They say, “Into every life, a little rain must fall…”

“Rain” being metaphorical for “life’s troubles,” except in Louisiana, where rain means…well, water.

More than 31″ in 15 hours.

6,900,000,000,000 gallons of rain in one week.

Enough to wash your life away right before your very eyes.

When my mother-in-law drove home last Friday evening, from the local art gallery, where she happily whiles away her retirement years painting with her varied assortment of colorful artist friends, it was indeed raining heavily outside. But, not enough to alarm or concern this 80 year old native of The Bayou State, whose extended family survived Hurricane Katrina almost 11 years ago.

Trust me, people in Louisiana are not skittish about a little moisture.

Yet, by the time she awoke early Saturday morning, a nearby river (a lazy young tributary that ordinarily meanders it’s way peacefully down to the Gulf of Mexico, many miles downstream) had overrun it’s banks and rudely entered her home without so much as an invite or an RSVP.

Like a gang of unruly juvenile delinquents, it vandalized her entire life – snatching up framed family photographs and violently smashing them against walls, rearranging her decor by hurling large pieces of furniture into different rooms and toppling her refrigerator as though it were made of cardboard.

Ironically, many of these homes, including my mother-in-law’s, provided haven for refugees of the disastrous Hurricane Katrina that devastated New Orleans in 2005. These very walls that offered succor to displaced friends, neighbors and relatives (in many cases outright strangers) were washed away in a matter of hours.

The true extent of the damage wasn’t realized by our family until several days later when “Mimi’s” children and grandchildren were able to get back into the home to survey the chaotic remnants of their collective childhoods.

The more immediate and pressing problem on Saturday morning was getting their mother safely out of the house and into a boat – Mimi and 30,000 of her closest friends and neighbors.  (20/20 Hindsight: don’t forget Papa Joe – he’s in the urn!)

Initially, residents unaffected by the flood were urged by authorities to stay in their homes, but it wasn’t long before the scope and magnitude of the situation became evident and every “Thibodeaux with a pirogue” (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirogue) was out rescuing distressed flood victims – many of whom were texting their addresses on Facebook and other social media channels to any available Good Samaritan in the area. (Shameless plug for social media.)

http://www.theadvocate.com/louisiana_flood_2016/article_bbf5263e-6646-11e6-a775-ebda9d5c17ae.html

After several panicked hours of watching floodwaters rise around her, Mimi was rescued by a boat that, for better or worse, was able to glide right up to her doorstep. She was eventually taken to a shelter, where she says she has never been more touched by the depths of humanity and human compassion, as volunteers responded to and anticipated her every need.

With the grace of God and a large dose of “can-do Cajun spirit,” almost everyone was saved over the course of the next two days, although 40,000 homes were destroyed in Livingston Parish alone.

On Monday morning as the water went down and the sun came up, the journey to reclaim and re-tame Louisiana began. Local residents feel optimistic that, just as in post-Katrina, the fierce Acadian determination, combined with sheer American grit will prevail and South Louisiana will flourish once again.

As for our Steel Magnolia, she’s grateful her children were able to salvage a few tangible memories of her past. She will start her new life with a few cherished photographs and her indomitable spirit intact. She has a long road ahead, but we know this thing hasn’t beaten her.

In the words of the nationally acclaimed Cajun Chef and Louisiana Humorist, Justin Wilson,
“I Gay-Ron-tee!”

“Suds for Everyone!”

We are packing to take our 18 year old son off to college at the end of this week. A small pile of sundry ‘Do Not Forget!’ items accumulating by the door serves as a startling reminder that I have less than a week to tie up a few loose parenting ends before I send him out into that wide blue yonder we call the Real World...

1. After We Pay Your Tuition, You Will Have More Money Than We Do

I’m so glad we had the “money talk” today. When you asked me how you would be obtaining cash flow while you were away at school and I explained, you seemed somewhat taken aback.

Son, we are providing for your tuition, books, lodging and we generously upgraded your meal plan to include more caloric energy per day than the rest of our family consumes in an entire month. I can’t imagine what else you think you’re going to need,  but I saw all those graduation checks that came rolling in last May. I happen to know you have more money in your bank account than I do.  Use it.

When you complained that you didn’t want to use your “precious money” to buy “things like shampoo,” I saw the likes of your Dad in you. He feels the same way. That’s why he takes all those business trips. It’s solely to obtain those tiny little bottles of free hotel shampoo.

Got any business trips on your calandar? I didn’t think so. Just buy yourself some shampoo, okay?

And, look at it this way – when your Grandmothers ask you what you spent all your graduation money on, and you answer, “Suds,” you won’t really be lying.

2. Any Moron Can Do Laundry

People have been telling me forever that I was doing you a genuine disservice by doing your laundry all these years.  But, I didn’t mind doing your laundry while you played sports and made those stellar grades. When my concerned friends worried aloud in my presence that you “wouldn’t know how to do laundry when you left for college,” I assured them I could “teach any Moron to do laundry in 5 minutes!” and “planned to do so right before we left for College Town, USA!”  And, no, I did not just call you a moron. I’m your mother, I love you.

As usual, I was right. We knocked that task out today in no time flat. All in all, you did well. I’m sorry your clothes came out wrinkled and you’re concerned about having to iron them. When I told you the solution was simply to do “smaller loads,” so your clothes could fluff out more freely, and you responded that “would take too long” and you, “didn’t want to spend all your free time doing laundry,” I was kind’ve stung. Did you realize when you spoke those words, that you were taking a personal swipe at my entire existence? I do laundry for a living, so ouch.

One more thing: as you get older, you’ll realize there is no such thing as “free time.” Any moron knows that. Okay, I think now I just called you a moron.

3. I Am Always Going To Parent You

By no means should you ever feel that I’m done parenting you. Last night you hung out at your friend’s house awfully late. I texted you when I was ready to go to bed to see what your plans were and you came across a wee bit CAVALIER. I know that this time next week you will be on your own and I won’t have “the luxury” of knowing right where you are, but I plan to parent you right up to the very last possible second – Up the dormitory staircase, down the dormitory hallway, right into the dorm room.

And, Spoiler Alert – when you come home for Christmas and Thanksgiving, I’m going to pick up right where I left off. If you don’t like the sound of that, you should plan some type of a business trip for those weeks. You can pick up some shampoo while you’re there.  That’s just a suggestion. It’s whatever you think. I’m not going to tell you what to do.

Wait- scratch that last part- actually,  I am.

(Back-to-School shopping from home this year!)

Approximately 87,600…

Admittedly, this is a bit of a rough estimate and I took the liberty of rounding the number off, but I am trying to figure out how many times I have driven my 5 kids places over the past 30 years, since my oldest child was born.

From the day after we brought Emilie home, when I strapped her into her car seat for her first Baby Well-Check, until I ran Tommy to soccer practice a few nights ago, I arrived at roughly 87,600 car rides – give or take the 7 or 8 times their dad actually shuttled them anywhere.

Which might explain the rather unorthodox reaction I am having to Tommy getting his driver’s license.

I am letting him drive.

Yesterday, when two of my daughters happened to be home, chatting in the kitchen, one of them looked up and asked,

“Where’s Tommy?”

When I answered, “He’s at soccer practice!” they kindly offered to pick him up later, on their way back home from running an errand. This left me no option but to ‘fess up-

“He drove himself there!”

“He drove?” They exclaimed, in unison and surprise. Apparently, according to the girls, getting one’s license around here was certainly a laudable milestone, but it didn’t translate into the level of personal freedom and autonomy their younger brothers enjoy.

Okay, I admit I might’ve put some rather stringent restrictions on my daughters when they were new drivers, freshly sprung from the loins of the DMV,  with their little plastic cards in their little plastic hands, but things were different then.

We had more rules and standards.   In fact, we may have had so many standards there appears to be a double-standard.

–No listening to the radio while driving….No Backstreet Boys, No N’Sync, No Brittany Spears or Destiny’s Child. The boys, however, managed to convince us that they would drive better with the steady thrum of a savage rap beat.

–No interstate driving. I mapped out elaborately circuitous routes for the girls in order to keep them off the interstate. This, apparently, took them through some sketchy parts of town. At one point, Mollie complained  that she thinks a stray bullet grazed her car. So, we allowed the boys to take more direct routes via the highways and byways of this great land.

–No leopard print plushy steering wheel cover or pink rabbit’s foot rearview-mirror decor. Sorry, I know teenaged girls love to prettify their rides, but this is all just too distracting. I needed their hands on the actual steering wheel at 10 and 2, with nothing dangling and obstructing their view. Fortunately, the boys never wanted to trick out their vehicles with crap from Claire’s or Limited Too. Fast-food bags clutter the floorboards posing no safety threat.

The older kids can criticize me all they want.  They can call it a double-standard if they must, but I prefer to think of it as ‘evolving as a parent.’

Don’t get me wrong, I still worry up a blue streak.  It’s not as though utter lawlessness abounds;  we still have a few rules.  Tommy is required to text me when he arrives at his destination and when he leaves to return home, etc.  We haven’t gone so far as to embed a chip in him, but we do track his movements…

That’s how I came to notice, that as the 5th child of burned-out  parents, he’s kind’ve like your Visa Card – he’s everywhere he wants to be.

(metaphorically, Mom points her camera down at the ground in despair…)

There are 34 equally lovely contestants backstage. The Emcee is about to call the names of the lucky 20 girls who made the NBA dance team my daughter is trying out for.

She made it all the way to the final leg of this journey. We could not be prouder, even though my heart is visibly thumping out of my chest and my hands are shaking my program so badly it looks like I’m fanning myself, but I’m not.

A few have told us, “It’s in the bag!” and “She’s got this!” But as parents we can’t help but let our thoughts drift to a potentially long car ride home and the ensuing months of “parent therapy” (the only kind we can afford) if things don’t go our way. If she doesn’t make it, it will take “all the Kings horses and all the Kings men,” to put our little egg back together again.

One of the most difficult decisions you’ll ever face as a parent is just how much to “put your kid out there.” ie: what, if anything, should you encourage them to try out for.

These decisions seem fairly benign when your children are young, but the effects on our children’s long term psyche and overall sense of well-being magnify as our kids mature and develop. Simply put, the stakes get higher. As a protective parent, there are times you can’t help but think – if they don’t try, they can’t fail…

When my kids were small, they’d jump in the car with hand-outs about Brownie Troops, Boy Scouts, basketball and soccer teams; perhaps even band. It was standard to allow/encourage their participation, as participation simply meant signing up.

The process didn’t get tricky until down the road a bit, when our kids started wanting to join teams that involved try-outs, judges, coaches and the dreaded C-word “cuts!”

This is a whole different ballgame. Now you’re competing against other wannabes and their impressive entourage of parental backing. Everyone is saying the right thing, touting the party line, “We don’t care about the outcome either way, we’re just excited that ‘Junior’ likes this activity and does his best and has fun trying!”

Okay, true, but when you’re not looking, they are hiring private shooting coaches, private batting coaches and buying protein bars that cost $5 a bite. They are hiring personal trainers, purchasing world class equipment, while renting private studio space for their daughter to pirouette in.

Don’t believe them when they say their daughter is a “Tom-Boy Natural Beauty!”  Just like your girl, she’s been in your city’s finest salon all morning getting coiffed, spray tannned, her lashes extended, every stray hair plucked.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of this, per se. You just have to be realistic, eyes wide open about what you’re getting yourselves and your kids into.  The other parents and you (yes, You) probably care more than you think.

If your child makes the team or squad, it’s a high like no other. I’ve never done drugs, but I imagine that’s what they must feel like. Conversely, if your child doesn’t make the cut, it will be the worst few days or weeks of your tenure as a parent and part-time Therapist. (The length of the recovery is a complicated formula involving the age of your child, multiplied by how long they prepared for this try-out, divided by your clever ability to distract them by dangling a new dream in front of them…)

If your kid is cut, you may very well ask yourself why y’all even bothered taking the risk. You may even find yourself wishing you did do drugs, but don’t, because you’re about to need all of your wits about you, to get your child through this.

As the young ladies names were called, we held our collective breath and listened to name after name, doing the quick math calculation to see how many spots were still left for our girl to fill. Her number was 3; twice the announcer called 33 and 13 and my heart leapt hopefully.

When they called the final squad member it wasn’t our beautiful girl. Our hearts sank into our stomachs. Several caring strangers seated around us reached over to clamp our shoulders in disbelief and astonishment. “She was amazing! “We thought she had it!”

Like all good mothers, I immediately blamed myself. Maybe when you believe in your kid too much and encourage them to “go for their dreams,” you also subconsciously set them up to endure this type of enormous let down. Secretly, I’m wishing we had just skipped all this “reaching for the stars” and enjoyed the rest of the summer just lying back and gazing at them instead.

It was going to be a long drive home for sure. Good thing I packed necessary provisions:
-tissues (for me, my girl isn’t much for crying)
-a few verses (Jeremiah 29-11, “For I know the plans I have for you declared The Lord)
-my therapist schtick
-the tiny cheerleader that lives inside me, always
-an ice cream sundae (I didn’t pack it because I knew it would melt, but there’s plenty of places we can stop along the way and get one)

We are going to take the long way home…

Just keep dancing to his song…

I’m always wary of people who say, “you can’t change your spouse…”  How preposterous. Why of course you can change your spouse!  In fact, If you’ve played house with the same person for 20 years or more and haven’t managed to change them – you might not be doing it right. You might even be considered a slacker.

Take a look at my marriage for example.  My family-of-origin is very LOUD. Simply put, we love the sound of ourselves. So naturally  (per the the time honored principle of pairing with opposites) I married a quiet man. But over the course of 30+ years, I’ve unintentionally converted him into a veritable noise-machine.

Recently I was watching a home video with our kids from way back when they were babies (circa 1996). About 45 minutes into the video, the younger version of my hubby deigns to utter a brief comment and the camera quickly pans over to him. But he was done. That quiet remark was all he had.  Shocked, my children inquired if their dad had been in the room the entire time…

…The chance of being in the vacinity of my spouse these days for more than a minute and not be fully aware of him is highly unlikely.  He is the force that we reckon with.

It’s really apparent if he gets a song stuck in his head.  When that happens,  it’s going to be YOUR song for the entire day, as well.  I’m not talking about a subtle Vulcan Mind-Meld, like from Star Trek. I’m talking about something far more insidious, a full-on bombardment of the senses.

Yesterday’s song du jour was Bruce Springsteen’s, “Born To Run.” That tune and it’s metaphorical message of desperation, rebellion and youthful empowerment assaulted my psyche for the better part of 24 hours.

He. sang. it. all. day. long.

He claims he’s only “into” the instrumental part of the music  and I’m way too caught up in the meaning behind lyrics. But that didn’t cut down on the number of times throughout the day that I was cordially invited to strap myself round his engines.  Maybe he’s right, and I am overly-invested in lyrics, but by mid-day I had my fill of analyzing my husband’s runaway American dreams.

When he wasn’t singing it, he was whistling it.  Piercingly proud. Whistling is his jam – he could win a Grammy for it.  This particular song inspires a truly ferocious whistle riff – it’s low, it’s high, it dips and crescendos. It’s the ideal melody for showcasing one’s remarkably vast whistling range.

And then, just to keep things flex, he switches over to the “neer-neer-neer.” This is the savage sound a male human-being makes when he’s amping up his air guitar.

1-2-3-4!
NEER…. (pause) neer,neer,neer,neer (pause) NEER, NEER!

Truthfully, it didn’t really annoy me all that much yesterday. After all, when one’s spouse is singing, whistling or neer-neer-neering, they’re happy right? And who doesn’t want their very own spouse to be happy?

But early this morning, he entered the room to ask me if I needed anything from Lowes – when I said, “No thanks!” he belted out “tramps like us!” Like it was our official Couple Anthem.  It was just so overwhelmingly yesterday.

I know it’s entirely my fault that my husband is so in-your-facey now. Obviously, I rubbed off on him through the years and have no one but myself to blame. But still…this tramp was thinking, ‘different day – different song. ‘ I’m even willing to return to last weekend when, for an unrelenting 24 hours, he wore me out by latching on to a twangy rendition of a Marshall Tucker Band favorite.

“I ain’t never been with a woman long enough for my songs to get old…”   You’re almost there Big Guy.  You are almost there.

The only thing that’s more of a reality check than hearing yourself on the radio, is hearing AND seeing yourself on YouTube. I’ve had my share of both lately. I made a quick note of things I need to pick up before my next public speaking gig…

Shopping List:
1. headbands Really wide and dual purpose, to cover gray roots at the hairline and hide a few forehead wrinkles.

2. consonants  For the love of od, et some Gs. Every sentence that’s supposed to end in “ing” only ends in “in” when I’m speakin’.

“We were comin’, goin’, drivin’ and talkin’… I’m an Oklahoma version of Sarah Palin.”

The “Listen To Your Mother 2016” videos are available. Click on the link if you feel like listenin’:

*Fun Summer activity if you’re bored: Say “Shoulder Surgery” 3 times really fast!

Not a “Dog Person,” my arse!

I’m sick and tired of people suggesting that maybe I am not a “Dog Person.” This really gets my goat (making me a Goat Person?) I’m not sure there is even such a thing as NOT being a Dog Person. Literally everyone in the world is a Dog Person, aren’t they? Why do people even bother to go around bragging “I am a dog person!” If you are a person at all, you’re probably a Dog Person. I’ll go out on a limb and wager even your common everyday Serial Killers are dog people.

Quite simply, Human Beings are obsessed with dogs.

Which is why what happened to me last week was so terribly disconcerting. My daughter asked me to babysit her new puppy for the day. That’s not the really upsetting part. The really upsetting part was that she came right out and said that asking ME was her last resort. It seems that the Preferred Puppy-Grandmother (her husband’s mom) was out of town, so they were fresh out of daycare options and were exploring available alternatives. The only thing more humiliating than being picked last (I got a belly full of that in junior high P.E. class) was that she went on to imply that I might not be properly motivated or qualified to tend to the needs of a young puppy.

Motivated?

Qualified?

Does she know who I even am? It’s Me – Mommy! Her very own mother, for the love of God. I may not have been any good at _______ (insert name of any sport where a Team Captain was choosing teams) but I excelled my entire life at addressing the wants and needs of Small Needy Things, starting with her. One can only assume that this pint-sized dog will be exactly like my kids, only covered in fur and nice.

After I recovered from my justified righteous indignation, I realized that, if my children truly feel that I can’t be trusted with their pets, this may not bode well for my prospects as an Actual-Babysitter-of-Actual-Grandchildren down the road. So, I did what any reasonable Start-up Day Care facility would do. I obtained a copy of the “Activity Log” of one of the more established Hoity-Toity Baby Day Cares in our town and I structured my little charge’s day as similarly as possible.

Language and Literacy : We read “Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear?” By Eric Carle. This helped the tiny Labrador to understand that dogs are not the only animal in the universe

I look as tired as I do in all the pictures of me reading bedtime stories to my toddlers through the years…

Mathmatical Thinking:

We counted her puppy toys, concluding that she has way too many…

Social Development:

Learning to share is so critical to social development…

Physical Activity (aka P.E. Class):

We used a rolling pin in this engaging exercise of chase and be chased! A tail-waggin’ good time was had by all.

They picked their puppy up by 5 pm. I poured myself a glass of wine and looked back over my busy day. I’m feeling pretty good about things.

There’s no doubt that I established my credibility in several key areas:

-By demonstrating such an abundance of unnecessary enthusiasm, I feel that I’ve cleared up the “Dog Person” debate once and for all.

-By demonstrating my broad range of capabilities, I don’t need to lay awake at night fretting that my children won’t include me in their future puppy care needs.

And, as a bonus, I’ve proven I’ll go the extra mile to edge out any and all other Grandma competition, when the time comes…

Emilie & Mollie take a break from selling lemonade during a nationwide kid’s Lemonade Stand fundraiser for Cancer Research.  (link included) Their tees say, “Got Lemons?”

What a great experience it was to be a Guest/Co-Host on the video podcast “Start a Lemonade Stand – Getting Your Kids To Work.”

This show takes a break from the discussion of bullying to tackle the subject of your kids and employment. It was an hour long, so watch it only if this is a point where you find yourself as a parent. It’s specifically geared toward those of us with kids and teens who want to hear a discussion of why our kids should work (benefits such as gratitude, independence, work ethic) as well as some specific suggestions of jobs kids can work at appropriate ages.

The best moment of the show might’ve been when I talked my way to the realization that the most effective way to avoid working throughout one’s lifetime is to try to be a writer…

Here is the link!

Hugs,
Leslie

https://blab.im/5ef34df13afe4e5381230619013a43f4

Also-

Kids Lemonade Stand Fundraiser for Cancer Research to generate a giving and entrepreneurial spirit in your kids:

http://www.alexslemonade.org/

She looks so fine, she’s all I need tonight… (And a pair of tongs)

It’s always a little tricky when you go to buyin’ someone else a present with their money. The “dicey-ness” of the situation can be further compounded when that individual is a “frugal” person. Yeah, I’m talking about the annual challenge of purchasing my husband’s Father’s Day gift. The struggle is real…

I was thinking it would be a fabulous idea to get him a grill this year. After all, we’ve been talking about getting a new one for about 5 or 10 years now, so I thought I’d surprise him by spontaneously taking action.  Fortunately for me, I had not yet executed the purchase when we chanced to discuss our plans for the upcoming Father’s Day weekend. Imagine my surprise when he threw me this curve ball:

Husband – “Whatever you do, don’t buy any food for grilling, it’s going to be way too hot this weekend to grill out!”

‘Uh-oh, I thought to myself, if he doesn’t want to grill out this weekend, that’s going to take a bit of the zing out of presenting him with a brand-spanking-new-grill.’

So I effortlessly moved on to plan B and bought him a brand new bottle of tequila*  instead.

So, now imagine my further surprise when he said these words to me this morning:

Husband – “I’ve put in an offer on a grill and I’m waiting to hear back!”

Wife -“You’ve put in an offer on a grill? And you are waiting to hear back?”

(Ginger Snapping: I thought it was too hot to grill out? That’s why I bought tequila**  instead of bratwurst. What’s more, my guy has some pretty lofty ideas regarding grills. I was thinking $400-$500 max. I’m not saying he isn’t a great Dad and all, but for Pete’s sake, it’s a grill. I know when it comes to men and their meat, it’s serious business,  but we have kids to put through college. My husband is pursuing the purchase of a grill that requires the tendering of an offer? Like when one buys a car?)

Wife – “How much did you offer them for it ?  These Grill-Scheisters?”

Husband -“$100 – but it has some scratches, a rather large dent and a broken wheel. I told them I’d be doing them a favor just hauling it away.”

Wife- “It really sounds like you would be doing them a serious solid.   Not to be a kill-joy on your special weekend, but I kind’ve hope they turn us down.”

Like everything else in life, it resulted in a Bad News/Good News outcome…

Bad news: They said yes.

Good news: They said yes.

We stuck it to The Home Depot, but good!

We were there within the hour to load up our brand new scratched, dented, 3-wheeled Father’s Day Grill. After a brigade of overly-supervised  Orange-Aproned Ones carefully loaded it (because we didn’t want any additional dents we didn’t pay for) into the truck, my triumphant husband pulled around to the front of the store.

Wife- “For crying out loud, what are you doing now?”

Husband- “We get a free bottle of propane with purchase! I told you I really stuck it to those M-effers. I took em deep!”

In retrospect, I’m so glad I didn’t rob him of the joy of buying his own gift with his own money.

Clearly, It was the thrill of the kill, more than the thrill of the grill…

*There wasn’t a scratch on that bottle of tequila. It was in pristine  condition.

**In case you’re wondering, I decided not to return the tequila.  Color me selfish, but I’m keeping it to make myself Margaritas.  It promises to be a long, hot summer.

For best results: If you can’t “feather” your own hair – mate with someone who can

Vow renewals are so en vogue these days that I began mulling the concept over, ultimately concluding that I’m not really in to it. My original vows seem to be holding up just fine. What I really deserve is a do-over on the actual marriage proposal…

I met my future/current/only husband, Jimmy, at my part-time job at Sizzler Family Steakhouse in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The year was 1980. What started out as any average day at a job waiting tables in the mall, turned out to be life-changing. My friend, a flaky blonde named Kirsten, came bouncing (and I do mean bouncing) up to me during our shift and said, “There’s a new guy on ‘Hot Side’ walk by casually and look at him, but don’t be obvious – come back and tell me if you think he’s cute.” (Kirsten was one of those girls that was only interested in dating guys that other females found attractive. You know the type.)

Perhaps feeling safe because I had a steady boyfriend, or perhaps my looming unforeseen destiny emboldened me – I looked the boy square in the eye, paused for dramatic effect, and said, “Yes, he’s super good-looking!” She squealed in mock despair. I’d like to say something prophetic like, “The rest is history…” But it really wasn’t like that at all. There was a long and winding road to the alter. (The long and winding road you’ve heard tell of.) My future/current/only husband proceeded to date every girl who worked in that restaurant, starting with Her Bounciness, before he ever took a notion to ask me out. I try to tell myself it was because I already had a boyfriend, but I guess it’s moot now.

I spent a good portion of the following year intermittently providing complimentary counseling services to all of the discouraged and downtrodden  girls who tried their luck at dating him. I took notes along the way and by the time my golden opportunity arrived, I had garnered plenty of wisdom and insight to draw upon. Add to that a splash of gumption and a dash of intestinal fortitude and the rest truly was history.

Jimmy’s “timing” proved providential in that he asked me out on a night I just happened to be mad at my current boyfriend. We had our first date, if you could call it that, on a rainy Friday night in July of 1981. Michael Jackson was performing his “Thriller” tour downtown at the Centroplex. Jimmy and I were probably the only two teenagers in Baton Rouge without tickets to that concert. Instead, we bought a bottle of Andre Cold Duck at 7-11 and drove out to the lakes at LSU to talk a little and make-out a lot*.

He maintains to this very day that he didn’t even realize we were “boyfriend and girlfriend” for at least another 6-9 months. We didn’t have Facebook statuses back then, so it was admittedly hard to know. Nonetheless, it still hurts my feelings, because I broke up with my boyfriend the very next day and married Jimmy in my heart.

Two years later, when we were both 20, we were strolling casually through the same mall where we met. I can’t remember what we were there to buy originally, but when we walked by a jewelry counter filled with diamond engagement rings, Jimmy stopped walking, jerked his impeccably feathered head over in the direction of the jewelry case and said, “You want one of those?” Understandably overcome by the romance and sheer epic-ness of the moment, my memory is somewhat hazy, but I know I set a world record in diamond selection. We were officially engaged within 3 minutes.

The beautiful, oh-so-poignant moral of this story is that the quality of the proposal does not define nor determine the substance and enduring nature of the commitment.

But still, given the length of this marriage, the least he could’ve done was gotten down on one knee.  I’m clearly within my rights to insist upon a “re-do,” but since I barely survived his last knee surgery, we place quite a premium on our joints these days. So I’ve graciously decided to let it go.

*Sorry Mom