Maurice's Boy Friend Is Back. So Is My Sweetheart

 I made a quick run to Publix this morning to get a few things I couldn't get at Costco yesterday. While I was rushing through the store I felt a little giddy- my man is coming home! What would he like to eat? 
We had talked already this morning on the phone. He called to let me know that he was in Bainbridge, Georgia (I got married there once!) and would be home pretty soon. He told me that he would gladly take me out for our anniversary but I told him that no, I wanted very much to make him a supper. 

When I came home and unloaded everything, I went to the garage where the frozen fish is and chose a nice piece of red grouper to thaw. I knew he had not had any fish while he was gone up North where the lady on the tractor was making his meals. And then I searched the NYT's cooking app for a recipe for some dessert that included chocolate and coconut and ended up deciding on a Chocolate Coconut Pecan tart and that is in the oven now. 
I have no tart pan so it's going to be more pie-like, I think. I hope it will be very good. 

He got home in the early afternoon and it was so sweet. We just clung to each other. We chattered and I helped him unload his car. The laundry room is full of camo-wear and the bed in the guest room is covered in things he needs to put away. Maurice was as glad to see him as I was, I think. She has missed him so. Every time she crosses paths with me she has looked at me like, "Why aren't you the one who left? You are no good to me. You do not bring me joy."
At least, that is how I translate her looks. 

But when I went outside to collect the laundry I'd done earlier off the line she did follow me, or at least appeared out of nowhere, as she always does when I'm doing anything outside. In these situations she always seems to be saying, "Oh, hey. Didn't know you were here. I was just passing by. Don't worry. I'm not looking at you. Just going to lay here and doze for a minute. Carry on." 
I am a master at cat communication. 

And now the man is back in his chair, resting up after his adventure. We have had a lovely afternoon. Martini glasses are in the freezer, the fish is thawed, the salad greens are picked, the tart-pie is about ready to come out of the oven. I am afraid that it is going to be too decadent to eat. A dish that small should not contain two sticks of butter and yet, this one does. As Truvie says in Steel Magnolias after giving her recipe for peach cobbler, "And I put ice cream on it to cut the sweet." 
I should have gotten some ice cream. Or made some. 

And so here we are, wed thirty-eight years ago today. On that day we went to a park in Tallahassee with as many friends and relatives as we could inform about the wedding in the four days in which we planned it. He rented a suit and wore new Nikes. I wore a Gunne-Sax dress of white dotted Swiss. A woman lawyer friend of Glen's married us under some beautiful huge oak trees and Bill Wharton showed up and played Cadillac of a Woman. 
My nursing school girls had figured out flowers and cake. 
It was perfect. 

The kind of perfect our marriage has been which is to say- Full of so much hope and imperfection and beauty and homemade effort and love and joy and a good dash of oh my god what are we doing? 

It's worked out quite well. And now I am going to go cook some fish he caught and kiss him again and again. 

Love...Ms. Moon