Happy Barry Gibb's birthday! I am taking time out of this day of festivities to write you.
I told Daniel Boone it's Barry Gibb's birthday, and I said, "I gotta get home and put up my tree."
"Really?" he said. "I was thinking more a fur-covered pole."
Everyone's mean to my Barry.
In the meantime, my coworker Vilhelm Oyster tried to kill me last night. You know how a bunch of us at work have been doing this workout DVD? It's called Insanity and it lives up to its effing name. Last night I finally Googled it, and its claim to fame? "The hardest workout DVD you'll ever do." Oh! Sign me up!
And the worst part is Vilhelm, who is extra fit, popped in level effing TWO last night. It was just the two of us. "Did you set it to a hard level?" I trepidated. "No!" he smiled.
Vilhelm is evil.
Then the FREAK who is the instructor--wait. Let me see if there are photos of this drill sargent torturer sadist...
There he is. And it's like looking in a mirror, seeing those abs.
Also? While I was looking for this ding-dang image? I saw a disclaimer: Remember, the Insanity workout is not for the beginner!
Yeah. Really?
Anyway, there we were. Supposedly doing pushups with one leg in the air, or doing a pushup then leaping right up after, and EVEN VILHELM eventually collapsed on the floor, dead.
So that was a good time. And my hair? Small.
Then after I got home and ATE THE WORLD, Marvin came over for the mortgage check and yes we ARE switching it this month so it comes right out of my account. The first person to give me advice on that has to do the Insanity workout twice. I will come to your house and lord over you with a pick axe and make you do one-legged pushups.
The POINT is, after Edsel lept in the air for 45 minutes, then humped Marvin, then wept and wrote a poem about the whole experience, I said, "Unfortunately I have to walk them now." Because could I have been more dead tired? So Marvin went with me, when what I was really hoping was that he'd say, "I'll walk them. You rest. You want Steak and Shake while I'm up?"
That did not happen.
Anyway, walk the dogs we did and we saw Paul, my 96-year-old neighbor. We chatted awhile and he invited us to sit down, but we demurred. It occurs to me Paul must think I am the biggest slut, as I have walked past there with Dick Whitman and Daniel Boone and now Marvin in the past few weeks. Or maybe he just sees some dark-haired middle-aged man with me and assumes it's the same person. We can hope.
If that weren't enough activity, and trust me, that workout and then that walk with 100 pounds of pulling dog was enough, Marvin said, "Let's go to Target! I need new headphones and blue pants."
So off we went, in his giant pink 1966 car that every time I am in it I think of how we have no airbags. I reassure myself with the thought that the car is the size of Judy Garland's medicine cabinet and persevere.
The first thing that happened was Marvin took an hour and 45 minutes to back out the driveway. I do not know if he was trying not to scrape his ridiculous car, or he was avoiding running over ants, or just trying to drive me berserk with his trademark slowness, but eventually I said, "Take your time backing out."
"You know who I miss? You." said Marvin, as he continued to back out an inch per hour like he was at driver's training.
Then we got there and I am happy to report Marvin bought me some new earbuds as mine only played out one ear and I might as well have lugged a Victrola with me instead of an iPod, with that fine stereo sound. I got Paul Frank earbuds!
I will let you guess which color I selected. I heart Paul Frank stuff. I remember when it wasn't that famous and I thought I had made a teensy discovery. Am glad it hit the big time.
At any rate, here is what I forgot about Marvin.
He meanders.
I mean, there are no words to explain to you how TIRED my body was from Vilhelm's murder attempt. My COLLARBONE hurt. My HAIR was sleepy. I was exhausted. And the thing is? When I trained for that marathon way before you knew me? My long runs were on Saturday mornings, and Marvin would do this same thing to me later in the day. He'd drag an errand out 47 years.
Oh, he paused at the groceries. "You don't need groceries. You're leaving in two days," I groused. Marvin's niece is being bat mitzvhaed. She was born a month after we were married and we stayed at the hospital all night waiting for her to be born at 5:00 the next day. Why do babies always wait till weird times to be born? Marvin videotaped the entire night, and I should really get him to let me show it here, because it is funny, us stuck in a hospital all night.
Anyway, because I complained? Guess who SLOWED HIS PACE EVEN MORE? Oh, he paused over the milk, like he'd never seen such a newfangled idea as milk in a jug. He ruminated over the cereals. He considered the candy.
"CAN WE GO GET YOUR BLUE PANTS NOW?!" I scowled.
I hear we have a new black president. And that there is some weird woman named Lady Gaga now? I missed all this while we MADE OUR WAY TO THE BLUE PANTS SECTION.
We had a cart, because as bitchy as I'm being Marvin also got me big bags of food for my pets, so I had to stand in the aisle, across from the Kim Kardashian-looking heels, waiting for Mr. Blue Pants. After awhile, I started wondering if I would ever wear those heels. They were kind of sexy. I should really be a person who wears heels more, now that I am out trolling again.
"Girl, I like her. She is straight up. I like a straight-up person. Umm-hmmm! That's what I said! She tell it like it is!"
Either an insane person or a person wearing one of those awful BlueTooth things walked by me while I waited. The last time I had been outside of Target, people were sending smoke signals to communicate.
I could see Marvin thinking about blue pants as though he were deciding on a condo, so I glared at him as hard as I could, hoping he'd feel my annoyance and move faster. This worked so well in 13 years of marriage. He already had blue pants thrown jauntily over his shoulder and was observing khaki.
"You said blue! You HAVE blue! Can we go?"
Finally, FINALLY, we left Target. Women outside were wearing short hair! I never. Did they have the scarlett fever? Where were everyone's togas? And someone must have stolen our team of horses.
"You wanna get frozen custard?" asked Marvin, putting his blue pants in the 39494939-foot-wide trunk of his 1966 car, which was new when the evening began.
"Of course," I said. "We don't have to walk over there, do we?"
You guys. I had to walk, like, six stores down to the frozen yogurt. Will the torment never end? I told Marvin it reminded me of the time after my marathon in Chicago, when he made me walk back to the hotel after.
"It was just a mile," he said.
And that is when I shoved Marvin in the frozen custard twisty machine, and now you can get chocolate/Marvin swirl at your local Ruth's Custard.
