Over the years I’ve become more open-minded while at the same time more intolerant……………………….if that is even possible.

As I’ve mentioned before, my husband is a Londoner.  I am from rural Ohio.  We’ve grown, coped, & grappled with a lot of differences over the years.  His upbringing and mine are so totally different.  He even lived in Italy for the first few years of his life and spoke Italian as a toddler for his first language.

He can read train and bus schedules, I can find my way out of the woods on a foggy day.  He can prepare the most incredible al dente pasta and I can make a fire with damp wood in the rain.

There’s a British expression—–I don’t really get it, but he says it all the time—–We’re like chalk and cheese……………………..well, okay then…………………….(?)

When we first met, he liked beef boiled to a nice appetizing gray color…………..I like to knock mine off the hooves, and keep the hide for a rug.  His idea of experimental salad dressing was Thousand Island (I kid you not, he’d never had it before he came over and thought it was so exotic?????).  He used to put mayonnaise on his salads back in the homeland……………………………Who does that?  Really who does that?  Not even Miracle Whip!

He did introduce me to Indian foods and I subsequently learned how to make a great goat curry and vindaloo……………….as we discussed before I now feel comfortable slipping turmeric into anything that my children can’t identify……………………it’s GOOD for them!!!  I swear!  But, why does it just have to be so orange and so hard to camouflage?  And why do my children have to get so hostile about the healthy additive?

I have taught him about how to enjoy tremendous slabs of beef……………..ONLY rare or at worst medium rare.  We just celebrated our forty-ith anniversary.  Who would have thought?  They were all taking odds at our wedding reception that we would never last beyond a year!!!  But we just got back from a local restaurant called Frontier Steakhouse for our celebration.  Great, Great steaks………………thick wonderful, aged, well-marbled slabs.  The best!  Seared over orange and oak wood……………………Well worth forty years.

Don’t I qualify for something metal for this one?  I know in ten more years it’s gold.  I need to do some quick reference work.  I must qualify for some sort of nice metal for this one.

……………….Did the research———no metal BUT I get rubies!  Yippee!  After forty years I’ve learned not to wait, I’ll find my own bling.  Rubies are so pretty.  I do prefer garnets, but hey, I’ve got to stick with plan here.

Hallmark says that the Fifty-Third Wedding Anniversary is Plastic…………………?  Come On!!!????……………………………mic drop!………………….Plastic?

So we come back home to a broken air conditioner……………….augh!!!!! August in Florida and no A/C!  We are schvitz’ing up a storm.  Ceiling fans are up to max, tossing off big pom-poms of accumulated dust kitties in every direction.  One just smacked me on the forehead and stuck to the sweat.  Everyone is dressed minimalistically……………..really frightening with so many years of gravity and regular-over-caloric-consumptions.  HA!  So many folds!  They are limitless, just limitless.  Our daughter’s eyes are bleeding!

I want to push the hounds out of the way and sprawl on the tile.  I’m not proud, I’m just hot.  Face down in the grout seems like a good choice right about now.  I may just grab a pillow and stay here for the night with the dogs.

Laying on my back looking up at the ceiling fan.  It’s going so fast.  I’ve never understood why it looks like it’s spinning backwards?  Just like stage coach wagon wheels in old movies.  It’s not an optical illusion, it’s magic.  Just like rainbows being prisms from rain drops in the air……………….that’s a lame explanation too…………rainbows are magic.  Simple.  So much easier to believe than silly science.

We’re coming up to a total solar eclipse this month………………just like in the “Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”……………………magic……………..I’ll have to get special glasses for the horses & hounds & everybody.

Oh, Oh……………….we will be getting a stationery, recumbent bicycle next week from Sears (I still want to add on Roebuck).  I’ll be able to start pedaling off my **$#@$%^##@$**—–tuckus—–(correct Yiddish spelling is tuchus—–I love yiddish expressions, they usually do a better job at identifying the obvious).  So my tuchus does not fit into my favorite blue jeans any more.  My Sears & Roebuck exercise bike even has a beverage holder…………….good for mediocre Bourbon and Diet Coke…………(I pick weight-reducing diets that are low carb and okay with Bourbon———come on———dieting is hard enough, let’s not make it impossible!!!)

(Have you noticed I’ve learned how to center photos?)

(My cyber-learning-curve is just becoming awesome, isn’t it!?!  I want to learn how to add my own doodles too.  My daughter has convinced me there’s a thingie out there that will do that for me and that I have to stop crayon’ing on the screen—–actually there is a dent on this screen from a young turkey poult.  It took off in an unexpected flight pattern—–and yes, the computer was on the kitchen table—–there was a good explanation at the time for the turkey in the house—–I just can’t remember it—–but the dent is still here as a reminder.)

Ah yes, my Sears & Roebuck exercise bike, so I can fit into my Montgomery Wards blue jeans.  Patrice still fits, she’s very forgiving—–but I’m not forgiving the cats.  I left Patrice on the side of the couch over night and the cats ate a hole in her knee!  That’s just so rude.  We don’t treat Patrice like that.  But maybe it’s an indication that she needs laundering because she was tasty enough for a cat to try snacking on her………………..it’s still wrong though on so many levels……………..poor Patrice.

Patrice, as we have discussed before, is such a good friend.  She always agrees with me.