Not a Photogenic Day

 
I spent an hour or so this morning working my way through the Yellowstone pictures, got them resized to something more manageable, then copied onto a CD.




CS, the president of the knitting guild, came over to knit and chat for a couple hours in the late morning.  I worked on the ribbing of the Fishermen's Cardigan, adding a few rows to the five I knitted last night.  Then I spent most of the afternoon knitting up to ten rows of ribbing, cutting one of the natures brown yarns and adding the brown tweed marl yarn, then knitting the first row of sand stitch.  Which to my dismay doesn't look all that different from two natures brown and one natural.  *sigh*




Because I don't have anything else, here's a picture of Old Faithful.




18 September--Barbara Malcolm, Horizon. 

             I stayed in my chair until the light began to fade.  I made myself a cup of herbal tea, pulled on a coat and hat, and went out onto the porch to watch the sunset.  For the first time in over a week the clouds had flown and the sky was tinted a beautiful rosy pink color.  The spicy orange steam from the tea warmed my lips as I gazed at the horizon, thinking about how different my life had become.  When I finished the last sip, the sun was sending its last rays of gold above the horizon making the sky look like a movie screen.  I went inside to dress for dinner.  Ignoring the feeling that I should be wearing a float-y floral dress, I pulled out a pair of beautiful charcoal wool slacks in deference to the frigid weather.  Over it I put on a thin white sweater and topped it off with a red wool blazer I hadn’t been able to resist at the after-Christmas sales.  Black leather boots that looked dressy, but were sturdy enough for tramping through snow and ice, completed my outfit.

            I checked my watch.  It would take me about twenty minutes to get to Abel’s, allowing plenty of time in case the roads were icy.  Driving through the mid-winter dark, I could see couples leaving home, waving goodbye to children left with baby-sitters so they could enjoy dinner alone.  The parking lot of Sandburg’s Steaks & Beer was filled to overflowing.  Every place I passed that served dinner looked jammed.  It made me glad we were staying in that night.  Seeing so many couples out made me think about the Valentine’s Days Bert and I had celebrated.  Never very romantic, Bert would usually remember to leave a card for me on the kitchen table when he left for work.  A few times he’d actually bought me a gift, something practical rather than romantic.  He never took me to dinner.  He didn’t believe in going out to dinner.  He always said he worked hard to raise our food and I was a good cook.  That meant he didn’t want to pay someone else for a meal he could have gotten cheaper at home.  A few times I had gone all out for Valentine’s Day.  I’d washed and ironed his mother’s Irish linen tablecloth, stopped at the grocery for a bouquet of flowers, got out the silver candlesticks we’d gotten from some distant relative as a wedding gift, and made a fancy dinner.  Actually, I only made a fancy dinner once.  Bert had complained the entire meal that he didn’t recognize anything on his plate, so the next time I made a special meal I’d made sure to prepare something just a little outside the norm.  It was a disappointing way to celebrate the lovers’ holiday but I kept reminding myself that Bert’s good qualities outweighed the bad.  Useless nostalgic thoughts like that accompanied me all the way to Abel’s.

             When I’d parked and gotten out of the car, I noticed that he’d replaced the white light bulb in his porch light with a red one and had hung a heart-shaped wreath on the door.  All along the walk from the street to the door were lumeñeros, white paper bags weighted with sand and each holding a glowing candle.  He had cut out hearts on the sides of the bags so there were glowing hearts reflected on the cement.  I felt like a queen on the way to her coronation.  I was also worried that the wood carving I’d gotten him didn’t measure up.  Before I had a chance to ring the bell, the door opened and there stood my valentine, resplendent in a red v-necked sweater and a white bow tie dotted with hearts.

             “Happy Valentine’s Day, Gail,” he said, and swept me into the house and into his arms.

            “The same to you,” I said nearly smothered in his embrace.  When he released me and turned so he could take my coat, I said, “You’re going to get a reputation with that red light over your door.  Or are you thinking of running a house of ill repute as a side job?”

             “What do you mean ‘house of ill repute’?”

            “Oh come on, Abel,” I said, laughing, “haven’t you ever heard of a red light district?  You know, where the ladies of the evening ply their trade.”

            He looked as if I’d slapped him.  “I didn’t mean…  Of course I’ve heard of them.  I just thought you’d like my decorations.”

            “I did.  I do, and this whole day has been one long romantic surprise.  I’m overwhelmed.  Thank you.  I love your wreath, the lumeñeros, and even the red light bulb.  It just struck me as funny.”  I cupped his cheek.  “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

            “That’s okay.”  He took my elbow and escorted me into the living room where soft music played on the stereo, a bottle of champagne sat chilling in a silver wine bucket and a tray of hors d’oeuvres rested on the coffee table.  “You see, Marcella never wanted to make much of Valentine’s Day.  When we were first married, I brought her a bouquet of roses and took her out for a fancy dinner.  She berated me for weeks for ‘wasting our hard-earned money’ so I never did it again.”  While he was talking, he popped the cork on the champagne and poured it into a pair of crystal flutes.  He raised his glass to me and said, “To the woman I hope stays my Valentine forever,” and took a sip.

            I raised mine to him and said, “To the most surprising man I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing,” and sipped.  I reached down beside me and handed him the red bag tied with a silver ribbon.

            Spots of pink bloomed high on his cheeks as he took the package.  “Gee, Gail, thanks.”  He sat looking at it, not even peering inside.

           “Well, open it!” I said.

           “Oh, okay.”  His long fingers were gentle as they teased apart the knot in the bow and lifted the bundle of tissue paper out of the bag, catching the card with his thumb and bringing it out too.  He set the bag down on the floor and laid the gift on his lap.  Carefully he opened the card, read it, smiled, and closed it.  “Thanks, I feel the same way,” he said, his eyes misty.  He leaned toward me and we kissed.

           By that time I was getting anxious for him to see my gift.  My fingers itched to reach over and help him but I resisted.

           He unwrapped the tissue and held up the woodcarving.  It was a statue of a couple dancing but it wasn’t a realistic piece, it more suggested the man and woman and their graceful movement together.  “Gail,” he said, “it’s beautiful.  Thank you.”  He ran his hands over the smooth wood, just as I did when I found it at the winter art fair.

          “You’re welcome,” I said with a tight throat, “I’m glad you like it.  That’s the way I feel when we dance.”

            We sat on the sofa and enjoyed the wonderful things Abel had spent the day making: stuffed mushroom caps, shrimp with a creamy dill sauce, slices of ham and cream cheese rolled around a dill pickle, and little cheese puffs.

            “Everything’s delicious,” I said.  “You must have been slaving away since dawn.  You know, on my drive over here I saw a lot of couples out celebrating.  It made me think of how Bert wasn’t very romantic and never did much for Valentine’s Day.  What you said about Marcella not wanting you to spend money to celebrate it, made me think she and Bert would have gotten on just fine.”

             “They probably would have, but then you and I wouldn’t have met.”  He looked into my eyes and said, “I wouldn’t want to have missed meeting you for the world.”  He leaned toward me, put his hands on my shoulders, and pulled me to him for a long kiss.  Our arms slid around each other in an embrace and we both leaned into the sofa cushions.  The kiss seemed to go on forever.  He nibbled his way down my jaw to my neck and his hands began to roam over my sweater.  “I hoped you’d be wearing a low-cut blouse,” he murmured into my throat.

            Putting a hand on either side of his face, I pulled his lips to mine and said, “It’s too cold outside to expose my tender flesh.”

             Just as we got back to our necking, a buzzing sound erupted from the kitchen.

            “Dammit,” Abel said against my lips.  “The potatoes are done.  I’ve got to go finish cooking dinner.”  He stood up, ran a hand over his hair, and tugged his sweater down.  He held out his hand to me.  “Want to keep me company?”

            I let him pull me to my feet and spent a moment smoothing my own hair and tugging my blazer into place.  “Sure.”

            He refilled our glasses and carried them into the kitchen.  He wouldn’t let me help; he insisted I sit at the breakfast bar and watch while he cooked.

            He turned off the oven so the potatoes didn’t overcook.  Then he melted a bit of butter in a frying pan, sautéed garlic, and slid lamb chops in.  While they sizzled, he microwaved asparagus.

            “Mmm, I love asparagus,” I said.  “Where did you find it this time of year?”

            “At that new grocery in Simpson, on the east side near the greenhouse.  They’ve got a lot of things you just can’t find at Merricks’.”  He waggled his eyebrows at me.  “Asparagus is a very erotic vegetable, don’t you think?”

            “I guess.  I never thought of it as erotic.”  I sipped my champagne, wondering how the evening would end.

My trainer just texted that his packing to move hasn't gone as quickly as he'd hoped (big surprise) so he cancelled our session tomorrow.  Funny thing, an hour ago I was wondering how I could get out of it.  Fate is my friend.
--Barbara