I Guess That Does Sound Pretty Fun

The New York Times has a cute wee story about the unusually cold temperatures we're having down here.  It starts with how dumb Georgians are (we have to be told to dress warmly--we're like turkeys who drown looking up at the rain) and then it meanders through a conversation with someone improbably named "Stooksbury" and then it ends with a man who has made a machine called the South Georgia Redneck Snowmaker.  

I shit thee not.

We can't have an entire discussion of the issues surrounding the drought and probable cold winter in the Southeast without paying a visit to the South Georgia Redneck Snowmaker.  

It is made of "spare septic tank parts."  

Now I'm thinking that the South Georgia Redneck Snowmaker sounds like a cocktail we need to invent, stat. I bet it has Kahlua in it.

So yes, cold.  Yet today I chaperoned Laura's class field trip to a historic farm. Farming, it seems, happens outdoors, and even the parts that happen inside are not what you would call toasty.  When I greeted Laura at the history center, she yelled, "Guess how many pairs of pants I'm wearing?"  Answer: 3. But it was sunny and calm, so no problem, except now that I think of pants, I was visually assaulted by one of the most terrible pairs of mom jeans you can imagine.  

The kids didn't need much chaperoning, you see, so while they were making candles the moms just stood around and eyed each other's outfits. 

Going on the field trip meant I had to drive down to Buckhead in rush hour traffic.  My, everyone on the road at that hour is so busy and important!  It's in the way they drive, they simply ooze importance, ooze it all over the road.  But I was busy too.  I was busy trying to open the little containers of half-and-half with one hand and add them to my drive-thru coffee, and then I was busy dribbling the half-and-half down the touch screen of my iPhone, and then I was busy wiping the phone with a sock I found between the front seats.  It wasn't a child's sock, it was Matt's.  Mysterious, helpful sock.

And goodness, here it is almost Thursday and I'm just sticking my head in to say hi.  I had a birthday this week! Matt said, "What do you want for your birthday?"  I said, "Well, I kind of want an iPhone 4 but I don't know if this is the best time to get one." (This was before the half-and-half and the sock.) And he said, "Hmm, what would you like that is, you know, cheaper than that?"  So he got me a plant.  A Norfolk Island Pine, which you can only find in nurseries this time of year because they're sold as "Living Christmas Trees."    

I had said, "I would like a Norfolk Island Pine to go in that corner." And I pointed at the spot where the yucca had just finally died.  He said, "What happened to that plant?"  I said, "It died."  He said, and I'm serious, he said, "Why did it die?"  

It seems I'd wandered into an interrogation of my plant-nurturing abilities wrapped in a discussion of my birthday.

I said, "Why did it die? It got old."

We talked about it and I realized, as I told him, that what I want for my birthday isn't really stuff, because I tend to buy stuff for myself. I said, "What I really want is a surprising gesture of love."

I am making myself sound impossible to live with, but you know what I mean. A surprising gesture of love. Something you don't plan and execute yourself.  You know you want it, ladies.

So last night after the kids were in bed, he cooked us a little dinner for two, with wine and flowers.  And cheese.  (We had already had a cake and karaoke evening over the weekend.) And then the two of us watched Midnight Run. There were so many moments between Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin that reminded me of our love.  Like when Charles Grodin insists that he is afraid of flying and he makes such a ruckus that they get kicked off the plane, and then as De Niro leads him away in handcuffs, he smiles.