Hardware

And Caroline, the hispanic cashier who rang up my drill bit this evening at Lowe's, was habanero hot.

No sooner...

...had I finished that last post, than I got on my bike for a long ride on a perfect spring afternoon. Making my way through the city and along the bike path out of town, I failed to avert my eyes from tennis skirts, bikers (snapped a phonecam shot of one who I drafted for a mile or two), sorta-shimmery rollerbladers and joggers, and even the bridesmaids at an outdoor wedding I passed. When I came home, I told my wife that my eyes had wandered. It feels better to disclose that--although I skipped the Stalker Phool Phonecam part, which I'll share with her at some yet-to-be-determined future time--and she smiled and said, "That's gotta be really tough, huh." Damn, I'm weak. And hardly deserving of her.

Jeg elsker Dig

Last night, my wife and I attended the retirement dinner for an older colleague of mine, a truly great man whose wisdom, kindness and support has been invaluable to me through the years. The evening, in the wake of many changes at work recently, impacted me. It made me want to raise my sights, to be more the type of man that this man is.

Afterwards, my wife and I sat in her car for about an hour, talking openly and honestly about my work, the kids, our family. As she dropped me off at my car (we had driven separately because she was running late so I went to the event directly from work), I told her, for the first time in several months, and meant it, that I loved her.

On the way home, Grieg's "Jeg Elsker Dig" came on the radio. This song played a role in our engagement, with the last line of its Hans Christian Andersen text etched on the inside of our wedding bands: The first half ("Jeg elsker Dig...") on hers, the second ("...i Tid og Evighed!") on mine.

It's a very short song, so I hurriedly tried to call her cell to have her turn to the same station, but after a few rings it went to voicemail. When we got home, she said, "I saw you tried to call me, but I couldn't get the phone out of my purse before you hung up." "Oh, no problem - I just wanted to see..." "...if I was listening to 'Jeg elsker dig' on the radio?" "Yeah." And we smiled.

"Jeg elsker Dig"
Op. 5 (Hjertets melodier) No. 3 (1864)
Edvard Grieg

Min Tankes Tanke ene du er vorden,
Du er mit Hjertes første Kærlighed.
Jeg elsker Dig, som Ingen her på Jorden,
Jeg elsker Dig i Tid og Evighed!

You have become the single thought of my thoughts,
you are the first love of my heart.
I love you as no one else here on Earth,
I love you for time and eternity!

Tunnel of Love

Last night I dreamt that I was on an old school bus with three women. One was somewhat of a friend from my childhood ward, one was from my work, and the third I didn't recognize. None was particularly attractive.

The bus was entirely empty--not even benches--with the exception of the driver's area, and a kiddie pool at the very back that had been converted into a hot tub. The bus was heading down the road with the four of us, naked, in the hot tub in the back, unfazed that there was no driver.

After a while, the bus came to a stop and the women got out of the pool, baring every nook and cranny to me in the process but seemingly indifferent to my presence as they did so. They bundled up in heavy fall clothes--wool turtlenecks, scarves, hats, boots--said, "See you later," and got out at what appeared to be a streetcar stop that one would find in some Germanic city. As I watched the women take their first few steps from the bus as it started to pull away, the buildings and storefronts outside looked Central European as well, and gray was the predominant color, but we were in Denver.

Once the bus was back on the road and the women out of sight, I wondered why I hadn't touched them. I became agitated and began to m (which is the way I'll abbreviate the full word--and you know which one I mean--in this blog, since I don't want Killer Kalves to be a result for any searches for m-ate, m-ing, m-tion or any other form of the word that might exist) until I saw that the bus had entered a tunnel, and that we were swiftly nearing the wall of a "T" intersection that ended the road we were on.

I got out of the pool and headed toward the front of the bus, struggling to pull my jeans up as I walked. I saw that the steering wheel was held in a straight position by a road bike tire that was fastened between it and the seat. I moved my feet toward the brakes but was too late and the bus slammed into the wall of solid rock.

I hit the dash and windshield but wasn't hurt, and fumbled toward the back of the bus--erect, my jeans still around my ankles--to slammed into the wall but didn't hurt me get the rest of my clothes on before a crowd assembled. As I passed the rear passenger's side step-down door, I saw a woman--either a brunette or a black woman--dressed in a navy blue coat and uniform that indicated authority of some kind, walking up alongside the bus, and I knew I was in big trouble.

Stray Cat Strut

Today my wife and I put up a fence together, to keep the deer out of her garden. This evening, as I took a bike ride in the foothills, my iPod played Grieg's "Wedding Day at Troldhaugen," which my wife's brother played at our wedding. (More specifically: we were married in the temple, but since virtually all relatives on her side of the family are not LDS, our sealing was followed by ring ceremony, conducted by her bishop who was also a friend of mine, at a nearby historical Church building. The Grieg piece played as a processional to this ceremony, which remains one of the spiritual highlights of my life.) I felt happy to be married to this woman.

Then my iPod shuffled to "Sexy & 17" by the Stray Cats. I spent the rest of my ride trying to remember whether the shot of the girl with the incredible legs--presumably "Little Marie," the song's love interest--preparing at the bathroom sink for her night out, was a still shot or a pan. I was pre-deacon when this song was a hit, but Marie obviously left such an impression that, despite not having seen the video for a few decades, I remembered most details about her: her heels, her garters, the Cat Tat on her right shoulder, her furtive entry into the shower (I'm sure my friends and I crippled the heads of a few VCRs trying to frame-advance that shot) -- everything except for whether the shot of her from behind, at the sink, was a still or a pan. So this question monopolized my mind until about an hour later, when we were well into the sealing session of our friends and their newly-adopted son. The sealer--who's also our home teacher--gave an introductory message that was rich and thought provoking, leaving no more room for Marie.

Afterwards, as the sealing party gathered in the temple lobby before heading out front for photos, a woman who was at least 5'11" with perilous heels and a barely-long-enough-for-Gs skirt passed us with her husband, and Marie was back. But when I noticed that my wife had dusted off some flattering heels of her own for the occasion, Marie was banished for the evening, and I was eager to get home.

Prejean, preblouse, prebra

Surely, somebody out there somewhere can appreciate how difficult it is, upon reading CNN's report of the minor scandal involving Miss California USA Carrie Prejean, to resist visiting the site named by the article as hosting the controvertial photo(s), reportedly much more revealing than the publicity shot included here for your reference.

Scarlet Sins, Ivory Snow, Green Door

This evening, while thumbing through a news magazine, I noticed the obituary of Marilyn Chambers. I had no idea who she was and wasn't familiar with her body of work. (She started as the face of Ivory Snow soap flakes --at roughly the same time that I was the age of the tyke in her arms-- and went down from there.) But it took me all of two sentences to get caught up in her life's narrative, and now I could cite you dates, revenues, etc.

Would I need to be a eunuch for stuff like this not to grab and hold my attention?

Great Expectations

Kind of a downer weekend, on several fronts.

My wife said this afternoon that today's church meetings made her feel in adequate.

"Hmmm. Sorry to hear that. But doesn't that mean that they were at least partially successful?"

She (understandably) didn't seem to want to hear that from me at first, but eventually acknowledged that, notwithstanding "that they might have joy," the whole point is more or less to:
a) underscore the gap between what we are and what we're supposed to be or become;
b) teach us how to bridge that gap; and,
c) help us believe that we can and should bridge it. (And then to get about bridging.)

Yesterday I attended commencement for one of my sisters, who went back to school to get a master's degree. Her degree is in a field in which I also have one, which helped turn the event for a walk down memory lane.

As I watched the proceedings, I found myself bristling at the enthusiasm and anticipation flowing from the stage. I sighed condescendingly at what I imagined would be a rude awakening when many of the graduates hit the cold, hard realities of the work force. I bounced my life's path-to-date against that of my sister and--sparing you some detail here--thought it somewhat ironic that for most of her life, she didn't think she would amount to much yet she's now poised to do some good things. By contrast, the first two-plus decades of my life were characterized by great expectations (both by myself and those closest to me), all of which has degenerated into a general sense of meaninglessness, especially professionally. I told a friend recently, "I'm semi-peacefully coming to terms with the idea that, contrary to what I'd long-believed/hoped/prepared for, my career and, in many ways, my life will not matter to anyone other than my immediate circle of family and closest friends." It's a sentiment that I used to reject with fear and defiance, but now consider with somber quasi-resignation.