Spousal Return Operations

I spent part of the day yesterday monitoring my wife’s triumphant return from the wilds of Northern Maine.  After conquering her fears of long distance solo driving she was typically upbeat about the adulation sent her way.  I was required to call her hourly as she made steady progress south and even pulled the standard New Hampshire tourist tactic of stopping by the conveniently located state liquor store (it’s how you know you’ve entered the granite state).  After laying in some supplies for Thanksgiving she expertly negotiated the final miles to a boisterous welcome home from the Wonder Pooch.

The Long Driver Returned - At Zorba's Last Night

Since my excellent boss spent some extended hours with the political leadership this week he was sorely in need of the medical effects offered by our First Friday celebrations.  He’s caught in the middle between the politicos and the union as the construction of our new facility is underway.  The environmental cleanup of the new location is steadily eating into the construction budget and the union is protesting as more and more of the promised facilities are taken away in response.  A steady stream of his favorite adult beverages delivered by the always superb Brew City staff helped drown out the leftover bad taste.

One I got her off the telephone (four days’ worth of catching up, don’t you know) I vied with Buddy for welcoming home my wife.  We adjourned to Zorba’s where I received a blow by blow account of her entire week.  As I sat there listening I realized (again) how much I had missed her vital company.  It’s weird that the longer this marriage goes the higher the co-dependency rises.  All I know is that I’m happy to have her back.  Happy enough that there may be some dancing in my immediate future, if she has her way (not long odds there).

Yet another Travis McGee novel fell yesterday when I finished The Long Lavender Look.  I’m on the downslope of my return to the magical 1960-70 world of John D. Macdonald but the books continue to amaze at how well they’ve stood the test of time.  Trav and Meyer are speeding down a late night Everglades highway when they’re forced off the road to avoid hitting a woman.  They’re shortly arrested for murder by the local sheriff.  The book has McGee slowly digging into the mystery he was charged with and inevitably linking up with dangerous villains and tragic women.  This book was a welcome return to McGee’s natural environment of Florida with the vivid descriptions only MacDonald did so well.

Per usual the words are what made the book so entertaining.  Here’s McGee near the end of the book bemoaning the cost of his recently concluded adventure, the warrior poet at his best:  “Something was going wrong and it went further wrong. I don’t know.  I lost it, somehow, without knowing what I lost.  Some kind of . . . sense of light and motion and purpose.  I went ragged around the edges and bleak in the middle. The world seems to be coarsening, and me with it.  Everything that happens takes away, and less flows back.  And I respond less, and in the wrong way.  I still amuse myself but there’s some contempt in it now.  I don’t know. . .  I don’t know.”