it on the airplane this week. I have two 5-hour plane rides coming up. Two – and no book!

What am I going to do all squished up in that little blue seat?

So help! Recommend some great reads – your favorites – and I’ll try to get my hands on them before I leave. There's a big, empty spot waiting in my purse. The books can be something old or something new (hey, they can even be something borrowed or something blue (you know, as in sad)). Actually, I think Something Borrowed and Something Blue are actual book titles, but anyway, whatever you suggest, make sure it’s something good.

P.S. If you want to check out a few of my all time favorite books, click here. I’ll be updating this list by the end of the summer.

Creepy Crawlies

It was a dark and not-so-stormy night.

As we pulled out of the driveway, gravel crunched underneath the tires. The mansion-sized lake house stood behind us, quietly watching from its spot in the woods. The water, murky and brown, lapped the muddy banks as we drove down an abandoned road.

There were no streetlights, so I couldn’t see.

But I could feel.

I rubbed my forehead, ten fingers over smooth skin. I moved my hands higher and felt the damp of my hair, still drying. Then I felt . . . a scab? A new zit? No, a scab. It was on my hairline.

I picked the scab and was about the flick it away when I decided to take a closer look. Pressing on the internal car light, I glanced down. Then I stopped breathing. A brown, eight-legged, deer tick crawled around my index finger.

“Omigod! Omigod! Omigod!”

I flung the tick off my hand. My moment of breathlessness was replaced with massive hyperventilating.

“A tick! A tick! A TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICK!”

More massive hyperventilating.

“It bit me. It bit me. I have Lyme disease!”

I was inhaling rapid gulps of air and then more and more gulps and I could feel myself becoming lighter as if I were about to float away. All I could think about was Amy Tan -- a writer who was diagnosed with late-stage Lyme disease.

“EEE-ooh, EEE-ooh, EEE-ooh!” (That is supposed to be the sound of my messed up breathing.)

A deep, big voice broke through the night: “CALM DOWN.”

It was Ron.

He pulled the car off the road and drove until he spotted a McDonalds (even in BFE there’s McDonalds). We both jumped out and moved our bodies like worms, trying to shake out the willies. Ron held me by my arms and asked if I was okay. Then he checked me for ticks (or rather, more ticks).

“Ah! What’s on my back?” I screamed.

A strand of hair.

We emptied out the entire contents of our car looking for the little critter. When we couldn’t find him, Ron coaxed me back inside and tried to cheer me up with a vanilla soft cone. I was so busy plotting out how I’d live my life with a debilitating disease that the ice-cream melted and dripped down my t-shirt.

But something bothered me even more than my potential exposure to Lyme disease: my inability to handle stress. What if instead of a tick, we’d gotten in a car wreck? What if instead of seeing a creepy crawly I’d seen a severed a body part (you know, from our car wreck)? What if instead of Lyme disease, I had cancer?

After the tick incident, I was fine. At home, I researched and read up on ticks, I called a doctor, and I came up with a plan for monitoring the red spot on my scalp – the tick bite scar – and will watch for symptoms of disease. But how can I teach myself to calm down in the moment, so that next time there is a crisis I don’t react with panic and hyperventilation, but instead I respond appropriately?

Any input here would be appreciated. In the meantime, if you’d like to freak yourself out, read Amy Tan’s book The Opposite of Fate and then spend a weekend at a lake house in Maryland (tick hotbed of the nation).