Tag: husbands and wives

Dance this mess around

by Karen, posted in He and me, local fun, Marriage, relationships

My husband and I went to see The B52’s last night. As far as date nights go, this was a great one. We stopped to eat on the way to the show at Margarita’s. I got a Blood Orange Margarita, and it was AWESOME. Note: There is no photo of the margarita because, sadly, I forgot my phone in the car and I my husband thought I couldn’t go the duration of the meal without it, so of course I had to prove him wrong. 🙂

Anyway, The show was great.

Except for the opening band, which was meh, therefore they shall remain nameless.

The show start time was 8:00pm, but The B52’s didn’t come out until 9:15pm. By then, it was pretty hot in there. Fred (one of the lead singers, for the uninitiated) made note of this, and then disappeared for a few songs. We thought we’d lost him, but the ceiling fans came on and thankfully, Fred came back out.

The played most of my favorite songs, including “Roam“, and “Deadbeat Club“, which is my current favorite.

They did an encore of three songs: “Planet Claire“, some song I never heard of with a telephone number in it, and (finally! finally!) “Rock Lobster“.

When they played “Dance This Mess Around“, and I was, you know, doing that, I had a moment when I realized that I was doing this same exact thing about 35 years ago. I was singing at the top of my lungs, dancing, and throwing my hands in the air like I just didn’t care (nod to Cameo‘s song), at some club in Boston that I can’t recall the name of.  It was a glimpse of how it is to live in Einstein Time, and it frikkin’ rocked.

I had so much fun (as I talked about my Metaphysical Monday video this week)! The best part? The B52’s were having so much fun too! We’ve all heard of bands that are not in love with the idea of playing the same songs over and over, the “fan favorites”, at their concerts, but this band didn’t get that memo.

If you ever have the chance to see them live, GO!

This is the best photo my iPhone could get of them, and it’s awful, but it’s all I have, so I’m posting it here at the end.

Message from Mom

by Karen, posted in Angels, family, good grief, He and me

mom for blogSo I had a visit last night from my mother. She died in 1996.

She visited me in a dream. She was wearing a long white dress that was cinched in at the waist with a sash that I think was also white. I should note that she never dressed like that in real life.  Anyway, it was a slimmer, younger, healthy version of her (she was quite ill when she died) and she came to tell me something. When my mother comes through to me in my dreams, she never actually speaks out loud; she communicates with me through thoughts. Anyway, she came to give me a message and in the dream, I had the thought that this must be very important information for me to know, since she made the trip to tell me this, and that I better remember it.

Later on when I woke for the day, I remembered the dream very clearly. I remember my thoughts about the message too. What I DON’T remember is this: WHAT THE MESSAGE WAS!

I tried over and over to get it back, but it’s gone.
I told my husband this, and as I was telling him, the tears started.

He: Why are you crying?
Me: I don’t know! Because I can’t remember what the message was!

He: Don’t worry. You got the message. Just because you can’t remember it consciously doesn’t mean you didn’t get. It’s in your subconscious. You have it.

I immediately felt the truth of what he was saying. Every so often, my husband says exactly the right words to me at exactly the right time.

And then he sort of shuddered.

Me: What was that?
He: I got a chill.

So now I get it. That was my mother there in the car with us.

🙂

The right words at the right time

by Karen, posted in Angels, family, friends, good grief, Midlife Crisis, no fear, relationships

Today, someone told me something that I really needed to hear.

We have been dealing with an ongoing issue for years and things rarely go our way. This year there are some new people involved, one of whom we know from another area of our lives.

These were the words: “I’m on your side.”

After she said them, I felt a subtle shift, and my thoughts about the situation in which we are both involved changed.  I started having new, different, more positive thoughts. I felt less anxious. Suddenly, I started tearing up.  I breathed through it. Everything might actually turn out okay, I thought.

Later on this afternoon, I was in other circumstances that became emotional and I started tearing up again. I went to sit in my car. I called my husband at work, which I rarely do at that time of day because I know it will be difficult for him to come to the phone. I was lucky enough to reach him and then, for the second time today, someone told me something that I really needed to hear.

This is what he said: “Everything is going to be alright.”

Everything is going to be alright.

Another book to read

by Karen, posted in books, Date night, Marriage, relationships, writing

The Secret Lives of Wives: Women Share What It Really Takes to Stay MarriedThe Secret Lives of Wives: Women Share What It Really Takes to Stay Married by Iris Krasnow
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I thought this book rocked. I was especially happy to find it when I did: at the end of my writing “How to Stay Married in Midlife” and launched the “Sharpen Your Knives” blog (http://sharpenyourknives.wordpress.com/), and not before or during that process. The book includes stories from women who have been married for a long time, and includes their strategies for having been able to stay married. Hint: some are sort of kinky. Iris sprinkles in anecdotes from her own marriage, about which I am not sure how I feel. It might have been okay if she had confined her marriage story to one chapter. Instead, she randomly sort of randomly puts in her two cents where maybe it isn’t needed. In some of the stories, the women retain their anonymity, in some they just let it all hang out. You get to hear from women who are in their 70’s and (yep) are still married. It’s really a quite hopeful, “You can do it!!” sort of a book. Definitely worth reading.

View all my reviews

Date night

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, fitness, no fear

After 19 years of marriage plus 2 more of courtship, I’ve learned something new about my husband: he’s ambidextrous.

How did I learn this? I stepped out of my comfort zone for an hour. Way out, actually. My idea of a night out is dinner, maybe a drive to or walk on the beach, ice cream, maybe a movie. So, when my husband mentioned that he used to like to shoot pool and did I know that there were two pool halls not far from where we live, a little warning bell went off…I mean, sure; I’d seen pool tables. We even had one when I was growing up. You know, in the dining room. Under the plywood. It majored as our dining room table. Oh oh, I thought.

Well, in the spirit of  “do the thing you think you cannot do” (a la Eleanor Roosevelt’s quote) I decided that I “must” do it. So I kept my reservations to myself…well mostly. I did ask my husband this: “What if we get there and I decide that I don’t want to go in?” to which he (graciously, and smartly) replied, “Then we won’t go in!”.

Which was exactly what happened at the first place we visited. I looked around at the building exterior, and with quip about it’s bad feng shui, declined to enter. Bill said, “No problem!” …and so on to the next stop.

Old Port Billiards on Fore Street was the next stop. I was not put off by the exterior this time, so in we went. There was a woman tending the bar and six pool tables.  I glanced at the menu and noticed right away that they had brownie sundaes, so then I knew everything would be okay (see? even when on an outing to play pool, it’s really all about the food! 🙂 )

No one was renting a table yet, so we were the first, but within an hour, all but one table was rented by two others by couples like us, and 2 others by groups of (male) friends.

We played for an hour and had a great time. And I found out that after 21 years, it’s not too late for me to try new things (and that I don’t know everything about my husband!).