Spiders and Shakes

Wife's Garden In Full Bloom

Yesterday was supposed to be a day of rest and reflection.  More so on the rest part as my wife departed home base early in the day to execute a raid on a Macy’s special.  While she was out I received a call from the realtor to set up the first viewing of the house which will happen today.  I knew this would send the wife into paroxysms of cleaning so I got a head start on that with some outdoor work.

At least I was able to partake of the tropical humidity and heat before it departed the realm.  Buddy assisted with squirrel over watch.  We dodged most of the significant thunderstorms that signaled the end of the heat wave much to the delight of a certain black lab.  My wife returned was singularly complacent about the news of strangers inspecting her house.  Could it be that she finally realizes she keeps this place in pristine condition routinely? Nah, she immediately started cleaning and cutting flowers to place around the house.

She ran into the house breathlessly and in a near panic to report a large spider had taken up residence in her garden.  She demanded I immediately evict the intruder.  I went out to investigate and it was a pretty good sized spider.  It reminded me of the night land navigation course back at Fort Benning when I first joined the Army.  This was obviously way before GPS so we were given a compass and told to follow the compass through the woods to predetermined points without using a flashlight.  This led to a nights of walking face first through spider webs for which Fort Benning is justifiably famous.  After reaching the final point and returning to lighted civilization you’d always find a few spiders hitchhiking on your body, the most common was the kind my wife found.  Which brings us back to her garden yesterday.

The Spider my Wife Found

Since I recognized his denizen as a former comrade in arms (more so back of the neck) I decided to move it instead of terminating.  This led to the semi-comical passage across the backyard with a pissed off spider crawling towards me on what turned out to be an all too small stick.  Three rotations of the stick and some real pep in my step saw the old comrade safely ensconced in his new home.

Buddy In Couch Potato Position 1 After his Squirrel Battles

My arachnid encounter was not the only Army memory we indulged in yesterday. I took my wife to Maxwell Silverman’s in Worcester for dinner and dancing which turned out to be one of those nights where we both were ready to let out some steam on the dance floor.  Every now and then life permits a small window where you can recapture some of the magic of youth.  It helped that the rest of the crowd at Maxwell’s was around our age.  We rarely left the dance floor all night and the music was right in our wheel house.  It brought back memories of the Albrook Officer’s Club Friday night dances, where we met in 1981.  While the spirit was certainly willing I’m sure the dance moves were a little less “robust” than thirty three years ago. 

Walking into Maxwell's

My knee started barking at me around 11 but there was no way I was going to complain or lose this connection to my long lost youth.  We danced until 1am and were drenched in perspiration, yet another reminder of dancing in Panama.  A lady came over to talk with my wife as we were getting ready to leave.  She said we were the best dancers on the floor, especially my wife (small declaration of immense understatement).  She had to come over to find out if we were married because we looked so “in tune” with each other. It was nice to hear that maybe some of that magic of our younger days was apparent to others, almost as much as it was to us.

Okay, I Was Inspired by my Date

Getting out to the car was an interesting proposition as the middle aged muscles decided to comment eloquently on their over employment.  We’ll get to discover better living through ibuprofen today as we get ready for the strangers.  They’re scheduled to get here at 4:30 and we have to vacate the premises, which kind of sucks since this is NFL kickoff Sunday.  The Patriots better finish off the Dolphins before I have to abandon Couch Potato Position 1.