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Feel terrible today. Dreading getting to work. No idea why. But as often happens when the day seems to weigh a thousand pounds, I got five pages done before I had to break for exercise. No, exercise is not fun, but being healthier is. I guess exercise is a lot like writing. The process isn’t always fun, but the results are great.
Jon and I celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary this weekend. No, it’s not the actual day of the anniversary, but it is the only non-kid weekend we will have before the actual date. And yes, for those of you who met us before we wed, we’ve been a couple for five years. I prefer to celebrate on the actual date or before the date. So since it’s my preference I gave Jon the choice of what to do over the weekend. I offered to take him out to a restaurant that he likes better than I do, but he preferred to trade dinner out for dinner in, and a movie out. We saw LORD OF WAR. A very dark drama-edy. Not light enough to even be a dark comedy. It was good, but a disturbing movie. It leaves a cynical and near depressed feeling behind it. So Jon and I hit the video store on the way home and got some comedies that we hadn’t seen yet. We figured among three, we’d find one we wanted to watch during dinner. Monster-in-Law was a delight, though a little slow in the beginning, but it’s just packed full of wonderful performances, great physical comedy, and just a feel good movie. (We needed it after Lord of War.) Man of the House with Tommy Lee Jones as a Texas ranger trapped in a sorority full of cheerleaders was surprisingly good. It’s a bubble gum movie, and you get your Hollywood ending, but again, Jon and I wanted a little Hollywood ending after the earlier movie. Though one thing in Man of the House that surprised me was the clothes the girls were wearing. I asked Jon is this really what girls are wearing in their teens and early twenties? Like out in public? Jon said, yes. I asked, “Then what are street hookers wearing?” I wasn’t trying to be funny. I was being serious. The last time I saw women dressed like this was when I was doing research on street prostitution. Admittedly, that was somewhere around book eight, BLUE MOON, so about eight years ago. Has clothing changed that much? I mean I watch videos, but I thought everybody realized that those are costumes, not street clothes. I asked, well then what are the same age of men wearing? Baggy shorts, pants, over sized shirts. As the women are exposing more and more flesh, the men are covering up more and more. That is just plain unfair. Why so much female flesh and no male flesh? Who made this rule? Damned unfair, if you ask me.
Jon loves to cook, and, in fact, does the lion’s share of the cooking. He wanted us to cook dinner together to celebrate our anniversary. Mushroom soup with Sherry, it was a lot of chopping, slicing, and dicing. I did that part. So Jon could do the actual cooking. On a recipe I’ve never made before, I prefer to take a back seat and just hand over ingredients as requested. It was a lot of work. It smelled wonderful. Unfortunately, it didn’t taste wonderful. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t exactly good either. We actually added sandwiches to the soup, and didn’t really eat the soup. Tastes differ, and whoever did this particular soup had different tastes that we. But it wasn’t about the soup. It was about being in our kitchen together. About doing something together that is a lot more intimate than movie and a dinner out. Sex is great, and that was included in the weekend, but the sex wouldn’t be happening if we weren’t cooking together, reading together, sharing together. A good sex life comes out of the rest of your life being good. Foreplay can sometimes be chopping a bejillion vegetables, and making soup together.
I gave Jon his present before the movie, because I have trouble keeping a secret,and it’s always best I give surprises as soon as possible, so I don’t spill the beans. I got him the Slytherian class ring from Nobel collection. Because some day’s you feel like an evil, dark wizard and some day’s you don’t. Frankly, the ring looked beefier in the catalogue shots, but Jon loved the reason I bought it for him. One of the reasons we work so well together is that we both know, and enjoy, that not everyday is a Gryffindor kind of day. My first husband just totally didn’t get that.
In a couple of weeks, after our anniversary is past, we will have another kid-free weekend. It will be Jon’s turn to celebrate our anniversary. His turn to get me a present. My turn to pick what I want to do with the weekend. I’m probably going to opt for dinner out. Beyond that, don’t know, but I look forward to finding out.