In which Primo and I have our wedding anniversary and we don't get any weird presents from Doris may she rest in peace and I mean that but Primo doesn't do it right

It was our wedding anniversary the other day. Primo was still in Florida. I bought him not one but two cards.

The first one had a picture of kittens on it - kittens are Primo's favorite - and the second one said, "My feet are cold. Your feet are regular human temperature. That's why we work."

We are not into mushy cards, Primo and I.

My poor mom. She sends these beautiful sentimental cards with flowers and lace. They are lovely and sincere and all about how much she loves me. I love my mother. I love her a lot. I am very lucky to have her.

But I am not a good card sender. I keep sending her cards like, "When you are old, I will make sure your socks match."

That is not sentimental. It's funny, but it's not emotional and I think she would prefer an emotional card. I need to buy her emotional cards. That's what she likes. I need to think about what she wants, not about what I want to send her.

Bad, bad daughter.:(

Anyhow, I got Primo the two cards. No gifts (as if A YEAR OFF FROM WORKING ISN'T GIFT ENOUGH) because we have more stuff than we will ever need and I am trying really hard to get rid of stuff and because I have baked him three pies, one tart, and one Danish in the past three weeks. (We have a lot of pears from our tree.)

I gave him the cards when he got back from Florida. His face fell. "I didn't get you anything!"

Me: That's OK. You still have this weekend. :)

Primo: Thank you, sweetie.

Next day.

Primo: I'm on my way home [from a political thing he attended.] Is there anything you want me to get?

Me: It's our anniversary. You can get me some chocolate. :)

[I am writing the smiley faces so you can get the tone.]

Primo gets home
Me: Oh. No flowers. :(

Primo: I'm sorry, sweetie!

Three days later, Primo going to the grocery store and to do other chores.
Me: And an anniversary card! And flowers! And chocolate!

Primo, coming home: I didn't think you meant it!

Two days later
Primo: I'm at the store. Do we need anything?

Me: Some. Chocolate.

Primo: But we already have chocolate.

At home
Me: Where's the chocolate?

Primo: I didn't think you meant it! You say you want to lose weight for the reunion and we have an entire chocolate drawer!

Me: I was working on my book and was re-reading old emails from when we were first dating. Remember how you walked to the florist in Memphis to buy tulips for me? Listen to this:

I like you, I trust you, I'm hot for you, I respect you, and I don't want to face or even imagine life without you.  (Why would I want to?  Everything is better with you.) I've always said that I wouldn't settle again, that I would wait for the person who has everything I need. My wait is over.  I sensed that right away with you; I felt that you were the right one and that's why I let myself fall in love so quickly.  Lately, though, something has changed.  I've gone from feeling and thinking that you were the right person for me to being sure of it.

Primo: Wow. Who said that?

Me: YOU DID! TO ME!

Primo: I'm not doing it right, am I?

Me: Nope. Give me your hand.

Primo: Hey! What are you doing?

Me: I am writing an "X" on your hand.

Primo: Why?

Me: So that tomorrow, when you are out, you will see it and remember that your wife wants you to do something to show that you are still hot for her. See it and do something. SOMETHING.

In which Primo jokes about Sly's porn and we agree that Sly was a jerk

Primo: Should I bring home any of my dad's porn books?

Me: The idea of sharing anything sexual with your dad makes me gag.

Primo: I know. I was joking.

Me: Good.

Primo: I found one book called The Sexually Aggressive Male.

Me: Your dad thought he was an alpha male.

Primo: He was always bragging about all the women who wanted him.

Me: I find that hard to believe. That anyone wanted him, that is. I believe he would brag and I think he would make things up. Most women don't want mean men.

Primo: A lot of women want bad boys.

Me: A bad boy is not the same thing as mean.

Primo: They wanted him because he was an alpha male, he probably thought.

Me: Ha! He was not alpha! Alpha men are not afraid to confront danger. They are not afraid of being physical. Or even if they're afraid, they still do it.

Primo: My dad was not afraid of being physical.

Me: It doesn't count if you are beating up someone weaker than you are. It only counts as alpha if it's dangerous to you. Can you imagine your dad ever putting himself in danger for someone else's sake?

In which I discover the practice of naked photos is older than I am

Neighbor: Say hi to Primo for me.

Me: He's still in Florida.

Neighbor: Still? Wow!

Me: Still settling the estate. They had a garage sale this weekend.

Neighbor: He's been there a lot.

Me: I know. Hey. So if you have any naked photos of yourself with someone or have a sex diary, you might want to figure out how that should be handled when you are dead.

Neighbor: What?

Me: Primo found photos of his mom and dad. And a sex diary.

Neighbor [who is 51 years old]: Yeah, when I was cleaning out my grampa's house, I found photos of him and my grandma.

Me: What! Please tell me that they were when he and your grandma were young.

Neighbor: Wellllll.

Me: Oh no.

Neighbor: I don't even think my grandma knew anything was going on. My grandfather was kind of a horn dog.

In which Primo shreds Sly's sex diary and naked photos of Sly and Doris with - equipment

These are words you probably hope you will never say: "I finished shredding my dad's sex diary today."

You also probably do not want to say, "I shredded the photos of them naked yesterday" and your wife does not want to say, in response to your saying, "They didn't look that ba----," ""STOP!"

Your wife does not want to hear any defense or any description of your parents without their clothes. She does not want to hear about your dad's sex diary and sex in your sister's bed, although in your defense, you did not want to read about it, either.

You probably also hope you will never say, "I read a little bit every few pages as I was shredding. It doesn't look like they ever had sex in my bed."

You don't want your wife to ask, "Are you a little bit insulted by that?"

You don't want to answer, "Well, my sister did have a waterbed."

You do not want to have a conversation like this at all.

In which we are probably getting another cat

I love Kitty. She is here until [neighbor] gets home from work with her son.

I am glad you are getting to spend time with her. She has lost all of her people

She has new people who are very nice, but I wish I could take her home with me.

I know sweetie

We love kitties

she is being cute on purpose

She wants you to ask me to take her home.

But we probably shouldn't have three kitties, and they might not get along.

If I thought Laverne and Shirley wouldn't mind, I would be happy to have another kitty

But Kitty seems to like being an only cat

I don't think she was ever the problem. I think [other cat] was always aggressive, and she had to defend against him. I think he's the one who needs to be an only cat.

[Neighbor] says that she's OK at their house with another cat and a dog!

If you want to bring her home and think L and S would be happy, then let's do it

ACTION SHOT. #nofilter #kitty #ferocious #rawr

Fresh Step litter

Not tomorrow, but I want to consider it for next time. I just looked into the pet policies on Delta. It's $125 to carry on a small pet.

I need to go to the bank and convert my pile of cash into a check for the trust.

a small varmint?

what would be the plan if our cats did not like Kitty?

That's the problem.

Added: All these photos I thought I had uploaded months ago!

From Lilith's perspeChat Conversation End

In which Primo borrows back the cat

I have a visitor tonight.

Hello Kitty!

[The neighbor who has adopted the cat] asked last night whether I'd like to take her for the night, and I thought I shouldn't because it might disrupt the adoption process (and because I was busy watching tennis and going through papers). I was going to visit her at [neighbor's] this afternoon, but that didn't work out, so I decided to take her up on the offer of a kitty for the night. smile emoticon

someone should start a cat lending library

I was afraid that things had changed too much here, but she's up on the counter drinking from her dish.

Added: The photo that is supposed to be above. Stuff does not copy well into blogger.

This is the coffee mug that Jon refers to in the previous post. I think we can all agree that it is indeed hideous

In which Primo wants to bring more coffee mugs into this house, even though we already have (counting. ...) at least 15 mugs. For two people. Who didn't even drink coffee until four years ago.

Gold Digger

Yesterday at 8:23am · 

Trying to get rid of Stuff because Primo keeps bringing home more stuff from his mom and dad's (if it has a cat on it, it is in his suitcase and his parents had a LOT of stuff with cats on it) but am discovering that between the two of us, we have a ridiculous amount of emotional attachment to coffee mugs. Primo way more than me, though. I have three mugs I couldn't possibly get rid of. He has about ten. Not that he uses them - his Using mug is the one we got at Madeline Island five years ago and nobody else is allowed to use it, so when I have book club here, I have to hide the Good Mug. But we have to keep the other ten. Because - because coffee mug emotional attachment.

Like   Comment   

Share

• 
  
• Primo But coffee mugs are meaningful. smile emoticon

  Like · Reply · 1 · Yesterday at 8:48am
• Gold Digger You hate poor people! If you cared about the poor, you would care that they don't have coffee mugs. Someone who cared about the poor would donate all their never-used mugs to Goodwill.

  Like · Reply · 2 · Yesterday at 9:31am
• Jon  Some charitable soul brought this mug to a Goodwill. For $.86, it's been my forever mug since 2006.
  

  Like · Reply · 1 · Yesterday at 9:48am
• 
  

  Write a reply...

  
  

  
  
• Primo Fortunately, there aren't a bunch of coffee mugs with cats on them at my parents' house. But there is one from a mental health conference that my parents attended, so it reminds me of my sister and I may need to keep it.

  Like · Reply · Yesterday at 8:50am
• Gold Digger For everything that comes into this house, something else needs to go out. smile emoticon

  Like · Reply · 3 · Yesterday at 8:52am · Edited
•