2007-01-10 - 12:26 a.m.
HAPPY 2007
Why, hello! I hate to start off 2007 on a sour note, but I'm afraid I have some terrible news to report. My sweetums is sick. Sick with a fever and a cough and a sore throat and all such things of that nature. It's awful, I tell you. Just awful.
I think I talked in a fairly recent update... by which I mean at some point over the last year and a half... about this time that I was sick and of how Charity took such excellent care of me, just as she always does. I think I even mentioned how I try to live up to her lofty nursing standards when she herself falls ill. It's actually hard, though, 'cause I'm a pretty big baby when I get sick. I'll whine and mope and every time she leaves the room I'll think of something that I need and call her back in.
She's a much better patient than I am, so in a way it's almost impossible for me to take care of her as well as she does for me. But I try. In fact, let me lay this on you.
She hadn't been feeling good over the weekend, and by Monday she was pretty miserable, so she had to cancel her classes... these being her aerobics classes at the Y. And she was very upset about this, because this week was going to be the first classes of the year, and it's when people are all into their "I'm gonna eat right and exercise" resolution phase, don'tcha know.
And registration was up and she was going to have her biggest classes yet, but now she's worried that some of them might take the cancellation as a sign to put off getting in shape for another year. Of course, it's possible that some of the people who signed up for the class weren't going to be there anyway, having already given up on their resolution, but there's no way to know.
Anyway, then she called the doctor. Her appointment was at 10:00 that morning, so I came home around 11:00 to check on her and I saw that she was just getting home. She'd gotten a prescription that they called into the pharmacy we use, but considering that she was sick and all, she just wanted to go to sleep rather than go pick it up.
So I tucked her into bed and then went to get the prescription myself. The pharmacy is inside a grocery store... there's another place right across the street that has a drive-thru pharmacy, but our insurance doesn't let us get stuff from that one for some reason. Why not? That would be so much easier. A drive-thru! Damn their souls.
Anyway, as I'm standing there in line at the pharmacy, amidst 30 to 40 senior citizens who all smell of Vicks Vapo Rub and vegetable soup, my eyes start wandering around the food aisles. And then an idea hits me.
I picked up the pills, which, coincidentally, need to be taken with food, and then I went through the aisles and gathered a few specific items. Marshmallow Fluff. Nestle Strawberry Quik. Peanut butter, just in case. A bag of M&Ms... plain, not peanut. Vapo rub, since the smell had started growing on me after a half-hour in line. Then I went through the self-checkout lane, which is always an adventure onto itself, and I drove home.
By now, over an hour had passed since I put Charity to bed. I brought in the bags, took out what I'd bought, and whipped up a culinary delight for her. Then I put the food and the pills on a tray, covered the tray with a towel, and carried it all up to our room.
Softly and tenderly, with the utmost care, I woke my beloved from her slumber and told her that I'd gotten her pills. I asked if she was hungry, and she really wasn't. But she knew she had to eat with the pills, so she sat up. At that point I went to the tray, whipped off the towel, and unveiled my masterpiece: two fluffernutters... no crusts and M&M smiley faces on the top piece of bread... and a tall, cold glass of strawberry milk.
That was her favorite meal when we were kids, you see. When I put the tray on the bed and she saw what it was, it was almost like I had proposed to her all over again. I got gasps, tears, kisses, the works. She was quite moved. It made me feel pretty good, I must say.
Then... she ate about two bites, had one sip of the milk while she took the pills, and went right back to sleep. A little bit selfish, if you ask me. After all that work I did? But she was sick, after all, so I guess it's not entirely her fault. Even though the meal I had slaved over ended up going to waste, she did let me put the vapo rub on her chest when she woke up, so at least I got something out of the whole deal.
You know, I hope that, over these many years, we've reached the point where you know I'm not actually serious when I suggest, as I did above, that my sweetums was being selfish. And that you know I didn't really take pleasure in groping her while I applied the healing vapors that allowed her to breathe. Well, okay, I kinda did. But I was recently talking with a reader of this Lovely Purple Diary who mentioned the update where I talked about Charity and me and a certain decision we'd had and babies and all such things. And said reader recalled that I mentioned not wanting to go into more detail about something relevant to that discussion because of my desire to keep the discussion here suitable for most members of the family.
The point of bringing this up was to wonder exactly what it was I didn't want to discuss, and as this specific reader is generally one of the people I have in mind when I try to keep these writings sterilized and clean, I considered the possibility of revisiting that subject with the knowledge that we are all adults here.
But I don't know. Once you delve into such topics, it's not really a bell you can unring. If it just involved me, that would be one thing, but I suppose I don't feel comfortable talking about such things when they involve my sainted wife. And yet I haven't had a problem inferring here on numerous occasions that she's something of a trollop. Strange, is it not? What can I say, I'm a very complicated person.
You might recall me mentioning earlier on that signups for Charity's aerobics classes were up, and I bet you didn't think that particular nugget of information would be important later. But it is! She's changing the whole culture down at the Y, she got them to start offering pilates classes, and yoga, and aerobics for pregnant women, and all this stuff. She's revolutionizing fitness all across the midwest. I'm very proud.
So because of all this new stuff they're doing, they're starting to promote some of the changes and new classes. And because she's deeply involved, this led to Charity being on a morning radio show last week, which, coincidentally, is done from the same building I work in. On the same floor, in fact. Oh, I was so nervous. Not that I thought she'd mess up or anything, but you know. She was totally excited, though.
The morning show has been going on since the dawn of mankind and it runs from 6 to 8am or so. It deals with local issues and topics and has guests from local businesses and stuff, thus explaining Charity's appearance. The guest on after her was from the community theater, and she was there to talk about their upcoming production of... I kid you not... Sweet Charity.
The guy who hosts the show is a good guy, although he's a bit of a curmudgeon. He's in his mid 50's and he's one of these guys who will zing you, but you know that if he actually goes to the trouble of making a joke at your expense then it's kind of like a compliment. So Charity goes into the booth with him and I'm sitting outside, listening to the show, not doing any work as usual. And the people I work with knew my wife was on the show, and that I was nervous, and so everyone was kinda stopping to listen. It turned into a little event, almost.
They came back from commercial and the host introduced her and explained what she was there to talk about. Then he said something like "and in the interest of full disclosure, for the listeners who enjoy our sports programming, she's also married to our own" and then he said my name. Which, of course, you know. And the people around me golf clapped as I was mentioned. Then he says "And, Charity, I'm only just meeting you, but in this brief time we've gotten to know each other I've come to the conclusion that you could have done a whole lot better". Oh man, he zinged me! An on-air zing, no less! The ultimate shot! And the people around me laughed mockingly and threw wadded up paper at me.
But suddenly I had a terrible thought. What if his comment turned into a George Costanza situation and Charity began to realize that she actually could have done better. 'Cause just between you and me, she could have. She did not think that, though. Thankfully. She actually told me later that it kinda bothered her, even though she laughed at the time. But she did not appreciate having her snookums mocked in such a public forum, which I certainly appreciated.
Anyway, while I was sitting there listening to her on the show, this girl I work with asked me what I call Charity for short. Which was an interesting question. I probably address Charity more often by goofy affectionate names than I do by her actual name. I mix it up on a daily basis, every day I've got something new. If you've ever seen Everybody Loves Raymond, you know how Ray comes home and has a new name for his wife and kids each time, that's more or less what I do. Except mine are way more clever and I was doing it well before I ever saw an episode of that freakin' show, I can assure you.
But if I had to narrow it down, my A #1 top of the line pet name for her is probably Charity-Bear. And let me tell you, that did not just pop up overnight. It took years of the evolutional process for that name to emerge. You see, many moons ago, when we were but innocent youngsters, I called her by silly rhyming variations on her name. Like, for example, Charity-Wearity. That's the one that started it all.
And over the years it went through changes, from Charity-Merrity to Charity-Ferrity, and then ultimately it came to rest on Charity-Bearity. Then I dropped the end and it just became Charity-Bear. Not coincidentally, the "ity" was dropped right around the same time we started smoochin' on a regular basic, as calling someone "bear" tends to suggest something about your feelings towards them. It just has a certain connotation to it that words like "wearity" and "ferrity" unfortunately do not possess.
So I was thinking about all this, and I started to explain about the daily variations and whatnot. And the girl says "no, I meant how do you shorten her name? Like do you call her 'Chair' for short?" And I was like "Oh".
We had previously been talking about nicknames and such, because while many names lend themselves to shortening (like Michael to Mike, or Steven to Steve, etc.), there's a lot of people who work in our building with names that don't shorten well. For example, the girl I was talking to, who's name is Janine. What do you shorten that to? It's pronounced Juh-neen, so you wouldn't call her "Jan". Do you call her "Juh"? No, you don't. How about George? Or Daphne? Justin? Dylan? The list goes on and on.
Charity seems like it could be one of those names. But when I shorten it, I indeed just call her "Chair". Which is odd in a way, because her name isn't spelled with the word "chair" in it. If you pronounced it the way it's spelled, you'd call her "Char". Like char-broiled. It's another one of those Janine-ish situations, except "Chair" has the benefit of actually a word, whereas "Juh" just sounds like a grunt.
I'm not sure where I was going with this, aside from it being a timeless discussion that people all over the world can relate to. Really, I think I just wanted to work "Charity-Ferrity" in somehow, because that one makes her giggle, and hopefully she'll read this and smile while she feels so crummy.
I think that's all I have to say. Wait, let me check. Hmm... yes, it is. Join me again next time, won't you?
TOODLES
