Plum Tuckered

I went away for a weekend to visit my sister in O-HI-O. While I was busy eating dinner uninterrupted by a toddler littering sugar packets all over the floor MESSSSYYYYY, sleeping in until the obscene hour of 10 blessed 30, and generally basking in the flatland friendliness of the Mid-West, my Baby Girl was steamrolling every last sapling of energy from my Lovey Loverpants' veins. He was plum-tuckered out when I arrived home. Here's what happened while I was away:

Someone finally took out the trash.

Vehicles were ridden without seatbelts.

Monkeys were pushed.

Hair-raising experiences were had.

***

Oh, and while in Ohio, I got to tell my sister that she was going to be an auntie...again. :) Pee Wee Loverpants, volume II, due May 2010

That We Two Are

We went out for a dinner date. The first time

since Labor Day

2007

we sat across from each other

at a table at a

restaurant.

The nights and weekends and couplings

just get away from you

just like they say they will

just as we said they wouldn't.

Looking across to my date

noticing his hairline his

skin, the way

he looks younger

under dimmed lights at a table

not laden with playdough bits

and smeared rice grains

I felt secure even though

all this time had passed

since our last rendezvous.

Secure in the knowledge

that we two are in love.

How do you sustain the spark?

Or do you just find a new match

strike it against a fresh surface

and peer out into the darkness

ascertain that someone is still there

looking back at you

feeling the same heat.

We came home and parted

though still sharing the warm light

of the same room

basking in the afterglow of our time as two

with the third on our minds

I watched as Betty no longer loved Don

and Don, in denial

is dumbstruck

Jackie loses her John

and time passes and time

keeps on blowing through the spark

Light the candle and harbor

the flame.

5 Years Ago Tomorrow...

...a boy in snowman pajama pants, in the midst of cheffing up some pierogies in his dank Boston apartment, sort of stooped in front of me and told me he wanted to marry me, and with that I shook and he tied a string around my finger, in what was perhaps one of the worst proposals ever (it wasn't his fault)(and no he didn't plan it that way), here we are, five years later, bound by a promise, symbolized once upon a time by a flimsy green string just slightly thicker than a strand of a spider's web, and now made so palpable each day by the scraps of hardened rotini noodles that we both walk over with bare feet on our way to go play "pockafull of poseys" with the creature that was born out of our love. Round and round we circle, holding hands and singing badly, preparing each time for "we all fall down," and each time, pulling one another back up again, our smiles a little wider, the rush of blood to our faces making them a little rosier, the force of gravity still strong, still working to keep our feet planted firmly on the ground. ***