Who's a pretty girl?

This post was inspired by Jennshealthstore's wonderful "Love - Remembering the good old days" hub.

The title came from a little piece I wrote at one of my websites: it's called Wake Up and I will happily wait here if you'd like to go read it.

Don't go read Jenn's hub, because if you do, you'll surely get lost reading the other inspirational and truly lovely other hubs she has posted and you'll never get back here to finish this. Oh, now I've done it: you've gone off to read Jenn and left me here by myself, haven't you?

Well, I'm not really by myself. I'm lying in bed beside my wife. She is not feeling well today and asked that I keep her company, so I am typing this on my iPad and will post it later.

Next month we will celebrate our 43rd wedding anniversary. When I read Jenn's post, I recognized my wife and myself; we do all those things and always have. We are best friends forever and I love her deeply and completely.

Before I get too syrupy, let me assure you that we have disagreements and fights like anyone else. We are both emotional people by heritage; she is half Italian and I am half French Canadian. We can get boiling mad and very loud. Life's tensions and problems can make people grumpy and testy and we are as affected by that as anyone is.

But so often all I need to do is look at her and I melt. She knows that and will laugh when she notices me quietly adoring her. Yeah, I'm a little goofy sometimes.

I sometimes hear people talk about "getting away" from their spouse. I never feel like that - we go shopping together, and she often will come with me when I visit clients. We like being together. We like each other.

This week hasn't been great. My wife was in a car accident Wednesday. She had gone on the weekly bus shopping trip this community provides for its residents. I normally pick up her and our neighbor when they return, but I was tied up at a client. The neighbor's husband picked them up and lost control of his car in the parking lot. Backing up, apparently he thought he stepped on the brake but instead hit the gas and panicked. They spun around wildly multiple times, bouncing off a parked truck. My wife was sitting on the side that kept hitting the truck; she was banged around badly in spite of the seat belt she always wears.

She has painful joint and spinal issues already; this didn't help. To make things worse, she became ill after a party on Friday night. Neither of us have had much sleep since Wednesday and today we got a little stinky this morning over toast.

Silly, of course. She hadn't eaten much the past two days but now wanted toast. I went to make it.

Soon, she began to complain that I was taking too long. She was hungry, tired, grumpy. Yes, I was taking too long; I was trying to make it perfect for her, evenly browned, not burned, just perfect. Not trusting either the toaster or my skills, I was interrupting the process and turning for evenness. She was annoyed at the delay, I was annoyed that she failed to appreciate my efforts on her behalf.

After I delivered the toast, she decided she needed apple juice. You know how it is: you are sick, you really don't want to eat anything, but suddenly you think of something that is palatable. That's what you want. Too bad we didn't have any.

I got dressed and drove to the store. When I parked my car there, I called back home to see if she had thought of anything else we might need. She answered the phone and, in my best talking to a parrot voice, I said "Who's a pretty girl?". She laughed and we were friends again.

Some years back we were at a party where people were asked to describe their fantasies. People talked about being rich, about space travel and of course there were sexual fantasies thrown in. When it came to me, I quietly said "I married my fantasy".

My wife blushed. All the other women cooed and all the men shot daggers at me with their eyes, wishing they had said that. I wasn't trying to be cute or looking for brownie points. I meant it. I love my wife. It's as simple as that.

Feel free to steal that line from me if you really mean it. I wouldn't want someone to use it just to get brownie points, though I suppose someone probably will.

Flirting

I don't think you should ever stop flirting with your spouse. I'm writing this around Valentines day and just read a hub about "What to Write in a Note or Card - To the Person You Love", so I thought of some other things I have said or written to my wife over the years. I could probably sell some of these to a greeting card company, but I'd rather share them with you.

The first one requires a picture:

Corny? Sure.

How about this:

"I can't even think of you without smiling"

It's true - I really can't. I'll add more here as I think of them.