Tag Archives: marriage

Excursions, Postcards

Airing on the B-side of caution ….

Woke up Friday morning to … pestilence. 

Which comes from the Latin word pestilentia, meaning unhealthy or noxious, ICYI.  

Friday’s edition came from the wildfires in Canada, triggering some of the worst air quality ever recorded in these parts. 

Keeping in mind that these parts were once described as ‘hell with the lid off’ by journalist James Parton during the Industrial Revolution, one could say that noxious air is in our DNA.

And not mean it figuratively. 

Sigh. 

I planned to take Friday afternoon off. 

Last Christmas a friend’s wife (also a friend) messaged me that she was surprising her husband with tickets for a July concert, and asked if I’d go with him. 

I was touched that she thought of me.  

Then she mentioned that the band was Motley Crud.

Sorry, I let auto-correct do its thing there.  

I was never much of a Motley Crue fan growing up, though I was good friends with many who were.

In full disclosure I have zero desire to see Motley Crue in the Year of our Lord 2026.

But I told my friend’s wife the truth — that I appreciated her husband more than I detested the present vocal stylings of Vince Neil, and that I’d be honored to share in the light of her thoughtfulness. 

I had months to gird my loins for the darkness that is attending any concert at Star Lake Amphitheater. 

Which hasn’t been called that in proly 25 years, during which the venue has undergone a number of corporate sponsorship name changes, none of which anyone in my peer group acknowledges.

Why a company would pay money to put their name on something so awful remains a mystery to me. 

The worst part of the Star Lake experience is getting in and out of the venue, which, for big draws, can mean waiting in a line of cars for several hours on either side of a show. 

It’s unequivocally awful. 

All that said, heading into this week, I was looking forward to seeing my friend Mike.  

And if I allowed myself to squint at things, the idea of being outside with a good friend on a summer Friday night, in proximity to thirst-slaking beverage, even with ‘music-adjacent’ sounds wafting in the air… holds great appeal to me. 

But I can’t do pestilence.

On Friday I unplugged from work around 1 p.m., and left the house to run a couple errands. 

Stepping outside was awful. Just walking into the post office and back to my car was misery. At the bank I tried in vain to hold my breath from the parking lot to the front door. 

When I got home I called Mike and told him the truth — that while I was genuinely looking forward to spending time with him, I was genuinely dreading the idea of standing outside for several hours in the noxious pestilence. 

By which I meant the wildfire smog … not Vince Neil’s vocal stylings. 

I had to tap out. 

It broke my heart to tell him.

But Mike totally understood, his grace triggering the best exhale I would enjoy on Friday. 

I spent my unexpectedly open afternoon chipping away at the herculean task that is cleaning out our garage. 

A few hours later I came upstairs and asked Karry if she was up for grabbing a bite. 

After a long week she didn’t want to go far or be out long. 

There aren’t many good choices close to us.

We made the cardinal error of getting in the car without first choosing a destination.

Which we will never — ever — do again.  

For reasons I cannot explain but will forever regret, we ended up in the Olive Garden parking lot. 

Before getting out of the car, Karry cautioned that we should skip the salad. 

For the record, aside from the post-meal Andy’s Candies, the bottomless salad is the only thing I enjoy at Olive Garden.

I suggested we consult the Internet. 

So for the evening’s amuse bouche, we scrolled the interwebs for a pre-dinner primer on the diarrhea-causing parasite cyclospora, which appeared to be confined to a supplier of Taco Bells.

“Internet seems to think we’re OK here,” I reported. 

We exited the car and I walked to the front door breathing into the crook of my arm like a capeless Dracula. 

As we waited to be seated, a staff person approached. 

“Just so you know, we’re out of lettuce,” she said. 

Sigh.  

They sat us in a corner booth. Server took our drink order. Karry ordered an iced tea with lemon. 

“We’re out of lemons.” 

I was going to order a water with lemon. 

When life gives you lemons, it’s hard to make lemonade … when life takes away your lemons. 

While perusing the menu at Olive Garden, I may have set a world record for the longest uninterrupted exhale during a Code Maroon air-quality alert.

“Can I get you some soup?” our server asked after bringing our lemon-less beverages. 

I always go for the salad, but remembered that Olive Garden has a wedding-soup-adjacent option that’s not on the menu, and asked for that. 

Karry likes their chicken gnocchi soup. 

When our server returned with our bowls, she asked if we’d like grated cheese. 

I’m conditioned to always answer that Olive Garden question in the affirmative. 

I love cheese on my bottomless salad. 

And on my pasta. 

I said yes out of habit. 

Whereupon I discovered that God did not intend the meatballs in their wedding-soup-adjacent soup to be cheesed. 

It was just … wrong.

Karry noticed the involuntary rictus conquering my face. 

Incidentally, I think Involuntary Rictus may have been Motley Crue’s opener at Star Lake.

Not that I looked. 

“Is it OK?” 

“It’s awful,” I said, dropping my spoon in the bowl. 

I realize that it proly didn’t help that I still had diarrhea-causing parasites on my mind.

“Can I get you something else?” our server asked when she returned to take our meal orders. 

Though I was still reeling, my brain remembered how much I enjoy saying the syllables “pah-stuh-fah-ZOOL,” which splashed some metaphorical lemon-less water on my face. 

Karry went with eggplant. I went lasagna. 

I swear it only seemed like two minutes before our server returned with our entrees. 

“Careful, these are hot,” she said as she gingerly put our plates down in front of us. 

“Would you like some cheese?” 

Even in the recent wake of the fouling of my soup, there’s only one answer to that question. 

“Bring it,” said the voice in my head as I nodded.

I let her pile a small ebenezer of grated cheese atop my smokin’ hot lasagna. 

“That was fast,” Karry said after our server left and we stared at our steaming dishes. 

Startlingly so.

I noticed that the sauce had been baked dry on both our plates in their apparently impressively and insanely powerful ovens. 

All eight corners of our two dishes were a little scorched. 

Not awfully so … just a couple exits north of gooey. 

Seemed on point in a world where everything seems on blast these days.  

“At least they’re done,” Karry said.

My wife possesses a subtle gift for matching dry times with dryer humor.

Not sure she’s trying to be funny … but I appreciate it nonetheless. 

Just like I appreciate how OG does its best to create ambience with a playlist overly reliant on Dean Martin. 

In my experience there are few circumstances in life that cannot be made less grating by sprinkling some aged Rat Pack on it.

Listening to Dean-o crooning “a love as warm as wine” to his Innamorata made me appreciate sitting in a corner booth on a Friday night, across from the person whose hand I love to hold more than anyone else’s in the world.

I mean, if you squint at it, it was almost a classic scene from an Italian-adjacent restaurant.  

“We should’ve gone to Angelo’s,” my Innamorata said a couple minutes later. 

Angelo’s is a local institution, and everything you want in a family-run red-sauce cathedral. 

Only like five minutes from our house. 

Last time we went we were delightfully reminded/surprised how good it was.

Which is why we will never — ever — get in the car again without locking down a destination first. 

After bringing Karry a to-go box to re-plant her eggplant, our server asked if we wanted any dessert.

I shook my head no.

“Do you like the candies?” she asked. 

“I have been saving room for dessert,” said the voice in my head as I nodded. 

She dropped a fistful on the table along with our check. 

It was the only time all night she didn’t ask me if I’d like some cheese.

Make no mistake … I would’ve said yes.

Karry took one mint and let me have the rest. 

I’m not saying that unwrapping a fistful of Andy’s Candies and popping them in my mouth like Percocet made me forget all about diarrhea-causing parasites, rictus-triggering cheese soup, scorched corners, and the noxious pestilence awaiting us outside.

It would take more than all the lemons that Olive Garden didn’t have to make lemonade out of that. 

I’m just saying that sitting in a corner booth Friday night staving off existential crisis, I had a lot of feelings. 

And I proceeded to eat all of them. 

“You ready?” Karry asked. 

And as we got up and walked to the front door, I raised my right arm to re-crook my nose as Dean Martin was forced from the stage by the evening’s headliner … involuntary rictus. 

But if I allowed myself to squint at things, what propelled me forward as I tried in vain to hold my breath on the way back to the car was a lyric from, if not my favorite, my least-detested Motley Crue song of all time. 

I’m on my way … I’m on my way … home sweet home. 

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Postcards

29 years, 149 days ….

Was pulling laundry from the dryer yesterday, under strict guidelines from Karry. 

Which she made me repeat out loud before she left.

Which didn’t upset me at all. 

We both know my track record.  

Set myself a timer for 10 minutes for the two pairs of leggings (black and gray) that needed pulled out early. 

At eight minutes, I still remembered black and gray, but texted her to triple confirm that both were pants.

After the rest of the load finished, I neatly (for me) folded and hung everything else. 

Even remembered to check the lint screen.

“She’d appreciate that,” was an actual thought in my head. 

It was covered from the full load.

The lint was the brightest purple.

From the big Eeyore sweatshirt she got at that Disney discount store in Orlando. 

Probably why it was on discount. 

Made me smile … not sure why.

Maybe because I was the only person in the universe who knew that something she loved made the world purple. 

Took me a few seconds to roll it off the screen and into a ball.

Thought about saving it for her.

Nah, she’d think it was weird.    

Took a picture of it before I tossed it in the garbage, though.

So I’d remember.  

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Excursions

Introducing: The 12 Days of T-Shirts (Man Of Action edition)

Couple weeks ago we’re in the kitchen when Karry asks me about a charge on our credit card that looked suspicious. 

Read aloud the name of a company she didn’t recognize. 

“No, that’s me,” I said. 

Was kinda’ hoping that would end her curiosity. 

Had the opposite effect … like most of my good intentions.

“What did you buy?” she asked.

“It’s … a surprise.” 

As an aside … that’s pretty good for me as far as comebacks under pressure go.  

But it was late October. She knows I’m not that proactive with my holiday shopping. 

“What did you buy?” she repeated.

“A t-shirt,” I confessed. 

She: You bought a $35 t-shirt? 

While it might seem like a yes or no question, the answer … was nuanced. 

Me: No, I bought a $28 t-shirt.

She: (silence) 

Me: Seven bucks for shipping.

Karry tends not to put on her cheaters to appreciate nuance. 

For context, I love t-shirts. 

My family prefers the word ‘addiction.’

It’s my only one. 

Yep, T-shirts and postcards. 

And, um, books.

T-shirts are among the reasons I don’t get tattoos. 

I’m too easily seduced. 

I fall in love too frequently … and fleetingly. 

I mean, just when you see a design of a badass skull made up of tiny cats ($28 + $7 shipping), your feed serves up a silhouette of a man’s arm coming into frame to fist-bump a similarly silhouetted cat who looks like one of the cats who live in your house (Viktor).  

The family staged an intervention a few years ago. 

Unbeknownst to me, they harvested a bunch of t-shirts from my closet and had them made into a blanket … like parents do when their kids leave for college. 

They were sneaky. Did it under the guise of my birthday and presented it as a ‘gift,’ … which forced me to suppress my immediate reaction, which was along the lines of, “You did  … what ???!!!”  

Some (most) of the shirts were still in regular rotation … including one of my all-time favorites: the orange GI Joe “Man of Action (With Lifelike Hair)” number that I found in a comic book store in Houston, Texas many years ago. 

Joe’s head on the t-shirt had the same life-like hair as the action figure doll I had in the 70’s. 

Glorious. 

Over the years many wide-eyed smiles and fist-bumps from kindred spirits, most (all) middle-aged men, most (all) of whom proceeded to lose their sh*t when I pointed out that Joe’s coiffe was, in fact, life-like. 

At night, when I am under the blanket, I can sometimes hear Joe softly sobbing.

Since the thoughtful-birthday-gift-slash-intrusive-intervention (still stings), we’ve operated under an uneasy detente.

For any new t-shirt I bring into the collection, I must remove one from my closet.   

So I felt cornered when Karry called me out in the kitchen on my latest acquisition. 

“It’ll be my last one of the year,” I blurted. 

She: Yeah, right. 

Me: No, seriously, last one of the year. 

She: (silence)

Me: It’s only, like, two months. I can make it.

She: (silence)

While acknowledging that historical precedent would suggest, shall we say, an uphill climb, I pointed out that a little encouragement would, you know, go a long way.

She: You’ll never make it.

__

Couple weeks later, I’m downstairs when I hear yelling from the laundry room.

“Wait, did you get another t-shirt?”

While it seems like a yes or no question, the answer was … nuanced. 

At the storytelling thing in the city I went to the night before, Jacob the producer gave me the t-shirt I won a couple months ago. They were out at the time. 

I hadn’t bought it, so therefore had not violated the embargo. 

I assured her that my t-shirt fast was still holding strong. 

Then she did the thing she does sometimes … where she held her gaze a couple extra seconds without saying a word … letting me know she’ll be keeping an eye on me … until midnight strikes on Dec. 31.

Which I received as, you know, encouragement.  

Recognizing that I still have about four weeks to go in my fast — which, let’s be honest here, will be brutal for the holiday algorithms ramping up to tempt me at every turn — I thought it’d be healthy to channel my energies away from my feeds and towards counting my blessings, by which I mean the treasures hanging in my closet.

Which history suggests are only ever a stealthy intervention away from being permanently removed from circulation.

So I’m here today to officially launch the TWELVE DAYS OF T-SHIRTS … a celebratory ‘greatest hits’ retrospective befitting, you know, a man of action with life-like hair. 

The ones that bring me joy.

The ones that keep me in Cozy Mode as I clumsily navigate the world around me. 

The ones that I impulse bought in spasms of poor decision-making somewhere between my second and third Moscow Mules. 

Each one with its own story to tell.

Full disclosure: knowing that the odds of my following through to 12 are only marginally better than my resisting t-shirt temptation for the next four weeks … I will be receiving any and all feedback (including silence) as encouragement. 

Tomorrow: #1 Tuscan Serenade

Apologies in advance. 

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Postcards

Recipes ….

Left the house yesterday morning to meet my sister for coffee. 

There are few more lovely reasons to leave the house on a Saturday morning. 

Figured I’d swing by the post office first to pick up some stamps.

Planned to write my daughter her weekly postcard after having coffee with my big sister. 

No line when I got inside. 

Saw Maria standing behind the counter … which made me smile. 

Maria’s worked at the post office for 28 years, if I remember correctly. 

She told me last time I picked up a lasagna from her. 

Not at the post office.

At her tender restaurant A la Maria’s, on LeMoyne, where she spends her weekday evenings … lovingly making her Mom’s old Italian recipes.

Maria’s place holds a special place in my heart. 

When Karry and I got married and moved into the World’s Tiniest Apartment in East Washington, Maria’s mother ran a restaurant out of the basement of her home a couple blocks from us. 

In our early Kraft-Mac-and-Cheese-Can-of-Peas-for-Dinner days, Paesano’s was our one monthly splurge. 

Saturday night.

If the weather was nice we’d walk. 

It was BYOB so we made a ritual of picking up a $10 bottle of wine.

Made sure we were in our seats by 7 o’clock, so we could watch X-Files re-runs on the big TV that hung in the dining area …

… while slow savoring food made with love from an Italian mother’s kitchen.  

We’d take our time walking our full bellies back home — the next day’s leftover lunch in my left hand, Karry’s hand in my right. 

Everything my Saturday night could ever want back then. 

Maria’s lasagna is perfection. 

Architectural is the best way to describe it. 

Sharp corners. Rectilinear. Towering. 

Don’t know how she does it.

Every lasagna we’ve ever made at home comes out of the pan (deliciously) gloopy.

Maria’s could serve as a tornado shelter. 

Comes with about a 1/2 inch of standing red sauce pooling in the bottom of the to go container. 

Every time I get home and crack open the styrofoam box, Pavarotti sings ‘La donna è mobile’ in my head.

Comes with two thin slices of Italian bread, essential sponges for sopping up every last drop from the plate when you’ve sadly run out of lasagna.

When I put my sopped-clean-post-lasagna plate in the dish washer, the other dishes are like, “I think you meant to put this back in the cabinet.” 

So it should come as no surprise how it made me smile to see Maria behind the counter at the post office yesterday morning.

“Miss Maria,” I greeted.

“Mr. Riddell.”

“Postcard stamps?” I asked. 

“Cleaned out. Election folks bought ‘em all up.”

“Awwww. Really?”

Asked her when they might get more in. She said they’re on order, from Kansas.

“They send them regular mail … so, who knows?”

Coming from a post office person, the “Who knows?” struck me as funny. 

She said I could try the McMurray store. They have everything there. 

I thanked her for letting me know, and exhaled defeatedly, as I didn’t have the time nor inclination for a special trip. 

Was just about to say out loud that my visit wasn’t in vain, though, since I got to see her …  

… when Maria interjected. 

“Otherwise, you’d have to go two busses and some grapes.”

“Uh …. I’m sorry, what?”

“To make up the 61 cents,” she said.

Pre-caffeinated, I wasn’t following at all. 

She pulls out her drawer, takes out a couple packs of stamps. 

Starts to do math. 

Explains the busses are 28 cents … 

“So two of those …. plus a five cent stamp,” she says, holding up a pack of grape stamps. 

“So you’d need a lot of stamps,” she chuckled.

“Wait …,” I said. “Postcard stamps are 61 cents?”

“Yep. Regular stamps are 78 cents, post cards are 61.”

I had no idea. 

In my mind I thought postcard stamps were like 19 cents.

Sixty-one cents …  for such little real estate.  

I felt dumb … for having hundreds of post cards at home. 

She started to put the booklets back in her drawer, when I interjected. 

“I’ll take the busses and grapes,” I said. 

“Oh, you want to do that?” she asked.

“Just to get me through today,” I said. 

What I meant was that I’d just take a booklet of each as an interim solution. 

“Oh, so you just want enough for one?” she asked.  

I didn’t think you could do that.

I smiled at the smile on her face as I watched her tearing off a postcard’s worth of individual stamps from their booklets. 

“I guess I’m going to have to write smaller,” I said out loud. 

She broke apart the three I needed, laid them loose on the counter. 

Then an idea popped into her head.

“Here’s what you do ….” 

I watched her pick up a bus, peel it off, and carefully lay it across the other bus. 

Wasn’t sure what she was doing … maybe just consolidating onto one piece rather than sending me out with three loose stamps? 

Then she peeled the grape and surgically laid it across the second bus. 

“There …. That’s what you do,” she said. 

Proudly. 

“Leaves you more room to write,” she said. 

Oh. 

“So you can lay them across each other like that on the post card?” I asked. 

“Yep,” she said. “Only the ‘USA’ needs to be showing.” 

And I giggled out loud …  like a five-year-old who’d just seen an adult perform magic.

You should see what she does with a lasagna, I’m tellin’ ya. 

In the town where I live, there’s a person who will not only let a clueless, pre-caffeinated little brother cobble together a postcard’s worth of stamps … but will take the time to bunch ‘em as tight as the law allows … so he has as much room as possible to write to his daughter about how much he misses her.

__

And after just the loveliest visit with my big sister …

… I took out my favorite pen …

… and the postcard I’d plucked special from my massive, impractical inventory …

… took my time writing small and neat …

… doing my best to make every word count …

… with all the reverence I could muster …

… as I imagined a mother might …

… writing down her favorite recipes for posterity.

Everything my Saturday morning could ever want.  

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Postcards

It’s still good ….

Sunday morning I’m downstairs at my desk when my wife pulls in the driveway, back from picking up groceries after church. 

She likes going to the early service. 

I stay behind and write. 

Both reverent in our pews, attentive to the divine.

Hearing the garage door, I walk out to help her carry in. 

Find her sitting in her car, windows up. 

“You on the phone?” I mouth, making a telephone gesture with my left hand. 

She rolls down the passenger window. 

“I wish you could see your Dad right now,” she says. “His boxers are sticking out above his pajama bottoms.”

She has our daughter on speaker. 

“ ‘Thank you for helping carry in the groceries,’  is what she means to say,” I interject, loud enough for the bluetooth to pick up.  

“And his t-shirt’s too small. Belly’s sticking out.” 

I’m provoked into issuing a statement.  

“I will not be shamed for operating in Cozy Mode on a Sunday morning,” I enter into the record. 

“It’s almost noon,” my daughter chimes in on speaker.

I almost miss being a target of their pile-ons. 

“And, let it be known that Cozy Mode may remain in effect for the next several hours,” I add, which is simultaneously the most defiant threat I can think of, and quite possibly the most pathetic utterance of my life. 

“He looks ridiculous,” my wife adds, grossly overstating the obvious.

Or, overstating the gross obvious.  

“OK, I’ll go in and change, and you can carry in the groceries,” I fire back. 

Was pretty proud of that one. I’m usually not that quick. 

“And I’ll take back the salami I picked up for you.”

She is always that quick. 

Caught me flat-footed. I didn’t see the salami coming. 

Night before, she’s putting finishing touches on the grocery order. Asks if there’s anything I want to add. 

I think for a couple seconds.  “Ooh … do we have any ….”

“Don’t even say ‘salami,’”

In legal terms I believe her asking me the question is what’s known as ‘entrapment,’ but I digress. 

I braced a second too late for what I knew was coming next. 

“I’ve thrown out the last three bags you asked me to get.”

This is true. Not sure I even opened ‘em. 

“I’m not getting it again to have to throw it away.”

Totally understand. So wasteful. 

I feel remorse for requesting salami that I habitually ignore.

I’m not sure why I do this. 

I genuinely like salami. I mean, in between two slices of bread with some yellow mustard? Perfection. Makes salads instantly, you know, fancy. Rolled up with a slice of provolone … it’s like Cozy Mode on a plate.

I have it in my head that salami keeps for a long time. Takes weeks to cure, doesn’t it? You always see ‘em hanging from wooden ceilings on TV. 

So I feel no sense of urgency with salami. Assume it’s always going to be there.

I’m surprised when she throws it away. 

Every time she does, part of me thinks, “It’s still good.” 

I realize I may not be in full command of the facts on the topic.   

Maybe I should start treating it like an avocado. 

Clock’s always tickin’ on an avocado. Doesn’t give you a chance to take it for granted. 

Or … maybe I just like the idea of salami more than, you know, consuming it.

Regardless, the way she kiboshed my request before I could even make it the night before left me convinced I’d have a lot of time to ponder the mystery while living out the rest of my salami-free days.

A punishment fitting the crime.

But … she added it to the order. 

Awwwww.

“She still loves me,” I thought.

At least enough to give me another chance.

I may or may not have placed my hand over my heart after she said it. 

Or, you know, over my t-shirt that’s at least one size too small. 

I mean, she got me salami. 

I’ve come to appreciate that such tiny graces are the wobbly cobblestones that give a marriage a chance to find its fragile footing.

“It’s still good,” I thought.

The fact that I only became aware of her kind gesture when she threatened to take it back was not lost on me.

Clock’s always tickin’ on an avocado. 

“We are such an old married couple,” I said, loud enough for the Bluetooth to hear.

For the record, I was praising us, not shaming us.

Love looks different at 54 then it did at 24.

Says the guy whose boxer shorts are peeking out over his drooping pajamas past noon on a Sunday.

Sometimes you have to put on your cheaters to notice how beautiful it still is. 

I went around back to grab the grocery bags.

Still attentive to the divine.

 

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Postcards, saturdays

Arriving ….

My friend Doug texted me Thursday, which triggered the following exchange. 

I was grateful to Doug for giving me something to look forward to. 

Actually, two things. 

First and foremost, the delight of his company … the gift of picking up the conversation we began when we met as drummers our freshman year at Waynesburg College. 

Secondly, for the gift of the arriving. 

Ever since April who cuts my hair closed her shop on High Street, I’ve missed driving to Waynesburg every fourth Saturday morning.  

I miss driving through Washington just as it’s just waking up and hopping on Interstate 79. 

I don’t take 79 the whole way to Waynesburg, though. 

I fall in love at the Ruff Creek exit.  

By the time I see the sign announcing two miles to Ruff Creek, I am almost giddy. After the exit’s abrupt stop sign, I ease past the gas station on the left and the Church on the right where the cop sat that one time. 

Confirming the coast is clear, I politely punch it and take the two-lane roller coaster climb of a hill as if it’s the roller coaster itself, my one and only chance to clear any slow pokes content with letting life and me pass them by, so that by the top … the only thing in front of me are two lanes irresistibly wide open and waiting … the juiciest Jane Mansfield stretch of swerves and curves in all of Greene County. 

Cue angel chorus. 

Three sets of gently undulating left and right curves carved in an incline …  tempting me and the GTI to a little Saturday morning orneriness. 

At the first left, I leave the right lane and visit the passing lane, following the arc of the bend, and, as long as there are no other cars in sight, swing all the way back into the right as the road snakes. 

Since the hill’s not quite done, I keep my foot on the gas so I can feel the pull into the curve until it releases me into the next left … and then gently back again into the far right. 

By the third left, the sequence is doing the good work of my morning coffee. All of it taking less than a minute. 

The loveliest little moment of aliveness. 

The only-every-four-week sequence made it precious. Something to look forward to. 

Something I’ve missed. 

__

Saturday’s reminder of which was almost but not quite as good as the big bear hug Doug and I greeted each other with, before hunkering down in our cushy red booth.

After sharing my gratitude with Doug for his invitation, for the delight of his company, and the gift in the pilgrimage, we were deep into catching up on family, music, and books when he interrupted me. 

He: “Still looking for your pay it forward?” 

Me: “Yes!”

He: “An older couple just came in and sat down.” 

We called our server over, who was more than happy to conspire with us. 

“I’m going over to take their order right now.”

I stole a glance out of the corner of my eye. 

Older married couple out for Saturday breakfast. 

Late 60’s, maybe 70s. I’m a bad guesser. 

I overheard the husband order Double Meat for his breakfast platter, which made me smile. 

A man after my Dad’s quadruple-bypassed heart, I thought to myself.  

I confessed to Doug that something about older couples always melts me. 

Told him about being at the coffee shop last Saturday as a couple regulars I’ve seen before took the table next to me. It was freezing outside, so they were all bundled up. Kept their toboggans on the whole time. 

They were adorable.

I wasn’t eavesdropping, but sitting next to them, I couldn’t help but notice. 

They talked the whole time. 

Genuine conversation. 

Asked questions of the other. 

Not a phone in sight. 

Made each other laugh on more than one occasion. 

When they left, I asked Nicole, who does the baking and who I heard call them by name, whether they were just friends or ….

“They’re married,” she confirmed. “They are just the sweetest.”

I said aloud how I hoped to live long enough to be an old couple who keeps their toboggans on while sipping their Saturday morning coffee.  

 I shared the above with Doug as we resumed losing ourselves in the swerves and curves of our conversation.

Asking questions of the other. 

Making each other laugh on more than one occasion.

‘Til it was time to get on with our Saturdays.

When we got to the register to pay our bills, another customer was waiting for a to go order. I noticed she was wearing a Dairy Queen shirt. 

I also noticed that the older couple had gotten up to leave, too, and were heading in our direction. 

The wife had a lot of difficulty walking, so they were taking their time, her husband gently holding her arm as they made their way. 

They chatted while they took the time she needed. 

I apprehended that it wasn’t an easy choice for them to decide to go out for breakfast.

They probably don’t do it as often as they used to.

Which maybe made it something they looked forward to this week.

I imagined that their years together have taught them something of arrivings, too.  

I melted in place. 

When they got near the register, we and the DQ person stepped aside to let them pass between us — a humble Saturday morning honor guard — as the husband helped his wife to the restroom. 

It took a minute for them to pass between us. Enough time for the husband to notice the DQ logo on the girl’s shirt, too. 

“Peanut buster parfait,” he said, and smiled as he went past. 

I hi-fived him in my head. 

That was Dad’s favorite, too.

Standing in line with my friend at the register, waiting to pay our bills at the Bob Evans on a Saturday morning. 

The loveliest little moment of aliveness. 

Cue angel chorus.

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T.I.N.P.O.B.D.N.R.

Pete’s, uh, Pie

Couple Friday nights ago, it’s just the two of us for dinner. Emma working, Peter out with the boys. On my commute home Karry calls, suggests picking up fish sandwiches at one of the Catholic Churches in town. Lenten fish fries in these parts are a religious experience in every sense of the word. I trust her with the order – the menus have no wrong answers – and we coordinate timing for pick-up on my way through town. She calls me back after placing the order, tells me what she got, mentions that she gave the person on the phone license to pick us out two good desserts.

I arrive a few minutes early, a gift, as I get to bask in the aura of a busy, old, church basement. The several-decades-ago tile floor same as the one  from my Trinity Church childhood. Young kids, tired of sitting still, are jumping on the stage, seeing how high they can reach on the curtain. The timeless, singular scent, baked in from generations of serving flocks.

The joy of purpose radiant in every person in their role. The olders in the chairs taking orders. The grandmas, moms, dads, sons and daughters in the kitchen, prepping and packing. When it’s time, the expectation in watching the young person bringing you your order. The warmth on your hand under the bottom of the bag as you take the steps back out of the building and back to your car. 

Home, we unpack, transfer to plates, liberally baptize our fish, fries and hushpuppies with the requisite Heinz, and claim our usual spots in the living room, she in her dad’s old recliner, me sitting on the couch, closer to the TV.

A perfect recipe for a Friday night.

I’m the first to finish, per usual, and on my way to the kitchen to retrieve my slice of pie (apple for me, peach for her), ask Karry if she’s ready for hers. She opts to wait. 

As an aside … while not the biggest dessert person, I am a pie guy. Love the idea of pie. Every slice I’ve ever encountered has brought me some measure of joy. The kind or type doesn’t matter to me, though I do love apple best. By contrast, when it comes to pie, Karry’s much more selective with her affections. Peach, though, checks her boxes. 

In the kitchen I liberate the carton of vanilla ice cream from the freezer, add a couple scoops to my plastic container alongside my slice, bring it back to the couch. 

Savor the couple seconds of expectation between cutting off the tip of the triangle with my fork and scooping it into my mouth. 

Hmmm, I think, as the flavor registers. Not a pure apple taste. Somethin’ else happenin’ here.

Cinnamon, maybe? 

Hmmm. Good, for sure, but, yeah … somethin’s a little off. I’m chewing, tryna pick out what it is. Thinking to myself … maybe a special recipe from one of the church grandmas? Or maybe it’s still my lingering post-Covid taste buds, which were rewired along with my sense of smell, making things as disparate as coffee, peanut butter and celery very, very weird. Though most, if not all of it, seems to have finally returned. 

Oh well, hey, it’s pie. With vanilla ice cream. It’s good, just … strange.

I roll with it. Take another bite. 

Another … 

I’m about halfway through, when it hits me. 

“Oh, this is the peach,” I say aloud. 

She: What? 

Me: I think I’m eating your pie. 

She: What do you mean? 

Me: Yeah … (as my tongue takes a confirming swipe across the piece currently rolling around my mouth) … this is totally peach. 

She: (stunned disbelief) Wait, how much have you eaten? 

Me: (looks down at the plastic container, sheepishly looks across the room, to where she’s sitting) ‘Bout … half? 

She: (scrunches up her face as she stares at me, remains speechless for several seconds, trying to comprehend the vague mystery of my existence and presence on the planet) 

Me: Well, I thought it was like cinnamon or something. 

She: Cinnamon? 

Me: Lighting’s not great in here, either. 

She calls B.S. on the latter point. I recognize it’s not in my best interest to try to argue.

Although … lighting wasn’t great.  

Me: (seconds pass in contemplative silence) Here … (offering my plastic container of Vanilla Ice Cream and Peach Pie Remnant Soup)

She: I can’t believe you ate my peach pie. 

Me: (yeah, I totally can’t believe it either … not sure what I was thinkin’ there.) Yeah, I know. You can have my apple.

She: I don’t want apple.

She’s not exactly pissed at me. More like confused and disappointed, as any normal human being would be, I suppose.

Admittedly, across our years together, she is no stranger to these feelings.

In such moments I’ve learned sometimes it’s best not to talk. 

I finish off the piece while we’re watching whatever is on. A few minutes later, I go back to the kitchen, toss the empty container. 

Open the fridge and grab the slice of apple and return to the couch. 

It’s … delicious.

She (glancing in my direction): You’re eating the other slice of pie … now? 

Me: Yeah. 

She: That’s a lot of pie for you. 

Me: Didn’t want it to go to waste. 

She: Yeah, wouldn’t want that .… 

Me: (experiences tinge of shame while enjoying slice of delicious apple pie)

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The Road Ahead

Something To Look Forward To

Going through mail late Wednesday night after a long week of long travel, I noticed a letter from a friend, a single rose amongst all the junk mail. Rather than opening it on the spot, I made plans to save it until Saturday morning, where I might savor it at the coffee shop down the road, where our friendship was born a handful of years ago. Lately, I’ve tried to make a point of giving myself things to look forward to. When it works well, my Saturday mornings become sacred spaces, a chance to replenish some measure of all the week’s taxes. 

Yesterday, though, had a few plot twists that kept me from filling my cup, both figuratively and literally. It was well past 1 p.m. and I found myself driving around after running a couple errands.  Robbed of my ritual, my head was not in the best of spaces. The coffee shop closes at 1:30 on Saturdays, so I’d missed my window. 

I was about to return home, where I’d probably grumpily wallow through the rest of a ruined Saturday, when I remembered I still had the unopened letter in my bag. On a whim I navigated to the Eat n’ Park off Oak Springs Road, which I hadn’t visited in years, but which was in heavy rotation when the kids were younger. Pulling into an open parking spot triggered a memory of an Eat n’ Park Saturday long past, when Peter, maybe 9 at the time, attempted to order a Boys’ Day-Out lunch consisting of mashed potatoes, a baked potato, french fries and potato chips. I remember telling him at that time that if his mother was with us, she would stab him in the eye with a fork.

I wasn’t really hungry, and I’d already had the morning’s coffee, but the idea of a big table and a comfy booth sounded … comforting for some reason. 

The hostess seated me near the front.

So, hours late, off schedule and way off course, I exhaled from my comfy booth and fished the letter from my bag.

Though deep into his 80’s, my friend Jim writes his letters with a calligrapher’s hand (though he saves his best penmanship for his poems).

As one whose handwriting has degraded so much that I have long resorted to typing my letters (though I try salvaging a measure of dignity by choosing a typewriter font … lame, I know), I delight in reading the hand of others. Tearing open the letter, I pluck just a brief note from my friend. Letting me know that the timing of my last letter to him was of great encouragement, as he received it on the day of his wife Mary’s passing. He had only months ago placed her in a personal care facility, after caring for her for years and through the Pandemic as she slipped further into dementia. In his last letter to me he wrote unflinchingly, achingly but beautifully about being physically separated from his wife for the first time in their 66 years of marriage. A minister and former Army chaplain during his long full life, Jim always writes mindful of God’s audience, which begs an even greater reverence from his fortunate reader. 

He closed his short note by sharing that his final Valentine’s gift to Mary was a new book of poems he’d written over the past three years, finished several days before she passed. The title: The Road Bends Upwards (those four words a poem unto themselves). 

He wrote in my letter that Mary chuckled when he read the collection’s dedication to her over the phone … 

Duck your head

Close your eyes

Take my hand

And we will walk this road

One more time 

Together

My eyes filled as I read his words.

The ineffability of the inevitable disassembling of a long love on this earth. And still the poet reaches for the only tool he knows to claim the shaky ground beneath him. Knowing the effort will come nowhere close to its mark. Just as any long love misses as much as it aims at. Grief rendered in all its aching beauty.

Yes to that. 

I still held Jim’s note in my hand when the server stopped by my table to take my order. I somehow managed to mumble an order without my voice catching and then just sat there. 

A few minutes later my server brought me my sandwich. I began mindlessly picking at it. 

From my booth near the front, I faced the hostess station, so got to see everyone who came in. 

I was maybe midway through my sandwich when I looked up and saw an older couple being led to their table. They had to be in their 70s, maybe older (I’ve never tried to be good at guessing such things). They cut quite a contrasting presence. He was bald, tall and broad. She was his diminutive opposite, short, petite with a shock of straight gray. Candidly, though, I may not have given them a second thought, still so deep and lost in my figurative and literal sitting with the contents of Jim’s letter … if it wasn’t for one thing that caught my eye.

They held hands.

And took their good time in no great hurry. Heads high, looking forward, not saying a word as they followed the hostess in front of them.

The way they held each other’s hand, in their mismatched nylon coats, I swear to God they walked the worn carpet of our old Eat n’ Park like they were walking down the aisle of a church.

As if they hadn’t lost a step in probably the 50 years that passed since their I dos. 

It was like, in each other’s hand, they were reaching for the only tool they knew to claim the shaky ground beneath them.

Yes to that. 

Thanks to Jim’s friendship, his letter, his example, I found myself mindful of God’s audience. How else could I account for choosing to wait to open his letter until Saturday? My careful Saturday morning plans blowing up?  Finding myself at an Eat n’ Park I hadn’t visited in years to crack open his beautiful letter? Looking up from my front row seat to catch the fleeting glimpse of an old love still standing the test of time? 

And in the process … giving me something to look forward to … well beyond the end of any week. 

So, in between bites of my turkey club, I claimed the shaky ground beneath me, to honor my friend and his beloved. 

To stab at the ineffable, knowing going in that the effort would come nowhere close to its mark.

Love misses as much as it aims at.

And, before I gathered my things and myself to return to whatever was left of my Saturday, I asked for the check of the happy old couple seated at their wedding table near the salad bar. 

For Mary and Jim 

Sun finds me sitting alone at a big booth near the front

Saturdaying a double-decked turkey club, 

toothpicked together much like my morning, 

triangled in quarters just how I remember it


when enters an old couple,

he big, tall and bald, 

she small, gray and boss, 

following the hostess in procession, 


holding hands and walking slow

maybe because they are just old

maybe just because it’s as fast as they can

or just maybe 


because the warmth of each other’s hands 

is their knowing secret, 

still bewitching them like a good campfire

after all these years into a slow savor


claiming the worn carpet ‘neath their feet

as their I (still) do aisle,

rendering my booth a front row pew, 

and me grateful for the gift of bearing witness,


enrobed in nylon mismatched coats 

a king and his queen, regal,

as the hostess now way on ahead

waits to seat them next to the salad bar 

Yes to that. 

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