List Four

 Since I am constrained by both the amount of data I can upload, 

and by my half-hour lunch, 

here are just a few words I use to describe Tuesday

• Repellent
• Wretched
• Abhorrent
• Vile 
• Odious
• Obnoxious
• Miserable
• Lamentable
• Heinous
• Accursed
• Flagitious (and my personal favourite) 

List Three

Happiness

• is a new book, spine uncracked, pages unruffled, cover smooth and slick beneath my fingers...
• the first sip of hot coffee in the morning, bitter and sweet, curling into my belly...
• a good stretch without pain...
• the sound of purring next to my head while I read...
• memorizing the constellations of freckles on your shoulder, early in the morning, while the house still sighs along with sleepy bodies...
• and homecoming days, when the distance between us is finally small and manageable and still much too much too much too far, so snuggling is really the only option.

List Two

Things I Aggressively Refuse To Commit To Memory, Despite Increasing Social Shaming, Which We All Know Simply Does Not Have 

Even The Slightest Effect On My, For Want Of A Better Word, Conscience

1. Phone numbers.
2. Author's names.
3. Movie plots.
4. Birthdays and anniversaries.
5. The names of people I don't want to know, or may be forced to know for only a brief time before they drift out of my frame of reference, never to be heard from again, until that one day when they see me across a crowded room and, as the violins swell, they rush towards me, clasping me tight, even though I am obviously inside my bubble, and I simply say, "And you are.....?"
6. How to spell "definitely" on the first go.

List One

Things I Have Only Quite Recently Remembered, Sort of Just, 

You Know, Randomly Like

1. That Canada has a Baffin Island.
2. That I did the "Coke Experiment" in public school. You know, the one where you dissolve a T-Bone in a pie pan filled with Coke? That one. I recalled it while drinking what turns out to be my last Coke ever. So. There's that.
3. That I know the recipe for the worlds worst margarita.
4. That the reason I hate cake is that I can't actually bake them, they all turn out burned. So really, every cake I eat, I am mentally wincing and expecting the gross taste of burned cake. It's a crippling affliction.
5. That March is List Month and I am so glad I remembered in time.

Wonderful

There is nothing lovelier 
than to be retrieved from work after a very long but wonderful day 
filled with glitter and pigeons and, well, wonder, 
by Husband, 
who has filled the front seat of the Volvo with warm woolly things 
and the back seat with warm woolly pooches 
and snow shoes,
just before sunset, 
on a Friday
Period

The Language of Love

Husband and I have been together a long while and the reason it works is that we are similar enough in the ways that matter. We both tend to be outdoorsy, we both love dogs and tolerate cats. Neither one of us is particularly passionate about politics or preaching and there is no time in either of our days for things that beep.

We differ in important ways as well. Too much similarity is boring, after all. He is not a huge sci-fi fan, and I am not a fan of dramas, real or on the big screen. Husband is probably more trusting than I am, but my cynicism keeps our canoe from being stolen. 

The biggest thing we have in common is our pragmatic approach to life. Neither one of us is particularly demonstrative when it comes to greeting card holidays or just about any other milestone, mostly because we've learned that the pager takes precedence over romantic dinner plans. Grand gestures on specific calendar days have never been that important to either of us. Instead we fill our lives, all year long, with the small things that make our hearts soar. We share this secret language, that we have grown over time, with our best good friends, who learn it and, hopefully, tolerate it as simply a part of knowing us.

For example, today, on this day of hearts and tokens and sweet gestures, it was more important I understand that when Husband asked for a small bowl of ice cream...

What he meant was, he'd like a small bowl with ice cream in it.

Happy Valentine's Day, Sweetie. 

AND ANOTHER THING!

I was jolted out of my blissful morning stupor by a local radio announcer declaring to his listening audience that boy, those military wives must be happy today because it's Wednesday and that means the local military members get paid.

What?  What?

I went from spooning my pillow to snarling at my radio alarm clock in far less time than it usually takes me.

I don't know what this professional journalist in question was implying but I am amateurishly inferring that this person, who's job it is to accurately journalize on news vital to the information of the general populous, feels military families live paycheck to paycheck, that it's the public's right to be made aware of this inclination, furthering the notion that military families have forgone the right to the dignity of confidentiality, and that, unaccountably, military pay cheques are issued on Wednesdays.

Let's just change some nouns and verbs, shall we? Put it into perspective? See how everyone feels about this little snippet of Pulitzer Prize winning reporting.

Breaking News:
"Boy, those oil wives must be happy today because it's Wednesday and that means their husbands get paid."
"Boy, those permanently disabled people must be happy because it's Wednesday and their pension cheques are in."
"Boy, those widows must be happy today because it's Wednesday and that's when the supplementary death benefit cheques are issued."

Tune in to K-Rock 95.3 in the mornings, Lakeland's go to radio station for poor fact checking.

For the record, although unlike our favourite announcer I can only speak for myself, I am delighted every day I wake up next to the wonderful man I married. 

Even, but not especially, on payday. 

Which was not today.