WTF
The Proposal
Time for one of my patented longwinded intros leading to a small bit of actual content. Sally, of Santa Fe fame, and I have known each other 42 years. So, when she asked me if I wanted to come down, visit Santa Fe a bit, then road trip together to go to her mother’s 98th birthday festivities, I jumped at the chance.
She was Donna’s friend from elementary school onward and the two families belonged to the same church. When I got out of the Navy in 1983, we moved back to Donna’s home town of New Orleans. The 2 girls connected again, Sally had married, so the four of us naturally became a group. Sally and her husband bought the house 2 doors away. Donna and I babysat the daughter Claire and then a couple years later, son Stuart.
For various reasons we moved up to New Jersey for work in 1987. The Lewis clan also moved north to Lexington, Virginia shortly after. We visited several times a year first from Jersey and later from Aiken. In the early two thousands Sally’s husband proclaimed he was in love with someone else and wanted out. Claire was already in college and Stuart was a Junior or Senior in high school. After his graduation Sally joined the State Department. Whenever she was back in the states for language training or something, Donna and I would get to DC to hang for a couple days. Anyway, we go way back.
With just Sally and me, we get along sort of like an old married couple without the sex. Our senses of humor are similar, we would be in a store somewhere and we would cut up with each other in the checkout line. We “argued” who’s turn it was to fill up the car up with gas. “We’ll always have Paris.” A plan was concocted. There was a get together on Saturday the 18th with the whole family at a place downtown Hammond called Tommy’s on Thomas. A local pizza joint/night time entertainment place that is where Stuart met his wife and where they go every year on their anniversary. This would be the most perfect place for this, I was going to pretend to ask her to marry me. I wrote a script. I practiced kneeling.
We thought for sure that Adele and Stuart’s wife Cristina would be flummoxed, Stuart’s two small kids wouldn’t know what was going on. We thought Sally’s kids, Stuart and Claire, would not know what to say or their sense of humor might kick in immediately and call bullshit on Sally and me. At the last minute, because of a miscommunication, Adel and Claire couldn’t make it, so we decided not to do it, because those were 2 of the 3 we thought would get the biggest kick out of the stunt.
Scene: Restaurant Interior
Brian
(stands)
"As we knew the end was getting nearer, I asked Donna if she would be okay with this, and she smiled and said of course."
(slight pause)
"So, Sally, these last 2 weeks have been the happiest that I’ve been since last September.
(he kneels)
It would be great if we could grow old, older, together. Will you marry me?
Possible Responses:
Sally
1. Yes, I thought you’d never ask.
2. Stunned silence.
3. What?
4. I hope you didn’t buy a ring already?
Brian
1. You’ve made me a very happy man.
2. Stunned silence.
3. I feel so embarrassed.
4. I may be an old fool, but I’m not stupid.
Boom!
Okay, as promised back at the end of December…
When we moved to Klamath Falls it had three bedrooms like in Aiken, so in both places two of the bedrooms were made up as bedrooms and the third became the “Computer Room.” The computer room was merely where the desk top PC was and it also held the futon so it could be used as a third bedroom just in case.
In Aiken there was a bedroom with an on-suite bathroom and even though it was a small bath we liked to use it, but there was a large skylight over the bed. Even with a set of blinds on it, it would still get very warm in the summer, so that it became our winter bedroom and the one on the other side of the house, without a skylight became our summer bedroom. Every 6 months or so we would shlep our clothing from one closet to the other. And because we had one newer mattress that we liked better than the other we would also drag it back and forth. After a bunch of years, we finally bought a second nice mattress so they only had to exchange just closet items.
The K-Falls house was two stories with 2 bedrooms up and one down. The upstairs was really the main floor as it had the kitchen and dining rooms so most our time was spent up there. Again, one of the bedrooms upstairs had an on-suite, so it naturally became our primary bedroom. The second bedroom upstairs was kind of small, so it was turned into the Computer Room with futon. The downstairs had the two car garage, a large family room, along with a full size bedroom and a bathroom/laundry room. Even though the upstairs bedroom we used didn’t get hot in the summer we decided that we should continue the seasonally rotation of sleeping quarters, otherwise we would never use the downstairs area except for laundry and getting in the cars.
That first summer we lived in Klamath Falls we moved downstairs, but we didn’t swap closets full of clothes because the closet downstairs was too small to hold both our wardrobes. We still showered upstairs because the one downstairs one was just a small stand-up one, so what we did was shower and go downstairs to the family room to watch a little TV before going to bed. Actually, the TV down stairs was larger than the one upstairs in the living room because above the fireplace the mantle was fairly high up on the wall.
The 2nd or 3rd night we were in the downstairs bedroom we were startled awake about 2:00 AM by extremely loud BOOM. I’d have sworn someone fired a shotgun in the room. I jumped out of bed and turned on the light, the bedroom looked normal and window was intact. So I started flicking on lights and checking the rooms downstairs. The family room was fine, nothing out of place. I checked the water heater that sits next to the washer and dryer, no leaks cracks so it didn’t explode. Next was the garage, and both cars were sitting cool and quiet. Up the stairs I went. No broken windows with meteorites smoking on the floor anywhere. I looked in every room and nothing had fallen off the walls and looking out the windows there were no cars smashed into telephone poles. Lastly, I walked outside on the front porch and back decks and there were no neighboring homes on fire or police activity.
I was very puzzled that sound was extremely loud like it was in the same room as us, but nothing was remiss there, nor any other place in the house. The mystery was solved a few days later when I vacuumed the bedroom. The downstairs was built into a hillside so it actually served as the foundation. Because the floor was concrete under the luxury vinyl plank when one of the three slats supporting the box spring shifted and popped down it made a loud boom. 1
Really?
Made a run to Goodwill today to donate a few things that have been stacked on the futon for a couple months. There were a couple pair of half worn down sneakers, a pair of old towels, two bathmats and several other random things.
When I tried to put the gray cloth bathmat in the women’s bin she shook her head no, so I tossed it back in the car. The very next item I tried to put in the bin was the other bathmat. I figured I get waved off again because this one was a dingy looking rubber one that goes in the tub. But, nope, she let me donate it.
I thought for sure the fabric, because it could be thrown in a washing machine, would have been okay and rubber with suction cups on the bottom would have been rejected.
Subaru vs. Volvo
Both Subaru and Volvo tout the safety features of their vehicles. Lots of folks have purchased something from these two manufacturers because of their claims.
My first-hand experiences with drivers of the two makes in traffic is that they believe the safety claims in two totally differently lights. The Subaru drivers drive more cautiously as if they are not sure the safety features will work, while the Volvo drivers drive in manner that they believe they are safe no matter how bone-headed they drive.
Boom!
We were sitting in the dining room working on a jigsaw puzzle yesterday morning when we heard a boom so loud that we felt it. Our lights faded and then blinked off and then back on. It sounded close. Our first thought was that a car hit a power pole or something. I walked out onto the front porch and looked around but couldn’t see anything so we went back to the puzzle.
About 5 minutes later we heard sirens. Lots of them, one after another. And they kept on coming… Donna said, “Text Kathy (our across the street neighbor who seems to know everything that is happening) and ask what’s going on. I did and a couple minutes later she called and said her reply was too big for a text.
A small plane crashed into some homes in a subdivision just a quarter mile further down Sandy Blvd from us. She was with some folks and one climbed on his roof and could see a big column of smoke that way. It was a twin-engine private plane attempting to land at the Troutdale Airport a couple miles further east of us.
Yikes!