Cooperating for Happiness

PALOMA by Layla Edwards
Saturday, January 27, 2006
Cooperating for Happiness

I think secretly this is my favorite season, the long march to Spring, altho not as long here as in NYC because bright light speeds it up. In Tucson the trees look like an Easter basket, are in full leaf, on my birthday in early April. In New York it wasn’t till early May they were decked out in their green finery.

But the process is the same. It begins with the branches shooting straight up to heaven, which happened here yesterday. I woke up yesterday morning and saw it, and knew what it meant, and I was thrilled. Back in NYC it seems to take place in early February, just a few weeks after it takes place on the desert. Then the trees turn red. I have not seen that here in Tucson, I used to watch it from my window in New York. And then the buds begin. And at first it is all yellow. Then chartreuse. And finally Kelly green. New baby leaves of Kelly green. There was a tree which reached up to my 3rd floor window in Manhattan so I watched it intimately there.

Here I am not as familiar, even tho the trees are in my yard. Also because the leaves here are not leaves, they are curlicues, I am not yet as familiar with all their stages, but this spring I will try to watch and learn.

Yesterday was a nice day. The day before, when we had been at Edith Ball Pool, the one with the tent over it so I don’t like it as much, Bill said “the game won’t come on till the evening, I’ll have nothing to do when we get back home at 5, I’m willing to take you to all the stores you want to go to.”

I was so thrilled and happy I could barely focus on my swim. But then I realized I had not brought my purse. How could I buy Amber Romance perfume spray at Victoria’s Secret at the mall, a warm sweater on sale at Lane Bryant, and go to Costco and get membership there, if I have no purse.

So I said to Bill “let’s go home first, I can get my purse, and I’ll get the stuff from Motor Vehicles, we can do the emissions test at the same time, they are in the same area.”

And he said “I don’t want to do all that driving around at rush hour, we'll do it all tomorrow.” And it was such a let-down, after having been so excited I could barely swim with my excitement.

But when we got to the car he had a bright idea. He said “you can use my debit card to get the perfume you want and the warm sweaters you want, and then we'll drive over to Costco just to check it out to see what is like.” And I got so excited and happy again.

So first we drove to the Mall. “You don’t have to park” I said, “I know where Victoria’s Secret is, just stand in front of the mall, I will be very fast.” And I bought Amber Romance which I love and I was out of. And I bought another one they had on sale for $2. I wasn’t crazy about it, and neither was the sales girl, but the one everyone is crazy about is $22 and I didn’t want to spend that. And while I was waiting on line, they had little ones of two other kinds of scent on clearance for 1.50, so I got them too, it just seemed fun.

Then we drove over to Lane Bryant and I said “I will be very fast.” I had bought a warm cotton sweater when I was there last time because our mornings and nights are so cold, and the salesgirl told me she has 3 of them and she wears them all the time, they keep her so warm and toasty and she loves them. They only had very pale colors then, so I chose pale purple, and to my surprise I haven’t taken it off since I got it. She is exactly right, it is the only thing which works in our cold mornings and cold nights, it is heaven. So I went to get two more while they are still on clearance so I will be set up for next winter. There had been a pretty blue one but it had been size too small, I thought I would get it anyway. They didn’t have the blue one, but they had dark colored ones now. The pale purple one has already picked up so many stains. So I chose the two dark colors, the red and the orange, the orange is more like burnt umber. I didn’t like it, but she said it is pretty, so I got it.

And then we set off for Costco. I told the man Helen had bought me membership for Christmas present and it is home, the check she made out to Costco and the form she had filled out for Costco. And he said sorry there is nothing he can do for me, I have to come back with it.

I said “can I at least buy a slice of pizza while I am here, my friend at swim pool said Costco has good pizza.”

He said “you can’t buy anything, not even pizza.”

Bill said “can we go inside and look around and see what Costco is like?” And in order to even do that, Bill had to show his Driver’s License and the man wrote down all his numbers.

I liked the location of Costco, the parking lot faces the beautiful mountains and is next to the wash where Bill takes the dogs from Fort Lowell Park. It is flooring beauty.

Bill said “let’s check out the computers, somewhere during the year membership you might want another computer, if something happens to yours or as back up, we can get you a much better computer and I can use yours.”

But the man said “we have no computers now and when we get them in they will be 800 or 900 dollars.” I had gotten my Compaq on sale at Office Depot for $500. I didn’t know if Costco’s was such a great price. Bill didn’t think it was such a great price either, and he pointed out that when I buy the computer at Office Depot, I call them every day for a week because I need help learning my new computer. He said he doesn’t know if Costco would do that for me.

Then I saw everyone on line for pizza and I was starving. Luckily I had a change purse with two dollars in it and I got on line.

She said “what kind of pizza do you want?”

And I said “whatever is your favorite.”

The man had said I was not allowed to buy pizza. But all she said was “that is two dollars please,” and I paid her. I was so happy to be eating my pizza.

And then we went home.

And I put on the new warm red sweater I had just bought, it was freezing.

And we both said what a good idea it had been to do everything today, then tomorrow all we have to do is take the truck for Emissions and that is it.

And he spent the evening watching the games and I watched Judy Garland musicals.

So yesterday morning when I woke up and saw the tree branches shoot straight up to heaven, I was happy. I knew Spring had started. And the sun had come back which is always lovely. It had been stormy sky all day the day before, with that huge wind which had preceded the storm.

And it was lovely having such a clear and simple day.

I tried to write but I was in too high excitement about spring starting, I wrote two sentences and gave up. Then I did email. And went to sun-couch instant Sun rose above the mountains. And read A Course In Miracles at the outside table. And after Bill took his shower and walked the dogs and sat outside in sunshine in front yard with them, he said “let’s do Emissions and get it over with.” He finds Emissions Test very stressful, all that suspense about “will it pass?”

I said “I’ll help you, I’ll do the paperwork, it will be a cinch.” And it was a cinch. It was a beautiful drive there and not so much traffic even tho it was Friday. There was no one on line, they took us instantly, it worked like a charm. And I did the paper work. And we were free. And he was so happy it was over.

And we both thought it was so luxurious we didn’t have to go to the Mall and Lane Bryant and Costco because we had done it all yesterday. We just felt so free. And he said “I’ll take you to the pool with the bright sunshine even tho it will be short swim,” and I was overjoyed. We only had twenty minutes, but it was glorious twenty minutes. There is nothing like swimming under blue sky and radiant sunshine. The water sparkled. Everything was bright and alive and joyous. And all 3 of Bill’s friends were there, Doug and Jeff and Alfredo.

On the way to Emissions Test he said he likes Doug because he reminds him of his father’s family. “All my father’s brothers were like Doug, they all looked like Doug, and were same as Doug.”

The conversation on the way to emissions test on how Doug is just like his uncle Buster was one of the sweetest conversations I have ever had with Bill. Everyone has a side of their family they see all the time and have all their family gatherings with, and a side of the family they almost never see. Bill spent all his time with his mom’s Italian family and hardly any time with his dad’s family. For me, we spent all our time with my dad’s New York City family and very very rarely with my mom’s Rochester family.

And I understood what Bill meant about the difference in the two families too. The New York City relatives seemed so sophisticated and cosmopolitan compared to the Rochester relatives. And for Bill the Italian family was the wealthier and more sophisticated family, more au courant.

He told me about his uncle Bus. He said “Bus must be short for Buster” and how Doug is so like Buster. And he said Doug is a nice name, if we had had kids he would have liked to name the boy Doug. He said “Bus is a nice name too but he might not like being named Buster, that name went out of fashion.”

I said “if we had had kids what would you have wanted to name them?”

He said “I like Adam for a boy, that’s a nice name, and Douglas because Doug is such a nice nickname, and Gus.” He said “those are nice names for boys, Adam and Doug and Gus.”

And I said “yes they are.” I said “what about for a girl? I thought you liked the name Andrea for a girl.” I thought this was very broad-minded of me, to suggest we name our daughter Andrea because Bill had said how much he liked that name because it was the name of his former girlfriend before me.

He said “Andrea is a pretty name” but now he wasn’t sure he wanted it.

I said “what about Millie, the name of Bus’ sister?” He said “too old fashioned; maybe Rose” he likes Rose.

He said “I don’t know about girls’ names, I just know what boys’ names I would like.”

He said “I also like Andrew, Andy is a nice nickname.” He said maybe in a future life he will have these sons and name them Adam and Gus and Doug and Andy.

That conversation took us right to the Emission Test, which went fast and easily. Then we had our glorious swim, and then he said “do you want to stop at the market?” I said yes, and we bought delicious food. It wasn’t that we were out of food, it was that we were out of everything we liked to eat. It was so much fun buying all delicious things we love to eat, it had been dreary only having things no one really wanted to eat, it made the larder feel discouraging.

It was small shopping but a good one. Bill liked it that it was both. He said “we don’t have to bring in a lot of heavy bags.” And on the way back he espied a woman walking a dog who looked just like Beanie, “stop and ask her what breed the dog is, so we can find out what Beanie is.” But we had already passed her.

So I said “I’m willing to ask.”

So he drove around 3 times and found her.

“What breed is your dog?” I asked, “because we just adopted Beanie from the pound and he looks just like your dog.”

“She is Border Collie” she told us, “and they are working dogs, they have to be in control.”

Bill told her ours is Corgi mixed with her dog.

She said “Corgi is working dog too.”

She said “both Corgi and Border Collie have to be in control.”

Bill was thrilled to find out the other half of Beanie. “He is Corgi and Border Collie, you finally got a collie” he said, “the dog of your dreams.”

What girl does not wish for a Collie after watching “Lassie” her whole childhood and when her favorite book was “Lad, a Dog.”

And all the way back home Bill said how Beanie is border collie. And that is how the outing ended..... on very nice note.

And he spent the afternoon doing yardwork in our huge yard. And I did email and posted on my site. Then he cooked delicious supper from the food we had bought. And I watched “American In Paris” and new episode of “Monk.” And he watched the game.