DelBloggolo: YOU JUST HAVE TO BE THERE!

Monday, March 30, 2015

YOU JUST HAVE TO BE THERE!

"Grandma, how long have you and Grandpa been married?" asked young Nina.
"Fifty years," Grandma replied.
"That is so wonderful," exclaimed Nina. "And I bet in all that time, you never once thought about divorce, right?"
"Right Nina. Divorce, NEVER. Murder, lots of times, but never divorce."

There are things in life worth remembering just for the sake of enjoyment. For instance, watching my wife make her breakfast. Now we don’t sit together for breakfast during the week, she gets ready for work and I usually go out for the gym while she eats. Some mornings I don’t and do get a chance to observe the ritual if you will of her making her first meal of the day. Judging by what I see, it must be her favorite!

TLW (The Little Woman) has certain likes in the morning, like eggs and salsa, something she started a few years ago, and she loves it. I remember when I first had scrambled eggs for breakfast with ketchup, and she made this face. Now she is doing it sunny side up.

There used to be the old cereal box that I read as a kid while eating my boring breakfast of Rice Krispies or Cheerios, to get me through the ordeal of eating. TLW I think did the same and carried it to adulthood with her eggs. Instead of cereal boxes she reads the newspaper: which is a good idea. But the thing is, her breakfast experience is a ritual, laid out carefully on the kitchen table like she was preparing to have a religious service on an altar!

Now don’t laugh because I think we all are guilty of some form of that. If you come with me to breakfast on a Sunday morning at our diner, I go through a compulsion of sorts. I sit across from TLW and I line up the placemat with the edge of the table. Next I put the knife and fork exactly in a certain spot on the paper napkin, perpendicular to the edge of the table. Then I reach for the ketchup, salt and pepper and bring them to the center of the table with the shakers next to each other in the front of the ketchup, perfectly aligned. She watches this and laughs at my compulsion or organizational skills or set up like the old art director I once was.

But I think the dining experience is a good thing to have. Be it breakfast, lunch or dinner, we all want peace and harmony when we eat, and hope we can extend it into our lives. I know I do and always did. When before I married, sitting at the table the whole family sat together, every day, table set and we talked, usually about someone we knew or something we planned or just laughed at things in general. But the dinner place itself was sacred. I wonder how much longer that will last in the future. I imagine there will be faces buried in cell phones instead of plates.